Note 1347 — Chapter IV · : THE ANARCHISTS

Proudhon had already set the problem as follows: “Can we find a method of transacting business that will unite divergent interests and identify individuals with the general well-being, replace the inequality of nature by equality of education, and remove all political and economic contradictions; when each individual will be at once both producer and consumer, citizen and sovereign, ruler and ruled; when liberty will always expand without involving any counter-loss; when the well being of each will grow indefinitely without involving any damage to the property, the labour, or the revenue of any of his fellow-citizens, or of the State itself, without weakening the interests he has in common with his fellow-men, without alienating their good opinion or destroying their affection for him?” (Idée générale, p. 145.) Says Jean Grave: “Were society established on natural bases, individual and general interests would never conflict.” (Société future, p. 156.)