Is Mutualism left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation Mutualism scores −03 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores 00. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is Mutualism authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, Mutualism scores −09. Contract and federation replacing government; a bottom-up federal order.

Atlas / Organisations / Mutualism

Mutualism

Proudhon · 1840– · France · Anarchist · Doctrine / school · coding confidence medium

−03ECcollective

00CUbalanced

−09AUpluralist

−09SClocal

−04IDuniversal

00CHbalanced

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Property as theft when it is rent-extracting, and property as liberty when it is possession by the user.

Economic model

Worker cooperatives, free credit through a people's bank, market exchange without interest or rent.

Organisation of powers

Contract and federation replacing government; a bottom-up federal order.

Reading note

Sits near the economic centre while sitting at the anti-authority extreme, which is why it fits no conventional spectrum.

Check a claim about Mutualism. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored −03

Coded −3: possession by the user defended, rent and interest attacked.

Programme textWhat is Property? answers 'property is theft' and 'property is liberty' of two different things.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored 00

Coded at zero: no distinctive social programme, and a record of reactionary views on the family.

ScholarshipProudhon's writing on women is regressive even by the standards of his contemporaries and was attacked as such at the time.

AU · Organisation of power · scored −09

Coded −9: contract and federation replacing government entirely.

Programme textThe Federative Principle (1863) sets out a bottom-up order with no sovereign centre.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −09

Coded −9: federation from the commune upward.

Programme textFederation is proposed as the constitutive method rather than as a concession.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −04

Coded −4: membership by contract rather than by birth.

Programme textAssociation is voluntary and revocable in the doctrine.

CH · Method and tempo · scored 00

Coded at zero: reform through credit institutions rather than insurrection.

Documented act or statuteThe People's Bank was founded in 1849 to supply free credit; it failed within months.

Where it came from, and what came after

gave doctrine toAnarcho-Communism
Kropotkin's communism was formulated against Proudhon's market of small producers.
gave doctrine toIndividualist Anarchism
Tucker translated Proudhon and built an individualist market anarchism on him.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

France

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Mutualism. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/mutualism/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.