In this book, its author, the outstanding French social thinker, publicist, and anarchist theorist Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), consistently contrasts parliamentary-state policies and bureaucratic decisions with the interests of the working people, which no one except the working people themselves can defend and present. According to the author’s plan, the state and capitalism should collapse and be, if possible peacefully, replaced by a society of cooperation and federalism, based on bottom-up delegation and imperative mandates, and the values of dominance and profit should be replaced by solidarity, mutual assistance, freedom, equality and justice .This work, originally titled “On the Political Capacity of the Working Classes,” represents the latter, the most mature, final and, perhaps, the most interesting work in Proudhon’s vast literary oeuvre. It can be recommended not only to specialists - historians, political scientists, sociologists, but also to a wide range of interested readers.

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From the cover: Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) Outstanding French social thinker, one of the founders of anarchism. Born in Besançon, into a working-class family. From 1827 he was a typographic compositor and proofreader; in 1836–1838 - co-owner of a small printing house. In 1838 he passed the bachelor's exams; received a scholarship from the Besançon Academy for scientific studies. He gained fame by publishing the book “What is own?" (1840; Russian translation 1907), which contained the famous answer: “property is theft.” In 1843–1847 lived in Lyon, then moved to Paris, where he actively participated in the radical movement; During the revolution of 1848, he was elected to the Constituent Assembly and edited a number of newspapers. In 1849, he was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of incitement against the government. In 1858, he was again sentenced to prison for an anti-clerical essay, which he avoided by emigrating to Belgium. He was pardoned in 1860 and returned to Paris in 1862. Pierre Joseph Proudhon is the author of many ideas that have become the alpha and omega of anarchist thought. Among his achievements: analysis of the deep identity of management and exploitation of man by man, understanding of the inextricable relationship market competition and state monopoly, a detailed justification of the ideas of federalism and free contract, debunking the belief in elections, parties and parliaments as forms of manipulation, the theory of “mutualism” (reciprocity) and ethics based on justice and human dignity. Proudhon's main political treatise, which provides the rationale for his teaching, is “The System of Economic Contradictions, or the Philosophy of Poverty” (1846). Proudhon’s other important works included: “Principles of Political Organization, or the Creation of a Humane Order” (1843), “Revolutionary Ideas” (1849), “War and Peace” (1861), “On the Political Capabilities of the Working Class” (1865; in 1867 was published in translation into Russian under the title “French Democracy”).