Anarchism:Godwin and Proudhon

D. Allen DaltonECON 325 – Radical Economics

Boise State UniversityFall 2011

William Godwin (1756-1836)

• Followed his father as a non-conformist minister

• early influence of Rousseau and French materialists, Holbach and Helvétius

• Turned to atheism and withdrew from the ministry

• Supported himself by writing (ficition, politics, newspaper articles)

William Godwin (1756-1836)

• Married Mary Wollstonecraft• Daughter Mary

– Married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley– Author Frankenstein

• Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

• Caleb Williams (1794)• Of Population (1820)

Virtue

“The first object of virtue is to contribute to the welfare of mankind. The most essential attribute of right conduct therefore is, that it shall have a beneficent and salutary tendency. One further characteristic it is usual t add. Men, in the exercise of their rational faculties, are influenced by motives and inducements apprehended by the intellect… A beneficent action to which a man is incited by a knowledge of its beneficent tendency, is an act of virtue. The man who is in the frequent practice of such actions, is a worthy, virtuous and excellent man.”- Wm. Godwin, The Enquirer, p. 252

Godwin’s Teaching

• Basis – “the general welfare”• On Law – Reason and arbitration

rather than law and legislation• On the State – State is the

suppression of private judgment• On Society – Society arises out of

mutual assistance; the State arises out wickedness

Godwin’s Teaching

• Organization of the Stateless Society – “Government” by common deliberation in small societies; federation in assemblies

• On Wealth – Inequality of wealth (“Empire of Accumulated Property’) is against the common welfare– Hampers intellectual progress– Hinders moral perfection– Great cause of crime

Godwin’s Teaching

• On Rights – Active and Passive Rights– All rights (actions) fall under the

province of morality; duty to act for the “general welfare”

– Active: “right to do as one wills” is a fiction

– Passive: “sphere of personal judgment”– The “right to property” is founded on

the principle of private judgment

Godwin’s Teaching

• On Property – Classes of property and their relation to inequality of wealth– Subsistence and Means of intellectual and

moral improvement; Inexpensive gratifications; Expensive gratifications inessential to healthful and vigorous life

– Last which causes the “present system of accumulated property,” augmenting the hardships of the laboring classes and reducing the general welfare

Godwin’s Teaching

• Economics – Labor as the source of all value; labor as the measure of value; classical view of the relation of propertied classes and working classes

• On Transition – Reason and persuasion not force; even for acts that are against the general welfare, except in cases of indispensable urgency (the importance of “private judgment”)

P.J. Proudhon (1809-1865)

• Trained as printer, worked as merchant

• Pamphleteer and activist• 1848, elected to National

Assembly• Twice imprisoned for offenses

against the press laws• 1849, founded People’s Bank • Opponent of Bakunin and Marx• First to adopt the description of

“anarchist”

Justice

“Justice is respect, spontaneously felt and mutually guaranteed, for human dignity, in whatever person and under whatever circumstances we find it compromised, and to whatever risk its defense may expose us.”

- Proudhon, Of Justice, vol. I, p. 182

“All the most rational teachings of human wisdom about justice are summed up in the famous adage: Do to others what you would have done to you; Do not to others what you would not have done to you.”

-Proudhon, What Is Property?, p. 18.

Proudhon’s Teaching

• Basis – Justice as the measure of all human actions.

• On Law – Rejects state legislation in favor of the legal norm of contracts– Recognizes the variety and variability of

human interests– Contracts more suitable to such a

situation than law• On the State – “The government of

man by man is slavery.”

Proudhon’s Teaching

• On Society – Without the State, society ruled by agreements; government of man is replaced by the administration of things- the social life is “anarchy,” “federation,” “the Republic.”

• On Rights – makes a distinction between rights under Justice and rights under laws; only some existing individual rights by law conform to rights under Justice

Proudhon’s Teaching

• On Property – “Property is Theft!” “Property is Liberty!”– The central question is relationship to

Justice – the balance of interests – achievable only through contract

– Property by contract is to be substituted for Property from law

– Evolution of position – property as abuse v. possession as use to reciprocity and mutualism as the foundation of justice in property

Proudhon’s Teaching

• Economics – Labor is the source of all production and value.– Inequality arises from inequity in

exchange.– Under justice, products must exchange

for products.– Law of reciprocity as foundation of social

life under anarchy• On Transition – “Popularize the idea.”

– Examples of anarchy within the current regime – “The People’s Bank.”

Proudhon’s Teaching

• The People’s Bank – Idea and Foundation– History

• January – March 1849• Membership of 27,000; receipts of 18,000 francs• Never reached stage where it could actually

begin business under its charter• “Never more than a project in search of

finances…” - Woodcock, Proudhon, p. 144

– Forerunner of credit unions and mutual banking