WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.740 Welcome to this custom -tailored deep dive crafted 00:00:02.740 --> 00:00:05.780 entirely for you. Today, we are exploring a pretty 00:00:05.780 --> 00:00:08.240 dense stack of notes derived exclusively from 00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:11.179 the Wikipedia article on Pierre -Joseph Proudhon. 00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:14.839 Right, the father of anarchism. Exactly. Our 00:00:14.839 --> 00:00:17.980 mission today is to unpack his life, his incredibly 00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:21.120 complex philosophy, and the glaring and honestly 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:23.960 often uncomfortable contradictions of this 19th 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:25.879 century French thinker. Yeah. There is a lot 00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:27.920 to cover. There is. Yeah. But before we jump 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:31.019 into the material, I need to issue a strict impartiality 00:00:31.019 --> 00:00:33.299 statement. Oh, absolutely necessary for this 00:00:33.299 --> 00:00:34.979 one. Because the source material we are covering 00:00:34.979 --> 00:00:37.799 today touches on deeply polarizing political 00:00:37.799 --> 00:00:40.399 ideologies. We're talking everything from radical 00:00:40.399 --> 00:00:43.280 left -wing anarchism and communism all the way 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:46.420 to far -right proto -fascism. It spans the whole 00:00:46.420 --> 00:00:49.100 spectrum. It really does. So it is essential 00:00:49.100 --> 00:00:51.299 to state clearly right now that we're not taking 00:00:51.299 --> 00:00:53.929 any sides here. We are impartially reporting 00:00:53.929 --> 00:00:56.109 the facts and the ideas contained in the text 00:00:56.109 --> 00:00:58.710 We're neither endorsing nor condemning any of 00:00:58.710 --> 00:01:00.750 the political viewpoints discussed just laying 00:01:00.750 --> 00:01:03.409 out the history just the facts Okay, let's unpack 00:01:03.409 --> 00:01:06.390 this. Where do we even begin with a figure who 00:01:06.390 --> 00:01:09.450 famously declared that property is theft, but 00:01:09.450 --> 00:01:12.769 then later in his life argued just as passionately 00:01:12.769 --> 00:01:15.150 that property is freedom. It's a huge pivot, 00:01:15.150 --> 00:01:17.909 right? To understand those massive theoretical 00:01:17.909 --> 00:01:19.750 leaps, I mean, we really have to start with his 00:01:19.750 --> 00:01:22.989 roots. Proudhon's worldview is completely inseparable 00:01:22.989 --> 00:01:25.909 from his unlikely, extremely humble origins. 00:01:26.170 --> 00:01:28.109 Because he wasn't exactly a wealthy aristocrat. 00:01:28.219 --> 00:01:31.859 No, not at all. He was born in 1809 in Besançon, 00:01:31.859 --> 00:01:34.379 France. And, you know, when you look at the landscape 00:01:34.379 --> 00:01:36.939 of 19th century political philosophers. You usually 00:01:36.939 --> 00:01:39.700 see guys with money. Right. Men from aristocratic 00:01:39.700 --> 00:01:42.319 backgrounds or at least the comfortable bourgeoisie. 00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:46.079 But Proudhon came from genuine rural poverty. 00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:48.939 The notes mention his father was a brewer. a 00:01:48.939 --> 00:01:50.799 brewer and a cooper, which is a barrel maker. 00:01:51.260 --> 00:01:53.400 So from a very young age, Proudhon was put to 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:56.420 work in the family tavern. He was out doing basic 00:01:56.420 --> 00:01:58.739 agricultural labor just to help the family survive. 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:01.540 That really changes the mental image. You picture 00:02:01.540 --> 00:02:03.840 this giant of political theory writing these 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:06.599 dense treatises, but his early life was literally 00:02:06.599 --> 00:02:09.539 just a struggle for basic calories. Yeah, survival 00:02:09.539 --> 00:02:12.479 was the priority. I read in the notes that he 00:02:12.479 --> 00:02:14.340 didn't even get a formal education as a young 00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:17.409 child. How did he even learn to read? It was 00:02:17.409 --> 00:02:19.990 entirely thanks to his mother, Catherine. Oh, 00:02:20.009 --> 00:02:22.229 wow. Yeah, she took it upon herself to teach 00:02:22.229 --> 00:02:24.530 him. She had him spelling out words by the time 00:02:24.530 --> 00:02:28.469 he was three years old. But resources were incredibly 00:02:28.469 --> 00:02:31.129 scarce. Right, gifts were expensive. Exactly. 00:02:31.479 --> 00:02:33.620 Up until he was 10 years old, the only books 00:02:33.620 --> 00:02:36.159 he had ever been exposed to were The Gospels, 00:02:36.620 --> 00:02:39.539 Local Town Almanacs, and a popular romance book 00:02:39.539 --> 00:02:41.879 called The Foramen Brothers. That was his whole 00:02:41.879 --> 00:02:44.460 library. That was the entirety of his intellectual 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:46.919 universe. Which makes what happens next even 00:02:46.919 --> 00:02:49.439 more striking. When his mother finally managed 00:02:49.439 --> 00:02:51.719 to get him into the City College in Besançon, 00:02:52.439 --> 00:02:55.689 I think it was through a bursary. from his father's 00:02:55.689 --> 00:02:57.849 former employer that knocked a bit off the tuition. 00:02:58.009 --> 00:03:01.069 Yeah, a small discount. Right, but he was relentlessly 00:03:01.069 --> 00:03:02.930 mocked by the other students. He couldn't even 00:03:02.930 --> 00:03:05.289 afford shoes. He was completely destitute compared 00:03:05.289 --> 00:03:08.610 to them. He didn't have the money for the required 00:03:08.610 --> 00:03:12.129 textbooks. Can you imagine the psychological 00:03:12.129 --> 00:03:15.389 toll of sitting in a classroom of wealthy kids 00:03:15.389 --> 00:03:18.030 while you're literally barefoot? The isolation 00:03:18.030 --> 00:03:20.909 he felt must have been profound. But rather than 00:03:20.909 --> 00:03:23.969 retreating, he adapted. Because he couldn't afford 00:03:23.969 --> 00:03:26.590 the texts, he would spend all his free time hiding 00:03:26.590 --> 00:03:29.069 away in the school library. Just reading whatever 00:03:29.069 --> 00:03:31.629 he could get his hands on. Exactly. Surrounded 00:03:31.629 --> 00:03:34.310 by a massive pile of books, just teaching himself 00:03:34.310 --> 00:03:37.729 everything he possibly could. That fierce, autodidactic 00:03:37.729 --> 00:03:40.110 drive never left him. But he didn't get to finish 00:03:40.110 --> 00:03:42.800 school, did he? No, his formal schooling was 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:45.020 cut short due to family financial struggles. 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:48.080 So in 1827, he had to take an apprenticeship 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:50.599 at a local printing press. And from the notes, 00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:52.740 it sounds like that printing press effectively 00:03:52.740 --> 00:03:55.300 became his real university. What's fascinating 00:03:55.300 --> 00:03:57.800 here is how the specific nature of his day job 00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:00.400 directly shaped his worldview. He worked for 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:02.939 a press in Besançon that primarily published 00:04:02.939 --> 00:04:05.560 ecclesiastical or religious works. So he was 00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:08.780 printing church materials. Day in and day out 00:04:08.780 --> 00:04:11.319 Proudhon was tasked with proofreading Christian 00:04:11.319 --> 00:04:13.939 literature. He even taught himself Latin and 00:04:13.939 --> 00:04:16.120 Hebrew just to be better at setting the type 00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:18.420 and correcting the manuscripts for these theological 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:21.879 books. So he's spending thousands of hours analyzing 00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:24.980 these deeply religious texts line by line. Did 00:04:24.980 --> 00:04:27.480 that make it more devout? Actually, quite the 00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:30.560 opposite. Really? Yeah. The intense, critical 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:33.779 scrutiny required for his job caused him to deeply 00:04:33.779 --> 00:04:36.720 question his long -held religious beliefs. The 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:39.319 more he analyzed the theology, the more he began 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:41.839 to dismantle it in his own mind. Wow. It eventually 00:04:41.839 --> 00:04:44.360 led him to reject Christianity altogether. The 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:47.259 ultimate backfire. You hire a guy to print religious 00:04:47.259 --> 00:04:49.360 texts, and the text turns him into a radical 00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:51.980 free thinker. It really is ironic. But it wasn't 00:04:51.980 --> 00:04:53.720 just theology he was exposed to at the press, 00:04:53.879 --> 00:04:55.819 right? He also met some major intellectual figures 00:04:55.819 --> 00:04:59.079 who came through the doors. He did. In 1829, 00:04:59.379 --> 00:05:02.160 the utopian socialist Charles Fourier came to 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:04.740 the press as a customer. He was looking to publish 00:05:04.740 --> 00:05:08.439 his work, Le Nouveau Monde Industriel et Société. 00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:10.800 So Proudhon actually worked on his book. Proudhon 00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:13.480 supervised the printing. And that gave him the 00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:16.079 chance to talk extensively with Fourier about 00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:19.420 social and philosophical issues. Those conversations 00:05:19.420 --> 00:05:22.040 left a massive lifelong impression on him regarding 00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:25.000 the organization of labor and society. There 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:26.980 was also another name in the notes that stood 00:05:26.980 --> 00:05:31.639 out. Gustave Fallot. Who was he and why was he 00:05:31.639 --> 00:05:34.500 so crucial to Proudhon's trajectory? Fallot was 00:05:34.500 --> 00:05:37.170 a wealthy scholar who lived in the area. He was 00:05:37.170 --> 00:05:39.610 so impressed by Proudhon's intricate corrections 00:05:39.610 --> 00:05:42.310 on a Latin manuscript at the press that he sought 00:05:42.310 --> 00:05:44.769 the young printer out. They became friends. They 00:05:44.769 --> 00:05:46.990 formed a very close friendship. They spent their 00:05:46.990 --> 00:05:49.310 evenings discussing Enlightenment thinkers like 00:05:49.310 --> 00:05:53.089 Rousseau, Voltaire, and Diderot. Fellow recognized 00:05:53.089 --> 00:05:55.449 Proudhon's genius and essentially funded his 00:05:55.449 --> 00:05:58.050 move to Paris so he could formally study philosophy. 00:05:58.370 --> 00:06:00.550 I read he actually walked all the way from Bisons 00:06:00.550 --> 00:06:02.769 -en -Saint to Paris. He did. But it doesn't sound 00:06:02.769 --> 00:06:04.970 like it was a very glamorous Parisian experience. 00:06:05.149 --> 00:06:07.839 Far from it. Proudhon felt totally out of place 00:06:07.839 --> 00:06:10.300 among the wealthy, polished metropolitan scholars 00:06:10.300 --> 00:06:13.439 in the Latin Quarter. And then tragedy struck. 00:06:13.699 --> 00:06:16.879 Oh, the cholera outbreak. Right. A cholera outbreak 00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:20.079 hit Paris, Fallot got severely sick, and the 00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:22.759 funding completely dried up. Proudhon was forced 00:06:22.759 --> 00:06:25.180 to return to the printing trade just to survive. 00:06:25.339 --> 00:06:28.600 So he's back where he started. Physically, maybe. 00:06:29.019 --> 00:06:31.629 But the intellectual fire had been lit. A few 00:06:31.629 --> 00:06:33.730 years later, he applied for the Suhrard Pension, 00:06:34.069 --> 00:06:36.610 a prestigious bursary from the Academy of Besançon. 00:06:36.769 --> 00:06:38.930 And he won it, right? From what I understand, 00:06:39.189 --> 00:06:41.290 the judges were completely blown away that a 00:06:41.290 --> 00:06:44.230 poor, self -taught artisan had managed to educate 00:06:44.230 --> 00:06:47.009 himself so thoroughly. They were astounded by 00:06:47.009 --> 00:06:49.649 his intellect. That bursary finally gave him 00:06:49.649 --> 00:06:52.290 the freedom to dedicate himself fully to scholarly 00:06:52.290 --> 00:06:54.730 pursuits without the constant threat of starvation. 00:06:54.990 --> 00:06:57.709 He could finally just write. Yes, and he immediately 00:06:57.709 --> 00:07:01.029 started making ways. In 1839, he submitted an 00:07:01.029 --> 00:07:03.269 essay to the Academy ostensibly about the utility 00:07:03.269 --> 00:07:05.290 of celebrating Sunday. Sounds innocent enough. 00:07:05.490 --> 00:07:08.500 But he used it as a Trojan horse. Hidden within 00:07:08.500 --> 00:07:10.660 this seemingly innocent essay about a day of 00:07:10.660 --> 00:07:13.420 rest were his burgeoning revolutionary ideas 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:15.660 on authority, morality, and the distribution 00:07:15.660 --> 00:07:17.720 of wealth. How did the Academy react to that? 00:07:17.980 --> 00:07:20.959 It disturbed the elite academic judges so much 00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:23.339 that they only gave him a bronze medal. Which 00:07:23.339 --> 00:07:25.839 Proudhon probably loved. Oh, in his typical defiant 00:07:25.839 --> 00:07:28.220 fashion, he actually wore it as a badge of honor. 00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:31.100 Here's where it gets really interesting. In 1840, 00:07:31.279 --> 00:07:34.779 Proudhon publishes his explosive first major 00:07:34.779 --> 00:07:38.290 work, What Is Property? And this is the book 00:07:38.290 --> 00:07:40.370 that really puts him on the map globally. It 00:07:40.370 --> 00:07:43.069 definitely did. He comes out swinging with these 00:07:43.069 --> 00:07:46.029 incredibly provocative declarations, property 00:07:46.029 --> 00:07:49.389 is theft, property is impossible, and property 00:07:49.389 --> 00:07:52.209 is homicide. Now, if you're hearing that for 00:07:52.209 --> 00:07:54.389 the first time, it sounds like he wants the state 00:07:54.389 --> 00:07:57.170 to strip everyone of everything they own. But 00:07:57.170 --> 00:07:59.029 I'm guessing that's not what he meant. Not at 00:07:59.029 --> 00:08:01.410 all. Proudhon's use of language was deliberately 00:08:01.410 --> 00:08:04.610 incendiary, designed to force people to pay attention. 00:08:04.769 --> 00:08:07.269 It's good marketing. Exactly. To understand his 00:08:07.269 --> 00:08:09.889 famous phrase, property is theft, you have to 00:08:09.889 --> 00:08:12.569 understand that he drew a very strict definitive 00:08:12.569 --> 00:08:14.870 line in the sand between private property and 00:08:14.870 --> 00:08:17.449 possession. Okay. Private property versus possession. 00:08:17.930 --> 00:08:21.529 Yes. When he attacked property, he was specifically 00:08:21.529 --> 00:08:24.250 attacking unearned income and the extraction 00:08:24.250 --> 00:08:26.910 of wealth from the labor of others. Okay. Let 00:08:26.910 --> 00:08:29.089 me try to map this onto a real world analogy 00:08:29.089 --> 00:08:31.889 to make sure I'm following. Say I own the laptop 00:08:31.889 --> 00:08:34.129 I use every single day to research and write 00:08:34.129 --> 00:08:36.649 this deep dive. Is he coming from my laptop? 00:08:36.929 --> 00:08:39.289 He would vigorously defend your right to that 00:08:39.289 --> 00:08:42.470 laptop. That is what he called possession. You 00:08:42.470 --> 00:08:45.190 have a fundamental right to the tools of your 00:08:45.190 --> 00:08:48.090 trade, the home you live in, and the fruits of 00:08:48.090 --> 00:08:50.610 your own direct labor. Because I'm actually using 00:08:50.610 --> 00:08:53.549 it. Right. Possession, to Proudhon, is legitimate 00:08:53.549 --> 00:08:56.549 because it is coextensive with occupancy and 00:08:56.549 --> 00:09:00.230 actual work. But what happens if, say, I use 00:09:00.230 --> 00:09:02.490 my savings to buy an entire apartment building 00:09:02.490 --> 00:09:04.450 on the other side of town? I don't live there. 00:09:04.610 --> 00:09:06.789 I hire someone else to maintain it. And I simply 00:09:06.789 --> 00:09:08.830 collect rent from the people who actually live 00:09:08.830 --> 00:09:11.190 and work there every month just because my name 00:09:11.190 --> 00:09:13.269 is on the legal deed. That is precisely what 00:09:13.269 --> 00:09:15.149 Proudhon classified as property. And that is 00:09:15.149 --> 00:09:17.350 what he called theft. Because I'm not doing the 00:09:17.350 --> 00:09:20.509 work. He argued that the landlord or the capitalist 00:09:20.509 --> 00:09:23.509 derives wealth through rent, interest on loans 00:09:23.509 --> 00:09:27.190 or capitalist profit without performing any actual 00:09:27.190 --> 00:09:30.070 labor themselves. They get it simply by holding 00:09:30.070 --> 00:09:32.450 a legal title backed by the force of the state. 00:09:32.570 --> 00:09:35.309 Just skimming off the top. He viewed this kind 00:09:35.309 --> 00:09:38.370 of property as mathematically impossible to sustain 00:09:38.370 --> 00:09:40.730 without exploitation because it demands something 00:09:40.730 --> 00:09:43.149 for nothing. Because it creates a dynamic where 00:09:43.149 --> 00:09:45.950 the person doing the work is always losing a 00:09:45.950 --> 00:09:48.330 cut to someone who isn't. Furthermore, it allows 00:09:48.330 --> 00:09:51.049 a minority of property owners to exert profound 00:09:51.049 --> 00:09:54.070 power over the non -owners, subordinating them 00:09:54.070 --> 00:09:56.649 and turning them into obedient wage workers who 00:09:56.649 --> 00:09:58.830 are forever indebted to those holding the titles. 00:09:59.250 --> 00:10:01.970 It's a system of dominion. Which naturally brings 00:10:01.970 --> 00:10:04.350 us to his critique of the stake. And this is 00:10:04.350 --> 00:10:06.669 a massive historical milestone. Proudhon was 00:10:06.669 --> 00:10:08.950 the very first person to proudly call himself 00:10:08.950 --> 00:10:11.210 an anarchist. Yes, he was. Before him, wasn't 00:10:11.210 --> 00:10:13.090 that word just an insult thrown around to mean 00:10:13.090 --> 00:10:15.730 a rioter or someone who wanted total chaos? During 00:10:15.730 --> 00:10:18.850 the French Revolution, anarchist was indeed a 00:10:18.850 --> 00:10:21.250 derogatory term for someone who wanted to burn 00:10:21.250 --> 00:10:24.509 society to the ground. Proudhon reclaimed the 00:10:24.509 --> 00:10:26.690 word and gave it a rigorous philosophical definition. 00:10:26.830 --> 00:10:29.409 So he changed the meaning entirely. His definition 00:10:29.409 --> 00:10:32.190 of anarchy was absolutely not chaos, and it was 00:10:32.190 --> 00:10:34.789 certainly not violence. In what is property, 00:10:35.269 --> 00:10:37.750 he defined anarchy simply as the absence of a 00:10:37.750 --> 00:10:40.309 master, of a sovereign. So it's about self -governance. 00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:43.120 He wrote that just as humanity seeks justice 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:47.480 inequality, society seeks order in anarchy. He 00:10:47.480 --> 00:10:50.340 envisioned a highly organized society, but one 00:10:50.340 --> 00:10:53.379 organized without centralized authority. No politicians. 00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:56.039 Without a government watching, directing, taxing 00:10:56.039 --> 00:10:58.960 and coercing people under the pretext of public 00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:01.200 utility. Which brings us to his relationship 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:03.899 with the other giant of 19th century political 00:11:03.899 --> 00:11:06.700 thought, Karl Marx. I think a lot of people would 00:11:06.700 --> 00:11:08.340 be shocked to learn that they actually started 00:11:08.340 --> 00:11:11.909 out as friends. They corresponded frequently 00:11:11.909 --> 00:11:14.070 and they heavily influenced each other in those 00:11:14.070 --> 00:11:17.110 early days. Marx actually read what is property 00:11:17.110 --> 00:11:19.990 and was highly impressed. Marx liked it. He praised 00:11:19.990 --> 00:11:22.970 it in his own early work, The Holy Family. He 00:11:22.970 --> 00:11:25.789 called Proudhon's book a scientific manifesto 00:11:25.789 --> 00:11:28.629 of the French proletariat. When Marx was living 00:11:28.629 --> 00:11:31.350 in exile in Paris, they would meet up and debate 00:11:31.350 --> 00:11:34.070 economics and a Gaelian philosophy late into 00:11:34.070 --> 00:11:36.629 the night. So what happened? How do you go from 00:11:36.629 --> 00:11:39.840 late night philosophical debates to one of the 00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:42.620 most famous intellectual feuds in history. The 00:11:42.620 --> 00:11:44.779 fundamental differences in their visions for 00:11:44.779 --> 00:11:47.820 the future inevitably caused a massive rupture. 00:11:48.340 --> 00:11:50.879 Proudhon was fundamentally anti -authoritarian. 00:11:51.320 --> 00:11:53.820 He rejected centralized state control and he 00:11:53.820 --> 00:11:56.440 rejected revolutionary violence, believing society 00:11:56.440 --> 00:11:58.460 could be transformed through economic reform. 00:11:58.820 --> 00:12:01.179 And Marx wanted a revolution. Marx, conversely, 00:12:01.419 --> 00:12:03.500 believed in the necessity of political revolution 00:12:03.500 --> 00:12:05.779 and the seizure of state power by the working 00:12:05.779 --> 00:12:07.820 class. And this disagreement played out in the 00:12:07.820 --> 00:12:10.399 most incredibly petty way possible in the publishing 00:12:10.399 --> 00:12:14.259 world. In 1846, Proudhon published a massive, 00:12:14.539 --> 00:12:17.639 dense work titled The System of Economic Contradictions 00:12:17.639 --> 00:12:20.960 or The Philosophy of Poverty. How did Marx respond? 00:12:21.129 --> 00:12:24.309 Marx decided to publicly and viciously dismantle 00:12:24.309 --> 00:12:27.769 Proudhon's entire economic framework. He responded 00:12:27.769 --> 00:12:30.389 with a book -length critique provocatively titled, 00:12:30.750 --> 00:12:33.450 The Poverty of Philosophy. You have to admit 00:12:33.450 --> 00:12:35.950 that is an unbelievable intellectual burn for 00:12:35.950 --> 00:12:38.590 the 1840s. You write The Philosophy of Poverty, 00:12:38.649 --> 00:12:41.090 so I write The Poverty of Philosophy just to 00:12:41.090 --> 00:12:44.210 tell the world how bankrupt your ideas are. It's 00:12:44.210 --> 00:12:47.389 so petty. It is, but... If we connect this to 00:12:47.389 --> 00:12:49.789 the bigger picture, this was far more than just 00:12:49.789 --> 00:12:52.309 a personal spat or a battle of clever book titles. 00:12:52.470 --> 00:12:55.429 It had real consequences. This specific theoretical 00:12:55.429 --> 00:12:58.210 dispute literally caused the historic split between 00:12:58.210 --> 00:13:00.809 the anarchist and Marxist wings of the International 00:13:00.809 --> 00:13:03.289 Working Men's Association. The first international. 00:13:03.470 --> 00:13:06.370 Yes. Marx eventually used his influence to have 00:13:06.370 --> 00:13:08.889 Proudhon's leading follower, Mikhail Bakunin, 00:13:09.309 --> 00:13:11.210 expelled from the organization. That's a massive 00:13:11.210 --> 00:13:13.570 turning point in history. It shaped the entire 00:13:13.570 --> 00:13:15.789 global labor movement for the next century. It 00:13:15.789 --> 00:13:18.330 codified the division between the authoritarian 00:13:18.330 --> 00:13:21.509 state -oriented socialism of the Marxists and 00:13:21.509 --> 00:13:23.889 the anti -authoritarian libertarian socialism 00:13:23.889 --> 00:13:27.009 of the anarchists, a rift that continues to define 00:13:27.009 --> 00:13:29.690 leftist politics to this day. So what does this 00:13:29.690 --> 00:13:32.889 all mean? If Proudhon hated capitalism because 00:13:32.889 --> 00:13:35.370 of the exploitation of private property, but 00:13:35.370 --> 00:13:38.970 he also completely rejected Marx's state -controlled 00:13:38.970 --> 00:13:41.450 communism because he saw it as just another form 00:13:41.450 --> 00:13:43.850 of suffocating authoritarianism, what was his 00:13:43.850 --> 00:13:46.490 actual fix? How did you think society should 00:13:46.490 --> 00:13:49.360 function? Proudhon's practical solution was an 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:52.399 economic and political system he termed mutualism. 00:13:53.500 --> 00:13:55.320 Instead of the state running the economy from 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:57.919 the top down, or capitalist bosses dictating 00:13:57.919 --> 00:14:01.000 terms to wage laborers, he envisioned a society 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:03.399 organized from the bottom up by a federation 00:14:03.399 --> 00:14:06.220 of free communes. Wait, when you say commune, 00:14:06.259 --> 00:14:08.679 are we talking about like a 1960s hippie farm 00:14:08.679 --> 00:14:10.679 where everyone shares everything? What does that 00:14:10.679 --> 00:14:13.879 actually mean in an industrial context? In Proudhon's 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:16.120 context, a commune was a self -governing local 00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:19.100 community. Under mutualism, industrial workplaces 00:14:19.100 --> 00:14:21.700 like factories, mines, railways will be handed 00:14:21.700 --> 00:14:24.159 over to democratically organized workers associations. 00:14:24.440 --> 00:14:26.379 So the workers run the factory? The workers who 00:14:26.379 --> 00:14:29.000 actually operated the machinery would run the 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:31.019 enterprises themselves on a day -to -day basis. 00:14:31.340 --> 00:14:33.820 They would make the decisions collectively and 00:14:33.820 --> 00:14:36.039 share the property of the company undivided. 00:14:36.139 --> 00:14:38.620 So they keep the profits? Directly keeping the 00:14:38.620 --> 00:14:41.279 value of what they produced rather than passing 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:44.019 the profits up to an owner or the state? And 00:14:44.019 --> 00:14:45.940 he didn't just write about this in the abstract. 00:14:46.399 --> 00:14:48.779 He actually tried to build the financial infrastructure 00:14:48.779 --> 00:14:51.519 for it. During the brief window of the Second 00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:54.759 French Republic, right after the 1848 Revolution, 00:14:55.379 --> 00:14:57.159 he tried to create something called the People's 00:14:57.159 --> 00:15:00.929 Bank. The goal of the People's Bank was to liberate 00:15:00.929 --> 00:15:03.389 the working class from the grip of capitalist 00:15:03.389 --> 00:15:06.929 financiers. It was meant to be funded by an income 00:15:06.929 --> 00:15:09.529 tax on capitalists and wealthy shareholders. 00:15:09.769 --> 00:15:11.769 And what would the bank do? The bank would then 00:15:11.769 --> 00:15:15.009 provide interest -free loans to workers and peasants, 00:15:15.370 --> 00:15:18.049 allowing them to buy their own tools, land, or 00:15:18.049 --> 00:15:20.409 start their own worker associations without falling 00:15:20.409 --> 00:15:22.990 into debt traps. It sounds incredibly similar 00:15:22.990 --> 00:15:25.690 to the foundational idea of a modern credit union. 00:15:25.820 --> 00:15:29.059 It's a direct ancestor of that concept. While 00:15:29.059 --> 00:15:31.720 the People's Bank attempt was ultimately abortive 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:34.899 due to political crackdowns, it perfectly illustrates 00:15:34.899 --> 00:15:38.399 his core philosophical methodology, dialectics. 00:15:38.600 --> 00:15:41.159 Dialectics is one of those dense academic words 00:15:41.159 --> 00:15:43.360 that gets thrown around a lot. How is Proudhon 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:45.899 using it? Simply put, dialectics is the process 00:15:45.899 --> 00:15:48.539 of looking at two opposing ideas or extremes 00:15:48.539 --> 00:15:51.519 and finding a synthesis that resolves the conflict 00:15:51.519 --> 00:15:54.090 between them. Finding the middle ground. Proudhon 00:15:54.090 --> 00:15:56.889 was constantly looking for that synthesis. He 00:15:56.889 --> 00:15:59.970 viewed mutualism with its free association, industrial 00:15:59.970 --> 00:16:03.009 democracy, and possession based economy as the 00:16:03.009 --> 00:16:05.549 perfect dialectical synthesis between capitalism 00:16:05.549 --> 00:16:08.629 and communism. Exactly. It balanced the independence 00:16:08.629 --> 00:16:11.029 and personal freedom found in private property 00:16:11.029 --> 00:16:13.649 with the equality and non exploitation sought 00:16:13.649 --> 00:16:16.169 by communism. He wanted to harmonize society 00:16:16.169 --> 00:16:18.460 without coercing it. We've talked a lot about 00:16:18.460 --> 00:16:21.200 his obsession with liberation, equality for the 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:24.240 worker, and harmonizing society. But if we are 00:16:24.240 --> 00:16:26.159 looking at the entirety of his source material, 00:16:26.580 --> 00:16:28.919 there is a massive uncomfortable blind spot in 00:16:28.919 --> 00:16:31.259 his definition of equality that we have to address. 00:16:32.460 --> 00:16:35.500 Again, maintaining our strict impartiality, we 00:16:35.500 --> 00:16:37.340 are simply reporting the facts of his written 00:16:37.340 --> 00:16:41.059 work. But these aspects of his thought are undeniably 00:16:41.059 --> 00:16:43.620 jarring. They are deeply jarring and they represent 00:16:43.620 --> 00:16:46.840 a profound contradiction in his legacy. First, 00:16:46.879 --> 00:16:50.120 there is his extreme anti -feminism. While Proudhon 00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:51.940 championed the liberation of the male worker, 00:16:52.179 --> 00:16:54.940 he held rigidly patriarchal views regarding women. 00:16:55.019 --> 00:16:57.759 Very traditional. He argued that a woman's true 00:16:57.759 --> 00:17:00.460 nature left her only two valid roles in society 00:17:00.460 --> 00:17:03.379 to be a courtesan or a housekeeper. He actually 00:17:03.379 --> 00:17:05.900 wrote an entire tract on this, right? La Pornocratie. 00:17:06.039 --> 00:17:08.859 Yes, published posthumously. It is considered 00:17:08.859 --> 00:17:11.420 one of the most intensely anti -feminist texts 00:17:11.420 --> 00:17:14.440 of its era. He argued that men, by virtue of 00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:16.839 what he perceived as superior physical and intellectual 00:17:16.839 --> 00:17:19.220 strength, were the natural masters of women. 00:17:21.150 --> 00:17:23.410 He went as far as defending the use of violence 00:17:23.410 --> 00:17:26.430 by husbands to subordinate their wives, viewing 00:17:26.430 --> 00:17:29.390 the patriarchal family unit as the only acceptable 00:17:29.390 --> 00:17:32.710 foundation for society. It's staggering hypocrisy. 00:17:33.069 --> 00:17:35.049 You can't spend your life screaming about the 00:17:35.049 --> 00:17:38.109 tyranny of masters and then literally advocate 00:17:38.109 --> 00:17:40.690 for half the population to be kept under the 00:17:40.690 --> 00:17:42.650 violently enforced mastery of the other half. 00:17:43.210 --> 00:17:45.049 And his own peers called him out on this, didn't 00:17:45.049 --> 00:17:47.569 they? The historical record shows heavy pushback 00:17:47.569 --> 00:17:50.109 from within his own circles. The libertarian 00:17:50.109 --> 00:17:53.589 communist Joseph de Jacques publicly and fiercely 00:17:53.589 --> 00:17:55.890 attacked Proudhon for this. What did de Jacques 00:17:55.890 --> 00:17:58.250 say? De Jacques wrote him a letter essentially 00:17:58.250 --> 00:18:00.950 saying that his views on women completely contradicted 00:18:00.950 --> 00:18:04.029 his anarchist principles of equality. De Jacques 00:18:04.029 --> 00:18:06.390 demanded that Proudhon either extend his vision 00:18:06.390 --> 00:18:09.509 of liberation to women or stop calling himself 00:18:09.509 --> 00:18:11.910 an anarchist altogether. And the contradictions 00:18:11.910 --> 00:18:14.539 don't stop there. This raises an important question 00:18:14.539 --> 00:18:17.220 about how we contextualize historical figures 00:18:17.220 --> 00:18:20.140 when we look at their private lives. In Proudhon's 00:18:20.140 --> 00:18:23.680 private unpublished carnets or notebooks, scholars 00:18:23.680 --> 00:18:26.339 found virulent anti -Semitism. Yeah, the notes 00:18:26.339 --> 00:18:29.480 mention this. In 1847, he privately wrote about 00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:32.640 his intense hatred for the Jewish people, outlining 00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:35.359 disturbing fantasies of expelling them to Asia 00:18:35.359 --> 00:18:38.299 or exterminating them. Yeah, the notes emphasize 00:18:38.299 --> 00:18:40.940 a distinction made by modern scholars like Robert 00:18:40.940 --> 00:18:43.880 Graham and Ian McKay. They point out that while 00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:46.480 Proudhon personally held these bigotries, this 00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:49.180 anti -Semitism formed no part of his actual public 00:18:49.180 --> 00:18:52.059 revolutionary program or his published economic 00:18:52.059 --> 00:18:54.299 theories. Right. It was isolated to his private 00:18:54.299 --> 00:18:57.559 writings. In his public work, he explicitly argued 00:18:57.559 --> 00:18:59.660 that citizenship should be an acquired right 00:18:59.660 --> 00:19:02.980 everywhere, regardless of race or color. But 00:19:02.980 --> 00:19:05.480 the private notebooks remain an undeniable dark 00:19:05.480 --> 00:19:08.359 stain. And looking at the notes, that dark side 00:19:08.359 --> 00:19:10.960 gets even more complicated decades after his 00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:13.230 death. I see a reference to something called 00:19:13.230 --> 00:19:15.650 the Circle Proudhon in 1911 and a connection 00:19:15.650 --> 00:19:18.549 to proto -fascism. In 1911, a right -wing French 00:19:18.549 --> 00:19:21.150 group formed the Circle Proudhon. What they did 00:19:21.150 --> 00:19:23.549 was selectively appropriate parts of his philosophy. 00:19:23.950 --> 00:19:26.130 They took his mutualist economics and his deep 00:19:26.130 --> 00:19:28.470 traditionalism regarding the family, but they 00:19:28.470 --> 00:19:30.309 completely stripped away his anarchism. Just 00:19:30.309 --> 00:19:32.799 took the parts they liked. Instead, they mixed 00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:36.299 his ideas with extreme, integralist nationalism, 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:39.259 which is a far -right ideology focused on an 00:19:39.259 --> 00:19:42.140 authoritarian, culturally uniform nation -state. 00:19:42.900 --> 00:19:45.140 So they essentially hijacked his name for a movement 00:19:45.140 --> 00:19:48.019 he would have hated. Later historians, notably 00:19:48.019 --> 00:19:50.799 Ziyev Sternhell, have argued that Proudhon's 00:19:50.799 --> 00:19:53.700 intense anti -republicanism and disdain for parliamentary 00:19:53.700 --> 00:19:56.619 democracy made him a harbinger of fascist ideas. 00:19:57.240 --> 00:19:59.319 However, the overwhelming majority of modern 00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:01.640 Proudhon scholars, including K. Stephen Vincent, 00:20:02.259 --> 00:20:04.460 strongly reject the idea that Proudhon himself 00:20:04.460 --> 00:20:07.240 was a fascist. Because fascism requires a massive 00:20:07.240 --> 00:20:10.369 authoritarian state apparatus. Precisely. A core 00:20:10.369 --> 00:20:13.089 tenant of fascism is a centralized, dictatorial, 00:20:13.269 --> 00:20:15.650 and highly militaristic state. Proudhon spent 00:20:15.650 --> 00:20:18.009 his entire life fiercely advocating for the exact 00:20:18.009 --> 00:20:20.450 opposite. Radical decentralization. Federalism, 00:20:20.809 --> 00:20:22.630 the total abolition of the centralized state, 00:20:22.970 --> 00:20:25.950 and the end of militarism. To call the man who 00:20:25.950 --> 00:20:28.589 coined the term anarchist a proto -fascist requires 00:20:28.589 --> 00:20:30.990 ignoring the vast majority of his actual political 00:20:30.990 --> 00:20:33.809 philosophy. It really is a testament to how complex 00:20:33.809 --> 00:20:36.329 his writing was that groups from the radical 00:20:36.329 --> 00:20:39.069 left to the far right have tried to claim pieces 00:20:39.069 --> 00:20:42.150 of his legacy over the centuries. As we begin 00:20:42.150 --> 00:20:44.829 to wrap up this deep dive Proudhon stands out 00:20:44.829 --> 00:20:47.309 as a man of profound contradictions. He really 00:20:47.309 --> 00:20:49.390 does. He was a poverty stricken self -taught 00:20:49.390 --> 00:20:51.869 printer who became a giant of global philosophy. 00:20:52.549 --> 00:20:55.289 He coined anarchism but ended up serving in the 00:20:55.289 --> 00:20:58.369 French parliament. His ideas influenced major 00:20:58.369 --> 00:21:00.869 historical uprisings like the Paris Commune and 00:21:00.859 --> 00:21:03.799 Spanish cantonalism, both of which were attempts 00:21:03.799 --> 00:21:07.480 to create those highly decentralized local self 00:21:07.480 --> 00:21:09.920 -governments he dreamed of. And perhaps his most 00:21:09.920 --> 00:21:12.440 fascinating contradiction is his final mature 00:21:12.440 --> 00:21:14.940 evolution on the concepts of the state and property. 00:21:15.660 --> 00:21:18.599 Later in his life, particularly in his posthumously 00:21:18.599 --> 00:21:21.099 published theory of property, Pridon looked at 00:21:21.099 --> 00:21:23.519 the trajectory of modern nations and realized 00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:25.740 that the centralized state might never truly 00:21:25.740 --> 00:21:28.019 disappear. So he had to adapt his dialectic. 00:21:28.259 --> 00:21:30.319 Exactly. He completely changed his tune. The 00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:32.319 man who started his career shouting to the heavens 00:21:32.319 --> 00:21:35.539 that property is theft ended his life arguing 00:21:35.539 --> 00:21:38.410 that property is freedom. There's a massive shift. 00:21:38.609 --> 00:21:41.210 He concluded that the widespread equally divided 00:21:41.210 --> 00:21:43.329 possession of property by everyday people was 00:21:43.329 --> 00:21:45.970 actually the only power strong enough and grounded 00:21:45.970 --> 00:21:48.670 enough to act as a counterweight to the ever 00:21:48.670 --> 00:21:51.710 encroaching coercive power of the state. Which 00:21:51.710 --> 00:21:54.730 brings us directly to you, the listener. We spent 00:21:54.730 --> 00:21:56.890 this time exploring the 19th century battles 00:21:56.890 --> 00:22:00.170 over land, tools and factories. But if Proudhon's 00:22:00.170 --> 00:22:03.720 final realization was right. that personal uncompromising 00:22:03.720 --> 00:22:06.619 ownership is the only true defense against centralized 00:22:06.619 --> 00:22:09.680 power. What does that mean for us today, in an 00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:11.619 era where we increasingly don't actually own 00:22:11.619 --> 00:22:14.160 anything? That's a great question. Think about 00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:16.680 your digital life. From the software you subscribe 00:22:16.680 --> 00:22:19.059 to month to month, to the streaming libraries 00:22:19.059 --> 00:22:21.799 you access but don't possess, to the very data 00:22:21.799 --> 00:22:23.859 you generate that is stored on servers you will 00:22:23.859 --> 00:22:26.420 never see. We are living on digital property 00:22:26.420 --> 00:22:28.880 owned by massive centralized tech monopolies. 00:22:29.019 --> 00:22:31.380 In the 21st century, have we simply become digital 00:22:31.380 --> 00:22:33.759 peasants paying rent to a new kind of landlord? 00:22:34.299 --> 00:22:36.359 And if so, what would Proudhon tell us to do 00:22:36.359 --> 00:22:36.759 about it?