Property Is Theft!

by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  There therefore, if I am not mistaken, must be found the elements of the alliance, highly affirmed and defended by the authors of the Manifesto, between the industrial and commercial petit bourgeois and the working classes.

  “Without us,” they say with a profound sense of the truth, “the bourgeoisie can rest on nothing solid; without their agreement our emancipation can be delayed for a long time indeed. Let us unify for a common goal, the triumph of true democracy.”

  Let us repeat following their example: It is not a question here of defending acquired positions; it is simply a matter of, by the reduction of the interest on capital and the rent on lodgings, the ease and insignificance of discount rates, the elimination of parasitism, the extirpation of speculation, the regulation of warehouses and markets, the diminution of the price of transport, the equilibrium of values, the superior instruction given to the working classes, the definitive preponderance of labour over capital, the correct measure of esteem accorded to talent and function, it is a matter, I say, of restoring to labour and to probity that which has been unduly taken from them by capitalist prelibation;678 of augmenting the general well-being in assuring [the means of] life; of preventing financial ruin and bankruptcy by the certitude of transactions; of stopping the expropriation characteristic of exorbitant fortunes without any real or legitimate foundation, in a word, of putting an end to all those anomalies and perturbations which sound critique has for a very long time indicated as the chronic causes of poverty and the proletariat.

  But what good is it to fight over words and to waste time on useless discussions? One thing is certain: that the people, no matter what else one says about them, have faith in Association, that they affirm, urge, and herald it, and that however it is really nothing other than the deed of partnership [le contrat de société] defined by our laws. Let us conclude, therefore, that in order to remain faithful simultaneously to the data of science and the aspirations of the people, Association, whose formula contemporary innovators have searched for, as if the legislator would have nothing to say about it, but which none of them have managed to define; that Fourier, the artist, mystic, and prophet, called HARMONY, and which he proclaimed would need to be proceeded by a period of Guaranteeism; this famous Association which must embrace the whole of Society, and nevertheless preserve all the rights of individual and corporate freedom; which can consequently be neither the community or universal society of goods and profits, recognised by the Civil code, practised in the middle ages in the countryside, generalised by the Moravian sect,679 identified with the political constitution, or the State, and regimented in different manners by Plato, Campanella, Morus, Owen, Cabet, etc.; nor the Societies of commerce, general, limited, undisclosed partnerships or joint-stock companies; let us conclude, I say, that Association, which the workers’ Democracy persists in invoking as the end of all servitude and the superior form of civilisation, who does not see that it is and could not be anything other than MUTUALITY? Mutuality, indeed, whose lineaments we have tried to trace, is it not the social contract par excellence, simultaneously political and economic, synallagmatic and commutative, which embraces at once, in such simple terms, the individual and the family, the corporation and the city, sale and purchase, credit, insurance, labour, instruction and property; all professions, all transactions, all services, all securities; which, in its very regenerative scope, excludes all egoism, all parasitism, all arbitrary power, all agiotage, all dissolution? Do we not have here, truly, the mysterious association dreamed of by the utopians, unknown to the philosophers and the jurisconsults, and which we will define in two words, contract of mutuation or of mutuality?680

  Let us glance back one more time on this new pact, such as it presents itself today in sketches which are rough and imperfect (but full of hope), that presents us here and there with the workers’ Democracy, and let us note its essential characteristics. However restricted it may appear, in the beginning, in its personnel, specialised in its objects, limited in its duration, open to modification and cancellation in its import, there exists in the mutualist association,—we can from now on give it this name,—a power of development which tends with an irresistible force to assimilate and incorporate all that surrounds it, to remake in its image the State and the Humanity which surrounds it. This power of development belongs to the mutualist association because of its high morality and the economic fecundity of its principle.

  Note first of all that in virtue of the principle which characterises it, the ranks of the Association are open to whomever, having recognised the spirit and the goal, asks to join; exclusion is contrary to it, and the more it grows in number the more advantages it gains. From the point of view of personnel, the mutualist association is therefore by nature unlimited, which is the opposite of all other associations.

  It is the same with its object. A mutualist association can have for a special object the operation of an industry. By virtue of the principle of mutuality, however, it tends to involve in its system of guarantees first those industries it is in an immediate relation with, then the more distant ones. Again, in this connection the mutualist association is unlimited, with an indefinite power of agglomeration.

  Should I speak of its duration? It may be that mutualist associates, not having succeeded in an enterprise, inasmuch as this was defined, specified, particularly staffed, and delimited, might find it convenient to break these specific agreements. It is no less true that, as their society was founded above all on an idea of right and the economic application of that idea, it will hold in perpetuity, as we have just seen it has held universally. The day when the working masses have acquired the clear notion of the principle that agitates them in this moment, when this notion has penetrated their consciousness, when they have professed it completely, all abrogation of the regime they will have instituted will become impossible: it would be a contradiction. Mutuality, or the mutualist society, is Justice and one cannot go backward in matters of justice anymore than one can in matters of religion. Has the world, having become monotheistic by the preaching of the Gospel, ever dreamed of returning to the cult of gods? Could France, when the Russians have abolished serfdom in their country, return to a feudal system? It will be the same with the new reform. The contract of mutuality is irrevocable by its nature, as much in the small association as in the largest. Purely material and external causes can cause societies of this species, inasmuch as they have a special object, to be terminated; in themselves, and in their fundamental disposition, they tend to create a new order of things and are no longer terminable. Men, after having made between themselves a pact of probity, loyalty, security, and honour, cannot say to themselves in breaking this pact: We had been mistaken; now we are going to become rogues and liars again, and from this we will profit more!...

  Finally, its last characteristic: the contribution of capital is no longer indispensable in the mutualist society; it is sufficient, to become an associate, to keep to the mutual faith in all transactions.

  In summary, according to the existing legislation, a company is a contract formed between a determinate number of persons, designated by their names, professions, and qualities (Code civil, article 1832), with the aim of a particular benefit to be shared between the associates (ibid.). Each associate has to contribute money, or other goods, or his industry (article 1833). It is made for a determined period of time (article 1865).

  The mutualist association is conceived in an altogether different spirit. It admits, insofar as it is mutualist, everyone in the world, and tends towards universality;—it is formed not directly with the aim of profit, but of security;—one is required to contribute neither money nor other valuables, or even one’s industry; the only condition demanded is to be faithful to the mutualist pact;—once formed, its nature is to generalise itself and to have no end.

  The communist association, as an instrument of revolution and a governmental formula, also tends to universality and perpetuity; but it leaves nothing belonging to those associated,
not their money, nor their other goods, nor their labour, nor their liberty: this is what makes it forever impossible.

  Nothing will prevent the generations that have once been transformed by mutualist law from continuing to form, as at present, particular associations having for their object the development of an industrial speciality or the pursuit of an enterprise for an honest profit. But these associations (which can even retain their current designations), subject in their dealing with one another and with the public to the duty of mutuality, imbued with the new spirit, can no longer be compared to their analogues at the current time. They will have lost their egoistical and subversive character while retaining the particular advantages which bestow upon them their economic power. These will be like many particular churches inside a universal Church, able to reproduce it themselves, if it were possible that it had suddenly died out.

  —I had very much wanted here to give the mutualist and federative theory of property, the critique of [property] which I published twenty-five years ago.681 The size of the subject obliges me to return to this important study at another time.

  —I will speak in the third part of this volume of free trade, of the liberty of coalition and of several other questions of political economy, which cannot be resolved except by the principle of mutuality.

  CHAPTER XV

  Objections Against Mutualist Policy. Answer. Primary Cause Of The Fall Of States—Relation Of The Political And Economic Functions In The New Democracy

  But let us not get lost in digressions. It falls to us to explain what unity and order signify in a mutualist democracy; and here there is a much more grave objection that our adversaries will be sure to raise.

  Let us, we will be told, step outside of theories and sentiments: every State requires an authority, a spirit of discipline and obedience, without which no society can survive. The Government requires a force capable of cowing all resistance and subjecting all opinion to the general will. One can argue as much as one may like about the nature, origin and forms of that power: that is not the issue. The real, the only point is that strenuous steps should be taken to establish it. No human will could command the will of another man, says de Bonald, and he concludes that what is needed is a higher institution, a divine right. According to J.-J Rousseau, on the other hand, public authority is a collective made up of every individual citizen’s surrender of a morsel of his freedom and fortune for the sake of the general interest: such is democratic revolutionary right. No matter what system one espouses, one comes always to this conclusion, that the soul of political society is authority and that its sanction is force.

  Moreover, this is how States were constituted down through the ages and it is the way that they are governed, the way they live. Or are we to believe that it is through some act of free affiliation that the masses formed themselves into a phalanx and, under the aegis of a leader, established powerful units, to which the labours of revolutions add so little? No, these agglomerations have been the handiwork of force in the service of necessity. Are we to believe that it was willingly, as the result of some mysterious persuasion, some conviction of indeterminable provenance that these masses let themselves be led like a herd, by a strange notion that takes possession of them and the secret of which no one can fathom? Again, no: this trend towards centralisation to which everyone resigns himself, even should he grumble, is also the effect of necessity, served by force. It is absurd to rebel against these great laws, as if we might alter them and build another life for ourselves on different principles.

  What, then, is mutualism’s intention and what are the consequences of that doctrine in terms of Government? It is to found an order of things wherein the principle of sovereignty of the people, of man and of the citizen would be implemented to the letter: where every member of the State, retaining his independence and continuing to act as sovereign, would be self-governing, whilst a higher authority would concern itself solely with collective matters; where, as a consequence, there would be certain common matters but no centralisation: and, to take things to their conclusion, a State the acknowledged sovereign parts of which would be free to quit the group and withdraw from the compact, at will. For there is no disguising it: if it is to be logical and true to its principle, the federation has to take things to these extremes. Otherwise it is merely an illusion, boastfulness, a lie.

  But it is obvious that this right of secession which, in principle, should be enjoyed by every confederated State, is a paradox: it has never been realised and the practices of confederations refute it. Who does not know that at the time of the First Medean war Greece almost perished, betrayed by her federal freedom? The Athenians and the Spartans stood alone against the great king: the others had refused to stir. After the Persians had been defeated, civil war erupted between the Greeks in order to put an end to this nonsensical constitution: and the Macedonian carried off the honours and the benefit of this.—In 1846 when the Swiss Confederation stood on the brink of dissolution due to the secession of the Catholic cantons (the Sonderbund), the majority had no hesitation in resorting to force of arms in order to call back the secessionists. Although the claim has been made, it was not on the basis of any federal law, which was positively opposed to it. How could thirteen Protestant cantons, all of them sovereign, have proved to eleven Catholic cantons, themselves every bit as sovereign, that under the compact they were entitled to hold them inside a union of which they no longer wished to be part? The very term “federation” is a prohibition against any such intention. The Swiss majority acted on the right of national preservation: it took the view that Switzerland, placed between two great unitary states, could not, without great peril, countenance a new and more or less hostile federation, and in surrendering to necessity and basing its rights upon the argument of might, it affirmed the primacy of the unity principle, on behalf of and under the aegis of a supposed confederation.—At the time of writing and certainly with much less grounds than the Swiss liberals of 1846, in that American freedom is not in jeopardy, the Northern United States is also bent upon holding the Southern States inside the Union, calling them traitors and rebels, no more and no less than if the former Union were a monarchy and Mr Lincoln an emperor. It is plain, however, that a choice has to be made: either the word confederation has a meaning on the basis of which the founding fathers of the Union meant to distinguish it from every other political system: in which case, the slavery issue aside, the war waged by the North on the South is unjust: or else, under the appearances of a confederation and just waiting for the right time, what was secretly being pursued was the formation of a great empire: in which case the Americans will be well-advised to banish the words political freedom, republic, democracy, confederation and even Union from their hustings in future. On the far side of the Atlantic they have already begun to deny States’ rights, meaning the federal principle, an unambiguous indication of a forthcoming change to the Union. Odder still, European democracy applauds this handiwork, as if it were not an abdication of its principle and the ruination of its hopes.

  To sum up: a social revolution along the lines of mutuality is a chimera, because, in this society, political organisation would have to be the corollary of economic organisation and that corollary, which it is accepted would have to be a federative State, is, if one thinks about it, itself an impossibility. In fact, confederations have never been anything other than provisional, States in the process of formation; theoretically, they are nonsenses. So mutuality, by positing federalism as its last word, is ruling itself out: it is nothing.

  Such is the crucial argument that we must answer. But first I must put the historic record straight.

  Adversaries of federalism benevolently take it for granted that centralisation boasts all of the advantages that they deny federation: that the former enjoys the same vigour as the latter is unlikely; in short, as long as the latter is bereft of logic and force, we are assured that these can be found in the former and that this lies at the root of the huge difference in
their fortunes to date. So, if I am to leave nothing out, I should balance out the two positions, counter criticism of the federative principle with criticism of the unitary principle: show that, yes, ever since the dawn of society, confederations have played only a seemingly secondary role; yes, thanks to the mismatch between their institutions, they have not withstood the test of lengthy existence; whereas it appears even to be impossible for them to rely upon the truth of their principle, heavily centralised States, on the other hand, have most times been nothing more than wholesale banditry, organised tyrannies, the chief merit of which has been that for the past thirty centuries, they have dragged the corpses of nations through the mud, as if Providence’s aim had been to punish them with centuries of torture for their federal fantasies.

  So I should point out that history in its entirety is nothing but a succession of integrations and disintegrations; that pluralities of federations are forever being replaced by amalgamations and those amalgamations by break-ups; that Alexander’s empire, established in Europe and Asia, soon gave way to division among his generals, a veritable return to nationalities, as we would put it today; that this nationalist trend gave way to the greater unity of Rome, supplanted in the 5th century by the Germanic and Italian federations; that we have recently seen the Austrian Empire switch from absolutism to federalism, whereas Italy switched from federation to kingdom; that, whilst the First Empire, with its one hundred and thirty two departments, its great fiefdoms and its alliances, proved unable to sustain European confederation, the much more centralised Second Empire, although less extensive than its predecessor, was imbued with a spirit of freedom that was very differently imperious in provincial and communal collectivites than in individuals themselves. This is something which I should have liked to pursue further and which I shall content myself here with quoting from memory.