Proudon's Pipe Dream and other Fairy Tales

[whichfinder]

'PROUDHON'S PIPE DREAM AND OTHER FAIRY TALES: SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM VERSUS UTOPIAN SOCIALISM'

Date: Sunday 28 October at 7.00pm

Venue: The Socialist Party's premises, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN

Directions: About five minutes from Clapham North tube on the Northern line

Speaker: Steve Clayton

"Utopian Socialists 'dream' of an egalitarian society but without the scientific analysis of society and history that Scientific Socialism provides. Proudhon is the father of Anarchism but his utopian 'pipe dream' included support for the free market, monetary reform, and opposition to Socialist ideas of common ownership."

All welcome

Audience participation

Free entry and refreshments

[The Douche]

What a useless event. Show me a Proudhonist group that is relevant (in any, even minor way), and I'll retract my statement. Anarchism is not Proudhonism, and I am inclined to believe that the SP knows this...

[Manic Impressive]

I don't know I come across a lot of mutualist ideas presented as new. While we all struggle to look for new methods that can be effective it's good to make people aware of what has already failed. I don't think it says that all anarchism is Proudhonism but he was arguably the first of the 19th century and I've come across many anarchists who still argue for his relevance. Especially on places like Libcom.

[ed miliband]

no anarchists on libcom really "argue for his relevance", and you'll find nothing but criticism directed at reheated forms of mutualism (which usually come from so-called marxists these days, btw). there's one fella on libcom who loves proudhon, and indeed worked on a collection of proudhon's writings recently released by ak press, but other than that...

[Os Cangaceiros]

Is his name Iain MacKay?

[Grenzer]

Anarchism remains essentially Proudhonist in nature. The principle of workers self-management could only result in capitalism of small producers, much as Proudhon directly advocated. The only difference is that modern Anarchists don't directly advocate small scale capitalism, but their policies would inevitably lead to it. Their groaning about state capitalism is a farce.

[Tim Cornelis]

Anarchism remains essentially Proudhonist in nature. The principle of workers self-management could only result in capitalism of small producers, much as Proudhon directly advocated. The only difference is that modern Anarchists don't directly advocate small scale capitalism, but their policies would inevitably lead to it. Their groaning about state capitalism is a farce.

Yeah except every communist advocates workers' self-management, regardless of whether they call it so or not.

EDIT:

I can't grasp this criticism that is so often made. Workers' self-management is what it is: workers self-managing production. The only communists who don't advocate this are those who apparently believe machines will do 100% of the work.

EDIT II:


"The principle of workers self-management could only result in capitalism of small producers, much as Proudhon directly advocated."

Workers' self-management in no way implies "small producers." Since you were an anarchist once, you should know that anarchism advocates federalism. Which itself stems from Proudhon who advocated large-scale agro-industrial federations.

Anarcho-communists advocate the exact same mode of production any other communist advocates. If anarcho-communism will lead to small-scale production and capitalism, so will any other variant of communism. The only communist I know who doesn't advocate workers' self-management is l'Énfermé. While he never specified, at least to my knowledge, why, it seems he believes machines would replace all work--which is more of a pipe-dream than mutualism.


Their groaning about state capitalism is a farce

How is that even relevant? Those are two completely different topics, unless you see state-capitalism as necessity to not fall back in small-scale capitalism.

[Manic Impressive]

no anarchists on libcom really "argue for his relevance", and you'll find nothing but criticism directed at reheated forms of mutualism (which usually come from so-called marxists these days, btw). there's one fella on libcom who loves proudhon, and indeed worked on a collection of proudhon's writings recently released by ak press, but other than that...
I say yes it is and you say no it ain't........I'm telling you I've been in debates with anarchists on Libcom where they've been vehemently arguing that Proudhon is relevant to modern day anarchism. So, what, you calling me a liar?
Now I wouldn't agree with them and obviously you and the Douche don't either but there are anarchists who do think Proudhon is one of the cornerstones of anarchism. Are you saying these people don't exist?

If you feel that strongly about it perhaps you should go along and debate it.

[The Douche]

In my ten-ish years involved at various levels in various factions of the ultra-left (mostly in the mid-atlantic region of the US, and to some extent the northeast) I have never once heard an anarchist in real life talk about Proudhon in a positive way, and I can't think of anytime I encountered it online either.

I feel like anybody who might have some interest in him would probably be more interested in ParEcon or something.

I have met more anarchists fond of Lenin than of Proudhon. Now, I know many people who have read Proudhon, but nobody who really fucks with him as an influence.

As for libcom, they're all washed up weirdos, its where the teenagers of revleft go to die, like, if you took all the teenage internet-communists on here, and put them in a time machine forward 20 or 30 years, it would be libcom.

[ed miliband]

I say yes it is and you say no it ain't........I'm telling you I've been in debates with anarchists on Libcom where they've been vehemently arguing that Proudhon is relevant to modern day anarchism. So, what, you calling me a liar?
Now I wouldn't agree with them and obviously you and the Douche don't either but there are anarchists who do think Proudhon is one of the cornerstones of anarchism. Are you saying these people don't exist?

If you feel that strongly about it perhaps you should go along and debate it.

i'm not calling you a liar, but i've done a search of the libcom forums and other than the guy i mentioned i can't find any defence of proudhon. set me up with some links and i'll eat my words.

[ed miliband]

the most "proudhonist" shit around is like this: http://www.democracyatwork.info

former leninists whose dream is dead, but fundamentally never breaking with capital, imagining a future world where everyone owns their own business! how nice!

find me an anarchist into that shit.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I saw someone with a Proudhon t-shirt in Prague. I was very tempted to walk up to him and try to strike up a conversation, but I didn't. :unsure:

He actually does have a lot to do with classical anarchism, in my opinion. Some of the concepts he brought up (namely federalism and anti-statism) remain influential for anarchists. Rudolf Rocker, Emma Goldman, Kropotkin and Bakunin all credited him as an individual of primary importance within anarchist history. But those people have nothing to do with anarchism...;)

He's a pretty esoteric figure within modern anarchism, though. I'd bet that most anarchists haven't read any of his works. Plus his influence is further incumbered by the fact that he was never truly an "anarchist" as we understand the term today, as well as the fact that he held some social beliefs that were really bad, probably bad even in the context of his day. Plus IIRC the majority of Proudhon's writings haven't even been translated into english.

Most anarchists today are too busy wearing tight pants and reading Tiqqun.

[Positivist]

As for libcom, they're all washed up weirdos, its where the teenagers of revleft go to die, like, if you took all the teenage internet-communists on here, and put them in a time machine forward 20 or 30 years, it would be libcom.

Kind of hard to believe considering there aren't too many users on here who fall under the whole libertarian communist thing.

[ed miliband]

As for libcom, they're all washed up weirdos, its where the teenagers of revleft go to die, like, if you took all the teenage internet-communists on here, and put them in a time machine forward 20 or 30 years, it would be libcom.

totally, totally unchill.

really dunno how you;ve got that impression... most people on libcom are our age.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Didn't the SPGB write some godawful review of some ponderous Proudhon tome that was recently released?

Like, godawful in the sense that it seemed like they didn't even read the book, and just chose to vent their spleen about Proudhon? :lol:

[ed miliband]

spgb reviews are basically a paragraph about the book and three paragraphs about the correct spgb line.

[The Douche]

Most anarchists today are too busy wearing tight pants and reading Tiqqun.

I get the feeling that tiqqun has gone out of vogue. Look at @news comments, there is a pretty big divide between tiqqunists and more traditional insurrectos who see tiqqun as "marxist". Especially cause of the rejection of identity.


Kind of hard to believe considering there aren't too many users on here who fall under the whole libertarian communist thing.

Yeah, they haven't grown up yet. (come at me bros)


really dunno how you;ve got that impression... most people on libcom are our age.

Most people in the states with politics like that have gray hair.

[ed miliband]

no but seriously, what issues do you have with with libcom politics? afed or solfed, or both?

e: i'm in and out of afed, so i have no points to score here..

[Crux]

So this is a meeting to smoke pot and read Proudhon yes? Because I'm down for that.

[ed miliband]

So this is a meeting to smoke pot and read Proudhon yes? Because I'm down for that.

surely "pipe dream" implies either smack or crack? i'm down with doin that shit with spgb members just for laughs tho.

[whichfinder]

spgb reviews are basically a paragraph about the book and three paragraphs about the correct spgb line.

You reckon? Like this one, for example? :p

Property is Theft! A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology. Ed. Iain McKay. AK Press. 2011

"Proudhon came to fame in 1840 through a pamphlet What is Property? in which he declared that “property is theft”. Actually, this wasn’t as radical it might seem since what he was criticising was the private ownership of land. This was something which, later, supporters of capitalism such as JS Mill and Henry George also criticised and proposed to remedy by, respectively, land nationalisation and a single tax on rent. Proudhon didn’t even go that far; he advocated access for everyone to an equal amount of land.

Anarchists see him as their founding father as in this pamphlet he declared himself to be an “anarchist”, but by this he meant that he was opposed to government, even a democratically-constituted one, making rules about the production and distribution of wealth. He was (and remained till he died in 1865) a free marketeer, bitterly opposed to “communism” in the same terms and language as other free marketeers.

He has been called an “anarcho-capitalist” but this would be going too far as he was opposed to capitalism. “Anarchist free marketeer” would be fairer. His opposition to capitalism, however, was in the name of self-employed artisans who capitalism was reducing to working for wages for an employer. His proposed solution was that these should unite in “associations” (basically, cooperatives) which should exchange their products at their labour-time values. To this end he proposed a Bank of Exchange which would issue labour-money against products as well as providing interest-free loans to workers’ cooperatives it judged viable.

Iain McKay in his 50-page introduction puts a positive spin on this by stating that “Proudhon was an early advocate of what is now termed market socialism – an economy of competing co-operatives and self-employed workers”, adding “some incorrectly argue that market socialism is not socialist”. Some do indeed, but correctly. “Market socialism” is the economic equivalent of a square circle. But it gets worse. Proudhon envisaged his system coming into being gradually as the workers’ cooperatives, aided by free credit from his Bank of Exchange, conquered more and more sectors of the economy. He was opposed to strikes. In other words, he was a gradualist as well as a currency crank.

After being initially impressed by him (who he met and discussed with in Paris in 1844) Marx eventually realised that Proudhon, for all his insight that under the wages system the producers were exploited, was on the wrong track. When in 1846 Proudhon published his Système des contradictions économiques ou Philosophie de la misère. Marx wrote (in French) a reply La Misère de la philosophie, translated into English under the title The Poverty of Philosophy, the first public exposition of his views on economic matters.

Large extracts from Proudhon’s book are included in this anthology, with McKay’s sometimes tendentious footnotes. But McKay is on to a loser here. There is no way that Proudhon can be presented as a serious exponent either of the way capitalism works or even of the history of economic thought, certainly not when compared with Marx. Today, in fact, most anarchists accept Marx’s analysis of capitalism if not his politics.

Some anarchists might find this 800-page anthology useful. Those of them who are communists will discover, as they plough through his rambling writings, that Proudhon was a life-long and bitter opponent of “communism” and of the principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. If they still want to regard him as one of their founding fathers that’s their prerogative. For us he’s an anti-socialist."

[Ravachol]

Most anarchists today are too busy wearing tight pants and reading Tiqqun.

You say that like its a bad thing :p

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I like libcom, their library is pretty badass. af does strike me as the least interesting form anarchist politics could possibly take though. I wanna show up in my tight pants to smoke pot and read tiqqun with a couple people on this board though.

[Luís Henrique]

What a useless event. Show me a Proudhonist group that is relevant (in any, even minor way), and I'll retract my statement.

Stalinists. Stalinists are the most relevant Proudhonian group I can think of.

True, they don't know they are Proudhonian, but that is another consideration.

Luís Henrique

[ed miliband]

I like libcom, their library is pretty badass. af does strike me as the least interesting form anarchist politics could possibly take though. I wanna show up in my tight pants to smoke pot and read tiqqun with a couple people on this board though.

af likes the better communisation stuff tho.