ABSTRACT
In Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's federalism, the reciprocal contract which he made central to economic society was applied directly to political society. Proudhon foresaw the possibility for a huge increase in the possession of small property and in small-scale industry and public service workers in France under mutualism. To the extent that he was able to make it clear for his audience, Proudhon's concept of a mutualist society and its integral 'agro-industrial federation' has also been explained. The 'contract of federation' was explained by Proudhon as 'a positive act, effective, which has been actually proposed, discussed, voted and adopted, and which is regularly modified through the will of the contracting parties'. His 'positive anarchy' needed to be underpinned by a 'metaphysics' upon which he could build a skeletal structure of anarchist society. He needed to find a means of establishing 'order' as a counterbalance to the assumption of chaos in 'anarchy' He had conceptually understood how he could reach 'unity in multiplicity'.
