http://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/2011/06/proudhons-critics.html We know that Proudhon took equality, reciprocity and justice as his most important keywords, and that he was developing a theory of "right" which quite explicitly did not privilege the strong over the weak, which *should*, in fact, have been capable of recognizing any number of mutually incommensurable "strengths," each with its own attendant "right" (with "right" meaning essentially something like "weight and standing in the balances of justice.") We also know that he was working on a descriptive, historical account of the development of justice and right—a work that started in the later chapters of his first memoir on property—which traced the development of those notions from the "age of heroes," where they were manifested precisely in "force and fraud" through progressive evolutions. And, of course, we don't have much doubt that Proudhon had some basic prejudices about the capabilities of women. Putting those pieces together is no easy task. Proudhon's treatment of "droit"—which indicates, at various times, either the line of development implied by any organized collectivity, the dominant means of justifying (that is, balancing) the claims of various collectivities in a given era, or the various forms of legal right (etc.?)—just complicates the problems, but, I think, it complicates it in ways that are ultimately at least potentially useful. It's probably a general rule that the more ambitious the theoretical formulation, the more—and more disastrous—possibilities of it going badly wrong along the way. And the more *anarchistic* the nature of the project—the more resistant it is to the application of any particular, fixed criterion or criteria—the higher the stakes. Proudhon's theory of rights and forces, individualities and collectivities, had at least its share of logical ways to go wrong—and his own individual prejudices, although they did not prevent him from envisioning a general system in which difference and equality would not be at odds, side-tracked him long before he recognized the implications of that system for "the woman question." And, of course, he was called out for it, and continues to be called out for it. -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens