By the middle of the nineteenth century the experience with capitalism had been such that the argument about the benign effects of le doux commerce on human nature had totally changed: it was just because property was now seen as a wild, boundless, and revolutionary force that Proudhon gave it the role of countervailing the equally terrifying power of the state. He actually uses the term “counterweight” and thereby connects his thesis with the intellectual tradition that has been traced here, just as Galbraith was to do for yet another purpose after one more century.
