Pierre-Joseph PROUDHON page, French anarchiste, from the Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia...

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, (1809-1865)

French anarchist philosoper, a printer by trade, a profession which gave birth to many anarchists, but Proudhon was the first to call himself an anarchist.

In the mid-1800s he was the leading left intellectual in Europe, far surpassing Marx's notoriety or Bakunin's. Proudhon had the profoundest effect upon the workers' movement in the 19th century & his ideas influenced some of the most notable later anarchists, including Leo Tolstoy & Michael Bakunin

A Short Timeline for Proudhon

1809: Born in Besancon, France, to a peasant family

1820's: Shows great genius in academics, but cannot afford to study

1828: Apprenticed to a printer; later supervises the printing of philosopher/mathematician Charles Fourier's The New Industrial World and Society

1820's-1830's: Teaches himself Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and theology; becomes an atheist

1838: Wins a pension enabling himself to be devoted to writing and scholarship

1840: Completes What Is Property?, an essay which profoundly equates the finance capitalistic view of "property" as theft

1842: Sent to trial over his sequel to What Is Property?, called Warning to Proprietors

1843: Moves to Lyons, France; learns about industry and becomes involved with the Mutualists, an illegal French workers' association of the time

mid 1840's: Makes acquaintances with Karl Marx , Mikhail Bakunin, and Alexander Herzen

1846: Opposes Marx's centralist and authoritarian ideas over the organization of the Socialist movement; publishes System of Economic Contradictions: or, The Philosophy of Poverty, which calls for a more libertarian and decentralized form of socialism; Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty is soon rebuked by Marx, who writes The Poverty of Philosophy in response

1848: Goes to Paris, wher he writes his paper Le Representant du peuple

1848-1849: Edits four revolutionary newspapers and anarchist periodicals during the historic Revolutions of 1848, which are destroyed by government censorship; criticizes the authoritarianism of the Revolution of 1848 and tries to establish a People's Bank

1849: Writes Confessions d'un revolutionairre

1849-1852: Imprisoned by Louis-Napoleon (later Napoleon III); edits last paper with help of Alexander Herzen; marries and has his first child while in prison

1851: Writes The General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, which detailedly explains his agrarian theories

1850's: Constantly harrassed by French federal authorities

1858: Publishes De la justice dans la Revolution et dans l'eglise, which opposes a humanist theory of justice; flees to Belgium when the book is seized

1862: Develops ideas of world federation and opposition to nationalism

1863: Writes Du Principe federatif; returns to Paris

1865: Influences the founding of the First International; writes De la capacite des classes ouvrieres, which describes the responsibilities of workers and small farmers in gaining their liberation; dies in Paris

Other dates, with more detail & links, may be found in the online Anarchist Timeline.

"To be governed is to be ...
Famous quote from Proudhon on Government, in full, at our Anarchist Quotes Page,
http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/anarchQuotes.htm#ProudhonQuote

Some internet sites for Proudhon,

Anarchy Archives sponsored by Dana Ward at Pitzer College, resource pages produced by numerous students,
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/proudhon/Proudhonarchive.html

Ephéméride anarchiste in French, at
http://ytak.club.fr/janvier3.html#15

See also the Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon

Proudhon texts link page,
http://www.cpm.ll.ehime-u.ac.jp/akamacHomePage/akamac_E-text_Links/Proudhon.html

Last updated January 2003, 2006

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