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it, although only to the extent that he saw in it a guarantee of the
independence of the individual Moreover, Proudhon is too often
confused with what Bakunin called "the little so-called Proudhonian
coterie" which gathered around him in his last years. This rather
reactionary group was stillborn. In the First International it tried in vain
to put across private ownership of the means of production against
collectivism. The chief reason this group was short-lived was that most
of its adherents were all too easily convinced by Bakunin's arguments
and abandoned their so-called Proudhonian ideas to support collectivism.
In the last analysis, this group, who called themselves mutuellistes, were
only partly opposed to collectivism: they rejected it for agriculture
because of the individualism of the French peasant, but accepted it for
transport, and in matters of industrial self-management actually
demanded it while rejecting its name. Their fear of the word was largely
due to their uneasiness in the face of the temporary united front set up
against them by Bakunin's collectivist disciples and certain authoritarian
Marxists who were almost open supporters of state control of the
economy.
Proudhon really moved with the times and realized that it is impossible
to turn back the clock. He was realistic enough to understand that "small
industry is as stupid as petty culture" and recorded this view in his
Carnets. With regard to large-scale modern industry requiring a large
labor force, he was resolutely collectivist: "In future, large-scale industry
and wide culture must be the fruit of association." "We have no choice in
the matter," he concluded, and waxed indignant that anyone had dared to
suggest that he was opposed to technical progress.
In his collectivism he was, however, as categorically opposed to statism.
Property must be abolished. The community (as it is understood by
authoritarian communism) is oppression and servitude. Thus Proudhon
sought a combination of property and community: this was association.
The means of production and exchange must be controlled neither by
capitalist companies nor by the State. Since they are to the men who
work in them "what the hive is to the bee," they must be managed by
associations of workers, and only thus will collective powers cease to be
"alienated" for the benefit of a few exploiters. "We, the workers,
associated or about to be associated," wrote Proudhon in the style of a
manifesto,
"do not need the State .... Exploitation by the State always means rulers
and wage slaves. We want the government of man by man no more than
the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is the opposite of
governmentalism .... We want these associations to be . . . the first
components of a vast federation of associations and groups united in the
common bond of the democratic and social republic.
Proudhon went into detail and enumerated precisely the essential
features of workers' serf-management:
very associated individual to have an indivisible share in the property of
the company.
Each worker to take his share of the heavy and repugnant tasks.
Each to go through the gamut of operations and instruction, of grades
and activities, to insure that he has the widest training. Proudhon was
insistent on the point that "the worker must go through all the operations
of the industry he is attached to."
Office-holders to be elected and regulations submitted to the associates
for approval.
Remuneration to be proportionate to the nature of the position held, the
degree of skill, and the responsibility carried. Every associate to share in
the profits in proportion to the service he has given.
Each to be free to set his own hours, carry on his duties, and to leave the
association at will.
The associated workers to choose their leaders, engineers, architects, and
accountants. Proudhon stressed the fact that the proletariat still lacks
technicians: hence the need to bring into workers' self-management
programs "industrial and commercial persons of distinction" who would
teach the workers business methods and receive fixed salaries in return:
there is "room for all in the sunshine of the revolution."
This libertarian concept of self-management is at the opposite pole from
the paternalistic, statist form of self-management set out by Louis Blanc
in a draft law of September 15, 1849. The author of The Organization of
Labor wanted to create workers' associations sponsored and financed by
the State. He proposed an arbitrary division of the profits as follows: 25
percent to a capital amortization fund; 25 percent to a social security
fund; 25 percent to a reserve fund; 25 percent to be divided among the
workers. (13)
Proudhon would have none of self-management of this kind. In his view
the associated workers must not "submit to the State," but "be the State
itself." "Association . . . can do everything and reform everything
without interference from authority, can encroach upon authority and
subjugate it." Proudhon wanted "to go toward government through
association, not to association through government." He issued a warning
against the illusion, cherished in the dreams of authoritarian socialists,
that the State could tolerate free self-management. How could it endure
"the formation of enemy enclaves alongside a centralized authority"?
Proudhon prophetically warned: "While centralization continues to
endow the State with colossal force, nothing can be achieved by
spontaneous initiative or by the independent actions of groups and
individuals."
It should be stressed that in the congresses of the First International the
libertarian idea of self-management prevailed over the statist concept. At
the Lausanne Congress in 1867 the committee reporter, a Belgian called
Cesar de Paepe, proposed that the State should become the owner of
undertakings that were to be nationalized. At that time Charles Longuet
was a libertarian, and he replied: "All right, on condition that it is
understood that we define the State as 'the collective of the citizens' . . .,
also that these services will be administered not by state functionaries . . .
but by groupings of workers." The debate continued the following year
(1868) at the Brussels Congress and this time the same committee
reporter took care to be precise on this point: "Collective property would
belong to society as a whole, but would be conceded to associations of
workers. The State would be no more than a federation of various groups
of workers." Thus clarified, the resolution was passed.
However, the optimism which Proudhon had expressed in 1848 with
regard to self-management was to prove unjustified. Not many years
later, in 1857, he severely criticized the existing workers' associations;
inspired by naive, utopian illusions, they had paid the price of their lack
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