General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century Translated by John Beverly Robinson

This influential 1851 work was written by the French libertarian socialist and journalist whose doctrines later formed the basis for radical and anarchist theory. P.-J. Proudhon's original reinterpretation of French revolutionary thought led to his characteristic doctrines of anarchism (society without government), mutualism (workers' associations for the purpose of credit banking), and federalism (the denial of centralized political organization). This is his vision of an ideal society, in which frontiers are abolished, national states eliminated, and authority decentralized among communes or locality associations, with free contracts replacing laws. Translated by John Beverley Robinson.