Proudhon

From MarxWiki

(1809-1865) Known as a "father of anarchism" along with Mikhail Bakunin, Proudhon was a French writer and printer who was described by Marx as the "boldest thinker of French socialism." Proudhon theorized a serial dialectic, an antimonic dialectic that unfolds in pairs and cannot be synthesized. "Serial" in this case refers to a 'whole composed of elements arranged according to a certain reason or law'. Everything in Proudhon's thought is identified, calculated, grouped, and differentiated -- what follows is that everything is synthesis. Proudhon's theory differs with the Marxist dialectic in that the emancipation of the proletariat is seen as a fact of the progression of history -- no vanguard or spark is needed. Since every event and contingency is in itself a synthesis, the Marxist dialectic to Proudhon is merely a description of the inevitable, a small event in a large progression of existence that can never be fully described or deciphered. While he had faith in the proletariat to bring about a new social structure, he was opposed to communism and statism, believing that social and economic facts were manifestations of ideas. Proudhon believed that society was a result of the contradictions of the power of man and that it should only be formed by contract. He advocated the creation of a "scientific socialism" whereby alienation would be destroyed and the equity of social relations could blossom. Other works include: What is Property: An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and Government (1840), Systems of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Misery (1846), and Idee Generale de la revolution (1851).