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While reading Daniel Guerin's (excellent) Fascism and Big Business, Proudhon is cited as an influence by the early fascist groups. Apparently he wrote an essay that portrays a positively orgasmic view of war. A cursory internet search seems to back this up, in addition to purported anti-semitism and racism. Has anyone read this essay about war? Or any of his writings that are racist or anti-semitic? Curious what info you guys have on this.

Proudhon was indeed cited as an influence by a number of more-or-less fascist groups in France. And there are some strongly antisemitic passages in his notebooks, which were published after his death. There is, of course, a very significant difference between being cited as an influence by fascists and being "a proto-fascist," just as there is no necessary connection between fascism and the forms of antisemitism so common in the 19th century. Those differences have, alas, not been very carefully considered in the arguments that claim that "proto-fascist" status for Proudhon.

Proudhon was explicit throughout his career that his primary enemy was "the Absolute," and it's pretty hard to imagine how any of the unifying principles of fascism, the various fuhrer principles, could be conceived as anything other than expressions of absolutism. The work which is generally cited as his "glorification of war," War and Peace, leads to the conclusion that "mankind wants no more war." There is a very extended examination of the importance of continuing conflict that runs through most of Proudhon's work, but while it may seem excessively martial to many of us, it hardly pushes in the direction of "fascism" as we generally define it. (Of course, the rise of fascism was pretty complicated itself, and not all of the impulses captured by it were evil. Careful, responsible critics have to sift through the various impulses involved.)

While we're at it, it's worth noting that Proudhon was not, as many claim, a misogynist. His ideas about women were undoubtedly narrow and wrong, and so when we came to thing about how the equal rights of what he saw as very different sexes could be socially manifested, he balled it all up horribly. He behaved pretty badly in his debates about the subject, too, but he thought he was defending women's rights.

So what did Proudhon hate about Jews, anyway?

If you read most of Proudhon's work, you will find very little evidence of any hatred for Jews. His contemporaries associated Jews with usury, and, given that, it's not hard to guess the source of Proudhon's hateful notebook outbursts. There was no shortage of that sort of "financial antisemitism" in radical circles. Alphonse Toussenel wrote Les Juifs, rois de l'époque: histoire de la féodalité financière, which is considered something of a founding text of modern antisemitism, and Pierre Leroux's "Malthus and the Economists" contains a section which repeats the "kings of the epoch" phrase. Toussenel was a Fourierist, and Leroux was an important influence on Greene, who was also capable of some (fairly mild) antisemitic statements. A couple of the young economists associated with Liberty were led from anti-usury agitation to antisemitism. The problem in interpreting all of these writers is in knowing to what extent they were actually talking about Jews, and to what extent they were merely using the common stereotype about Jews as commercially savvy in a symbolic way. The debates over Marx's "On the Jewish Question" cover the range of possible interpretive approaches. Proudhon was a serious student of the Bible, and most of his published references to Jews actually relate to history or scripture. Greene was steeped in Bible-based history, and employed racialist categories drawn from that. But Greene was largely clarifying existing narratives, and his clarifications were generally aimed at acknowledging the contributions of all the "races" and religious traditions. Proudhon actually talks about protecting various forms of religious worship, including that of the Jews. Leroux's most scandalous treatment of the figure of "the Jew" -- who is portrayed as a corpulent capitalist who blocks the natural "circulus" of economy and nature quite literally by eating voraciously and refusing to shit -- would be a brilliant bit of satire if he had just called his villain a banker. And, of course, as we get to the end of the 19th century everything gets much more complicated: the histories of radicalism and fascism are a bit intertwined, and we would be silly to ignore or deny that. To really deal with all of this we would have to tease out the history of "left-wing eugenics," etc. But the real anti-semites of the early twentieth century, including some lapsed anarchists like Morrison Swift, are pretty overt about their intentions, and they look like racial "final solutions." Of course, the social workers of places like [url=veryidea.blogspot.com/2006/03/mccolloch-tribe-of-ben-ishmael.html]Indianapolis, IN[/url] were leading the way in terms of forced sterilization and the like...

It seems curious to me that he was the first person to self describe as an anarchist, and yet proposed an income tax and at times participated in the parliament. His contribution is un-deniable but he seems to get more complex the more you read about him. Very nuanced perhaps.

Nuanced or inconsistent? We couldn't fault him for it, of course, he was the first...

Superdog wrote:It seems curious to me that he was the first person to self describe as an anarchist, and yet proposed an income tax and at times participated in the parliament. His contribution is un-deniable but he seems to get more complex the more you read about him. Very nuanced perhaps.

Well, Proudhon is certainly complex, and moreso as you dig in. But it's also the case that lots of things we take for granted as anarchist positions, such as as abstention from political participation prior to the establishment of an anarchist society, are not in any way necessary to the anarchist position. Proudhon was, of course, a powerful and early proponent of abstention from voting, but his position was based on an analysis of the conditions of his time, rather than on any anarchist "line" on the subject. His tax proposals were, of course, transitional projects involving modifications of existing tax structures. The infamous income tax proposals was fairly complex, and involved substantial tax cuts as well as some increases. And Proudhon was very clear that he didn't consider the various measures he proposed to solve particular problems as anything more than rough approximations of his principles. Also, Proudhon's thinking on all matters evolved, and his Theory of Taxation is much more consistent than his early parliamentary projects. Finally, I think that participation in the provisional government formed after the Revolution of 1848 is hardly the same thing as, say, running for office in the present-day US. Proudhon's own accounts of the disintegration of the revolutionary project are instructive.

shawnpwilbur wrote:

Superdog wrote:It seems curious to me that he was the first person to self describe as an anarchist, and yet proposed an income tax and at times participated in the parliament. His contribution is un-deniable but he seems to get more complex the more you read about him. Very nuanced perhaps.

Well, Proudhon is certainly complex, and moreso as you dig in. But it's also the case that lots of things we take for granted as anarchist positions, such as as abstention from political participation prior to the establishment of an anarchist society, are not in any way necessary to the anarchist position. Proudhon was, of course, a powerful and early proponent of abstention from voting, but his position was based on an analysis of the conditions of his time, rather than on any anarchist "line" on the subject. His tax proposals were, of course, transitional projects involving modifications of existing tax structures. The infamous income tax proposals was fairly complex, and involved substantial tax cuts as well as some increases. And Proudhon was very clear that he didn't consider the various measures he proposed to solve particular problems as anything more than rough approximations of his principles. Also, Proudhon's thinking on all matters evolved, and his Theory of Taxation is much more consistent than his early parliamentary projects. Finally, I think that participation in the provisional government formed after the Revolution of 1848 is hardly the same thing as, say, running for office in the present-day US. Proudhon's own accounts of the disintegration of the revolutionary project are instructive.

I actually have another question for you, since you seem to be very knowledgeable about Proudhon. Here's another passage from Fascism and Big Business:

But the plebians* would not admit they were beaten. They had not given up the idea of imposing themselves and their authority on the industrialists and landowners. After 1925, their daring increased; they dreamed of including in their fief not only the economic forces, employing and labor alike, but the state itself. They demanded the replacement of the political state by the wholly corporative state and a "self government of the producers," in the style of Proudhon.

*Plebians refering to lower and middle class Fascists who actually believed the rhetorics of using the state to improve the lives of the working man
*bolding mine*

Any thoughts on what Guerin is referring to here?

It's hard for me to speculate on what Guerin meant. For Proudhon, the political realm was eventually to be absorbed by the economic, and self-government by the producers is a fairly standard anarchist formula, but I would have to see how Proudhon's federative "state" and that corporative state were supposed to be related.

The waters get deep fast here, since Proudhon is complicated, fascism is complicated, and there's been plenty of loose talk about both in anarchist and libertarian circles. Guerin complicates things by his speculations about Proudhon's sexuality, etc., which line up with some currents of speculation about fascism and homosexuality.

Anyway, the business about the "orgasmic" view of war is overdrawn. I'm working at some translations of key chapters of "War and Peace," but it might be a month or so before I can clear time to really focus on that stuff. "War and Peace" is a two-volume, 650+ page study, and it will take some digging to pull the clearest sections out of it. But we know that Proudhon understood progress as rising out of conflict, and reciprocity and mutuality as containing some element of antagonism. He believed that individualism of the strictest sort would lead to communism, and that peace was in some sense the "perfection" of war. He was not afraid to observe that aspects of society which we would probably not hope for under anarchy were still occasions for progress, and the display of human excellence. But, ultimately, he argues that human beings "want no more war."

If you want to get a taste of how Proudhon argues in War and Peace, I've translated 17 pages from the first volume, where Proudhon is explaining the "right of force." Here are Chapter XI and the Conclusion of Book Two of Volume One.

A couple of things to remember, or to consider if you haven't read my other discussions of Proudhon:

1) He uses the French word droit, which can mean either "law" or "right" in a way that is most accurately translated, as far as I can see, as "right," but which does not, or does not necessarily refer to the sort of natural or political rights we are accustomed to talking about. Every group, ensemble, being, etc., has its own "law" (loi) of organization, which determines what is "right" (appropriate, proper, logical, natural, etc) for it to do. Likewise, it participates in larger ensembles with their own laws, which condition those of the individuals. Droit remains something of a mix of what we might call natural law and/or right, as well as covering more strictly descriptive (rather than normative) grand. Just don't necessarily assume that Proudhon is trying to anything more than describe the normal functioning of presently-existing "bodies" of one sort or another.

2) This is part of an explicitly historical, progressive account. The basic argument of the book is that all of our "higher-level" rights, and really all of our more peaceful institutions, as well as all those which we have yet to create, are part of a historical series which begins with relations mediated by raw force. Peace would be the end of that series, presumably, but war would always be its origin. Peace is, in a strong sense, the end product of the process of war. And, Proudhon says, we have got ourselves into some real trouble by denying this historical fact.

3) Proudhon speaks of "right of force" and "right of war," but these, he argues, are like all true rights, equal and reciprocal. If there are, or have been, certain circumstances in which the right of the strongest has been or can be our model for justice, justice is still a restless demand for balance, and ultimately justice cannot be fulfilled at any acceptable level by silencing or excluding the weak. It is not clear that there is a "right to war," but instead a sort of protocol for dealing with the wars that occur, and which can only justly occur in circumstances of social or political imbalance or injustice. Proudhon talks about the "right of labor" to its product, and contrasts that with the "right to work."

The translation is very rough and literal. I wanted to get through enough of this to clarify for myself how it fit with the things I'm working on more seriously. I'll try to clean it up sometime, but probably not for a few months.

Thanks, I'll have to read through this when I get the time. Do you know anything about George Sorels? He's another person who's name gets dropped alot in connection with fascist mystique of violence.

Sorel was one of the theorists of revolutionary syndicalism, though many syndicalists disown him, with some justice, preferring to emphasize the contributions of other, more clearly radical figures. Sorel's major work is "Reflections on Violence," which is fairly easy to find on the used book market. His key contribution was an analysis of the function of what he called "myths" in movements for social change. He was a figure who covered a lot of political and philosophical ground, and he appropriated elements of Proudhon, Bergson, syndicalism, etc., in ways which have been a bit embarrassing for those figures and traditions. That said, "Reflections" is a fascinating read, as are some of Sorel's other works.

It's important to treat the origins of fascism carefully, too. The first couple of decades of the twentieth century confront us with ideologies we tend to think of as diametrically opposed either coming out of the same circles, or in closer connection than is expected, or comfortable. Fascism is frequently treated as an ideology that nobody could embrace without being some kind of comic book villain, but that was pretty obviously not the case. If these are interesting questions for you, then you need to really look at some of these figures who seem at once radical and reactionary.

He was a figure who covered a lot of political and philosophical ground, and he appropriated elements of Proudhon, Bergson, syndicalism, etc., in ways which have been a bit embarrassing for those figures and traditions.

I'm curious, could you elaborate a bit more on this -- if there is anything more to add, that is.

RoyceChristian wrote:

He was a figure who covered a lot of political and philosophical ground, and he appropriated elements of Proudhon, Bergson, syndicalism, etc., in ways which have been a bit embarrassing for those figures and traditions.

I'm curious, could you elaborate a bit more on this -- if there is anything more to add, that is.

Well, Sorel wasn't one of the activist-theorists responsible for anarcho-syndicalism, but a commentator, and a fairly distant one at that. Sorel's attempt to apply Bergson's philosophy was likewise an extension well beyond what Bergson ever attempted. The critics who attempt to link Bergson, William James, Nietzsche, Proudhon, Sorel, etc., into the history of totalitarianism are generally disposed to see all of socialism and most of the labor movement as essentially totalitarian, so they're generally not dealing in nuances. That's probably why they confuse the various critiques of particular models of science and rationality with celebrations of "irrationalism," etc.

There was an important intellectual revolution that took place in the late 19th and early twentieth century, and it is quite possible that at least some of "fascism" was the result of the same ferment in the realm of ideas that revitalized anarchism. Certainly, there were celebrations of individual violence among the advocates of propaganda by deed, during much the same period. But if you look at, say, Kropotkin's Britannica article, you get a very different picture of how that revolution in ideas mattered for anarchism.

shawnpwilbur wrote:Fascism is frequently treated as an ideology that nobody could embrace without being some kind of comic book villain, but that was pretty obviously not the case.

As I read more about it, it seems more and more to be our current political economy in the US taken to it's "logical" conclusion.

shawnpwilbur wrote:If these are interesting questions for you, then you need to really look at some of these figures who seem at once radical and reactionary.

I totally would, if I could figure out a way to get paid to read. As it is, I have a reading list I built for myself, starting with all the books I already own and then going from there. Areas of study I would love to get into are the Civil War and the history and development of Fascism. Too many books and not enough hours in the day.