Mutualism is often spoken of in terms of a philosophical camp, as if mutualism were a philosophical potential that remains unrealized, and which has had a certain impact. But mutualism is better regarded as a social movement, as its philosophical premises and its real-world efforts are intertwined, and its major philosophical proponents had witnessed mutualism-in-action before expounding upon it. That is, much of what we know as mutualist philosophy is a justification and attempt to forward a social movement that was already in place. As I have written in Heretics, Radicals, & MUTUALISM, I believe this social movement ultimately to go as far back as the ancient philosophical schools and beyond. Mutualism as an economic practice– mutual insurance, mutual banking, cooperativism– goes back, at least in part, to the middle ages, and as an ethical practice to time immemorial. As an instinct or living condition, it precedes the development of humanity.
It’s customary to treat the French anarchist philosopher, Pierre Proudhon, as the defining philosopher of mutualism. Great as Proudhon is, this is an injustice to the others of the mutualist movement, both to precede and to follow him. Mutualism is, afterall, associated with the leadership of ideas rather than of persons.
Much of Proudhon’s ideas– a democratic federation of workshops, for instance– were taken from mutualists such as Pierre Charnier, from Robert Owen, and other mutualists or proto-mutualists. These ideas probably go a long way back, and merely fail to meet the historical record because of the class structure presently in place, wherein ideas that do not benefit the rulers are not archived with as much care or for public perusal.
Still, there were also mutualists who were contemporaries of Proudhon, such as some of the Ricardian socialists, Josiah Warren, and Pierre Leroux. They had followed in the thought of the older Ricardian socialists, William Godwin, Condorcet, utopian socialism, and the canuts mutualists. Proudhon was one among many with an interest in mutualism and in providing a scientific justification for this weaver tradition.
[This weaver’s tradition had been associated with pantheism, “workers’ Freemasonry” or “True Levelers,” and may come from a remnant of Old European goddess-worship (Sophia, as in philo-sophia or “love of Sophia” anyone?) like original Christianity (virgin birth, anyone?) may also have.]
This means that– despite Proudhon’s widespread influence, and within an industry-wide phenomenon which spanned across continents– Proudhon’s influence was not absolute. While Proudhon had successfully published many excellent philosophical treatises, Josiah Warren’s mutualist work, even while not put explicitly in those terms, preceded Proudhon’s, as did the Ricardian socialists and Pierre Charnier, among others. But that is not all. Before secular works and social science was widely put into print, the weavers had shared Christian and occult heresies across continents, which informed their associations. One of these was the Heresy of the Free Spirit. But in reality this heresy was one within a wave of heresies that make up the proto- or Radical Reformation, and which come from the Islamic Golden Age’s influence on European thought. The heresies of the Bogomils, Cathars, Waldensians, Lollards, Free Spirit, etc. all owe much of their flame’s having been stoked to the period they were in. Written word was important, but that others during the time of Proudhon could spread the mutualist spirit by word-of-mouth in an oral tradition similar to the Free Spirit is certainly not unthinkable and is probably quite feasible when one considers the kinds of traditions that a “workers’ Freemasonry” might entail. This all considered, it would be a mistake to consider the record of written word the end-all, be-all of mutualism or its origins. But even when the written word is considered, American individualist anarchism seems to stand as an example of a mutualism which developed independent of a strictly Proudhonian basis. But before we start polarizing mutualism into “neo-Proudhonians” and “Tuckerites,” we must come to realize that mutualism is bigger than both Proudhon and Tucker.
There is a whole tradition of mutualism in Latin America– sometimes called “mutualistas”– that is not often cited by Euro-Ameri-centrists who’d limit mutualism to Proudhon and Tucker. No doubt influenced greatly by Proudhon, this tradition stands on its own, apart from the dichotomous and polarizing labels of “Tuckerite” and “neo-Proudhonian.” Mutualism is not limited to the languages spoken by a few bilingual academics and their cohorts. Still, this movement is segregated into a separate phenomenon on Wikipedia and is not treated under the Euro-American labels of “neo-Proudhonism” or “Tuckerism.”
Many mutualists would come to be influenced by Proudhon. It’s not unthinkable that they, like Tucker, were not religiously Proudhonist, however, and that each came to their own conclusions. So to deny them the honor of their name bearing an epithet in the manner of Tucker is a dishonor to those mutualists, many of whom did more than write and publish, but actually brought us real-life mutuals and cooperatives, a much nobler achievement in many respects. Others, like Dyer Lum, Francis Tandy, Clarence Swartz, Frank Parsons, and Alfred Westrup– who may variously be described as “Tuckerite” or not– developed ideas that in some ways echo Tucker, or even Proudhon, but not without their own insights and adjustments to the ideas. An important influence here is the mutualist Herbert Spencer, a stand-alone thinker of evolutionary development if there ever was one. Rather than arguing for a plurality of ideological saints and epithets, however, I am arguing for a return to basics, and a re-orientation in free thought.
When it comes down to it, mutualism is about the mutual guarantee of freedom (Kropotkin associates mutual aid with “frith”) and the resulting reciprocal arrangements (“mutual” from Latin “mutuum”) between unique individuals, and this has and can take many different forms, even between people completely uninformed by Proudhon or Tucker. What this “anarchic encounter” (as Shawn Wilbur calls it) will bring about cannot be entirely predicted. But there are some organizational arrangements which are more mutual by their essence, including mutuals and cooperatives, and these varieties of cooperation and mutual aid precede Proudhon’s sociological justifications for them, and carried on developing with and beyond his thought. These arrangements, like the markets in which they arise, can be predicted, with some reliance, to develop further under conditions in which anarchic encounters are normalized. As it is, mutuals and cooperatives have at least as much to tell us about the nature of mutualism as their philosophical justifications and treatises in their favor. They are mutualism-in-action.
It’s time we treat mutualism as a social movement rather than a monotheistic or even ditheistic religion. It’s fine to take influence from particular thinkers, even to appreciate their entire worldview, but to attempt to define the whole by a part is worthy of the charges of a “pathological holon.” No one part defines the whole. The attempt is egotistical. It does not allow for a neutral space in which ideas can be objectively considered, but a polarized space in which the leadership of men (inconsistently– as neo-Proudhonists reject Proudhon’s cultural conservatism) takes precedence over the leadership of ideas. That’s not a social movement at all, but a cult of personality (albeit with postmodern impositions).
