Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “Solution of the Social Problem”

The Republic is the organization by which, all opinions and all activities remaining free, the People, by the very divergence of opinions and will, think and act as a single man. In the Republic, every citizen, by doing what they want and nothing but what they want, participates directly in the legislation and in the government, as they participate in the production and circulation of wealth. There, every citizen is king; for he has the fullness of power; he reigns and governs. The Republic is a positive anarchy. It is neither liberty subjected to order, as in the constitutional monarchy, nor liberty imprisoned in order, as the Provisional Government intends. It is liberty delivered from all its shackles: superstition, prejudice, sophistry, stock-jobbing, authority. It is reciprocal liberty, and not the liberty which restricts; liberty, not the daughter of order, but the mother of order. […]

New Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “The Miserere” (1845)

On ordinary Sundays, for about three-quarters of the year, the Miserere serves as the introit, or, as one might say, the entrance to the mass. The celebrant, before making the lustral sprinkling, a ceremony preserved from the pagan ritual (among the Jews the sprinkling was done with blood), intones the seventh verse, Asperges me; the choir finishes the antiphon, and all the people respond: Miserere. Neither of them know what they are saying: isn’t it time to teach them? […]