ABSTRACT
This pamphlet was written a few weeks after the February 1848 Revolution in Paris had replaced the constitutional monarchy of King Louis-Philippe with a nominally democratic republic. Proudhon insisted that people should rule themselves, but maintained that democratic government cannot in fact make this possible, despite its claims to do so. Here he gives in relatively brief form some of the arguments he develops much further in later writings. While in this piece he discusses the politics of France in 1848, his criticisms have much wider import.
