whole of his possessions; it adds to his property; it does not encroach upon his labour; it only affects exchange. …. Such, according to the definitions of right and universal practice, must be the social contract."[1]
Once it is admitted as an incontestable fundamental principle that the contract is "the only moral bond that can be accepted by free and equal human beings" nothing is easier than a "radical" criticism of the "political constitution." Suppose we have to do with justice and the penal law, for example? Well, Proudhon would ask you by virtue of what contract society arrogates to itself the right to punish criminals. "Where there is no compact there can be, so far as any external tribunal is concerned, neither crime nor misdemeanour. The law is the expression of the sovereignty of the people; that is, or I am altogether mistaken, the social contract and the personal pledge of the man and the citizen. So long as I did not want this law, so long as I have not consented to it, voted for it, it is not binding upon me, it does not exist. To make it a precedent before I have recognised it, and to use it against me in spite of my protests is to make it retroactive, and to violate this very law itself. Every day you have to reverse a decision because of some formal error. But there is not a single one of your laws that is not tainted with nullity, and the most monstrous nullity of all, the very hypothesis of the law. Soufflard, Lacenaire, all the scoundrels whom you send to the scaffold turn in their graves and accuse you of judicial forgery. What answer can you make them?"[2]
If we are dealing with the administration and the police: Proudhon sings the same song of contract and free consent. "Cannot we administer our goods, keep our accounts, arrange our differences, look after our common interests at least as well as we can look after our salvation and take care of our souls?" What more have we to do
