Property Is Theft!

by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Here, then, is what I think your impartial criticism should be reminded of:

  From 1839 to 1852 my studies had entirely to do with controversy, which is to say that I confined myself to seeking out the essence and value of ideas per se, their import and implications, where they led and where they did not lead; in short, I strove to achieve a full and complete grasp of principles, institutions and systems.

  So there was much that I denied, in that I found that in almost every particular and place theories were not compatible with their own component parts, institutions not in harmony with their object or purpose, or writers sufficiently informed, independent and logical.

  I found that this seemingly peaceable, normal, self-assured society was at the mercy of disorder and antagonism; that it was as bereft of economic science as of morality; and that this was equally applicable to parties, schools, utopias and systems.

  So I embarked, or embarked afresh, on the work of general acknowledgement of phenomena, ideas and institutions, eschewing all partisanship and with logic itself my sole criterion.

  Such work has not always been understood, the blame for which is surely mine. With regard to matters relating essentially to morality and justice, it has not always been possible for me to remain philosophically cold-blooded and indifferent, especially when dealing with self-serving, dishonest naysayers. Consequently I have been taken for a pamphleteer when all I ever wanted to be was a critic; an agitator when I was merely asking for justice; a hate-fuelled partisan when my vehemence was meant solely to rebut unfounded claims; and finally, as a two-faced writer because I was as quick to point out contradiction in those who believed themselves friends of mine as I was in my adversaries.

  The upshot of this protracted discussion, this impassioned analysis, has proved highly illuminating for me in my belief that I had stumbled upon what I was looking for, to wit: the true meaning and determination of things per se, with traditions, institutions, theories and enshrined conventional beliefs and practices discounted; but this was not meant for the public which only ever read snatches of me and was forever wondering where I was going and what I was after.

  Thus, whereas it seems to me that economic and social science can be tackled seriously, thanks to the work of classification I have done, and that I might try my hand at constructing them, the public, which has not kept abreast of my thought processes, finds that I had rendered the darkness denser and heaped up doubt where hitherto there was at least the advantage of being able to breathe and live in utter safety and confidence.

  And this is where I find myself after thirteen or fourteen years of criticism or, if you will, of negation. I am embarking upon my POSITIVE study, establishing what they call scientific truth or, in more common parlance, having spent the first half of my career on demolition, I am right now engaged in rebuilding.572

  Keep that in mind, dear friend, if you wish to be fair with me and not condemn me wrongly any more than you would sing my praises without good reason. Whilst I would never claim to be the equal of a learned man like Cuvier,573 I can nevertheless confess to you with some pride that I, in my explorations of economics, was doing something akin to what that great naturalist had done with his fossils. To me the social realm seemed to be in that chaotic state that Cuvier had discerned in the underground world; and so I seized on ideas, institutions and phenomena, in a search for meaning, definition, law, relationships, analogies, etc., labelling my exhibits until such time as I might be able to piece together the whole picture, just as Cuvier had reconstructed the skeleton of the dinothere or some other antediluvian beast.

  Did I succeed? Did I go astray? Have I made any discoveries? These are questions for posterity to answer. What I can state is that this is what I did, or at any rate what I meant to do.

  And now we come to examples:

  1. You ask me what I mean by this proposition: Property is theft, and then, how could I, having uttered that proposition, have spoken out equally forcefully against communism?

  In light of the foregoing explanatory remarks, you will appreciate that your question may serve a double purpose for me: you are either asking me what I was trying to say as an investigator, classifier or critic; or else you want to know what my view ultimately is of the role of property in human society.

  On the first count, namely, what I intended to affirm with this phrase, as shocking as it is emphatic, that property is theft, let me answer that I stand by the conclusions of my 1840 Memoire and my definition as such. I hold that the principle of property (note that I am talking here about the principle, not the practice and intent) is very substantially the same as or closely approximates to what the morality of nations has so properly condemned and scourged under the designation theft; that in this respect, there is no real difference between good and evil; that here we have one of those pairs of terms, like fornication and marriage, between which there is no difference, physically or psychologically speaking, so that if the one is tolerated and even blessed whilst the other is upbraided and abhorred, this is for reasons that it is not appropriate to examine here.

  Note that it is not my meaning that fornication should be applauded and marriage abolished: I am most decidedly for the latter and opposed to the former, and the same applies to property and theft.

  At this point, I would have to go into long and serious consideration of the usefulness of disclosing such secrets to the public, on the steadfastness of my support for my definition, depicting it on occasion as a war cry against an entire class of citizens. It is up to you to fill in here whatever I refrain from saying. For my part, it is enough that I reiterate to you that, as a critic and classifier of ideas, I abide by my 1840 definition and do not intend to depart from it in any way.

  So it only remains to be discovered how I reckon that the principle of property, being the same as the principle of theft, can become an element of order in society, a force or faculty of our economy.

  Here, my dear Villiaumé, my affirmation, pure and unadorned will absolutely have to suffice. To explain myself, I would need to broach the most formidable and difficult issues of concern to the human mind; the distinction between good and evil, justice, freedom, religion, etc. Then I would have to offer you a description of the great machine that goes by the name of society, a description modelled, not upon some abstraction out of my imagination, but upon any society whatsoever; for society is society; despite the superficial differences, it is everywhere, always and of necessity identical and adequate to itself, just the way the human body is the human body, whether the skin covering it be white, red or black.

  You will appreciate that such an exposition is utterly out of the question for me. All that I can state is that in any situation, in any society, property remains what I said it was: that this is the condition upon which it fulfils its role and has its effect; that to try to correct it is to destroy it; besides, if the disastrous effects of theft have disappeared from what is called property (as they must if theft is to cease being theft and become, if I may say so, legitimate or property), this results from the intrusion of another power which changes with the evil character of the principle and endows it with a contrasting virtue.

  In short, in the imperfect arrangement of our society, badly controlled by freedom, justice, etc., property frequently, indeed habitually, manifests the effects of out-and-out theft; it is, so to speak, in the state of nature; whereas in a properly regulated society, it steps up from this state of raw nature to the state of a civilised, lawful nature, without thereby ceasing to be itself, pretty much as education raises an individual from a condition of savagery to a civilised state, without his thereby ceasing to be himself, without his actually renouncing his race and his temperament.

  All of which, my dear friend, must strike you as oddly paradoxical: but, as you know, everything in science starts out as paradox. Despite the changes that property has undergone already, we still only know it through pagan law (jus quiritum) and canon law, which add up to the same thing: both depen
d on force when they do not reply on mystery. Now, force and mystery, faith and sword, are not valid arguments in philosophy.

  2. What I am saying about property goes for other principles of action too, the criticism of which has made less of an impact, although they play no smaller part in society. Among these are, for instance, the division of labour, monopoly, competition, government and community [communauté].

  There is not one of these principles which, analysed in itself, is not radically and essentially harmful either to the worker or to the individual or to society, and which is not therefore in some degree deserving of the anathema slapped on property.

  And since, in the current state of affairs, there is nothing to stop the random spread of these principles, it is not unreasonable that they should come in for criticism, sometimes from the economists, sometimes from the moralists, and sometimes from the philanthropists or liberals. However, the fact is that they should be looked upon as forces or faculties inherent in the make-up of society and equally liable to extinction, either through exclusion or abandonment.

  The best comparison I could draw to property and the principles I am talking about would be with the seven deadly sins: pride, avarice, envy, gluttony, sloth, wrath and laziness. None will rush to their defence, certainly, and Christianity has turned them into the seven demons from Hell. Now the fact is that, in proper psychological terms, the human soul only survives on a diet of these notorious sins or fundamental passions; that the entire craft of the moralist consists not of tearing them down or rooting them out but of educating them so as to draw from them the actual virtues that best distinguish man from the animals; dignity, ambition, taste, love, sensuality and courage. I make no mention of laziness or inertia which represent the absence of vitality and death outright.

  Between vice and virtue, there is no essential difference; the making of either of them is in the seasoning, the handling, the purpose, the intent, the degree, a host of things.

  Likewise, in terms of principle, there is no difference between property and theft; what makes the one just and the other infamous is the conditions that accompany them, the circumstances that condition them.

  It must be admitted, my dear friend, that these days we are far removed from such a view of matters and that, in our stubborn attachment to tradition, Christian, feudal prejudices, are, instead, wholly disposed to regard property as something sacrosanct and entirely right, good and virtuous, the way we turn virtue into an inspiration from heaven, government into divine right, and authority into absolute law.

  In a society in which property, government and all the things I have been talking about, notions that are far from true, are embraced, it is inevitable that frightening abuses will crop up, a ghastly tyranny of which no revolution can ever quite rid us; first and foremost, we must set our thinking to rights and bring things back to their rightful definitions.

  3. Socialism

  In my Contradictions I also held the Socialists and the Economists up to ridicule, you say; after 1848, I embraced Socialism. This shift bothers you and you ask for an explanation.

  Any word in a language is susceptible to widely differing and occasionally even contradictory uses.

  By Socialism do you mean that philosophy which teaches the theory of society or social science? This is the Socialism to which I subscribe.

  Do we mean, not so much the philosophy or the science as the school, the sect, the faction that embraces that science, believes it feasible and quests after it? I am of such a mind. It was in this regard that Le Peuple and Le Représentant du Peuple in 1848 were both mouthpieces of Socialism.

  Even today, I loudly proclaim my Socialism and am more than ever a believer in its success.

  But in economic discussions, as it happens, Socialism is the name given to that theory which has a tendency to sacrifice the rights of the individual to the rights of society, just as Individualism is employed for the theory that tends to sacrifice society to the individual. In this instance, I reject Socialism just as I reject Individualism; in which I am merely following the example of Pierre Leroux who, whilst declaring himself a Socialist, as I did myself, in 1848, nevertheless in his writings opposed Socialism and asserted the prerogatives of the individual.

  4. The Bank of the People or Free Credit

  Here I can do no better than refer you to the articles published by Monsieur Darimon in La Presse.574 The notion of a lending institution organised under the supervision of the State and operating, not for the benefit of some privileged company of investors, but for the benefit of the nation and at the lowest possible rates of interest, is by now such a commonplace as to have been absorbed into the public consciousness; which, day by day, is suggesting fresh means of implementation and regarding which there is no need for me to devise any system of my own.

  Such was the challenge, the opposition, the misrepresentation encountered by the core idea that I could and had to affirm and support what was then termed the Programme of the Bank of the People.

  Now that opinion has moved on, now that there are twenty solutions offered for the same problem, that implementation now awaits only the initiative of a few hundred producers or the go-ahead from the government; now that the only cause of hesitancy derives from the series of privileges which will be smashed and scattered once this new principle becomes a fact, I have no further reason to fret about what is to become of the idea, let alone to cast around for some special formula.

  The idea is in the public domain, as are the ideas of freedom and equality which can never be banished; the choosing of a formula is a matter for general consensus, just as it is up to each individual theorist to tinker with it.

  5. Management of Public Utilities.

  As you say, there are three ways in which public utilities can be operated; by the State, like the mail today; by capitalist companies, as all the railways are at present; or, finally, by workers’ associations.

  This third model being the only one that has not been put to the test, it is still somewhat shrouded in an obscurity that I shall strive to dispel.

  As with the Bank, there are a number of possible approaches, especially where the raising of capital is concerned.

  I shall confine myself to just one of these.

  I imagine that back in 1840 when the government awarded the concession to the Northern Railways, in the belief that enterprise was beneath itself, it may have been minded both to do private capital a favour and to offer labour a partnership; which, it seems to me, it could easily have done.

  The Company would have been comprised not only of the investors supplying the working capital but of the share-holders and the workers.

  Operating profits split between the workers and the share-holders according to a specific ratio.

  The portion of the profits allotted to the workers and then shared around them according to their function, rank, etc., etc.

  Workers represented on the Steering Council by half or one third of the members of said Council.

  Management, entrusted to a single director or to several, belonging to the “worker” category (i.e. engineers, architects, consultants, etc.).

  When the franchise runs out, the Company, having discharged its obligations in terms of interest and dividends payable to its share-holders, reduces its charges accordingly and then becomes a wholly worker-owned venture.

  Against this new backdrop, the Company still has to look to the maintenance of the rolling stock, the replacement of vehicles, track relaying and repairs, etc.—The nation owns the railways, the premises, all the equipment and accoutrements which the Company is under an obligation to hand over in good condition on expiry of each franchise, following an audit by arbitrators.

  In principle, the State’s share-holding is acknowledged… in respect of all the improvements and cost reductions that can be made to operations. That State share-holding will help, on a yearly basis, to determine the reductions to fares to be made, if any.

  The State is a full partner on the C
ouncil of Oversight and Steering Council, independently of its acknowledged general oversight of any limited liability company under the law.

  It is not the purpose of such State meddling to hobble the freedom of the association nor to make it subject to civil service opinion or authority, but merely to watch over the economic and social education of the working class, the nurturing of its ideas, the prudence of its advice, the direction of its morals and to ensure compliance with the principles of freedom and equality upon which the institution is built.

  In principle, all of the workforce of the concern are associates, which is to say, participants. However, given the instability of service and the season-ability of work, the Company shall have the option of taking into service, as the need arises, however many wage-earners circumstances may dictate.

  Steps are to be taken with regard to anything relating to training, further training and the welfare of the workers; schools, libraries, baths, retirement funds, etc., etc.

  In this regard it should primarily be practical experience that provides the insights which theory can never furnish before the event.

  Meanwhile, I will admit that I cannot imagine that it could be equally easy to turn over a rail franchise to a company of workers, most of them ignorant, I mean, but appropriately represented and advised, as to a company of share-holders with no interest in anything but their returns and who leave the handling of their interests to presumptuous and often disloyal managers.

  There you have it, my dear Villiaumé, what I can tell you; your understanding of these matters is too great for you not to appreciate that in such matters, there is no scope for improvisation and that protracted research is often required before a solution can be found that might be spelled out in barely a single sentence.

  Our concern above all else should be with Right, until such time as we may get to grips with the implementation of it and I dare to believe that worker association, where matters of public utility are concerned, comes closest to Right. Under this arrangement public services, national ownership, workers’ rights are all underpinned by guarantee; where will you find such advantages in the present day?