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It is characteristic that even the German followers of Proudhon, as, e. g., Marr, Grün, and others, had a very poor opinion of Stirner, and never dreamed of any connection between his views and those of Proudhon. Moses Hess was, among Germans, the first to seize hold upon the word "Anarchy" fearlessly and spread it abroad.
The latter being offered for sale, Proudhon was warned that he would not be allowed to publish any more books of the same character. At that time he entertained the idea of writing a universal history entitled "Chronos." This project was never fulfilled.
"I will not class among the latter the more prudent and sagacious authors who, when writing to individuals, keep one eye on posterity. We know that many who pursue this method have written long, finished, charming, flattering, and tolerably natural letters. Beranger furnishes us with the best example of this class. "Proudhon, however, is a man of entirely different nature and habits.
There is nothing perhaps in socialist literature which so ably sustains the traditional position of the socialist movement. The battles in France over this question have been bitterly fought for over half a century. The most brilliant of minds have been engaged in the struggle. Proudhon, Bakounin, Briand, Sorel, Lagardelle, Berth, Hervé, are men of undoubted ability.
We here have laid bare the yawning gulf which lies between Proudhon and the State Socialism of his time, and over this gulf there is no bridge. The Socialists have made the statement that the political revolution is the means of which the social revolution is the end. Proudhon has inverted this statement and regards the social revolution as the means and a political revolution as the end.
We say carelessly, for the concluding answer which Proudhon gives to the question, "What is property?" was, even in his first work, not "property is theft" but "property is liberty;" only the use of all his great scientific apparatus was quite superfluous, because it was in no way connected with the chief purpose of his book.
Here, indeed, we have Proudhon's whole teaching; with this magic wand of negation of law he thought he could open the magic world of social problems, and heal up the wounds of the social organisation. "My masters," said Proudhon to his friend Langlois in the year 1848, "that is those who woke fruitful ideas in me, are three: first of all, the Bible, then Adam Smith, and finally Hegel."
It was common to Michelet and Quinet, who saw in the march of civilisation the gradual triumph of liberty; to Leroux and Cabet, who preached humanitarian communism; to Louis Blanc and to Proudhon; to the bourgeois, who were satisfied with the regime of Louis Philippe and grew rich, following the precept of Guizot, as well as to the workers who overthrew it.
I should unhesitatingly pronounce it the correct version, except for the fact that Proudhon, in the succeeding paragraph, interprets Garnier as supposing income to be assessed instead of capital. Translator. These reflections are very sound, although they apply only to collection or assessment, and do not touch the principle of the tax itself.
One must remind oneself that all those who had intelligence have progressed tremendously during the last twenty years and that it would not be generous to reproach them with what they probably reproach themselves. As for Proudhon, I never thought him sincere. He is a rhetorician of GENIUS, as they say. But I don't understand him. He is a specimen of perpetual antithesis, without solution.
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