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Mutualism is an
anarchist school of thought Anarchism is the political philosophy which holds ruling classes and the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, The following sources cite anarchism as a political philosophy: Slevin, Carl. "Anarchism." ''The Concise Oxford Dict ...
and
economic theory Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyze ...
that advocates a
socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
society based on
free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
s and usufructs, i.e. occupation and use property norms. One implementation of this system involves the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration. Mutualism is based on a version of the labor theory of value that it uses as its basis for determining economic value. According to mutualist theory, when a worker sells the product of their labor, they ought to receive money, goods, or services in exchange that are equal in economic value, embodying "the amount of labor necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility". The product of the worker's labour factors the amount of both mental and physical labour into the price of their product. While mutualism was popularized by the writings of anarchist philosopher
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
and is mainly associated as an anarchist school of thought and with libertarian socialism, its origins as a
type of socialism Types of socialism include a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic controlArnold, N. Scott (1998). ''The Philosophy and Economics of Market Socialism: A Critical Study''. Oxford University Press. p ...
go back to the 18th-century
labour movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...
in Britain first, then France and finally to the working-class Chartist movement. Mutualists oppose individuals receiving income through loans, investments and rent under capitalist social relations. Although opposed to this type of income, Proudhon expressed that he had never intended "to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree, ground rent and interest on capital. I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity which I propose." As long as they ensure the worker's right to the full product of their labour, mutualists support markets and
property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
in the product of labour, differentiating between capitalist private property (productive property) and personal property (private property).Crowder, George (1991). ''Classical Anarchism: The Political Thought of Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin''. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 85–86. . "The ownership narchists opposeis basically that which is unearned ..including such things as interest on loans and income from rent. This is contrasted with ownership rights in those goods either produced by the work of the owner or necessary for that work, for example his dwelling-house, land and tools. Proudhon initially refers to legitimate rights of ownership of these goods as 'possession,' and although in his latter work he calls this 'property,' the conceptual distinction remains the same."Hargreaves, David H. (2019). ''Beyond Schooling: An Anarchist Challenge''. London: Routledge. pp. 90–91. . "Ironically, Proudhon did not mean literally what he said. His boldness of expression was intended for emphasis, and by 'property' he wished to be understood what he later called 'the sum of its abuses'. He was denouncing the property of the man who uses it to exploit the labour of others without any effort on his own part, property distinguished by interest and rent, by the impositions of the non-producer on the producer. Towards property regarded as 'possession' the right of a man to control his dwelling and the land and tools he needs to live, Proudhon had no hostility; indeed, he regarded it as the cornerstone of liberty, and his main criticism of the communists was that they wished to destroy it." Mutualists argue for conditional titles to land, whose ownership is legitimate only so long as it remains in use or occupation (which Proudhon called possession), a type of private property with strong abandonment criteria. This contrasts with the capitalist non-
proviso Proviso means ''a conditional provision to an agreement''. It may refer to *Proviso Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States **Proviso Township High Schools District 209 that comprises ***Proviso East High School ***Proviso West High School * ...
labour theory of property, where an owner maintains a property title more or less until one decides to give or sell it. As libertarian socialists, mutualists distinguish their market socialism from state socialism and do not advocate state ownership over the
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as a ...
. Instead, each person possesses a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labour in the free market. Benjamin Tucker wrote of Proudhon that "though opposed to socializing the ownership of capital, he aimed nevertheless to socialize its effects by making its use beneficial to all instead of a means of impoverishing the many to enrich the few ... by subjecting capital to the natural law of competition, thus bringing the price of its own use down to cost". Although similar to the economic doctrines of the 19th-century American individualist anarchists, mutualism favours large industries. Mutualism has been retrospectively characterized sometimes as being a form of individualist anarchism and ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism. Proudhon described the
liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
he pursued as "the synthesis of communism and property". Some consider mutualism part of free-market anarchism, individualist anarchism and market-oriented left-libertarianism, while others regard it as part of social anarchism.


History


Origins

As a term, ''mutualism'' has seen a variety of related uses.
Charles Fourier François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical ...
first used the French term ''mutualisme'' in 1822, although the reference was not to an economic system. The first use of the noun ''mutualist'' was in the ''New-Harmony Gazette'' by an American Owenite in 1826. In the early 1830s, a French labour organization in Lyons called themselves the Mutuellists.Backer, Thomas B. (1978)
''The Mutualists: The Heirs of Proudhon in the First International, 1865–1878''
University of Cincinnati.
Wilbur, Shawn P. (2018). "Mutualism". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl. ''The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism''. Springer. pp. 213–224. . In ''What Is Mutualism?'', the American mutualist Clarence Lee Swartz defined it this way:
A social system based on equal freedom, reciprocity, and the sovereignty of the individual over himself, his affairs and his products; realized through individual initiative, free contract, cooperation, competition and voluntary association for defense against the invasive and for the protection of life, liberty and property of the non-invasive.
In general, mutualism can be considered the original anarchy since the mutualist
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
was the first person to identify himself as an anarchist. Although mutualism is generally associated with anarchism, it is not necessarily anarchist. According to
William Batchelder Greene William Batchelder Greene (April 4, 1819 – May 30, 1878) was a 19th-century individualist anarchist, Unitarian minister, soldier, and promoter of free banking in the United States. Greene was a member of the First International. Biography ...
did not become a "full-fledged anarchist" until the last decade of his life, but his writings show that by 1850 he had articulated a Christian mutualism, drawing heavily on the writings of Proudhon's sometimes-antagonist
Pierre Leroux Pierre Henri Leroux (7 April 1797 – 12 April 1871), was a French philosopher and political economist. He was born at Bercy, now a part of Paris, the son of an artisan. Life His education was interrupted by the death of his father, which ...
.Martin, James J. (1953)
''Men Against the State: The Expositers of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827–1908''
Auburn: Mises Institute. .
The Christian mutualist form or anarchist branch of
distributism Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated. Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching prin ...
and the works of distributists such as Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement can be considered a form of mutualism, or free-market
libertarian socialism Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (2 ...
, due to their opposition to both state capitalism and state socialism. According to ''A Mutualist FAQ'', mutualism was "the original form taken by the labor movement, first in Great Britain and shortly thereafter in France and the rest of Western Europe. Both mutualist practice and theory arose as part of the broad current of working class radicalism in England, from around the time of the publication of Paine's ''Rights of Man'' and the organization of the first Societies of Correspondence in the 1790s, to the Chartist movement. Mutualism existed for some time as a spontaneous working class practice before it was formalized in theory."Carson, Kevin, ''et al.'
"A Mutualist FAQ"
Mutualist: Free-Market Anti-Capitalism. Retrieved 30 September 20 – via The Anarchist Library.
Proudhon was involved with the Lyons mutualists and later adopted the name to describe his teachings. In ''What Is Mutualism?'', Swartz gives his account of the origin of the term, claiming that " e word 'mutualism' seems to have been first used by John Gray, an English writer, in 1832". When Gray's 1825 ''Lecture on Human Happiness'' was first published in the United States in 1826, the publishers appended the ''Preamble and Constitution of the Friendly Association for Mutual Interests, Located at Valley Forge''. 1826 also saw the publication of the ''Constitution of the Friendly Association for Mutual Interests at
Kendal, Ohio The plat for the town of Kendal, in Stark County, Ohio was entered on April 20, 1812. It was named by its founder, Thomas Rotch (1767–1823), after the town of Kendal, in Cumbria, England. Kendal was absorbed into the town of Massillon, Ohio in 1 ...
''. Of Proudhon's philosophy, Geoffrey Ostergaard summarized, "he argued that working men should emancipate themselves, not by political but by economic means, through the voluntary organization of their own labour—a concept to which he attached redemptive value. His proposed system of equitable exchange between self-governing producers, organized individually or in association and financed by free credit, was called 'mutualism'. The units of the radically decentralized and pluralistic social order that he envisaged were to be linked at all levels by applying 'the federal principle.'" The authors of ''A Mutualist FAQ'' quote
E. P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...
's description of the early working-class movement as mutualism. Thompson argued that it was "powerfully shaped by the sensibilities of urban artisans and weavers who combined a 'sense of lost independence' with 'memories of their golden age.' The weavers in particular carried a strong communitarian and egalitarian sensibility, basing their radicalism, 'whether voiced in Owenite or biblical language,' on 'essential rights and elementary notions of human fellowship and conduct.'" Thompson further wrote: "It was as a whole community that they demanded betterment, and utopian notions of redesigning society anew at a stroke—Owenite communities, the universal general strike, the Chartist Land Plan—swept through them like fire on the common. But essentially the dream which arose in many different forms was the same—a community of independent small producers, exchanging their products without the distortions of masters and middlemen." Mutualist
anti-capitalism Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as ...
originates in the Jacobin-influenced radicalism of the 1790s, which saw exploitation mainly in taxation and feudal landlordism in that "government appears as court parasitism: taxes are a form of robbery, for pensioners and for wars of conquest." In Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney's ''Ruins of Empire'', the nation was divided between those who "by useful laborus contribute to the support and maintenance of society" and "the parasites who lived off them", namely "none but priests, courtiers, public accountants, commanders of troops, in short, the civil, military, or religious agents of government." This was summarized by the following statement:
People.... What labour do you perform in the society?
Privileged Class. None: we are not made to labour.
People. How then have you acquired your wealth?
Privileged Class. By taking the pains to govern you.
People. To govern us!... We toil, and you enjoy; we produce and you dissipate; wealth flows from us, and you absorb it. Privileged men, class distinct from the people, form a class apart and govern yourselves.
According to the authors of ''A Mutualist FAQ'', "it would be a mistake to make a sharp distinction between this analysis and the later critique of capitalism. The heritage of the manorial economy and the feudal aristocracy blurred the distinction between the state and the economic ruling class. But such a distinction is largely imaginary in any social system. The main difference is that manorialism was openly founded on conquest, whereas capitalism hid its exploitative character behind a facade of 'neutral' laws." They further write that " e critique of pre-capitalist authority structures had many features that could be expanded by analogy to the critique of capitalism. The mutualist analysis of capitalism as a system of state-enforced privilege is a direct extension of the Jacobin/radical critique of the landed aristocracy. The credit and patent monopolies were attacked on much the same principles as the radicals of the 1790s attacked seigneural rents. There was a great continuity of themes from the 1790s through Owenist and Chartist times. One such theme was the importance of widespread, egalitarian property ownership by the laboring classes, and the inequity of concentrating property ownership in the hands of a few non-producers." According to them, this prefigured distributism. Other notable people mentioned as influences on mutualism include John Ball and Wat Tyler as part of the
Peasants' Revolt The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Blac ...
, William Cobbett, the English Dissenter and radical offshoots of
Methodism Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
such as the
Primitive Methodists The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primit ...
and the New Connexion, as well as the more secular versions of republicanism and economic populism going back to the Diggers and the Levellers, the Fifth Monarchists, William Godwin, Robert Owen,
Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
, Thomas Spence and the
Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
. By 1846, Proudhon was speaking of "mutuality" (''mutualité'') in his writings, and he used the term "mutualism" (''mutuellisme'') at least as early as 1848 in his ''Programme Révolutionnaire''. In 1850, Greene used the term ''mutualism'' to describe a mutual credit system similar to that of Proudhon. In 1850, the American newspaper ''The Spirit of the Age'', edited by William Henry Channing, published proposals for a mutualist township by Joshua King Ingalls and
Albert Brisbane Albert Brisbane (August 22, 1809 – May 1, 1890) was an American utopian socialist and is remembered as the chief popularizer of the theories of Charles Fourier in the United States. Brisbane was the author of several books, notably ''Social D ...
, together with works by Proudhon, Greene, Leroux and others. Proudhon ran for the French Constituent Assembly in April 1848 but was not elected, although his name appeared on the ballots in Paris, Lyon, Besançon and Lille. He was successful in the complementary elections of 4 June and served as a deputy during the debates over the
National Workshops National Workshops (french: Ateliers Nationaux) refer to areas of work provided for the unemployed by the French Second Republic after the Revolution of 1848. The political crisis which resulted in the abdication of Louis Philippe caused an indust ...
, created by the 25 February 1848 decree passed by Republican Louis Blanc. The workshops were to give work to the unemployed. Proudhon was never enthusiastic about such workshops, perceiving them as charitable institutions that did not resolve the problems of the economic system. He was against their elimination unless an alternative could be found for the workers who relied on the workshops for subsistence. Proudhon was surprised by the French Revolution of 1848. He participated in the February uprising and the composition of what he termed "the first republican proclamation" of the new republic. However, he had misgivings about the new provisional government headed by Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure (1767–1855), who since the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
in 1789 had been a longstanding politician, although often in the opposition. Proudhon published his perspective for reform, completed in 1849, titled ''Solution du problème social'' (''Solution of the Social Problem''), in which he laid out a program of mutual financial cooperation among workers. He believed this would transfer control of economic relations from
capitalists Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private pr ...
and
financiers An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Typ ...
to workers. The central part of his plan was establishing a bank to provide credit at a very low interest rate and issuing exchange notes that would circulate instead of money based on gold.


19th-century United States

Mutualism was especially prominent in the United States and advocated by American individualist anarchists. While
individualist anarchists in Europe Individualist anarchism in Europe proceeded from the roots laid by William GodwinGeorge Woodcock, Woodcock, George. 2004. ''Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements''. Broadview Press. p. 20. and soon expanded and diversified thr ...
are pluralists who advocate anarchism without adjectives and synthesis anarchism, ranging from anarcho-communist to mutualist economic types, most individualist anarchists in the United States advocate mutualism as a libertarian socialist form of
market socialism Market socialism is a type of economic system involving the public, cooperative, or social ownership of the means of production in the framework of a market economy, or one that contains a mix of worker-owned, nationalized, and privately owned ...
or a free-market socialist form of classical economics. Mutualism has been associated with two types of currency reform. Labour notes were first discussed in Owenite circles and received their first practical test in 1827 in the Time Store of former New Harmony member and individualist anarchist
Josiah Warren Josiah Warren (; 1798–1874) was an American utopian socialist, American individualist anarchist, individualist philosopher, polymath, social reformer, inventor, musician, printer and author. He is regarded by anarchist historians like Jam ...
. Mutual banking aimed at the monetization of all forms of wealth and the extension of free credit. It is most closely associated with
William Batchelder Greene William Batchelder Greene (April 4, 1819 – May 30, 1878) was a 19th-century individualist anarchist, Unitarian minister, soldier, and promoter of free banking in the United States. Greene was a member of the First International. Biography ...
, but Greene drew from the work of Proudhon, Edward Kellogg and William Beck and from the land bank tradition. Within individualist anarchist circles, mutualism meant non-communist anarchism or non-communist socialism. Historian
Wendy McElroy Wendy McElroy (born 1951) is a Canadian individualist feminist and voluntaryist writer. She was a co-founder along with Carl Watner and George H. Smith of ''The Voluntaryist'' magazine in 1982 and is the author of a number of books. McElroy ...
reports that American individualist anarchism received an important influence from three European thinkers. One of the most important influences was the French political philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, whose words "Liberty is not the Daughter But the Mother of Order" appeared as a motto on ''
Liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
''s masthead.
Wendy McElroy Wendy McElroy (born 1951) is a Canadian individualist feminist and voluntaryist writer. She was a co-founder along with Carl Watner and George H. Smith of ''The Voluntaryist'' magazine in 1982 and is the author of a number of books. McElroy ...

"The culture of individualist anarchist in Late-nineteenth century America"
''Liberty'' was an influential American individualist anarchist publication by Benjamin Tucker. For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, " is apparent ... that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. ... William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form".Eunice Minette Scuster
''Native American Anarchism: A Study of Left-Wing American Individualism''
After 1850, Greene became active in labour reform. He was elected vice-president of the New England Labor Reform League, the majority of the members holding to Proudhon's scheme of mutual banking, and in 1869, the Massachusetts Labor Union president. He then publishes ''Socialistic, Communistic, Mutualistic, and Financial Fragments'' (1875). He saw mutualism as the synthesis of "liberty and order". His "associationism ... is checked by individualism. ... 'Mind your own business,' 'Judge not that ye be not judged.' Over matters which are purely personal, as for example, moral conduct, the individual is sovereign as well as over that which he himself produces. For this reason, he demands 'mutuality' in marriage—the equal right of a woman to her own personal freedom and property". In ''Individual Liberty'', Tucker later connected his economic views with those of Proudhon, Warren and
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, taking sides with the first two while also arguing against American anti-socialists who declared socialism as imported, writing:
The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his ''Wealth of Nations'', – namely, that labor is the true measure of price. ... Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy. ... This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of three different nationalities, in three different languages: Josiah Warren, an American; Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman; Karl Marx, a German Jew. ... That the work of this interesting trio should have been done so nearly simultaneously would seem to indicate that Socialism was in the air, and that the time was ripe and the conditions favorable for the appearance of this new school of thought. So far as priority of time is concerned, the credit seems to belong to Warren, the American, – a fact which should be noted by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against Socialism as an imported article.


19th-century Spain

Mutualist ideas found fertile ground in the 19th century in Spain. In Spain, Ramón de la Sagra established the anarchist journal ''El Porvenir'' in A Coruña in 1845, inspired by Proudhon's ideas."Anarchism"
at the ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
'' online.
The Catalan politician Francesc Pi i Margall became the principal translator of Proudhon's works into Spanish and later briefly became president of Spain in 1873 while being the leader of the Democratic Republican Federal Party. According to George Woodcock, " ese translations were to have a profound and lasting effect on the development of Spanish anarchism after 1870, but before that time Proudhonian ideas, as interpreted by Pi, already provided much of the inspiration for the federalist movement which sprang up in the early 1860's 'sic''. According to the ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
'', " ring the Spanish revolution of 1873, Pi y Margall attempted to establish a decentralized, or cantonalist, political system on Proudhonian lines". Pi i Margall was a dedicated theorist in his own right, especially through book-length works such as ''La reacción y la revolución'' (''Reaction and Revolution'' from 1855), ''Las nacionalidades'' (''Nationalities'' from 1877) and ''La Federación'' (''The Federation'' from 1880). For prominent anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker, " e first movement of the Spanish workers was strongly influenced by the ideas of Pi y Margall, leader of the Spanish Federalists and disciple of Proudhon. Pi y Margall was one of the outstanding theorists of his time and had a powerful influence on the development of libertarian ideas in Spain. His political ideas had much in common with those of Richard Price, Joseph Priestly 'sic''
Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
, Jefferson, and other representatives of the Anglo-American liberalism of the first period. He wanted to limit the power of the state to a minimum and gradually replace it by a Socialist economic order".


First International and Paris Commune

According to a historian of the First International, G. M. Stekloff, in April 1856, "arrived from Paris a deputation of Proudhonist workers whose aim it was to bring about the foundation of a Universal League of Workers. The object of the League was the social emancipation of the working class, which, it was held, could only be achieved by a union of the workers of all lands against international capital. Since the deputation was one of Proudhonists, of course this emancipation was to be secured, not by political methods, but purely by economic means, through the foundation of productive and distributive co-operatives". Stekloff continues by saying that " was in the 1863 elections that for the first time workers' candidates were run in opposition to bourgeois republicans, but they secured very few votes. ... group of working-class Proudhonists (among whom were Murat and Tolain, who were subsequently to participate in the founding of the (First) International issued the famous Manifesto of the Sixty, which, though extremely moderate in tone, marked a turning point in the history of the French movement. For years and years the bourgeois liberals had been insisting that the revolution of 1789 had abolished class distinctions. The Manifesto of the Sixty loudly proclaimed that classes still existed. These classes were the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The latter had its specific class interests, which none but workers could be trusted to defend. The inference drawn by the Manifesto was that there must be independent working-class candidates". For Stekloff, "the Proudhonists, who were at that date the leaders of the French section of the International. They looked upon the International Workingmen's Association as a sort of academy or synagogue, where Talmudists or similar experts could "investigate" the workers' problem; wherein the spirit of Proudhon they could excogitate means for an accurate solution of the problem without being disturbed by the stresses of a political campaign. Thus Fribourg, voicing the opinions of the Parisian group of the Proudhonists (Tolain and Co.), assured his readers that "the International was the greatest attempt ever made in modern times to aid the proletariat towards the conquest, by peaceful, constitutional, and moral methods, of the place which rightly belongs to the workers in the sunshine of civilisation". According to Stekoff, the Belgian Federation "threw in its lot with the anarchist International at its Brussels Congress, held in December, 1872. ... ose taking part in the socialist movement of the Belgian intelligentsia were inspired by Proudhonist ideas which naturally led them to oppose the Marxist outlook". Mutualism also had a considerable influence on the
Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defende ...
. George Woodcock manifests that "a notable contribution to the activities of the Commune and particularly to the organization of public services was made by members of various anarchist factions, including the mutualists Courbet, Longuet, and Vermorel, the libertarian collectivists Varlin, Malon, and Lefrangais, and the bakuninists Elie and Elisée Reclus and Louise Michel".


21st century

19th-century mutualists considered themselves libertarian socialists"A Mutualist FAQ: A.4. Are Mutualists Socialists?"
Mutualist: Free-Market Anti-Capitalism. . Retrieved 27 September 2020.
and are still considered libertarian socialists today. While oriented towards cooperation, mutualists favour free-market solutions, believing that most inequalities result from preferential conditions created by government intervention. Mutualism is a middle way between classical economics and
socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes th ...
of the collectivist variety, with some characteristics of both. As for capital goods (manufactured and non-land
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as a ...
), mutualist opinion differs on whether these should be
common property Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every econo ...
and commonly managed public assets or private property in the form of worker cooperatives, for as long as they ensure the worker's right to the full product of their labour, mutualists support
markets Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...
and
property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
in the product of labour, differentiating between capitalist private property (productive property) and personal property (private property). Contemporary mutualist Kevin Carson considers mutualism to be free-market socialism. Proudhon supported labor-owned
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...
firms and associations, for "we need not hesitate, for we have no choice. ... is necessary to form an association among workers ... because without that, they would remain related as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two ... castes of masters and wage-workers, which is repugnant to a free and democratic society" and so "it becomes necessary for the workers to form themselves into democratic societies, with equal conditions for all members, on pain of a relapse into
feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structu ...
". In the preface to his '' Studies in Mutualist Political Economy'', Carson describes this work as "an attempt to revive individualist anarchist political economy, to incorporate the useful developments of the last hundred years, and to make it relevant to the problems of the twenty-first century". Carson holds that
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
has been founded on "an act of robbery as massive as feudalism" and argues that capitalism could not exist in the absence of a state. He says that " is state intervention that distinguishes capitalism from the free market". Carson does not define capitalism in the idealized sense, but he says that when he talks about capitalism, he is referring to what he calls
actually existing capitalism "Actually existing capitalism" or "really existing capitalism" is an ironic term used by critics of capitalism and neoliberalism. The term is used to claim that many economies purportedly practicing capitalism (an economic system characterized by a ...
. Carson believes the term ''
laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups ...
'' capitalism is an oxymoron because capitalism, he argues, is an "organization of society, incorporating elements of tax, usury, landlordism, and tariff, which thus denies the Free Market while pretending to exemplify it". Carsons says he has no quarrel with anarcho-capitalists who use the term ''laissez-faire'' capitalism and distinguish it from actually existing capitalism. Although Carson says he has deliberately chosen to resurrect an old definition of the term. Many anarchists, including mutualists, continue to use the term and do not consider it an old definition. Carson argues that the centralization of wealth into a class hierarchy is due to state intervention to protect the
ruling class In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political and economic agenda of society. In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the capitalist social class who own the means of production and by ex ...
by using a money monopoly, granting
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
s and subsidies to corporations, imposing discriminatory
taxation A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...
and intervening militarily to gain access to international markets. Carson's thesis is that an authentic and free market economy would not be capitalism as the separation of labour from ownership and the subordination of labour to capital would be impossible, bringing a classless society where people could easily choose between working as a freelancer, working for a living wage, taking part of a cooperative, or being an entrepreneur. As Benjamin Tucker before, Carson notes that a mutualist free-market system would involve significantly different property rights than capitalism, particularly regarding land and intellectual property. Following Proudhon, mutualists are libertarian socialists who consider themselves part of the
market socialist Market socialism is a type of economic system involving the public, cooperative, or social ownership of the means of production in the framework of a market economy, or one that contains a mix of worker-owned, nationalized, and privately owned ...
tradition and the socialist movement. However, some contemporary mutualists outside the classical anarchist tradition, such as those involved in the market-oriented left-libertarianism within the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and the Voluntary Cooperation Movement, abandoned the
labour theory of value The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The LTV is usually associated with Marxian ...
and prefer to avoid the term ''socialist'' due to its association with state socialism throughout the 20th century. Nonetheless, those contemporary mutualists are part of the libertarian left and "still retain some cultural attitudes, for the most part, that set them off from the
libertarian right Right-libertarianism,Rothbard, Murray (1 March 1971)"The Left and Right Within Libertarianism" ''WIN: Peace and Freedom Through Nonviolent Action''. 7 (4): 6–10. Retrieved 14 January 2020.Goodway, David (2006). '' Anarchist Seeds Beneath the ...
. Most of them view mutualism as an alternative to capitalism, and believe that capitalism as it exists is a statist system with exploitative features". According to historian
James J. Martin James J. Martin (1916–2004) was an American historian and author known for espousing Holocaust denial in his works. He is known for his book, ''American Liberalism and World Politics, 1931–1941'' (1964). Fellow Holocaust denier Harry Elmer B ...
, the individualist anarchists in the United States were socialists whose support for the
labour theory of value The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The LTV is usually associated with Marxian ...
made their libertarian socialist form of mutualism a free-market socialist alternative to
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
and
Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
.Martin, James J. (1970). ''Men Against the State''. Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles Publisher. pp. viii, ix, 209.


Theory

The primary aspects of mutualism are free association, free banking, reciprocity in the form of mutual aid,
workplace democracy Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in various forms (examples include voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal) to the workplace. It can be implemented in a variety ...
, workers' self-management, gradualism and dual power. Mutualism is often described by its proponents as advocating an anti-capitalist free market. Mutualists argue that most of the economic problems associated with capitalism each amount to a violation of the cost principle, or as
Josiah Warren Josiah Warren (; 1798–1874) was an American utopian socialist, American individualist anarchist, individualist philosopher, polymath, social reformer, inventor, musician, printer and author. He is regarded by anarchist historians like Jam ...
interchangeably said, the cost the limit of price. It was inspired by the
labour theory of value The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The LTV is usually associated with Marxian ...
, which was popularized—although not invented—by Adam Smith in 1776 (Proudhon mentioned Smith as an inspiration). The labor theory of value holds that the actual price of a thing (or the true cost) is the amount of labor undertaken to produce it. In Warren's terms of his cost the limit of price theory, cost should be the limit of price, with cost referring to the amount of labour required to produce a good or service. Anyone who sells goods should charge no more than the cost to himself of acquiring these goods.


Contract and federation

Mutualism holds that producers should exchange their goods at cost-value using contract systems. While Proudhon's early definitions of cost-value were based on fixed assumptions about the value of labour hours, he later redefined cost-value to include other factors such as the labour intensity, the nature of the work involved, etc. He also expanded his notions of contract into expanded notions of federation. Proudhon argued:
I have shown the contractor, at the birth of industry, negotiating on equal terms with his comrades, who have since become his workmen. It is plain, in fact, that this original equality was bound to disappear through the advantageous position of the master and the dependent position of the wage-workers. In vain does the law assure the right of each to enterprise. ... When an establishment has had leisure to develop itself, enlarge its foundations, ballast itself with capital, and assure itself a body of patrons, what can a workman do against a power so superior?


Dual power and gradualism

Dual power is the process of building alternative institutions to the ones that already exist in modern society. Initially theorized by Proudhon, it has become adopted by many anti-state movements such as
agorism Agorism is a social philosophy that advocates creating a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges by means of counter-economics, engaging with aspects of nonviolent revolution. It was first proposed by American liber ...
and
autonomism Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tende ...
. Proudhon described it as follows:
Beneath the governmental machinery, in the shadow of political institutions, out of the sight of statemen and priests, society is producing its own organism, slowly and silently; and constructing a new order, the expression of its vitality and autonomy.
As Proudhon also theorized it, dual power should not be confused with the dual power popularized by
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
. Proudhon's meaning refers to a more specific scenario where a revolutionary entity intentionally maintains the structure of the previous political institutions until the power of the previous institution is weakened enough such that the revolutionary entity can overtake it entirely. Dual power, as implemented by mutualists, is the development of the alternative institution itself.


Free association

Mutualists argue that association is only necessary where there is an organic combination of forces. An operation requires specialization and many different workers performing tasks to complete a unified product, i.e. a factory. In this situation, workers are inherently dependent on each other; without association, they are related as subordinate and superior, master and wage-slave. An operation that an individual can perform without the help of specialized workers does not require association. Proudhon argued that peasants do not require societal form and only feigned association for solidarity in abolishing rents, buying clubs, etc. He recognized that their work is inherently sovereign and free. In commenting on the degree of association that is preferable, Proudhon wrote:
In cases in which production requires great division of labour, it is necessary to form an association among the workers ... because without that they would remain isolated as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two industrial castes of masters and wage workers, which is repugnant in a free and democratic society. But where the product can be obtained by the action of an individual or a family, ... there is no opportunity for association.
For Proudhon, mutualism involved creating industrial democracy. In this system, workplaces would be "handed over to democratically organised workers' associations. ... We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies woven into the common cloth of the democratic social Republic". Under mutualism, workers would no longer sell their labour to a capitalist but rather work for themselves in co-operatives. Proudhon urged "workers to form themselves into democratic societies, with equal conditions for all members, on pain of a relapse into feudalism". This would result in " pitalistic and proprietary exploitation, stopped everywhere, the wage system abolished, equal and just exchange guaranteed". As Robert Graham notes, "Proudhon's market socialism is indissolubly linked to his notions of industrial democracy and workers' self-management". K. Steven Vincent notes in his in-depth analysis of this aspect of Proudhon's ideas that "Proudhon consistently advanced a program of industrial democracy which would return control and direction of the economy to the workers". For Proudhon, "strong workers' associations ... would enable the workers to determine jointly by election how the enterprise was to be directed and operated on a day-to-day basis".


Mutual credit

Mutualists support mutual credit and argue that free banking should be taken back by the people to establish systems of free credit. They contend that banks have a monopoly on credit, just as capitalists have a monopoly on the means of production and landlords have a land monopoly. Banks create money by lending out deposits that do not belong to them and then charging interest on the difference. Mutualists argue that by establishing a democratically run mutual savings bank or
credit union A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provis ...
, it would be possible to issue free credit so that money could be created for the participants' benefit rather than the bankers' benefit. Individualist anarchists noted for their detailed views on mutualist banking include
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
,
William Batchelder Greene William Batchelder Greene (April 4, 1819 – May 30, 1878) was a 19th-century individualist anarchist, Unitarian minister, soldier, and promoter of free banking in the United States. Greene was a member of the First International. Biography ...
and Lysander Spooner. In a session of the French legislature, Proudhon proposed a government-imposed
income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Ta ...
to fund his mutual banking scheme, with some tax brackets reaching as high as 33 percent and 50 percent, but the legislature turned it down. This income tax Proudhon proposed to fund his bank was to be levied on rents, interest, debts and salaries. Specifically, Proudhon's proposed law required all capitalists and stockholders to disburse one-sixth of their income to their tenants and debtors and another sixth to the national treasury to fund the bank.Martin, Henri; Alger, Abby Langdon (2012). ''A Popular History of France from the First Revolution to the Present Time: 1832–1881''. Ulan Press. p. 189. This scheme was vehemently objected to by others in the legislature, including Frédéric Bastiat. The reason for rejecting the income tax was that it would result in economic ruin and violate "the right of property". Proudhon once proposed funding a national bank with a voluntary tax of 1% in his debates with Bastiat. Proudhon also argued for the abolition of all taxes.


Property

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
was an anarchist and socialist philosopher who articulated thoughts on the nature of property. He claimed that " property is theft", "property is liberty", and "property is impossible". According to Colin Ward, Proudhon did not see a contradiction between these slogans. This was because Proudhon distinguished between what he considered to be two distinct forms of property often bound up in a single label. To the mutualist, this is the distinction between property created by coercion and property created by labour. Property is theft "when it is related to a landowner or capitalist whose ownership is derived from conquest or exploitation and sonly maintained through the state, property laws, police, and an army". Property is freedom for "the peasant or artisan family ho havea natural right to a home, land hey maycultivate, ... to tools of a trade" and the fruits of that cultivation—but not to ownership or control of the lands and lives of others. The former is considered illegitimate property, while the latter is legitimate property. Some individualist anarchists and followers of Proudhon's mutualism, such as Benjamin Tucker, started calling possession ''property'' or ''private property'', causing confusion within the anarchist movement and among other socialists. Proudhon argued that property in the product of labour is essential to liberty, while property that strayed from possession ("occupancy and use") was the basis for tyranny and would lead society to destroy itself. The conception of entitlement property as a destructive force and illegitimate institution can be seen in this quote by Proudhon, who argued:
Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a natural right, this natural right is not social, but anti-social. Property and society are utterly irreconcilable institutions. It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to join two magnets by their opposite poles. Either society must perish, or it must destroy property. If property is a natural, absolute, imprescriptible, and inalienable right, why, in all ages, has there been so much speculation as to its origin? – for this is one of its distinguishing characteristics. The origin of a natural right! Good God! who ever inquired into the origin of the rights of liberty, security, or equality?
In ''What Is Mutualism?'', Clarence Lee Swartz wrote:
It is, therefore, one of the purposes of Mutualists, not only to awaken in the people the appreciation of and desire for freedom, but also to arouse in them a determination to abolish the legal restrictions now placed upon non-invasive human activities and to institute, through purely voluntary associations, such measures as will liberate all of us from the exactions of privilege and the power of concentrated capital.Bojicic, Savo (2010). ''America America or Is It?'' Bloomington: AuthorHouse. p. 369. .
Swartz also argued that mutualism differs from
anarcho-communism Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains re ...
and other collectivist philosophies by its support of private property, writing: "One of the tests of any reform movement with regard to personal liberty is this: Will the movement prohibit or abolish private property? If it does, it is an enemy of liberty. For one of the most important criteria of freedom is the right to private property in the products of ones labor. State Socialists, Communists, Syndicalists and Communist-Anarchists deny private property." However, Proudhon warned that a society with private property would lead to statist relations between people, arguing:
The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, 'This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.' Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these multiply, and soon the people ... will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their birth-right; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, 'So perish idlers and vagrants.'
Unlike
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
private-property supporters, Proudhon stressed equality. He thought that all workers should own property and have access to capital, stressing that in every cooperative, "every worker employed in the association ust havean undivided share in the property of the company". This distinction Proudhon made between different kinds of property has been articulated by some later anarchist and socialist theorists as one of the first distinctions between private property and personal property, with the latter having direct use-value to the individual possessing it. For Proudhon, as he wrote in the sixth study of his ''General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century'', the capitalist's employee was "subordinated, exploited: his permanent condition is one of obedience".


Usufruct

Mutualists believe that land should not be a commodity to be bought and sold, advocating for conditional titles to land based on occupancy and use norms. Mutualists argue whether an individual has a legitimate claim to land ownership if he is not currently using it but has already incorporated his labour into it. All mutualists agree that everything produced by human labour and machines can be owned as personal property. Mutualists reject the idea of non-personal property and non-
proviso Proviso means ''a conditional provision to an agreement''. It may refer to *Proviso Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States **Proviso Township High Schools District 209 that comprises ***Proviso East High School ***Proviso West High School * ...
Lockean John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of ...
sticky property. Any property obtained through violence, bought with money gained through exploitation, or bought with money that was gained violating usufruct property norms is considered illegitimate. According to mutualist theory, the main problem with
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
is that it allows for non-personal property ownership. Under these conditions, a person can buy property they do not physically use with the only goal of owning said property to prevent others from using it, putting them in an economically weak position, vulnerable enough to be controlled and exploited. Mutualists argue that this is historically how certain people were able to become
capitalists Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private pr ...
. According to mutualism, capitalists make money by exercising power rather than labouring. Over time, under these conditions, there emerged a minority class of individuals who owned all the
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as a ...
as non-personal property (the capitalist class) and a large class of individuals with no access to the means of production (the labouring class). The labouring class does not have direct access to the means of production and therefore is forced to sell the only thing they can to survive, i.e. their labour power, giving up their freedom to someone who owns the means of production in exchange for a wage. A worker's wage is always less than the value of the goods and services he produces. If an employer pays a labourer equal to the value of the goods and services he produces, then the capitalist would break even at most. In reality, the capitalist pays his worker less, and after subtracting overhead, the remaining difference is exploited profit which the capitalist has gained without working. Mutualists point out that the money capitalists use to buy new means of production is the
surplus value In Marxian economics, surplus value is the difference between the amount raised through a sale of a product and the amount it cost to the owner of that product to manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cos ...
they exploit from labourers. Mutualists also argue that capitalists maintain ownership of their non-personal properties because they support state violence by funding election campaigns. The state protects capitalist non-personal property ownership against direct occupation and use by the public in exchange for money and election support. Capitalists can then continue buying labour power and the means of production as non-personal property and extracting surplus value from more labourers, continuing the cycle. Mutualist theory states that by establishing usufruct property norms, exclusive non-personal ownership of the means of production by the capitalist class would be eliminated. The labouring classes would then have direct access to means of production, enabling them to work and produce freely in worker-owned enterprises while retaining the full value of whatever they sell. Wage labour in the form of wage slavery would be eliminated, and it would be impossible to become a capitalist because the widespread labour market would no longer exist. No one would be able to own the means of production in the form of non-personal property, two ingredients necessary for labour exploitation. This would result in the capitalist class labouring with the rest of society.


Criticism


Anarchism

In Europe, a contemporary critic of Proudhon was the early libertarian communist Joseph Déjacque,Déjacque, Joseph (1857)
"De l'être-humain mâle et femelle – Lettre à P.J. Proudhon par Joseph Déjacque"
(in French).
The
Anarchist FAQ Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessaril ...
Editorial Collective (2008)
"150 years of Libertarian"
Retrieved 16 July 2020.
who was able to serialise his book ''L'Humanisphère, Utopie anarchique'' (''The Humanisphere: Anarchic Utopia'') in his periodical ''Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social'' (''Libertarian: Journal of Social Movement''), published in 27 issues from 9 June 1858 to 4 February 1861 while living in New York. Unlike and against Proudhon, he argued that "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature".Pengam, Alain

According to Pengam, Déjacque criticized Proudhon as far as "the Proudhonist version of Ricardian socialism, centred on the reward of labour power and the problem of exchange value. In his polemic with Proudhon on women's emancipation, Déjacque urged Proudhon to push on 'as far as the abolition of the contract, the abolition not only of the sword and of capital, but of property and authority in all their forms,' and refuted the commercial and wages logic of the demand for a 'fair reward' for 'labour' (labour power). Déjacque asked: 'Am I thus right to want, as with the system of contracts, to measure out to each—according to their accidental capacity to produce—what they are entitled to?' The answer given by Déjacque to this question is unambiguous: 'it is not the product of his or her labour that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature.' ..For Déjacque, on the other hand, the communal state of affairs—the phalanstery 'without any hierarchy, without any authority' except that of the 'statistics book'—corresponded to 'natural exchange,' i.e. to the 'unlimited freedom of all production and consumption; the abolition of any sign of agricultural, individual, artistic or scientific property; the destruction of any individual holding of the products of work; the demonarchisation and the demonetarisation of manual and intellectual capital as well as capital in instruments, commerce and buildings."
In his critique of Proudhon, Déjacque also coined the word ''libertarian'' and argued that Proudhon was merely a liberal, a moderate, suggesting he become "frankly and completely an anarchist" instead by giving up all forms of authority and property. Since then, the word ''libertarian'' has been used to describe this consistent anarchism which rejected private and public hierarchies along with property in the products of labour and the means of production. Libertarianism is frequently used as a synonym for anarchism and libertarian socialism. One area of disagreement between anarcho-communists and mutualists stems from Proudhon's alleged advocacy of labour vouchers to compensate individuals for their labour and markets or artificial markets for goods and services. However, the persistent claim that Proudhon proposed a labour currency has been challenged as a misunderstanding or misrepresentation. Like other anarcho-communists, Peter Kropotkin advocated the abolition of labour remuneration and questioned, "how can this new form of wages, the labor note, be sanctioned by those who admit that houses, fields, mills are no longer private property, that they belong to the commune or the nation?" According to George Woodcock, Kropotkin believed that a wage system, whether "administered by Banks of the People or by workers' associations through labor cheques", is a form of compulsion.
Collectivist anarchist Collectivist anarchism, also called anarchist collectivism and anarcho-collectivism, Buckley, A. M. (2011). ''Anarchism''. Essential Libraryp. 97 "Collectivist anarchism, also called anarcho-collectivism, arose after mutualism." . is an anarchis ...
Mikhail Bakunin was an adamant critic of Proudhonian mutualism as well, stating: "How ridiculous are the ideas of the individualists of the Jean Jacques Rousseau school and of the Proudhonian mutualists who conceive society as the result of the free contract of individuals absolutely independent of one another and entering into mutual relations only because of the convention drawn up among men. As if these men had dropped from the skies, bringing with them speech, will, original thought, and as if they were alien to anything of the earth, that is, anything having social origin". Bakunin also specifically criticized Proudhon, stating that " spite all his efforts to free himself from the traditions of classical idealism, Proudhon remained an incorrigible idealist all his life, swayed at one moment by the Bible and the next by Roman Law (as I told him two months before he died)." According to Paul McLaughlin, Bakunin held that "'Proudhon, in spite of all his efforts to shake off the tradition of classical idealism, remained all his life an incorrigible idealist', 'unable to surmount idealistic phantoms' in spite of himself. It is Bakunin's purpose to rid Proudhon's libertarian thought of its metaphysicality, that is, to naturalize his anarchism — thereby overcoming its abstract, indeed reactionary, individualism and transforming it into a social anarchism."


Capitalism

The pro-capitalism criticism is due to the different conceptions of property rights between capitalism and mutualism. The latter supports free access to capital, the means of production and natural resources, arguing that permanent private ownership of land and capital results in monopolization without equal liberty of access. Mutualism also argues that a society with capitalist private property inevitably leads to statist relations between people.Martin, James J. ''Men Against the State''. p. 223.


See also

* Democratic socialism *
Economic democracy Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift decision-making power from corporate managers and corporate shareholders to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers, customers, suppliers, neighbou ...
* Geolibertarianism * Georgism * Guild socialism * History of anarchism *
History of socialism The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 184 ...
* Mutualism (movement) * Scientific socialism *
Social democracy Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...
* Socialist economics * Syndicalism *
Utopian socialism Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often ...


References


Bibliography

* Backer, Thomas B. (1978)
''The Mutualists: The Heirs of Proudhon in the First International, 1865–1878''
University of Cincinnati. * Wilbur, Shawn P. (2018)
"Mutualism"
In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl
''The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism''
Springer. pp. 213–224. .


External links

* Carson, Kevin (2006)
''Studies in Mutualist Political Economy''
BookSurge Publishing. * Gambone, Larry (1996)

Red Lion Press. * Greene, William Batchelder (1850)
''Mutual Banking: Showing the Radical Deficiency of the Present Circulating Medium and the Advantages of a Free Currency''
* Kropotkin, Peter (1902)
''Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution''
* Lloyd, J. William (1927)
''Anarchist-Mutualism''
Individualist anarchist criticism. * Long, Roderick T., ed. (Winter 2006)
''Journal of Libertarian Studies''
20 (1). This issue is devoted to Kevin Carson's ''Studies in Mutualist Political Economy'' and includes critiques and Carson's rejoinders. * Reisman, George (18 June 2006)
''Mutualism: A Philosophy for Thieves''
Mises Institute. Austrian School and Objectivist criticism. * Swartz, Clarence Lee. (1927)
''What Is Mutualism?''
* Warren, Josiah (1829)
''Plan of the Cincinnati Labor for Labor Store''
Mechanics Free Press. * Weisbord, Albert (1937)
"Mutualism"
''The Conquest of Power''. * Carson, Kevin, ''et al.'
"A Mutualist FAQ"
Mutualist: Free-Market Anti-Capitalism. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mutualism (economic theory) Anarchism Anarchist schools of thought Economic theories Free-market anarchism Individualist anarchism Left-wing politics Left-libertarianism Libertarian socialism Libertarianism by form Market socialism Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Schools of economic thought Social anarchism Types of socialism