I’ve long been confused how Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, one of the supposedly greatest Anarchist Philosophers, was such a huge influence on Fascism and Nazism and other Far-Right ideologies. Houston Stewart Chamberlain the true ideological founder of Nazism cited Proudhon as an influence, as did Charles Maurras in creating his Integral Nationalism and Geroges Sorel, the Cercle Proudhon founded by Geroges Valois and Edouard Berth in 1911 is acknowledged even by Mussolini himself as where Fascism began.
But why? Proudhon’s Misogyny, Racism and Antisemitism could be written off as being products of the Bigotry of his time and theoretically separable for the core of his ideology. So even that isn’t enough to explain it. It’s not like the Nazis endorsed everyone who ever said anything Antisemitic, then they would have embraced Marx.
Then I learned about Proudhon’s Philosophy regarding war. You might think it’s an innate strawman for a Pacifist to accuse anyone of being Pro-War in principle, that it's always really a matter of defending a given war as a necessary evil. But no, Proudhon loved war, remember that speech from the Nazi villain in episode 4 of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged? That’s Proudhon. Proudhon believed War was necessary for human development, that it would be a bad thing for War and Conflict to ever cease happening.
Yet his Wikipedia page tries to tell people the opposite (as does the annoying Google AI Overview), not by quoting Proudhon directly but other people’s analysis of Proudhon. So here is the book itself.
It goes on and on about how War is innate to Human Nature, the exact opposite of what any self respecting Anarchist should believe. And here is how it ends.
“It is here that war, sublime in its manifestations, universal in its idea, juridical and consequently providential in its mission, will amaze us still more by the certainty, and, if you will allow me the term, by the positivism of its teaching.”
That people are constantly pretending this is an Anti-War text is baffling. He also clearly refers to “the adversaries of Militarism” as those he’s arguing against. Yes his love of War isn't exactly unconditional, he still believed you could wage War immorally. But at its core he viewed War as in and of itself objectively a good thing.
Seriously, Proudhon should be a Gundam villain.
The claim that he opposed Nationalism is entirely based on his support for Federalism (which is confusing the antithesis of the Federalist Part of the early United States advocated). The truth is Nationalism can be either Federalist or Centralist, Proudhonian Federalism is the main thing Maurras borrowed from Proudhon in defining his Integral Nationalism.
And the truth is his nominal status as the first Self identified Anarchist is a shame, if you read the details of his ideology you’ll see that he was always a Minarchist at best. Even his famous “Property is Theft” quote is one he went on to repeatedly qualify and walk back.
All that on it's own does not quite create Fascism or Nazism, but when combined with Thomas Carlyle's Heroarchy by later Philosophers it becomes inevitable.
The mid 19th Century French Philosopher who was the real forebearer of what Breadtube Anarchists believe in was Joseph Dejacque. And yet they keep name dropping Proudhon instead because of a status he holds by mere technicality.
Proudhon’s toxic influence on Anarchism is probably why the Manifesto of the Sixteen happened, a group of Anarchists who supported WW1 on the Allies side. Even Peter Kopropkin was in that group. The Italian Anarchists who were pro War virtually all went on to leave Anarchism and become Fascists, just like most of tItaly’s Pro-War Marxists and Syndicalists.
Fortunately most Anarchists did know better, like Emma Goldman and Italian Antifascist Enrico Malatesta.
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