remove

remove

Submitted by adri on December 22, 2023

Comments

adri

6 months 4 weeks ago

Submitted by adri on December 22, 2023

The first piece above mentions Proudhon if it's of any interest. The Paris correspondent for the Chronotype apparently met with him:

One of the most noted of the leading radicals is M. Proudhon. He is a socialist, and not a socialist. He believes that the people must be saved, but that a commercial reform will relieve the present evils and settle the problem of France. I was at his house the other evening. He is a person of medium size, large head, and serious features; he speaks with warmth and decision, like a man whose convictions are ready for any trial. He explained his system in a rapid and clear manner, and he spoke of the crisis and what must be done. Against the moneyed class his eloquence was like a flood; they had slaughtered the people like brute beasts, rather than yield a sliver of their ill-got gains. Of theorists and students, he said, no more were wanted; they darkened counsel; of tinkering with political institutions they had too much; as to the question of one president, or three, he was indifferent; some said a good philosopher, a man of science, was needed to solve the tangled web, and bring light instead of darkness. A philosopher!—science! No, not a philosopher, but a Spartacus; not science, but the breaking of chains. No more discussing and talking, but action without rest!

Such is M. Proudhon, in private a man of the most gentle manners and of varied culture, but behind [him] all this revolutionary spirit, shooting up as in jets of flame. He has published the Representant du Peuple daily since the revolution. On Sunday last he proposed in it a petition to the Assembly, signed by such numbers as to make it a command, calling for the reduction of one-sixth from all rents about to fall due, one-half of the sum deducted to go to the state—the other half to the tenant. This was considered a direct attack upon property—which he has several times declared to be only a continuous robbery. Next day the paper was suspended by the order of the government. He will resume it again as soon as the siege is raised. The Fourierites, by the way, he dislikes very heartily; they are too quiet and pacific, and then they go for individual property.

What is the destiny of a country which contains many such men as Proudhon? One would say either to kill them, or be convulsed by them.

There's also some (not very positive) commentary on a book by the American anarchist Lysander Spooner in Vol. 3 No. 9.