Note 682 — Chapter V · : PROUDHON AND THE SOCIALISM OF 1848

“I repudiate Mazel’s system root and branch,” he declares in an article contributed to Le Peuple of December 1848 (Œuvres, vol. xvii, p. 221). He also adds that when he wrote first he had no acquaintance of any kind with Mazel. “It was M. Mazel who on his own initiative revealed his scheme to me and gave me the idea.” In one of his projects, published on May 10, 1848, Proudhon seems inclined to adopt this idea, just for a moment at any rate. Article 17 seems to hint at this. “The notes will always be exchangeable at the bank and at the offices of members, but only against goods and services, and in the same way commodities and services can always be exchanged for notes.” (Résumé de la Question sociale, p. 41.) This article justifies the interpretation which Courcelle-Seneuil puts on it, in his Traité des Operations de Banque (9th ed., 1899, p. 470), and which Ott accepts in his Traité d’Économie sociale (1851), which, moreover, contains a profound analysis and some subtle criticism of Proudhon’s idea. But we think that this article was simply an oversight on Proudhon’s part; for beyond a formal refutation of Mazel’s idea there is no reference to it in any of his other works, not even in the scheme of the People’s Bank. Moreover, it seems to contradict the statement that the notes would be issued against commodities which had been actually sold and delivered, as well as other articles of the scheme—e.g. Article 30, dealing with buying and selling. It also conflicts with the idea that the discounting of goods is the prime and essential operation of the bank. In our opinion, Diehl in his book on Proudhon (P. J. Proudhon, Seine Lehre u. seine Leben, vol. ii, p. 183) is wrong in thinking that the Exchange Bank would issue notes against all kinds of goods without taking the trouble to discover whether they had been sold or not.