Property is Theft! arrives in Baltimore and editor Iain McKay blogs about Proudhon
Property is Theft, the gigantic Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology has just been delivered from the printer, and dropped off at our door here in Baltimore. Did I mention it’s gigantic? To answer the question “Why a Proudhon collection?”, editor Iain McKay blogged about it just this morning, giving some insight into his reasons for diving into this monumental project, some of the things he uncovered in the process, and the ways that the book changed along the way.
Check out Iain’s entire blog post here.
Now, after two years, I can look forward to getting the book in my hands. It has been time consuming but worth it. I think the book will transform the understanding of Proudhon’s ideas in the English speaking world. The new texts and the introduction should help expose the many, many distortions of his ideas that we have been subjected to for so long. It should also help our understanding of the development of anarchism in the 19th century, showing (at the very least) how indebted Bakunin was to Proudhon (as Daniel Guerin explained in one of his articles) and the links between mutualism (reformist anarchism, if you like) and the revolutionary anarchism which developed in the First International. Yes, there are differences (and some unfortunate Proudhon bashing due to the need to refute those around Tolain) but in terms of their analysis of capitalism (exploitation rooted in production due to wage-labour), the state as an unreformable hierarchical institution of class rule and their vision of a socio-economic federation based on workers’ self-management of production and communal self-government the links are obvious.
Suffice to say, if someone asks why Proudhon is important the obvious answer is to ask why the Paris Commune is important. You cannot dismiss Proudhon and praise the Commune — the later reflected the ideas of the former. Similarly, there is good reason why the likes of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Rocker and Guerin all praised Proudhon and considered him the founder of anarchism. Yes, he is not perfect but he contributed immensely to the commonwealth of ideas which is anarchism. You can get a taste of this from the three reviews I did of his works for Freedom: What is Property?, System of Economic Contradictions and General Idea of the Revolution. Property is Theft! will show that is the case and why, for all his flaws, he is worth reading today.
Capital F Friends, you’ll be seeing it in the mail soon. If you’re the other kind of friend, pick up a copy here. You won’t be disappointed. Property is Theft challenges us all to look further back, dig in, and re-discover the roots of our radical tradition.