“You”, bourgeois, “were always the most fearless and the most skilful 
revolutionaries....”” Even before the invasion of the barbarians, it was you who by 
means of your municipal federations had laid the shroud over the Roman Empire in 
Gaul (p. I). From then on until now you were at the head of the revolution. Noth- 
ing that was attempted without you or against you met with success; everything 
that you attempted has been achieved, everything that you will attempt will be 
achieved. 

The historical exposition of this theme in declamatory style.— 

At the present moment the old political intriguers are again in the saddle and treat 
you as revolutionaries (p. V). Therefore, accept the title, be revolutionary! 

2) As to the subject matter. There follow seven essays to develop the 
following three points of view: 

a) the old regime, b) the parties at the time of the revolution, c) the solution, i.e. 
the revolution itself (pp. 1-2). 

First Essay 

“REACTIONS DETERMINE REVOLUTIONS” 

A revolution cannot be prevented. The opinion of Droz, who believes that the first 
revolution could have been prevented by concessions and skilful behaviour, 
is as absurd as that of Blanqui, who believes revolutions can be conjured up 
(pp. 3-4). 

The French monarchy from Clovis to Richelieu was revolutionary, it became 
reactionary in 1614 at the time of the last Etats généraux 8: the punishment: January 

* The French Revolution.— Ed. 

21, 1793." The revolution can be guided, moderated, made to advance slowly, and this 
system of giving way step by step is the wisest (p. 5). But it cannot be curbed. Witness” 
the suppression of the conspiracies of 1822 and 1839,°°° and the revolutions of 1830 
and 1848. But “established interests and governmental pride” always oppose the 
peaceful development of the revolution (p. 8). Reaction always creates revolution. So it 
was in 1789 et seq., so it was in 1848. In February when the proletariat intervened in 
the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the Crown, it demanded only work. The 
Republicans promised it work and so it joined them (pp. 10-11). “Work and, by means 
of work, bread; that was what the working classes asked for in 1848, that was the 
unshakable foundation they gave to the Republic, that is the revolution.” The 
Republic was the “act of a minority more or less ... usurpatory”, “the revolutionary 
question of work” was something quite different. The Republic was merely the 
“pledge of the revolution” (p. 11). 

The Provisional Government was serious in its promises of work, but it could not 
keep them, otherwise it would have had to “change course, to alter the economic 
system of society”. But instead of dealing candidly with the difficulties, and turning to 
the journalists, it kept silent, became directly reactionary, declared itself against 
socialism, “the new name that the revolution was taking” (p. 13), drove the 
unemployed masses in Paris and Rouen into revolt, and tried to drown in blood the 
great idea of February and the protest action of the workers. Henceforth it was 
established that the Republic of 1848 and that of 1793 were two quite different things, 
and that socialism was the last word of the Republic of 1848. 

Hence the present struggle between all the old revolutionary trends on the one 
side, and socialism on the other. And if at the outset one did not know what socialism 
was, the forces of reaction have taught us this since February; “‘it is by the reaction that 
the revolution will be determined” (p. 17). 

A solemn description of reaction and repression gradually making 
the majority of the nation revolutionary, and the bourgeoisie itself, 
the “eternal friend of order’, becoming suspect and therefore being 
punished, and consequently thrown into the arms of the revolution. 
This leads up to the new electoral law.**° 

Therefore, “the people having been mentally alienated”, the sole remedy that 
remains is “force” (p. 26). 

And this “force”, for the crisis of 1852,°*! consists of a series of 
measures which is only completed by the restoration in full of the 
feudal ancien régime. 

But that you cannot and dare not do (p. 31). Appeal to the Republicans now to 
become really revolutionary and give “the revolution pledges” and “plans of 
economic renovation” (pp. 33, 34). 

* The day Louis XVI was executed after the Convention had sentenced him to 
death.— Ed. 

2 Engels uses the English word.— Ed. 

© 1848.— Ed. 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 547 

Second Essay 

“IS THERE SUFFICIENT REASON FOR REVOLUTION 
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY?” 

I. “The Law Determining the Tendency of Society. 
The Revolution of 1789 Accomplished Only Half Its Work” 

“The motive for revolutions is not so much the unhappy state experienced by 
society at a given time as the continuation of this unhappy state which tends to nullify 
well-being and cause it to disappear” (p. 36). Hence it is the tendency of the society 
which is the cause of revolution. The people, being neither optimists nor pessimists, 
do not demand that society shall be perfect, but that it “should have a tendency 
towards well-being and virtue”; they revolt “when society has for them a tendency 
towards poverty and corruption” (p. 37). 

What then is at present the tendency of society? 

1789 merely overthrew things, but did not rebuild at all. Hence “the kind of 
impossibility of living to which French society has been a prey for the last sixty years”. 

(Therefore—the actually existing bourgeois social order is nothing 
positive, free competition is merely negative, consequently the true 
bourgeois order has yet to be found.) 

The feudal organisation which was destroyed on August 4, 1789,°*? has not been 
replaced by a new “national economy and equilibrium of interests”. “Since birth no 
longer determined the position the citizen occupied, for labour alone was all” (?!) “for 
even property depended on it ... it was evident that the problem of the revolution 
consisted .... in establishing everywhere ... an egalitarian or industrial regime” 
(p. 39). 

(As if that did not exist as far as was possible!) 

But that was not understood and people resorted merely to politics. The 
revolutionaries were led astray by “their lack of the rudiments of economics, their idea 
of government,’ and their distrust of the proletariat” (p. 40). “In the minds of all, 
politics again took precedence over industry, Rousseau and Montesquieu reigned to 
the exclusion of Quesnay and Adam Smith.” (!!!) Hence the new society remains 
always in an embryonic condition (p. 41). 

2. “The Anarchy of Economic Forces. 
The Tendency of Society Towards Poverty”’ 
“I term economic forces certain principles of action such as division of labour, 
competition, collective force, exchange, credit, property, etc., which are to labour and wealth 

what class distinctions, the representative system, hereditary monarchy, centralised 
administration” 

(a fine juxtaposition!) 

* Engels has “l'idée gouvernementale”, Proudhon “le préjugé gouvernemen- 
tal” 943 (p. 40).— Ed. 

“are to the state. If these forces are kept in equilibrium, subject to the laws 
appropriate to them, and which do not depend in any way on human arbitrariness, 
labour can be said to be well-organised and the well-being of all assured. If, 
on the other hand, they are left without guidance and without any counter- 
poise 

(against what??),* 

‘labour is in a state of complete anarchy; the useful effects of the economic forces are 
mixed with an equal amount of harmful effects, the deficiency outweighs the benefit, 
and society, insofar as it is the seat, agent, or subject of production, circulation: and 
consumption, is in a state of increasing suffering” (pp. 42-43). 

Up to now only two forms of social existence’ are known, “the political form and 
the economic form, between which moreover there is an essential antipathy and 
contradiction”. 

“The anarchy of the economic forces, the struggle they wage against the system of 
government, which is the sole obstacle to their organisation,—such is the real, 
deep-seated cause of the malaise to which society in France is a prey.” 

(Thus Proudhon, like a true Frenchman, confuses the French 
bureaucratic government with the normal state of a bourgeoisie that 
rules both itself and the proletariat) (p. 43). 

Examples: 1) “Division of labour”.—The basic principle of modern industry and 
at the same time the chief cause of the workers’ stupefaction and decreasing wages. In 
England, for instance, owing to division of labour and the use of machines, the 
workers in one workshop have been reduced to one-half, one-third or even one-sixth 
of the previous number, and “their wages have been seen to fall in the same 
proportion, from an average of three francs down to 50 or 30 centimes” (!!) 
(p. 46). 

Apart from this remarkable information (p. 46), it is all very 
superficial and commonplace. 

2) Competition.— “This is the very law of the market, the spice of commerce, the 
salt of labour.” ’ 

(beautiful!) * 

“Competition, however, lacking legal forms (!) and superior and regulative 
standards, is in its turn perverted.” The workers are excluded from competition, 
except for competition among themselves to depress wages. It has become a monopoly 
and has created a new aristocracy. 

Very superficial. 

“Recently, when the Prefect of Police” 

“ A pun in the original: Proudhon has “contrepoids” (counterpoise), Engels has 
“contre quoi” (against what).— Ed. 
Proudhon has “ordre dans une société” (p. 43).— Ed. 
© Engels uses the English word.— Ed. 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 549 

(a compliment paid to Carlier), 

“ain response to the general wish, authorised the sale of meat by auction,*“* one saw 
what free competition can do for the well-being of the people and how illusory this 
guarantee’ is still among us” (p. 48). 

O crapaud! The bourgeois measures of Carlier are socialist! Free 
trade,° because it does not exist in France, is socialistic! 

Next, credit. A monopoly of the Bank of France. According to Proudhon, this 
monopoly is to blame for the fact that “property has become progressively mortgaged 
to an amount of 12 milliard [francs], and the state to an amount of 6 milliard francs”, 
that interest and other expenses in this connection amount to 1,200 million francs per 
annum 

(still only 62/3 per cent), 

and that in addition 700-800 million francs have to be paid annually in discount, 
“advances of money, payment of arrears, shares of joint-stock companies, dividends, 
obligations under private deed, judicial expenses, etc.”, and that as a result house 
rents and land rents have become unbearably high, and that of 10 milliards of annual 
production, 6 milliards are swallowed up through parasitism**” (pp. 51-52). 

Further examples or quotations are intended to prove that the 
situation of the people is continually worsening, and their income 
continually decreasing, in arithmetic progression, a counterpart to 
that of Malthus, such as 

65 centimes, 60, 55 ... 15, 10, 5, 0, -5, -10, -15 (p. 52), 

so that a time comes when the worker, instead of being paid so and 
so many centimes for his work per day, must pay 5, 10, 15 centimes 
into the bargain! And what about the law of wages, and competition!! 

Examples follow to prove that the situation of the people since the 
revolution has continually worsened. 

Decrease in the consumption of wine, meat, etc. Reduction in “the height required 
for military service”, and an increase in the number unfit for service— 1830 to 1839 
45'/o per cent; 1839 to 1848 50'/o per cent. Incompatibility of universal education 
with the present social state of affairs. Increase of crime: 

1827—-34,908 criminal cases, 47,443 accused persons 
1846— 80,891 a 5 101,433 PP 99 
1847—95,914 i » 124,159 3 * 

* Proudhon has said earlier: “la concurrence [doit] servir 4 garantir la sincérité du 
commerce” (“competition [must] serve as a guarantee of honesty in commerce’). 
— Ed. 

> Toad, contemptible person.— Ed. 

© Here and below Engels uses the English term.— Ed. 

and in the police courts: 
1829—-108,390 cases, 159,740 accused persons 
1845— 152,923 » 197,913 ” a 
1847 — 184,922 » 239,291 a 55 

3. “Government Irregularities, 
Tendency to Tyranny and Corruption” 

Prior to 1848, philanthropic concern for the workers, even on the part of the 
government. Since 1848 progress; people realise that only a revolution can achieve 
decisive results here and therefore leave matters alone. 

Interest on the national debt amounted to 63 million in 1814, now it amounts to 
271 million. In 1802 the budget was 589 million, in 1848 it was 1,692 million, an 
increase which cannot be explained by the stupidity and wickedness of the 
governments. Between 1830 and 1848 the total salaries of officials rose by 65 million. 
Ditto. 

(In France there are 568,365 officials; taking this as the basis 
Proudhon calculates that every ninth man lives at the expense of the 
budget, that is to say that there are only 5,115,285 men in France, 
whereas over 6'/s million voted in 1848!) (p. 62). 

This increase in the number of officials and in the size of the military budget is 
proof of the growing need to enhance the repressive power, and hence of the growing 
- danger to the state from the proletariat.* This tendency of the state to maintain big 
landownership and capital leads directly to corruption, which is the direct. 
consequence of all centralisation. 

— Hence: 

“there is sufficient reason for revolution in the nineteenth century”. 

This second essay contains among other things also the following 
gems: 

1. “The system of taxation at present in force ... is conceived in such a way that the 
producer pays everything, the capitalist nothing. In fact, even when the latter is 
entered for a particular sum in the book of the tax collector, or when he pays the dues 
laid down by the Exchequer on articles of consumption, it is clear that his income, 
being derived exclusively from the prelibation of his capital and not from the 
exchange of his products, this income remains free from tax, since only he who 
produces pays” (p. 65). 

This last “since’’ says the same as the first proposition which has 
to be proved, and this proposition is thus of course proved. 
C'est li la logique tranchante de M. Proudhon.” This is expounded 
further: | . 

* Proudhon has: “des classes laborieuses” (p. 63).— Ed. 
» Such is the trenchant logic of M. Proudhon.— Ed. 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 551 

“There is therefore a pact between capital and the authorities for ensuring that 
taxes are paid exclusively by the worker, and the secret of this pact consists simply, as I 
have said, in imposing taxes on products instead of on capital. By means of this 
dissimulation, the capitalist property-owner appears to be paying for his lands, for his 
house, for his chattels, for the alterations he makes, for his travels, for his 
consumption, like all the other citizens. Moreover, he says that his income, which 
without the tax would be 3,000, 6,000, 10,000 or 20,000 francs, is, thanks to the tax, 
not more than 2,500, 4,500, 8,000 or 15,000 francs. And on top of that he protests 
more indignantly than his tenants against the size of the budget. Sheer equivocaton! 
The capitalist does not pay anything, the government shares with him, that is all.” 

(It shares also with the producer when it takes part of his products 
from him, and the capitalist likewise, dicttur potest," shares with the 
producer.) 

“They make common cause.” 

(O Stirner!) 

“What worker then would not regard himself as lucky to be written down in the 
public ledger for 2,000 francs of rent on the sole condition of parting with one 
quarter of it as amortisation?”’!!! (pp. 65-66). 

2) The register is drawn up “as if the purpose of the legislator” was to re-' 
establish the inalienability of real estate—as if he continually wanted to remind the 
bondsman freed during the night of August 4 that his position was that of a serf, 
that it was not his lot to own the soil, that every cultivator was of right, except — 
through a concession from the sovereign, a tenant by emphyteusis and in mort- 
main!” (p. 66). 

O Stirner! As if the registration did not affect big real estate just as 
much as small, according to which Louis Philippe himself was a 
bondsman. 

3) The theory of free trade and explanation of protective duties. 

_The duties yield 160 million to the state. Suppose the customs were abolished and 
foreign competition were strong in the French market; “suppose then the state makes 
the following proposal to the French industrialists: which do you prefer for 
safeguarding your interests: to pay me 160 million or to receive them? Do you think 
the industrialists would choose the first alternative? It is precisely this that the 
government imposes on them. To the ordinary expenses we have to pay on products 
from abroad and on those we send there, the state adds 160 million which serve it as a 
sort of premium; that is the meaning of customs” (pp. 68-69). 

If considering the lunatic French tariff, such nonsense can be 
excused, it is still a bit steep that M. Proudhon measures protective 
tariffs in general by the French scale and makes out that they a area 
tax on manufacturers. 

* One can say.— Ed. 
> Proudhon has: “the legislator of 1789” (p. 66).— Ed. 

19* 

4) pp. 73, 74. Proudhon quotes a speech by Royer-Collard in the Chamber of 
Deputies; the debate of January 19-24, 1822,°*° in which this lawyer expresses his 
regret at the disappearance of the independent Benches (parliaments) and 
other “democratic institutions”, “powerful assemblages of private rights, true 
republics in the monarchy”; they had set limits to sovereignty everywhere, 
whereas at present although the government is divided up it is unrestricted in its 
action. 

This reactionary review of the old lawyer, who cannot conceal his 
hatred of the administrative system, M. Proudhon mistakenly 
regards as social-revolutionary; 

“what Royer-Collard said about the monarchy of 1814 is true, what he says of the 
Republic of 1848 is still more so.” 

What leads M.Proudhon astray is the confused statement by 
Royer-Collard: 

“The Charter, therefore, at one and the same time has to provide the 
constitutional basis for government and society; no doubt society has not been 
forgotten or neglected, but postponed.” 

What Royer-Collard understands by society is evident from the 
fact that he says: 

“It is only in establishing freedom of the press as a public right that the Charter has 
restored society to itself” (p. 75). 

Hence “society” =the governed considered in their capability of 
resistance to the government. 

Third Essay 

“ON THE PRINCIPLE OF ASSOCIATION” 

First of all, before we come to the solution, “it is advisable to estimate the value of 
the theories offered for public consumption, the compulsory baggage of all 
revolutions” (p. 79). But when we criticise their principle then we have disposed of all 
of them, the St. Simonists, Fourier, Owen, Cabet, Louis Blanc, etc. This principle of all 
systems is association. 

Association is not an “equilibrium of economic forces”, it is not even a “force”’, it is 
a “dogma” (p. 84). The further elaboration of the principle of association always 
leads to a system and the socialism based on it necessarily becomes a religion 
(p. 84). 

Association is not an “economic force”. Commerce is one, for ‘independently of 
the service performed by the material fact of transport it is by itself a direct stimulus to 
consumption, and consequently a cause of production, a principle of the creation of 
values (!) the metaphysical act of exchange, and just as much as labour, but in a 
different manner from labour, it produces real objects and wealth.... Moreover, the 
merchant enriched by speculative transactions divested of all stockjobbery (!!), 
deservedly enjoys the fortune he has acquired; this fortune is as legitimate as that 
produced by labour” 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 553 

(the bourgeois forgets here that without capital one can certainly 
work for another capitalist, but cannot carry on commerce without 
capital, otherwise this apologia for the merchant is very significant). 
Further .. 

“exchange, this purely moral operation ... is also creation” (p. 85). 

The “collective force”, 
which Proudhon flatters himself to have discovered in Qu’est-ce que la 
propriété, 
is also an “economic force”. Likewise competition, likewise division of labour, 
property, etc., etc. 

What Proudhon calls “economic forces” are simply the modes of 
production and intercourse of the bourgeoisie, insofar as they serve 
his purpose, insofar as in his eyes they have either only a good side 
or, along with the bad side, have at least a very marked good side as 
well. Even general forms of intercourse and production, which when 
once discovered are everywhere applied in all succeeding genera- 
tions, with appropriate modification, are as much at the disposal of 
society as the use of water power, knowledge of the spherical shape 
of the earth and the division of the latter into degrees of latitude and 
longitude, etc., etc., even these general forms Proudhon knows only 
in their bourgeois form. Exchange, for example, as we have just 
seen, is from the outset merged in commerce. If the collective force 
appears at least to be something eternal, it is on the other hand 
nothing but an attempt to convert the existence of society itself into 
an economic force. Without society, just as without a collective force, 
there is no relation between men, no intercourse. Exchange, division 
of labour, competition, credit are manifestations of the collective 
force. It takes at least two to produce a relationship, and where two 
collaborate to do something which cannot be done by one, there 
exists a collective force. However, it is ridiculous first of all to 
describe all the forms in which members of society carry on 
intercourse and produce as forces, and then finally trying to foist on 
us the existence of society, social production and social intercourse as 
a distinct economic force. Moreover, the primitive, crude form of 
collective force which Proudhon has in mind (mass labour in the 
construction of obelisks, pyramids, etc., etc.) has long ago been 
almost entirely replaced by the use of machines and horses, division 
of labour, etc., and converted into quite different forms. 

If, however, commerce, competition, division of labour, etc., are 
economic forces, there is no reason why, for instance, the factory 
system, banking, paper money, the parcellation of landed property, 
big landownership, wage labour, capital, and rent, should not also be 
economic forces. On each of these it is easy to declaim a dithyrambic 

panegyric as Proudhon does for the former set of forces. But there’s 
the rub. 

It is strange that Proudhon, p. 88, calls these relationships 
essentially non-material forces, and makes this non-materiality the 
basis for hymns to the effect, for example, that 

the economists by their theory of industrial forces “have, without suspecting it, 
demonstrated the fundamental dogma of Christian theology, creation de nihilo”, 

(ex ??*) (p. 87), and earlier [he speaks} of 

the “purely moral” act of “commerce, which is also a creation” (p. 86). 

Next comes the following magnificent piece of sophistry on 
association: 

“Association is by its nature sterile, even harmful, since it impedes the freedom of 
the worker. The writers responsible for utopian fraternities ... have, without motives 
and without proofs, ascribed to the social contract [contrat de société] a virtue and an 
efficacy which belongs only to the collective force, to division of labour, or to 
exchange.... When an industrial or commercial society has as its aim either to put into 
operation one of the great economic forces, or to exploit a group of resources the 
nature of which demands that it remains undivided, one clientele, one monopoly, the 
society formed for this purpose can have a successful result; but this result is not 
created by virtue of its principle, but is due to its means. This is so true that whenever 
the same result can be achieved without association, people” 

(i.e. the capitalists) 

“prefer not to associate” (pp. 88-89). People associate only when they must. 

Association — solidarity, “joint responsibility, fusion of rights and duties in relation 
to third parties” —“Equality of wages, the supreme law of association.” —‘‘One can 
say” therefore “that association is useful to the associate who is weak or lazy, and only 
to him.”—“Solidarity of the unskilful and the unfit” (pp. 89, 90). Every prospering 
association “owes its prosperity to an objective cause which is foreign to it and is in no 
way bound up with its essence”. Association is suitable only “in special conditions” 
(p. 91). 

Furthermore, in all workers’ associations at present piece-work has been 
substituted for equality of wages—there is the least possible solidarity, the greatest 
possible independence when forces and capitals are combined, 

that is to say, the least possible association, the greatest possible 
means. 

“Association established specially with a view to the family tie and the law of 
dedication, and apart from any external economic consideration and any preponder- 
ant interest, association for its own sake, in short, is purely an act of religion, a 
supernatural bond, devoid of positive value, a myth.” 

@ Proudhon mistakenly has: “de nihilo”—“without ground”, “without reason” 
(p. 87). Engels queries this and suggests ‘ex [nihilo]”—“out of nothing”.— Ed. 
Engels uses the English term.— Ed. 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 555 

As far as the Paris workers’ associations are concerned, Proudhon 
gives the following cold-blooded classification: 

“A fairly large number exist and can be expected to develop further; one knows 
why. Some of them are formed by the most skilled workers in their occupation; it is the 
monopoly of talent which helps them to succeed.... Others attract and keep their 
customers by cheapness; they live by competition.... In general, finally, in all 
these associations the workers ... have to work a little more and to content them- 
selves with a smaller reward. There is nothing in that but what is quite usual 
in political economy and to obtain which ... there was no need of association” 
(pp. 96-97). 

The associations of slaughtermen are not associations, “they are set up at joint 
expense by citizens of aJ] estates to compete with the monopoly of the butchers. It is 
the application, such as it is, of a new principle, not to say” 

(why not?) 

“of a new economic force, reciprocity, which consists in the partners guaranteeing one 
another, irrevocably, their products at the cost of production.” 

(Of course, M. Proudhon is the first inventor of “reciprocity”, cf. 
Organisation du crédit et de la circulation, Garnier fréres, 1848, and the 
Banque du peuple) (pp. 97, 98).°°° 

Next come advertisements, M.Proudhnon’s witty remarks about 
Louis Blanc. De chacun selon sa capacité, a chacun selon ses besoins,* and 
then: 

of 36 million Frenchmen, 24 million are peasants. “These you will never organise 
in associations. Agricultural work has no need of joint choreography, and the soul of 
the peasant rejects it.” 

Compare the rage of the peasants against the June insurgents, 
whom they believed to be communists. Moreover 

of the remaining 12 million, at least half are “manufacturers, craftsmen, employees, 
for whom association is purposeless”; there remain 6 million who could 
perhaps be induced to join the associations, but the majority of whom would very soon 
break this yoke. 

The existing workers’ associations are not to be judged by their present results, but 
by their “secret tendency, which is to affirm the possibility of the social republic. 
Whether the workers know it or not, the importance of their work does not lie at all in 
the petty interests of the society ... later on ... the associations of workers, abandoning 
the production of fancy goods and toys, will have to turn to the major branches of 
industry which are their natura] sphere” (p. 107). 

Finally, he invites Louis Blanc, 

*“ “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, 
L. Blanc, “Un homme et une doctrine”, Le Nouveau Monde, No. 6, December 15, 
1849.— Ed. 

the “cicada of the revolution’,,* to “contribute his abstention and his silence as his 
obol to the cause of the proletariat, which on one day of mistakes fell into his 
feeble hands” (p. 108). 

The point is: association as such, in abstracto, is of course just as 
much dependent on circumstances as any other social relationship. 
Where the prerequisites are absent, no economic force is of any avail. 
Competition presupposes the means for it just as much as 
association. Division of labour can be applied inopportunely just as 
much as association. One can carry out exchange badly, just as one 
can form associations badly. Viewed abstractly, every economic force 
is just as much a dogma as is association, it all depends on the existing 
conditions. And it is precisely in the investigation of existing 
conditions that Proudhon has contributed nothing at all; he has 
treated Parisian small-scale industry as the normal state of affairs, 
instead of seeing in the development of large-scale industry, 
machinery and division of labour, as it occurs in England, and the 
growing centralisation of capital bound up with it, a need for 
association which requires for its satisfaction a quite different type of 
amalgamation and centralisation of forces than the Parisian toy 
associations and the Proudhonist workers’ companies.” 

Fourth Essay 

“ON THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY” 

First of all a dithyramb on “anarchy”, discovered by M. Proudhon. 

I. “The Traditional Negation of Government. 
Emergence of the Idea Which Succeeds It” (p. 116) 

All government has arisen from the patriarchal family. “The final stage of 
governmental evolution is democracy” (p. 119); the final stage of democracy is the 
direct government of Considérant, Rittinghausen, etc., etc. And this would logically 
lead directly to imperial tyranny, as in Greece and Rome (p. 121). 

The “negation of government” dates from the Reformation. The principle of 
authority in the religious sphere supplanted by liberty of thought. Later carried over 
into the secular sphere as well, especially by Jurieu, who invented (?) the term social 
contract. The idea of contract, of “the reign of contract”, applied in practice to social 
life, trade, etc., and not merely to politics, would have led beyond the whole 
government regime. But Rousseau, “who did not understand anything about the 
social contract”, ruined everything. 

* Proudhon has: “Louis Blanc considered himself the bee of the revolution, but 
was merely its cicada” (“I s’est cru labeille de la révolution, il n’en a été que la 
cigale”’).— Ed. 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 557 

The social contract must be freely discussed and accepted by every participant, 
otherwise it is invalid 
—and other moral comments of a Stirner-like character 

(pp. 125-27). 

But Rousseau’s social contract 1) does not contain even the matters which should 
be the subject of contract; 2) it contains neither rights nor obligations, but merely 
punishments (p. 128). 

Detailed proof that Rousseau, proceeding from the “broadest democratic basis”,” 
abandons one aspect of it after another as being impracticable, and that having 
recognised the impossibility of maintaining equality and democratic government he 
“deduces the necessity of the proletariat, the subordinate position of the worker, 
dictatorship and the Inquisition”, and simply puts forward “the code of capitalist and 
commercial tyrannv” (pp. 131-33). 

A furious attack on Rousseau in the highest style of Proudhonic 
declamation, but nevertheless sufficiently serious for people like 
L. Blanc and Co. 

Saint-Simon was the first to envisage the end of the governmental system, the 
coming of the industrial system. He deduced the negation of the state “from historical 
observation and the education of mankind”’. 

Proudhon deduces it 

“from an analysis of economic functions, and from the theory of credit and 
exchange”. The eighteenth century finally completed the reformation and replaced 
the idea of government by the idea of contract (of “liberty of thought” in the sphere of 
practice) (pp. 136-40). 

2. “General Critique of the Idea of Authority” (p. 141) 
1) “Absolute authority” 

Trash.” 

“Absolutism in its nalve expression is repugnant to reason and liberty” (!), 
and similar profound matters (pp. 142-46). 

2) “Laws”’ 

Infinity of cases, hence laws pass into bad infinity (pp. 147-50). 

3) “Constitutional monarchy” 

“A hybrid government.” It is the number, the majority, that is decisive. 

Verbose exposition of all the old abuse of the historical school?” 

against majority, against counting heads, etc. (pp. 150-56). 

* Engels’ quotation marks.— Ed. 
: Engels uses the English word.— Ed. 

4) “Universal suffrage” 

General platitudes about the moral justification of the February 
revolution. 

What universal suffrage can do is shown by the two National Assemblies and the 
election of Louis Bonaparte. 

Universal suffrage is definitely discredited (pp. 156-62). 
5) “Direct legislation” 

It is at any rate consistently democratic and Robespierre and L. Blanc very wrongly 
(from their standpoint) oppose it. 

Solemn discussion of direct government. 

It is a question of ascertaining ‘the wish of all”, as of a “collective being”. But this 
is not possible. Hence a system of questions is necessary, questions which the 
representatives ask and to which the people have to answer yes or no. But that is 
nonsense, for no question can be formulated in such a way that all truth, fairness and 
justice are on one side and all unreason and injustice on the other. 

There follows a mass of examples, mostly taken from Herr 
Rittinghausen himself. Among them is the following example of the 
industrial regime a la Proudhon: 

Rittinghausen asks the people: “Should there be a railway from Lyons to 
Avignon?” and the people say yes. “This yes, however, can contain a serious mistake, 
in any Case it is an infraction of the rights of the localities.” 

“There exists a navigable waterway from Chalon to Avignon which offers 
transport 70 per cent below all the railway rates (!). It can lower its charges (I know 
something about it) to 90 per cent (!!). Instead of constructing a railway which will cost 
200 million and which will ruin the trade of four departments, why not utilise” 

(what does this mean? is it not already utilised?) 

“this waterway which would cost almost nothing? But that is not how matters are 
understood in the Palais législatif, where there is no freight commissioner, and since 
the French people, apart from those living along the Rhéne and the Sa6éne, do not 
know any more than their Ministers what takes place on the two rivers, they will 
pronounce, as can easily be foreseen, not according to their own thought, but 
according to the desire of their appointees. Eighty-two departments will decree the 
ruin (!!!) of four others; that is how direct legislation wants it to be” (p. 169). 

Thus under the industrial system railways would never have been 
built if tug-boat navigation existed on the Rhine. This is already 
promising enough. 

Then on p. 173 against Ledru and the Constitution of 1793,>°4 and the system that 
the people should merely vote the laws, the general principles, but the deputies should 
make the decrees, i.e. the “executive part”. Proof that then, with the help of the 
decrees, it is possible to reverse in detail that which the people have decided in 
general, in principle (pp. 174-76). 

The final form: where the people themselves perform all governmental duties. But 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 559 

then they are unable to work, and they do not have slaves. Hence the “governmental 
idea” results in an absurdity. 

As a practical example he considers the Constitution of 1793 and Robespierre. He 
says that Robespierre was a “juste milieu” man of 1791 and that he hated “direct 
government.” By greater concentration of governmental power he wanted to abolish 
the Constitution of 1793. This was also the desire of the majority of the Convention, 
but this majority did not trust him, appropriated the same idea, removed him and 
subsequently carried out the idea. What the men of Thermidor did was what he 
wanted. 

Proudhon writes that Robespierre was reactionary throughout the 
revolution and always preached tranquillity. Conclusion: a rhetorical 
characterisation of Robespierre. 

Fifth Essay 

“SOCIAL LIQUIDATION” 

Recapitulation: the solution is said to lie in reciprocity and in the idea of contract, 
which is the juridical expression of reciprocity. According to this, three things have to 
be done: “1) to put a definite stop to the disorganising tendency bequeathed to us by 
the old revolution* and to proceed with the help of the new principle to the 
liquidation of the vested interests; 2) to organise with the help of the new principle 
the economic forces and give property its constitution; 3) to make the political or 
governmental system dissolve, merge and disappear in the economic system” (p. 196). 

Assuming that the elections of 1852 turn out to be revolutionary, the following 
would have to be done: 

I. “National Bank” 

The citizens can agree on and if necessary contribute to any establishment which 
proves to be to the advantage of the participants—hence also to a discount bank, and 
in fact this can be founded without “either association or fraternity being necessary 
for it ... there need be nothing but a reciprocal promise of sale or exchange, in short, a 
simple contract” (p. 198). 

The existing bank °° endeavours to become a “public establishment” 1) because it 
makes use of capital that does not belong to it, 2) because it has the privilege of issuing 
paper money, and any privilege is a “public property”, 3) because enjoyment of the 
interest on foreign capital and artificial increase of the price of the circulating medium 
are illegitimate, “hence the bank, owing to the illegitimacy of its profits, is condemned 
to become a public establishment” (p. 199). Hence the decree: ‘‘ The bank is declared 
to be not the property of the state but an establishment of public utility, and the 
liquidation of the company is ordered.” As an “establishment of public utility having 
as capitalists its own clients” (!) it does not pay interest to anyone, since the public 
benefit requires that money shall be as cheap as possible. Once the interest accruing to 
the bank belongs to the public i it can be so much reduced that it covers only the costs of 
administration, i.e. to 1/4 or 1/2 per cent (pp. 200-01). This is very different from the 
socialist State Bank, and from the “credit of the state”, which is nothing but “the 
democratic and social consecration of the principle of plunder, the exploitation of the 
worker in the name of, on the model of and under the patronage of, the Republic” 
(pp. 201, 202). This, then, is what the National Assembly should decree. 

* That of 1789-94.— Ed. 

2. “The National Debt” 

Six milliards, interest 270 million, and 74 million annually for redemption, hence 
344 million annually, and 56 million for pensions and retirement payments. 

With the bank revolutionised and the rate of interest reduced, the national debt 
can likewise_be put on a lower rate of interest. Then it is paid off in annual 
instalments, that is to say, from the 5 per cent paid “/4 per cent is reckoned as 
interest and 4°/4 per cent as repayment of capital (pp. 204-05). 

3. “Mortgage Debts, Simple Bonds”’ 

Interest amounts to 1,200 million annually, 

hence capital of about 24 milliards. 

Decree: “Interest on all debts, mortgages, simple contract debts, joint-stock shares, 
is fixed at the same rate” 

(as above,'/y per cent’); 

“repayment claims can be met only by annual instalments; the annual instalment for 
all sums below 2,000 fr. will be 10 per cent, for sums above 2,000 fr. 5 per cent. A 
section of the offices of the National Discount Bank will become a mortgage bank, the 
maximum of its advances will be 500 million per annum” (p. 213). 

4. “Buildings” - 
If the rate of interest=O, house rent is also reduced to nil 

(therefore profit and ground rent depend on the rate of interest) 
(p. 218). 

Decree: “Every payment made in respect of rent shall be entered to the account of 
the property, reckoned as twenty times the rent” 

(and what about repairs?). 

“With every instalment of rent the tenant will acquire a proportional and joint 
share in the house he occupies and in the totality of all buildings let for rent and 
serving as dwellings for the citizens. Property thus paid for will pass by degrees into 
the hands of the communal administration (!), which by the fact of the payment” 

(which it does not make at all!) 

“takes over the mortgages and prerogatives in the name” 
(and without the permission?) 

“of the mass of tenants, and will guarantee” 
(solidarity!!!) 

“their domicile to all of them in perpetuity at the cost price of the building — The 
communes” will be able to negotiate separate agreements with the owners for the 
immediate liquidation and repayment of the leased properties. In this case, and in 

* See this volume, p. 559.— Ed. 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 561 

order that the present generation shall enjoy reduced rents, the said communes will be 
able immediately to reduce the rent of houses for which they have concluded 
agreements, in such a way that amortisation be completed only in thirty years.— For 
repairs, fittings and upkeep of the buildings, as in the case of new constructions, the 
communes will negotiate with the companies of masons or associations of building 
workers according to the principles and rules of the new social contract. The owners, 
sole occupiers of their own houses, will retain the property as long as they judge this 
advantageous to their interests” (pp. 221-22). 

“5. Landed Property” 

It will be revolutionised through the “mortgage bank”. “The special character of 
the mortgage bank, in addition to the low price and facility of its credit, lies in 
repayment by annual instalments” (p. 223). For example, it has funds of 2 milliards and 
lends annually 400 million fr. with a 5 per cent annual repayment. In this way the 
peasants pay off their mortgage creditors and twenty years after taking up the loan 
they are free from debt. “At the end of five years the capital of 2 milliards would be 
exhausted; but because ot the annual instalments it receives and the deductions it 
makes from credits (?!!) the bank will find that it has in hand a sum of approximately 
400 million, which it will lend out afresh. The transactions therefore will continue in 
this way till at the end of twenty years the landed property will have repaid 4x2 
milliards, te. 8 milliards of mortgages, and in 30 years it will be rid of usurers” 
(p. 224). 

A fine calculation! 1) It is not possible to imagine that “the 
deductions made from credits” can be anything but acts of 
defraudation. 2) No annual instalment is recovered by the bank. in 
the first year; at the end of the first year it gets 5 per cent of 400 
million=20 million; at the end of the second year it gets 5 per cent of 
800 million=40 million; at the end of the third year 60 million; of 
the fourth year 80 million; of the fifth year 100 million; it has 
therefore recovered 300 million, and not approximately 400 million. 
But supposing it could lend out 400 million in the sixth year, then at 
the end of this year it would receive only 120 million and therefore 
be unable to give out 400 million. Supposing the bank had been 
provided with a capital of 4 milliards instead of 2 milliards and could 
therefore lend 400 million per annum for ten years before having to 
resort to the money paid back, even then it would be broke in the 
13th year and in this year could lend only 360 million instead of 400 
million. With 4,400 million, that is with an original capital enabling it 
to pay out during 11 years, it would have reached bottom in the 17th 
year and could only expend 320 million. Finally, with 4,800 million it 
could give loans for 12 years from the original fund and afterwards 
from the repayments and at the end of the 20th year have 600 
million over in addition to the periodically recurring repayments of 
400 million annually, which fall due at that time. 

Proof: 

Up to the twelfth year payments are made from the capital. 

Annual advances Annual repayment Excess Total 

balance 

per year 
Ist-12th year 4,800 mill. 1,320 
13th 400 240 mill. +(1320-400) 920 =1,160 
14th = 400 260 mn ee 760 = 1,020 
15th ai 400 280 : =f 620 = 900 
16th ¥ 400 - 300.“ + 500 = 800 
17th “ 400 7 320 - ae 400 = 720 
18th be 400 340 - +e 320 = 660 
19th 400 ae 360 a + 260 = 620 
20th 400 ie 380 “ + 220 = 600 
2 Ist ig 400 . 400 ~ = 200 = 600 
22nd ‘ 400 ? - 400 e + -200 = 600 

etc 

never increasing. 

That is how M. Proudhon lays the foundsuon for his National 
Mortgage Bank. 

But the thing can be done even more speedily. One issues a decree 
stating: 

“Every payment of rent for the use of a piece of real estate will make the farmer 
part-proprietor of it and will count as a mortgage payment by him. When the property 
has been entirely paid for it will be immediately taken over by the commune, which 
will take the place of the former owner” 

(why does the new owner not immediately enter into his rights?) 

“and will share with the farmer the ownership and the net product. The communes 
will be able to negotiate separate agreements with the owners who desire it for the 
redemption of the rents and the immediate repayment of the properties. In that case 
at the request of the communes steps shall be taken to instal (!?) the cultivators, and to 
delimit their properties, taking care that as far as possible the size of the area shall 
make up (!?) for the quality of the land, and that the rent” 

(where did the annual instalments get to?) 

“shall be proportional to the product. As soon as the property has been entirely paid 
for, all the communes of the Republic will have to reach agreement among themselves 
to equalise (!?) the differences in the quality of the strips of land, and also the 
contingencies of farming. The part of the rent due to them from the plots in their 
particular area will be used for this compensation and general insurance. Dating from 
the same period the old owners who worked themselves on their properties, will retain 
their title, and will be treated in the same way as the new owners, will have to pay the 
same rent and will be granted the same rights” 

(what rights?) 

“in such a way that no one is favoured by the chance of location and inheritance and 
that the conditions of cultivation are equal for all (!!!!). The land tax will be 
abolished” 

(after a new one has been put in its place!). 

“The functions of the rural police will devolve on the municipal councils” (p. 228). 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 563 

Colossal nonsense. 
Next he explains that 

“the right to the increase in value”, ie. the right of the farmer to the 
improvements he makes to the soil, cannot be implemented, any more than “the right 
to work”, however popular both of these are. 

A very legal and moral point of view. 

Sixth Essay 

“ORGANISATION OF THE ECONOMIC FORCES” 

Everything is done by way of contract. I make a contract about something with my 
neighbour—the contract expresses My will. I can equally well make a contract with all 
the inhabitants of my commune, and my commune with any other, with all the other 
communes of the country. “I could be sure that the law thus made throughout the 
Republic, derived from millions of different initiatives, would never be anything other 
than My law” (p. 236). 

O Stirner!! Hence the regime of contract is something like the 
following: 

1. “Credit” 

This is already settled by the bank through the lowering of the rate of interest to 
Miss fs Te per cent, and will be completed by the withdrawal of all gold and silver from 
circulation. 
“As for personal credit” 

(i.e. not based on security), 

“it is not a matter that concerns the National Bank; it should be operated in the 
workers’ companies and the industrial and agricultural societies” (pp. 237-38). 

2. “Property” 

This is conceived by all socialists” either as property of the commune organised 
through association, where the peasant is an agricultural worker in an association, or 
as state property which is leased to peasants. The first form is “communistic”, 

“utopian”, “still-born”; if it should be seriously attempted “the peasant would be 
faced with the question of insurrection” (pp. 238-39). The second form, too, is 
inapplicable, “governmental”, “feudal”, “fiscal”, etc. The reasons advanced in favour 
of it fall to the ground, for “the net product” 

(i.e. the rent), 

being the result of the unequal quality of the soil, belongs not to the state but to “the 
farmer who receives little; it is for this reason that in our plan for liquidation we have 

* Proudhon deals with landed property here.— Ed. 

564 _ Frederick Engels 

stipulated that the rent should be proportionate to the type of land so as to form a 
fund in order to equalise the income of the farmers and to insure the products” 
(p. 240). 

That means everything remains as it was before, the farmer pays 
the rent during the first 20-30 years to the old property-owner and 
then to the general assurance fund, which divides it among the 
owners of inferior land. Thus good and bad land will have exactly 
the same value, or rather the same lack of value, for it is 
inconceivable how land then can still have any capital value. In what 
way this differs from payment of rent to the state—especially as the 
communes will be at liberty to interfere in everything—is also 
inconceivable. And that is what Proudhon calls 

“property separated from rent, liberated from its fetters and cured of its leprosy” 

and believes that it has now become a pure medium of circulation 
(p. 242). 

With the confiscation of landed property by the state, the value of the entire 
landed property in the country, worth 80 milliards, would be withdrawn from 
circulation and, as belonging to all, that is to say to no one would have to be struck 
from the inventory. “In any case, the collective wealth of the nation will undoubtedly 
neither lose nor gain; what does it matter to society whether the 80 milliards of real 
estate, which constitute individual fortunes, figure or do not figure in the total? But is 
it the same thing for the farmer in whose hands the mobilised soil once again becomes 
a value in circulation, money?” (p. 245). 

With the system of tenure under the state, the peasant would very soon assert his 
right of ownership of the soil, which would be easy for him “since the peasants would 
always have the upper hand in France” (p. 246). 

Quite correct, of course, if the lousy small-holding system, the only 
one that Proudhon knows, were to be retained. But then, too, in 
spite of Proudhon, mortgages and usury would just as quickly 
reappear. 

“Given the facility of repayment by annual instalments, the value of a piece of real 
estate can be indefinitely divided, exchanged, and undergo any conceivable change, 
without the real estate being in the least affected. The rest is a matter of the police, and 
we do not have to concern ourselves with it” (pp. 246-47). 

3. “Division of Labour, Collective Forces, Machinery. 
Companies of Workers” 

“Agricultural labour is a kind of labour which least of all requires, or, better 
expressed, which rejects with the utmost vigour, the co-operative form; one has never 
seen peasants forming association for cultivating their fields; and one never will see it. 
The only relations of concord and solidarity which could exist between farmers, the 
only form of centralisation of which rural industry is capable ... is that which results 
from the equalisation of the net product, from mutual insurance and, above all, from 
the abolition of rent” (!!) (p. 247). 

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Last page of Engels’ manuscript “Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 
Idée générale de la Révolution au XIX-e siécle” 

a fixed salary and an honourable employment in a workers’ company to all the anxiety 
connected with a private enterprise” (p. 258). 

(Vous les connaissez bien, M. Proudhon.* 

4. “The Determination of Value, 
the Establishment of a Cheap Market” 

“The fair price”, 
the great desideratum, 

consists of 1) the costs of production, 2) the salary of the merchant, or “the 
compensation for the advantages which the seller forgoes by parting with the article” 
(p. 262). In order to secure the fair price, one must ensure that the merchant will be 
able to sell his goods. The Provisional Government could have made commerce 
flourish at once if it had guaranteed 5 per cent interest to the first 10,000 industrialists 
to invest up to 100,000 francs each in their business 

(where are these to be obtained from, even in the highest 
prosperity! ). 

One thousand million would have been invested in industry. ‘““Ten thousand 
commercial and industrial establishments could not operate simultaneously without 

supporting one another; what one produces another consumes; work, that is the 
outlet.” 

(The landlubber only knows of home trade” and like the most 
shallow English Tory believes that he can make large-scale industry 
prosper by means of it!) 

Thus the state would not have had to pay 50 million, it would not have had to pay 
10 million, in order to meet this guarantee (pp. 266, 267). 

Worse trash never was written not even by Proudhon himself.‘ 
Contracts therefore are made on the following basis: 

“The state, on behalf of the interests which it temporarily represents, and the 
departments and communes on behalf of their respective inhabitants ... propose to 
guarantee that the entrepreneurs who offer the most advantageous conditions will 
receive either interest” 

(after payment of interest has been abolished) 

“on the capital and material invested in their enterprises, or a fixed salary, or in 
appropriate cases a sufficient quantity of orders. In return, the tendering parties will 
pledge themselves to meet all consumers’ requests for the goods and services they have 
undertaken to supply. Apart from that, full scope is left for competition. They must 
state the component parts of their prices, the method of delivery, the duration of their 
commitments, and their means of fulfilment. The tenders submitted under seal within 

* You know them very well, M. Proudhon.— Ed. 
i Engels uses the English term.— Ed. 
© Engels wrote this sentence in English.— Ed. 

Critical Review of Proudhon’s Book 567 

the periods prescribed will subsequently be opened and made public 8 days, 15 days” 
.. before the contracts are allocated. At the expiry of each contract, new tenders will 
be invited” (pp. 268, 269). 

5. “Foreign Trade, Balance of Exports and Imports” 

Inasmuch as the purpose of customs duties is to protect home industry, the 
reduction of the rate of interest, the liquidation of the national debt and private debts, 
the lowering of rents and leases, the determination of value, etc., will greatly decrease 
the costs of production of all articles and therefore make it possible to lower customs 
duties (p. 272). 

Proudhon is in favour of abolishing. customs duties as soon as the 
rate of interest is reduced to '/. per cent or '/, per cent. 

“If tomorrow ... the Bank of France reduced its discount rate to Ms per cent, 
interest and commission included, immediately all manufacturers and merchants of 
Paris and the provinces who do not have credit at the Bank would endeavour in their 
negotiations to obtain bills, for it would cost only /2 per cent [to discount] these bills 
received at par instead of 6, 7, 8 or 9 per cent, which money costs at the bankers” 
({!!!) “... Those abroad would also have recourse to this. French bills would cost only Ms 
per cent, whereas those of other states would ¢ost 10 or 12 times as much” (!!), 
“preference would be given to the former— everybody would be interested in using 
this money in their payments” (!!!) (p. 274). In order to have more French banknotes, 
the foreign producers would lower the prices of their commodities and our imports 
would rise. Since, however, foreign countries can neither buy French annuities with 
the exported banknotes, or lend them to us again, nor take up mortgages on our land, 
this import cannot harm us; “on the contrary, it is not we who would have to moderate 
our purchases, it would be up to the foreign countries to be cautious about their 
sales” (!!) (pp. 274-75). 

Owing to the influx of these miraculous French banknotes foreign 
countries would be compelled to repeat the same economic revo- 
lution which Proudhon has achieved for France. 

Finally, an appeal to the Republican lawyers, Crémieux, Marie, 
Ledru, Michel, etc., to take up these ideas. They, the representatives 
of the idea of justice, are called upon to pave the way here (pp. 275, 
276). 

Seventh Essay 

“THE MERGING OF GOVERNMENT IN THE ECONOMIC ORGANISM” 
“Society without authority” 

Rhetoric. 

* Proudhon has: “8 days, 15 days, one month, three months, depending on the 
importance of the contract” (p. 269).— Ed. 

2. “Elimination of governmental functions. Cults” 

Historical, religious philosophical fantasies. Result: this aspect of 
the voluntary system* that prevails in America amounts to the 
abolition of the state (pp. 293-95). 

3. “Justice” 

No one has the right to judge another unless the latter makes him his judge and 
freely consents to the law that he has transgressed ... 

and other such profound observations. 

Under the “regime of contract”, everyone has given his consent to the law, and “in 
accordance with the democratic principle, the judge must be elected by those who are 
justifiable” 

(this is the case in America). 

In cases of common law the parties should choose arbitrators whose judgment has 
executive force in all cases. Thus the state is eliminated also from the judicature 

(pp. 301-02). 

4. “Administration, police” 

Where all stand in contractual relations to all, no police is necessary, “and the 
citizens and communes” 

(hence also the departments and therefore also the nations) 

“no longer need the intervention of the state to manage their property, to construct 
their bridges, etc., and to carry out all acts of inspection, preservation, and policing” 
(p. 311). 

In other words, administration is not abolished but merely 
decentralised. 

5. “Public education, public works, agriculture, commerce, and finance” 

All these Ministries will be abolished. Fathers of families elect the teachers. The 
teachers elect the higher educational authorities right up to the supreme “Academic 
Council” (p. 317). Higher, theoretical education will be linked with vocational 
education; so long as it is divorced from apprenticeship it is aristocratic by nature, and 
serves to strengthen the ruling class and the power it wields over the oppressed 

(pp. 318-19). 

_ On the whole, this, too, is very narrowly conceived and bound up 
with the division of labour, exactly as is apprenticeship in the 
workers’ companies. 

Incidentally, “I do not see any harm in the existence of a central research 
department, and a department of manufactures and arts in-the Republic”. 

* Engels uses the English term.— Ed. 

Critica] Review of Proudhon’s Book 569 

Merely, the Ministries and the French system of centralisation 
have to be done away with (p. 319). 

There must not be any Ministry of Public Works because it would preclude the 
initiative of the communes and departments, and of the workers’ companies. 

Therefore here, too, we have the Anglo-American system with 
social embellishments (pp. 320-21). 

The Ministry of Agriculture and Trade is sheer parasitism and corruption. The 
proof: its budget (pp. 322-24). 

The Ministry of Finance comes to an end of itself when there are no longer any 
finances that have to be administered (p. 324). 

6. “Foreign affairs, war, the navy” 

Foreign affairs will cease to exist in view of the inevitable universal character of the 
revolution. The nations will become decentralised, and their various sections will carry 
on intercourse with their neighbours as if they belonged to the same _ nation. 
Diplomacy and war will be at an end. If Russia wants to interfere, Russia will be 
revolutionised. If England is not willing to give in, then England will be revolutionised 
and there is an end of the difficulty. The revolutionised nations have the same 
interests because political economy, like geometry, is the same in all countries. “ There 
is no Russian, English, Austrian, Tartar or Hindu economics, any more than there is 
a Hungarian, German or American physics or geometry” (p. 328). 

“Epilogue” 

Pure rhetoric. In between is the following point-blank shot which, 
rather amusingly, overthrows the whole edifice of anarchy. 

In the economic regime, “reason aided by experience reveals to man the laws of 
nature and society, and then it tells him: These laws are those of necessity itself, no 
man has made them, no one imposes them on you.... Do you promise to respect the 
honour, the liberty and the well-being of your brothers? Do you promise never to 
appropriate the products or property of another, whether by violence or fraud, usury 
or stock-jobbing? Do you promise never to lie or deceive, whether in matters of law or 
commerce, or in any of your transactions? You are free to accept or refuse. If you 
refuse, you belong to the society of savages; expelled from the community of the 
human race, you become a suspect; you have no protection. At the least insult, 
anyone can strike you without incurring any other charge than that of ill-treatment 
needlessly inflicted on a beast. If, on the other hand, you swear adherence to the 
pact, you belong to the society of free men. All your brothers pledge themselves with 
you, promise you loyalty, friendship, assistance, service, exchange. In case of 
infringement, on their part or yours, by negligence, passion or malice, you are 
responsible to one another for the harm done, as also for the disgrace and insecurity 
of which you will have been the cause; this responsibility, taking into account the 
seriousness of perjury or repetition of the offence, can go as far as to incur 
excommunication or death” (pp. 342-43). 

There follows the wording of the oath of the new alliance, sworn 

‘on one’s conscience, before one’s brothers, and before humanity”. 

Finally, reflections on the present state of affairs. 

The peasant has no politics, the worker ditto, but both are revolutionary. Like 
them, the bourgeois minds his interests, and hardly worries about the form of 
government. He naively calls that “being conservative and not at all revolutionary”. 
“The merchant, the industrialist, the manufacturer, the landowner ... these people 
want to live and to live well; they are revolutionary to their heart’s core, only they seek 
the revolution under a false banner.”’ Moreover, they have been frightened by the 
necessity that at the beginning the revolution had to take up a position corresponding 
to “the special point of view of the proletariat”; “today the question has been too 
clearly elucidated for such a split” 

(between bourgeoisie and proletariat) 

“to continue any longer” (p. 347). With credit and interest at 4 per cent, the 
bourgeoisie will become revolutionary, this does not frighten them. 

Final rhetoric addressed to Cavaignac and Ledru-Rollin: 

When they say that “the republic stands above universal suffrage”, that means: 
“the revolution stands above the republic”.