Property Is Theft!

by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  509 This phrase is sloppy. I should have written: Outside that there is no Constitution in the present sense of the word; there is only one of these two things: a monarchical or an oligarchical dictatorship, making its laws and implementing them by means of its ministers; or a mass of free citizens, negotiating on the question of their interests, either individually or in councils, carrying out all the tasks of labour and society without any intermediaries.

  510 In classical mythology, the Pillars of Hercules marked the westward bounds of the known world. (Editor)

  511 This chapter, very obscure in the earliest editions, has been completely rewritten and argued according to the principles developed in the General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century.

  512 The name of the first five books of the Old Testament. (Editor)

  513 The body of juridical, moral, and ceremonial institutions, laws and decisions based on the last four books of the Pentateuch, and ascribed by Christian and Hebrew tradition to Moses. (Editor)

  514 Philip IV of France (1268–1314) reigned as King of France from 1285 until his death. Nicknamed the Fair (le Bel) because of his handsome appearance. (Editor)

  515 Pope Boniface VIII (1235–1303) had feuds with Dante, who placed him in a circle of Hell in his Commedia, and King Philip IV of France. (Editor)

  516 See Samuel 8:11–17. (Editor)

  517 A tontine is a scheme for raising capital that combines features of a group annuity and a lottery. Each investor then receives annual dividends on his capital. As each investor dies, his or her share is reallocated among the surviving investors. This process continues until only one investor survives. (Editor)

  518 The phrase “freedom of teaching” (liberté de l’enseignement), in French political debates around 1848, meant preserving the role of the Church in schooling, as against demands for the establishment of a government monopoly on schools, which then would be lay institutions. (Editor)

  519 A reference to the property qualification for voting under the July Monarchy which restricted suffrage to a small number of wealthy Frenchmen. This was abolished by the February Revolution until universal male suffrage was effectively eliminated by the law of 31st May 1850. (Editor)

  520 In my book General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century I offered, together with the principles and forms of the economic constitution, a solution to the problem of the annihilation of the government by means of social liquidation and the organisation of industrial forces. What I wished to demonstrate in this section was that the principles of centralisation and separation which constitute the political mechanism both lead, when pushed to their extreme consequences, to the absolute suppression of the State. In a word, while in the General Idea I showed the economic constitution producing itself out of many parts and replacing the political constitution by eliminating it, in the Confessions I confine myself to showing the political constitution transforming itself into the economic one.—It is always the same equation obtained by different procedures.

  521 Heads of a succursal parish (mission church). They were not canonically parish priests (curés) and received no remuneration from the State. (Editor)

  522 See General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century for how these diverse categories of services are constituted wholly apart from any governmental form by means of economic organisation.

  523 A reference to the Pensées of philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623–1662): “Nature is an infinite sphere of which the centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.” (Editor)

  524 The last words of Jesus on the cross, from the Latin Vulgate of the New Testament, John 19:30: “It is finished.” (Editor)

  525 Psalm 130 (De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine: “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord”). (Editor)

  526 Proudhon rapidly references a series of events marking the period of Louis-Philippe’s reign: Poland… Krakow: Despite popular sympathy for the Polish revolts of 1830–1831, France did not come to Poland’s aid. Belgium… Ancona: In 1831, France intervened on behalf of Belgium against the Netherlands, and sent troops to occupy Ancona, Italy in 1832.

  The Quadruple Alliance… Beirut: In 1840, a Quadruple Alliance was formed between Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia to assist Turkey in opposing Muhammad Ali’s claim to rule of Egypt and Syria; Ali resisted this pressure on the assumption that the French would act as his allies, but Louis-Philippe decided not to support him, and the British proceeded to military action against Ali, beginning by invading Beirut.

  The right to search: The right to stop and search ships suspected of illegal trafficking in slaves on the high seas, an issue of contention between France and Britain, was the subject of a treaty signed in 1845.

  Secret societies, infernal machines: Under Louis-Philippe’s reign, secret societies were organised by a variety of political factions, from Bonapartists to Republicans; one of the latter, the Société des Droits de l’Homme, was the target of repressive laws proclaimed by Louis-Philippe in 1834, leading to an unsuccessful 1835 assassination attempt employing a “machine infernale” (a special gun with twenty-five barrels).

  Parliamentary coalitions: Between 1832 and 1840, a series of “coalitions” were formed in the course of machinations over political power.

  Pritchard: In 1844, British consul George Pritchard was expelled by a French admiral in the course of a dispute over control of Tahiti.

  The Spanish marriages: In 1846, Louis-Philippe’s son, Antoine d’Orléans, was married to Luisa Fernanda, heiress-presumptive to the Spanish crown.

  The Russian loan… scarcity: During the economic crisis of 1847–1848, Russia made a 50 million franc loan to France in the form of a purchase of bonds, allowing France to buy grain from Russia.

  Electoral reform: under Louis-Philippe, suffrage was slightly expanded, but in ways that tended to benefit the bourgeoisie.

  Switzerland… the Sonderbund: In 1845, seven Conservative cantons created the Sonderbund, so provoking a civil war two years later. (Editor)

  527 Jean-Baptiste Carrier (1756–94) was a French Revolutionary, known for his cruelty to his enemies, especially to clergy. Carrier was sent, early in October 1793, to Nantes by the National Convention to suppress an anti-revolutionary revolt where he invented a variety of extremely torturous means of killing. This gained Carrier a reputation for wanton cruelty. He was recalled by the National Convention, took part in the attack on Robespierre on the 9th Thermidor, and was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal on the 11th. He was guillotined on 16 November 1794. (Editor)

  528 It has been just two years since these pages were written. Today, none can deny that the author’s predictions have been faithfully fulfilled.

  529 The Roman Republic was declared on February 9th, 1849, when the government of the Papal States was overthrown by a republican revolution led by Giuseppe Mazzini. President Louis Napoléon sent troops to restore the Pope and on April 25th some eight to ten thousand French troops landed near Rome. After a siege in June, a truce was negotiated on July 1st and the French Army entered Rome on July 3rd, re-establishing the Pope’s temporal power. The expedition was commanded by Charles Nicolas Victor Oudinot. (Editor)

  530 According to the Greek writer Ctesias of Cnidus, Sardanapalus was the last king of Assyria. It is not sure whether he existed or not; Ctesias presented a character who was a debauchee, living a live of sloth and luxury who was, at the last, forced ineffectually to take up arms, and who avoided capture by suicide, dying in the flames that consumed his palace. (Editor)

  531 Rateau was an obscure representative in the National Assembly who brought the motion for a no-confidence vote against the Barrot Ministry on January 6th, 1849. Proponents of the motion argued that dissolution of government was essential to restore the economy and consolidate order. (Editor)

  532 A castle which was turned into a state prison. It had many famous prisoners, the last of whom was Louis-Napoléon who escaped after six years by adopting the
identity of a painter, Badinguet. Later, his opponents would often refer to him disparagingly as Badinguet. (Editor)

  533 Charenton was a lunatic asylum, founded in 1645 by the Frères de la Charité in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, now Saint-Maurice, Val-de-Marne, France. (Editor)

  534 Adolphe Crémieux (1796–1880), a moderate republican, was appointed Minister of Justice after the February Revolution. Elected to the National Assembly in April, Crémieux retained the justice portfolio and was sent as part of a parliamentary delegation to explain the decision to abolish the national workshops to national guard units in June. He acted as rapporteur for numerous committees, i.e., he made reports on various questions which he then read to those committees. (Translator)

  535 This was written more than 6 months before the Law of May 31st, 1850 which deprived more than 300,000 citizens of their right to vote and replaced universal suffrage by limited suffrage. At the time of the passing of that law I was at Doullens, where the administration had sent me for an article about the April elections. It was not due to my colleagues on the Voix du Peuple that the democrats did not put into practice the principles developed in my Confessions. The police made sure of that by suppressing the newspaper; and the People, more wisely, I admit, understood that it was better for the defence of its rights to allow the powers that be to lose their way through their own violation of the pact rather than offer them the opportunity for a useless massacre and perhaps even a victory. This wise conduct was entirely to the benefit of the Revolution and forever closed the possibility of a return to Jacobinism.

  536 Just before elections, Faucher sent a telegram to the rural prefects describing the republican representatives who had opposed the military action in Rome as “agitateurs” who were “ready to mount the barricades and bring back the days of June,” listing their names, apparently so that voters could be warned against re-electing them. The Constituent Assembly censured Faucher so harshly in response that he was forced to resign on May 14th. (Editor)

  537 Grouchy and Bourmont were two military commanders under Napoléon during the battle of Waterloo. Grouchy was sent to pursue part of the retreating Prussian army and despite hearing the cannon sound from nearby Waterloo, he decided to obey his orders and engage the one Prussian Corps in Wavre. The troops committed to this battle could have turned the tide at Waterloo. Bourment was a royalist who betrayed Napoléon by handing the campaign plans to the Prussians. (Editor)

  538 Ancient Rome was marked by increasing inequality and internal political struggle between the aristocratic patricians and the common people (“plebs”). Many of the latter were imprisoned or enslaved when they could not repay their debts. In 494 B.C. the plebs simply walked out of the city to the Sacred Mount leaving the patricians rulers of an empty city. The patricians had no choice but to negotiate and so the tribunes of the plebs were founded to protect the people against oppression. (Editor)

  539 Italian: “The world runs itself.” (Editor)

  540 Blanc wrote: “The logic of history demands the creation of a Ministry of Progress, having as its special purpose the energising of the Revolution, the opening of the road that leads to dazzling horizons.” This proposal, which would have given him a budget to control, was rejected, and instead Blanc was given his place on the Luxembourg Commission. (Editor)

  541 The period between the February Revolution and the election of the Constituent Assembly in May. As the provisional government was not elected, many commentators at the time referred to it as a dictatorship as a result. (Editor)

  542 Radetzki and Haynau were Austrian Generals who crushed popular revolutions in Italy in 1848–49 while Oudinot led the French destruction of the revolutionary republic in Rome in 1849. (Editor)

  543 André Louis Jules Lechevalier (1800–50) was an economist and journalist, an ardent follower of Victor Considérant. He was arrested and convicted for taking part in the demonstration on June 13th, 1849. Anticipating this, Lechevalier fled to London in July 1849 and wrote his Déclaration in October. (Editor)

  544 Communautaire, advocates of centralised and regimented socialism (or “community”). (Editor)

  545 A person who has retired into seclusion for religious reasons. (Editor)

  546 “The divine Orpheus, the interpreter of the gods, called men from the depths of the forests and filled them with a horror of murder and of human flesh. Consequently it was said of him that he tamed lions and tigers, as later it was said of Amphion, founder of Thebes, that he moved the stones by the sound of his lyre, and led them whither he wished by the charm of his prayer.” (Translator)

  547 Joseph Fouché (1759–1820), Minister of Police for the Emperor Napoléon, and several Prefects of Police: Henri Gisquet (1792–1866), Marc Caussidière (1808–1861), and Pierre Carlier (1794–1858). (Editor)

  548 Pierre Jules Baroche (1802–1870), Republican turned right-wing statesman after 1848, later Minister of Justice; André Dupin (1783–1865), politician and procureur-général; Perrin Dandin, a character from Rabelais notable for passing arbitrary judgements. (Editor)

  549 Achille Fould (1800–1867) and Jakob Mayer Rothschild (1792–1868), both Jewish citizens of France, were financiers. (Editor)

  550 One of the rare occurrences when Proudhon’s personal bigotries surfaced in his public writings. (Editor)

  551 Georges Humann (1780–1842), a financier, was also Minister of Finance; Jean Lacave-Laplagne (1795–1849) was a politician and financial minister; Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès (1803–1878) was made Minister of Finance in 1848; Hippolyte Philibert Passy (1793–1880) was an economist and politician active on financial matters; Charles Duclerc (1812–1888) succeeded Garnier-Pagès as Minister of Finance. The Man With Forty Crowns (L’Homme aux quarante écus) is a satire by Voltaire (1768), while Turcaret, a greedy money-man, is the protagonist of Alain-René Lesage’s satirical play, Le Financier (1709). (Editor)

  552 Pauline Roland (1805–1852), a Saint-Simonian socialist, feminist, and associate of Leroux, also wrote a column for Proudhon’s Le Représentant du peuple, but was later to write a critique of Proudhon’s antifeminism, La femme a-t-elle le droit à la liberté? (Does Woman Have the Right to Liberty?, 1851). (Editor)

  553 Jules Mazarin (1602–1661) was an Italian cardinal who served as the chief minister of France from 1642 until his death, first under King Louis XIII and then Louis XIV. As the latter was only five years old when he became King, Mazarin functioned essentially as the co-ruler of France alongside the queen. (Editor)

  554 A slight misquotation of St. Augustine’s De Trinitate: “Dictum est tamen tres personae, non ut aliquid diceretur, sed ne taceretur” (“We shall speak of [God as having] three persons, not in order to say anything, but in order not to be silent”). (Editor)

  555 The French word translated here as “buy back” and “buyback,” rachat, can also have a theological dimension, as in the English words redeem and redemption: the phrase “redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ,” in French, is “rachat par le sang de Jésus-Christ.” (Editor)

  556 The term Proudhon uses, la productivité du capital, is literally “the productivity of capital” but such a literal translation unfortunately implies that he simply wishes to end returns to capital. Rather, he wants to achieve production without the mediation of capital and the chosen translation reflects this. (Editor)

  557 In Leroux’s philosophy the fundamental principle was that of what he called the “triad”—a triplicity which he finds to pervade all things, which in God is “power, intelligence and love,” in man “sensation, sentiment and knowledge.” In society, he pointed to the division of the human race into three great classes, philosophers, artists and industrial chiefs, to be paid according to their capacity, labour, and capital. (Editor)

  558 All three of these papers were suppressed by the state, as was its next incarnation Le Peuple de 1850. (Editor)

  559 This exchange originally appeared in Proudhon’s La Voix du Peuple before being published as a book. (Editor)

 
560 From St. Ambrose’s De Tobia: “that which exceeds the principal in a loan is usury.” (Editor)

  561 A “malbrouck” was a kind of crude cart used by seventeenth-century Belgian farmers. (Editor)

  562 Antoine Maurice Apollinaire d’Argout (1782–1858), centre-right politician and manager of the Banque de France; Gilbert-Urbain Guillaumin (1801–1864), liberal economist, later publisher of Bastiat’s Œuvres complètes (1862). (Editor)