The Right as a Critical Tool Proudhon, Sorel and Republican-Socialist Redefinition of Political Economy (1850-1914)

The article examines how political economy is redefined in socialist and republican circles through a revaluation of the language of right in the nineteenth century, in particular by Proudhon (1809-1865) and Sorel (1847-1922). Both Proudhon and Sorel, the former influencing the latter, see ordinary practices and the sense of justice that accompanies them as a means to build a political economy, which aims to a right form of production and exchange. A reflection on the right as a tool to promote an anti-statist and anti-legalist republicanism, a republicanism of the society, hence a social republicanism emerged in the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution and its failure. Proudhon and Sorel were representatives of this current, which was often obscured by a focus on the centralizing institutions of the Third Republic - the Army, the School.