ws conclusively the very "essence" of the "Father of
Anarchy."

Proudhon was the most typical representative of petty bourgeois
socialism. Now the "fate" of the petty bourgeois--in so far as he does
not adopt the proletarian standpoint--is to constantly oscillate between
Radicalism and Conservatism. To make more understandable what we have
said, we must bear in mind what the plan of social organisation
propounded by Proudhon was.

Our author shall tell us himself. It goes without saying that we shall
not escape a more or less authentic interpretation of Kant. "Thus the
line we propose to follow in dealing with the political question and in
preparing the materials for a constitution will be the same as that we
have followed hitherto in dealing with the social question." The _Voix
du Peuple_ while completing the work of its predecessors, the two
earlier journals, will follow faithfully in their footsteps.[20] What
did we say in these two publications, one after the other of which fell
beneath the blows of the reaction and the state of siege? We did not
ask, as our precursors and colleagues had done, Which is the best system
of community? The best organisation of property? Or again: Which is the
better, property or the community? The theory of St. Simon or that of
Fourier? The system of Louis Blanc or that of Cabet? Following the
example of Kant we stated the question thus: "How is it that man
possesses? How is property acquired? How lost? What is the law of its
evolution and transformation? Whither does it tend? What does it want?
What, in fine, does it represent?... Then how is it that man labours?
How is the comparison of products instituted? By what means is
circulation carried out in society? Under what conditions? According to
what laws?" And the conclusion arrived at by this monograph of property
was this: Property indicates function or attribution; community;
reciprocity of action; usury ever decreasing, the identity of labour and
capital (_sic!_). In order to set free and to realise all these terms,
until now hidden beneath the old symbols of property, what must be done?
The workers must guarantee one another labour and a market; and to this
end must accept as money their reciprocal pledges. Good! To-day we say
that political liberty, like industrial liberty, will result for us from
our mutual guarantees. It is by guaranteeing one another liberty that we
shall get rid of this government, whose destiny is to symbo