Proudhon the Anarchist

As a college student, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s 1851 book, The General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century:

To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted, pressured, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted, down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality!

All of us who believe we can govern ourselves, see the hypocrisy and corruption in those who rule. Yet, as so many of us, he was quite the contradiction. I just learned this today after reading the article, Be Careful of the Buffoon by David Todd in the New York Review of books, 10/8/26 That’s Proudhon thought women should be ruled by men. This doesn’t completely jive well with the whole anarchist message does it? As the shadow or Derrida’s ghost rears its ugly head again, we are left with a serious fallacy in Proudhon’s judgment.

When will they learn without giving the same rights to others they cannot have the same rights themselves.