Carrol Cox has asked about Pound's knowledge of Proudhon. As Tim Redman has
already indicated, Pound knew of Proudhon by way of Silvio Gesell. Tim
discusses that relationship in  EZRA POUND AND ITALIAN FASCISM, and I have
extended that discussion in POUND IN PURGATORY.
    Pound was very enthusiastic about Gesell's stamp scrip, which he learned
about through the adoption of it by the industrial Austrian town, Worgl in
the early thirties. (It was also adopted by dozens of towns in the USA about
the same time.) However, when Pound received a copy of Gesell's NATURAL
ECONOMIC ORDER from the German-American Gesellite, Hugo Fack, he quickly
wearied of the book and loaned it to his Hungarian co-reformer and Fascist,
Odon Por.
    Gesell indicates the Proudhonian provenance of his economics everywhere
in that book, but  so far as I have determined, Pound never actually
consulted any Proudhonian texts. However, I will be looking further into the
matter for my paper on Pound and Proudhon to be delivered in Paris this
coming July.
    The particular perception that Gesell took from Proudhon is that money
has the advantage over goods in that it is imperishable--unlike wheat,
apples, and pears. Gesell invented Schwundgeld, or "shrinking money" aka
stamp scrip to overcome that comparative advantage of money. This analysis
and solution is pretty much the inverse of Douglas's idea of
underconsumption, so Pound's adoption of it led to a good deal of trouble
and confusion for him.

Leon Surette
English Dept.
University of Western Ontario
London, Ont.
N6A 3K7