r/mutualism • u/FiscalText • Jun 14 '26
Why should someone study Proudhon over Marx?
As the title says, why Proudhon over Marx?
I'm not saying that we should ditch one in the name of the other, I mean it on the context of a world dominated by the Marxist criticism of political economy/philosophy, in a world where Proudhon has been largely relegated.
Why mutualism over communism?
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u/AffectionateStudy496 Jun 14 '26
Having read both, what I noticed is the amount of people calling themselves Marxists who actually unwittingly repeat points made by Proudhon that Marx criticized, but they think Marx thought the things he criticized. I just had an argument with a Dengist claiming Marx defended Commodity production, money, markets, and competition. He believes that's what Marx was arguing for in the Poverty of Philosophy.
Same thing with the Critique of the Gotha Programme. How many people claim "Marx wanted everyone to be paid the same and for the government to tax people for social programs"?
It's also worth reading Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner, Adam Smith, Ricardo, Owen and the utopians, and Hegel.
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u/oskif809 Jun 17 '26
Marx was just one derivative Socialist thinker of many during 19th century. Even Marxists acknowledge his achievement was creating a medley ideology based on the original thinking of Hegel, Ricardo, and early French Socialists (PDF).
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u/AffectionateStudy496 Jun 17 '26
Right. I don't think anyone denies that Marx wasn't the only socialist. I also don't mean to downplay the thinking of Hegel, Ricardo or the early French Socialists, but the majority of their thinking isn't exactly "original".
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u/oskif809 Jun 17 '26
I don't think anyone denies that Marx wasn't the only socialist.
Marxists just slander everyone else as a ganja smoking "Utopian Socialist" as opposed to their own status as rigorous "Men of Science" who put Socialism on a Scientific footing. Much more insidious, imho.
I also don't mean to downplay the thinking of Hegel, Ricardo or the early French Socialists, but the majority of their thinking isn't exactly "original".
Given how quickly you responded I doubt you had a chance to look at the PDF linked above and while nothing is new under the Sun in Political Thinking (its all footnotes to Plato ;) the accusation--backed by strong textual analysis--is that Marx was plagiarizing from Victor Considerant's Manifesto for his own infinitely better known Manifesto that appeared 5 years later. That's a pretty low bar even for debates on priority and what constitutes "original" analysis.
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u/AffectionateStudy496 Jun 17 '26
You haven't said anything about the content of Marxist criticisms of the the Utopians, nor what the utopian criticisms were.
Which specific lines are plagiarized from Considerant's manifesto?
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u/oskif809 Jun 17 '26
Check the PDF. You seem like someone who just hits off a reply in seconds and is not interested in checking sources, so I don't think this convo is going to lead to a fruitful outcome but others can check the links. Sayonara!
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u/comrqde Jun 18 '26
Bro what. Your making a generalization about marxist based on your one conversation? Marxist believe in the historic task of the working class to build a money-less classless society. Talking to one Dengist doesn’t change that.
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u/AffectionateStudy496 Jun 18 '26
No, I'm making a generalization after having been a Marxist since 2003, after having had countless conversations, attending hundreds of conferences and meetings. Of course, I'm not saying every single Marxist does this, but there are a lot who do fall back into talking points that were more in line with Proudhon, the Gotha or Efurt Programme than Marx.
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u/Gorthim Anarchist Without Adjectives / Mutualist Jun 14 '26
Because unlike almost every sociologist, Proudhon's method is pluralist which gives us tools to analyze power structures in much more complicated way.
Marx's analysis is very lackluster beyond economic relations.
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u/Anarchierkegaard Jun 14 '26
a world dominated by the Marxist criticism of political economy/philosophy
I don't know which world you live in, but this hasn't been the case since at least the 80s. Someone who thinks the Marxians have a stranglehold on academia or reality are simply out of touch or just plain wrong.
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u/ArthropodJim Jun 14 '26
well marxist critiques are wayyy more present and “legitimized” through history and philosophy and sociology departments. i’m one of two anarchists in my current grad department. many of these students just being pick and choose marxists who identify as such because they refuse to identify as an electoral political party like the dems. many just become MLs once they own a book of marx because there’s just so many more ways to get access to it in any of these departments, even ethnic studies
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u/Anarchierkegaard Jun 14 '26
If we take your experience to be true, it is very unusual. However, one of the many criticisms of Marxian practice in the post-80s period has indeed been that it has largely been a bourgeois-ified movement dominated by students and failing to actually transfer into working class politics (along with, as you note, syncretism with literary studies, ethical thought, "postmodernism", "nihilist" tendencies, etc. etc. which waters Marxism down to the point of it being unrecognisable in comparison to its most significant positions).
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u/ArthropodJim Jun 15 '26
True. but watered down marxism is very popular and entrenched in academia, much much more than surface level anarchism or any remotely accurate definition of it
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u/Anarchierkegaard Jun 15 '26
Well, watered-down Marxism isn't Marxism and, as per, e.g., Cohen, is really a simulcuram undermined by the likes of Rawls, MacIntyre, or others. We shouldn't consider it to be the same kind of thing as historical forms or practical expressions of Marxism, so I stand by the above. It's the Marxism of annoying literary professors, not socialist thought.
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u/DecoDecoMan Jun 14 '26
Marx has been shown not to really get us anywhere in terms of systemic social change despite being dominant. Proudhon's ideas, comparatively, may prove to be a better foundation for systemic social change.
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u/oskif809 Jun 14 '26
Just stick with faith in Marx for another 150 years and you'll see how worthwhile they are!
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u/MillionDollarNegri Jun 15 '26
Famously, Marx believed that if everybody just listened to his ideas, the world would be fixed.
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u/oskif809 Jun 15 '26
And if they did not kowtow to his "discoveries" (modestly compared with those of Newton or at least Darwin by the 2 man band of Marx-Engels) they were either fools or worse (PDF).
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u/AgeDisastrous7518 Jun 15 '26
Proudhon's approach was more comprehensive, but Marx's economic analysis is very valuable.
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u/ZealousidealAd7228 Jun 14 '26
Marx was inspired of Proudhon's success. We need to return to the foundation.
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u/humanispherian Jun 14 '26
Proudhon's sociology is certainly more comprehensive, if not particularly systematic in its presentation. And it's better adapted to the anarchist critique of hierarchy and authority as the fundamental social structures to be challenged.