Mutualism is an anarchist social philosophy first established in print by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. While often considered to be the father of mutualism (something I have repeated and am apt to do again), Proudhon was actually more of its first philosopher, because mutualism already existed to some degree, long before Proudhon would write about it in his works. Proudhon had spent time among the workman’s associations in Lyon, France, where he witnessed fraternal organizations and guilds functioning in mutualistic manners, involving member control from voluntary participants. When he wrote in favor of mutualism, he probably had these cooperative associations in mind. Nonetheless, Proudhon can be considered to be the first philosophical exponent of mutualism as a school of thought.
Along with being among the first philosophical proponents of mutualism, Proudhon is the first to call himself an anarchist. Yet, again, the sentiment against government and the state long preceded Proudhon. Some have traced it back to Ancient Greek or Chinese thinkers, such as Zeno or Lao Tzu. Others suggest that others much closer to Proudhon’s time were the first, such as William Godwin or Josiah Warren. Proudhon maintains the title of the first anarchist simply for being the first to call himself such on record.
Proudhon had been raised by a father who was a journeyman brewer and cooper and a mother who was a peasant and housekeeper. He is one of the few philosophers to truly have come from a lower class background. He had a thirst for knowledge, however, which drove him to study a large range of topics in social science and the humanities. He yearned for a society in which peasant and poor artisanal families like his own could live happy and fulfilling lives.
Proudhon had been influenced by a large range of thinkers, from the utopian socialists like Saint Simon and Charles Fourier to classical liberal economists such as Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say. He debated against communists such as Karl Marx, who had once been his proponent, and against capitalist philosophers such as Frederic Bastiat. Proudhon opposed communism, believing it to reward mediocrity at the expense of those who have more merit to perform social functions, and opposed capitalism on the grounds that idle holders of property held political power and income that was unearned. Proudhon said, “Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak.”
Proudhon sought instead to maintain a balance between these two worldviews, which had both influenced him earlier in life, through Charles Fourier and Adam Smith, among others, and which he found himself debating against later on, with Karl Marx and Frederic Bastiat. In his view, there are useful elements in communism, as well as in capitalism, but liberty is found...
[continue reading]Open Invitation to Comment
Feel free to respectfully comment, whether in favor or against. But be prepared to defend your view!
Read More!
You can find more like this on my real blog, Ambiarchy Blog, where I cover topics such as:
- Pantheism: The Belief that Nature is God
- Mutualism: The Belief in Anarchy and Cooperation
- Antapodism: The Belief in Friendship Between Humanity and Nature
... as well as other topics related to natural philosophy, natural theology, science, and history, including but not limited to:
- Witnessing Shell Theory: An Alternative Natural Cosmology
- Henogenic Volution Out-of-Everywhere: An Alternative Approach to Evolution
- Ambiarchy: An Alternative to Neo-Anarchism
Comments
Displaying 3 of 3 comments ( View all | Add Comment )
Will
TO THE PERSON WHO REPLIED: I am so sorry. I accidentally deleted your comment. This is the second time I have done this while trying to delete my own comment to replace it without all of the bullshit code and formatting FriendRewind interjects. I value your comment greatly, and deeply regret deleting your comment because I can't remember your screenname.
I did make a reply to you below.
by Will; ; Report
Will
p { line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.1in; background: transparent }
Sure. I'll be happy to explain more about mutualism.
Mutualism is a kind of super-ideology, or ideology of ideologies, which may more simply be referred to as an applied sociology (a sociology is a study of people, their varying beliefs intact). This means that while mutualism allows for just about any particular belief, it is not itself about particular beliefs so much as it is a science that uncovers a dynamic that allows for different belief systems and their holders to coexist. This dynamic does entail some particulars, but those are particulars relating to matters between ideologies, rather than particular to an ideology. And it does have consequences, those being the end of political authority and exploitative economic arrangements.
Mutualism recognizes that there are forces of individuality, competition, contest, and etc., but while acknowledging that what serves individuals is reciprocity (equal exchange), cooperation (working together), and mutuality (shared benefits), such that those who are more cooperative, reciprocal, and mutual fare better in competitions and contests. Mutualists are typically evolutionary thinkers, and so generally see this as consistent with natural selection.
In practice, mutualism looks like respect for individual rights and encouragement toward collective pursuits. A mutualist society would allow for individualism, but Nature would tend to reward those who work favorably with others. Mutualists believe that Nature provides all of the force necessary for society to function in a desirable way, such that compulsion, or artificiality, becomes undesirable, particularly with regard to humans. So mutualists allow for individual freedom knowing that free individuals build equal societies.
Mutualists believe that equality is artificially obstructed by the existence of governments, which privilege property-owners, while land is a natural resource that nobody created and so nobody has a right to own. Governments further trample on the individual's rights to claim that which they have made and exchange it in the ways that they would like. The result of government enabling property for some and propertylessness for others, and regulating some while privileging others, is that there is economic exploitation, which is scientifically measurable: economic rent, economic interest, economic profit, and taxes. All of these are tributes taken involuntarily, or, to say the same, under duress, which could not exist without government. Without government to manipulate things by force, economic market exchanges would be cost-for-cost, meaning equal, economic wages for economic wages (not here referring to the "wage system" or contract wages, as paid by an employer, as there would be no employers). This means that there would be no landlords, bosses, or bankers, and that everyone would own their own home, workplace (solely or in cooperation with others), and issue their own currency (mutually, by way of an association) backed by their own goods and services. The economic result would be an increase in production, a lowering of prices, and an increase in pay, making the economy abundant. Socially, the result would be a massive decrease in crime, cessation of war, end of poverty, reward for responsibility, and freedom to be wrong at one's own expense.
As far as "anarcho"-communism, like all forms of communism is traces back to the Illuminati by way of neo-Babouvism and Babouvism through people like Joseph Dejacque, Mikhail Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin who took to the views of the Babouvists. It is an attempt by occultists to circumvent legitimate anarchism, which is mutualism, the original, and turn it toward communist ends. Communism is the absence of freedom because it entails either democratic centralism or some other interference with the rights of people to exchange their products for money. "Community" is just a stand-in word for "the majority," which in practice tends to defer to an oligarchy that makes fanciful appeals to it, such as that things can be freely consumed. Because communism does not make use of natural human instincts, but goes against them, for it to exist in practice requires things like bread lines, labor camps, and etc. "Anarcho"-communism pretends this is not so so that workers keep attempting futile ends, remaining exploitable.
That said, and because mutualism is not an ideology, mutualism does incorporate the forces of communism. Proudhon described mutualism as the "synthesis of communism and property." Communistic elements include abolition of private property in land and democratic control in voluntary associations with sharing of assets.
Let me know if this helps or not and if you have any specific questions.