1553, similar ideas against the State, its laws, and its "supreme injustice"; as also did the early precursors of Rationalism Armenia (in the ninth century), the Hussites (especially Chojecki, in the fifteenth century), and the early Anabaptists.
Rabelais in the first half of the sixteenth century, Fénélon at the end of it, and especially the Encyclopaedist Diderot at the end of the eighteenth century, developed the same ideas, which found, as has just been mentioned, some practical expression during the French Revolution.
But it was Godwin, in his "Enquiry Concerning Political Justice," who stated in 1793 in a quite definite form the political and economic principles of Anarchism. He did not use the word "Anarchy" itself, but he very forcibly laid down its principles, boldly attacking the laws, proving the uselessness of the State, and maintaining that only with the abolition of Courts true Justice—the only real foundation of all society—would become possible. As regards property, he openly advocated Communism.[1]
Proudhon was the first to use the word "An-archy" (No-Government) and to submit to a powerful criticism the fruitless efforts of men to give themselves such a Government as would prevent the rich ones from dominating the poor, and at the same time always remain under the control of the governed ones. The repeated attempts of France, since 1793, at giving herself such a Constitution, and the failure of the Revolution of 1848, gave him rich material for his criticism.
Being an enemy of all forms of State Socialism, of which the Communists of those years (the "forties" and "fifties" of the nineteenth century) represented a mere sub-division. Proudhon fiercely attacked all such attempts; and taking Robert Owen's system of labour cheques representing, hours of labour, he developed a conception of Mutualism, in which any sort or political Government would be useless.
The values of all the commodities being measured by the amount of labour necessary to produce them, all the exchanges between the producers could be carried on by means of a national bank, which would accept payment in labour cheques—a Clearing House establishing the daily balance of exchanges between the thousands of branches of this bank.
The services exchanged by different men would thus be
- ↑ It is all in the first edition of 1793, made in two quarto volumes. In the second edition, published in two octavo volumes in 1796, after the prosecution of his Republican friends, he withdrew his views on Communism, and mitigated his views on government.
