Property Is Theft!

by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  563 A well-known line from Boileau’s Satires, roughly equivalent to “telling it like it is.” (Editor)

  564 It should be noted that Bastiat died of tuberculosis by the end of the year. (Editor)

  565 A reference to the insurrection which broke out in June 1848 after the newly elected conservative government closed down the National Workshops. (Editor)

  566 This is C. R. Prinsep’s translation of J-B Say’s Treatise on Political Economy, 6th ed. (Editor)

  567 I have taken the liberty to change two words in this passage, as a literal rendering would make nonsense of it. There must be some error in the text. (Translator)

  568 “Oh, dim minds! Oh, dull hearts of men!” (Translator) A slight misquotation of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), 2.14: “o miseras hominum mentes, o pectora cæca!” (Oh, miserable minds, oh, blind hearts!). (Editor)

  569 “Against the enemy the right of defence is inalienable.” (Translator)

  570 Napoléon Bonaparte. (Editor)

  571 Charles Irénée Castel, abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658–1743), radical thinker, author of Projet de paix perpétuelle (1713). (Editor)

  572 Cf. the epigraph to the System of Economic Contradictions: “Destruam et ædificabo”: “I shall destroy and I shall build.” (Editor)

  573 Georges Frédéric Cuvier (1769–1832), famed naturalist and zoologist, had proposed sweeping renovations of Linnaeus’ system for classifying organisms in Le Règne Animal Distribué d’après son Organisation, pour Servir de Base à l’Histoire Naturelle des Animaux et d’Introduction à l’Anatomie Comparée (1817). (Editor)

  574 Louis-Alfred Darimon (1819–1902), writer and editor for La Presse and Proudhon’s Le Peuple. (Editor)

  575 From Ovid’s description of primordial chaos in Metamorphoses, Book I: “Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable.” (Translator)

  576 Proudhon at this time divided French society into three classes: bourgeoisie, middle class and wage-workers, or lower class. The petit-bourgeoisie was middle class, not middle-income wage-workers (as the term is usually applied today). In other words, artisans and peasants who worked the tools and land they owned. The bourgeoisie, in contrast, lived off their property by getting others to work or use it in return for profits, interest and rent. While this is a somewhat different terminology than used beforehand, Proudhon’s position had not changed. He still desired co-operation between the middle class (la petit-bourgeoisie) and the working class (le salariat) to transform the latter into the former by abolishing the landlords and capitalists (la bourgeoisie). (Editor)

  577 “Fusion” refers to an alliance between the rival Orléanist and Legitimist political factions. See the Glossary entry for “July Revolution.” (Editor)

  578 Lazare Carnot (1753–1823), Pierre Joseph Cambon (1756–1820), Pierre-Louis Prieur (1756–1827), and Bertrand Barère (1755–1841), members of the Committee of Public Safety that oversaw the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution (1793–1795). (Editor)

  579 From the words marking the entrance to Hell in Dante’s Inferno: “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate” (“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”). (Translator)

  580 Erasmus: “Man is to man either a god or a wolf.” (Translator)

  581 The French word “science,” here as elsewhere, is sometimes best translated by the same word in English, and at other points may be better translated as “knowledge.” As Raymond Williams notes, the narrowing of the term “science” from meaning nearly any kind of systematic or comprehensive knowledge to meaning primarily the specific kinds of knowledge produced by the methods of the natural sciences took place in the English language, between the 17th and 19th centuries, to an extent that it never did in Romance languages; accordingly, “this causes considerable problems in contemporary translation, notably from French” (see Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society [New York: Oxford University Press, 1985], 279). Proudhon’s understanding of what renders knowledge scientifique or positive owes something, it is true, to Auguste Comte’s “positivism,” with its ambition to found an experimentally verifiable, materialist “science of society” on grounds as certain as those of physics; it also owes something to the idealism of Immanuel Kant and the relativism of Giambattista Vico. At times, then, rendering la science and even scientifique by their English cognates may have the effect of making Proudhon seem to be laying claim to a kind of knowledge that is more objective and physics-like than what he intends. (Editor)

  582 Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854), and G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), German idealist philosophers who argued that truth is to be attained not through observation of the external, natural world but through the mind’s own independent activity. (Editor)

  583 A reference to the Scholastic philosophers of the Middle Ages. (Editor)

  584 A reference to the Catholic doctrine of “probabilism,” which dictated that the believer should defer to authority (ostensibly the source of the most “probable” truth) in any matter of uncertainty. See Proudhon’s attack on probabilism in De la Justice, 7th Study, Chapter III. (Editor)

  585 Thales of Miletus (ca. 624–546 BCE) and Democritus of Thrace (ca. 460–370 BCE) are pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. (Editor)

  586 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716) had famously written, in his Essais de théodicée (1710), that “God has chosen the best of all possible worlds” (Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil., trans. E. M. Huggard, [La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Co., 1990], 168). (Editor)

  587 “on an equal footing.” (Editor)

  588 The trinity of the Alexandrians [early Christian theologians] was only a superstitious idea; that of the Christians is a mystery. The ternary facts, borrowed from nature, are from pure empiricism, to which is opposed, in much greater numbers, binary facts, quaternary, etc. The famous division of nature into three kingdoms [i.e., animal, vegetable, and mineral: Linnaeus’ Regnum Animale, Regnum Vegetabile, and Regnum Lapideum] is incomplete: above the animal kingdom, in which are manifested sensibility, life, the affections, instinct, and to a certain degree intelligence, we must add the spiritual kingdom, of which humanity alone is the subject, and which is distinguished by manifestations unknown in the preceding kingdom, speech, religion, justice, logic, metaphysics, poetry and art, industry, science, exchange, war, politics and progress. The Hegelian formula is only a triad by the good pleasure or the error of the master, who counts three terms where there truly exists only two, and who has not seen that the antinomy does not resolve itself, but that it indicates an oscillation or antagonism susceptible only to equilibrium. By this point of view alone, the system of Hegel would be entirely remade. It is the same for the syllogism, in which there is also two propositions, which are equated by the relation of like terms, rather as in arithmetic proportions.

  Every MAN is mortal, and Pierre is a MAN; thus, etc.

  It is useless to express the conclusion here; it is enough to correctly write the premises. To take the triad for a formula of logic, a law of nature and reason, especially for

  the archetype of judgement and the organic principle of society, is to deny analysis, to deliver philosophy to mysticism, and democracy to imbecility. It appears there, besides, by the fruits. The only thing that one can attribute to trinitarian influence is the ancient division of society by castes, clergy, nobility, commoners, an antihuman division, against which the Revolution was made.

  589 Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre (Science of Knowledge, 1794) emphasised the “Ego” as the necessary foundation of knowledge. (Editor)

  590 Medea, in Greek mythology, is a sorceress who wreaks a cruel revenge on her treacherous husband, Jason, a story retold by the playwrights Euripedes and Corneille. Proudhon is quoting loosely from Corneille’s Medée, Act I, Scene iv. David Hume references this same passage in his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals: “The confident of Medea in the tragedy recommends
caution and submission; and enumerating all of the distresses of that unfortunate heroine, asks her, what she has to support her against her numerous and implacable enemies. ‘Myself,’ replies she; ‘myself, I say, and it is enough’” (7.7). (Editor)

  591 Kant endeavoured to show that there were a priori synthetic judgements, although that implied a contradiction to some extent, and he was right to think so, since without an a priori synthetic judgement, the unity of philosophical construction is impossible. Hegel, on the contrary, argued that such judgements do not exist, and all his philosophy, understood in good faith, is nothing but the analysis and then the reconstruction of a synthesis that is necessarily conceived a priori. What, then, is this synthesis that Kant affirms and does not find, that Hegel denies and demonstrates? It is nothing other than Justice, at once the most complete concept and the most paramount, that Hegel calls sometimes the Idea, sometimes the Spirit or the Absolute.

  592 “the good and well-spoken man”: a definition of the ideal orator attributed to the Roman politician, Cato the Elder. (Editor)

  593 A quotation from the Roman rhetorician Quintillian: “The heart is what makes one eloquent.” (Editor)

  594 Exodus 3:14: “I am that I am.” (Editor)

  595 From the Latin Bible: “Quærite primum regnum Dei et justitiam ejus, et cetera omnia adjicientur vobis” (“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”) (Matthew 6:33); “Sacrificate sacrificium justitiæ et fidite in Domino multi dicunt quis ostendit nobis bonum” (“Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord”) (Psalms 4:5). (Editor)

  596 Proudhon refers to a long line of Christian heretics. (Editor.)

  597 In classical rhetoric, appeals to ethos (character) and pathos (emotion) are alternative modes of persuasion when appeals to logos (reason) are insufficient. (Editor)

  598 Leibniz’s Monadologie (1714) had proposed that the material universe is composed of infinitesimally small (hence effectively immaterial) particles, which he named “monads,” from a Greek root meaning “alone,” since each of these particles would be incapable of receiving any influence from outside itself. Each monad, however, Leibniz held to be immediately in relation with every other monad by virtue of a “pre-established harmony” that made each monad a “living mirror” of all the others (78, 56). Proudhon rejects the “pre-established harmony” thesis, but later in Justice suggests that Leibniz’s philosophy might serve as a useful analogy for his own concept of the centreless, horizontal federation: whereas “the monadology was for Leibniz merely a hypothesis,” Proudhon remarks, for us, “it is a question of making it a fact.” (Translator)

  599 Pippin of Herstal (635–714) was the Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia from 680 to his death and of Neustria and Burgundy from 687 to 695. He was also the first mayor of the palace to reign as Duke and Prince of the Franks, by far overshadowing the Merovingian Kings. (Editor)

  600 Hugh the White (d. 956) was duke of the Franks and count of Paris. As the most powerful man in the kingdom of France (West Francia) during the reign of Louis IV d’Outremer and the early years of King Lothar, he refused the opportunity to become King twice, preferring to work from behind the throne. (Editor)

  601 “the lord’s right”: referring to certain privileges enjoyed by feudal landlords over their serfs such as rights of hunting, taxation, and farming. (Editor)

  602 Hebrew for “Covenant,” berith is a central concept of the Hebrew Scriptures and is the term used for the relationship between God and his people. (Editor)

  603 Roughly, “by fair means or foul.” (Editor)

  604 A “benefice,” in Catholicism, was a kind of pay assigned to priests for ecclesiastical duties, a system that became subject to serious abuse; the Constitution civile du clergé (“Civil Constitution of the Clergy,” a law instituted in 1790) supplanted it, making priests effectively government employees. (Translator)

  605 Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (Cincinnati: Clarke, 1873) 1.1: “Laws […] are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.” (Translator)

  606 A reference to the Doctrinaires. (Editor)

  607 i.e., the expense of maintaining the royal family (Translator)

  608 King Henri IV of France (1553–1610) argued that Europe’s nations could end their cycle of perpetual warfare by achieving a “balance of power” (“équilibre européen”); at the same time, he had ambitions to construct a more stable order in Europe, a unitary “Christian republic,” forerunner of other conceptions of European unity. (Editor)

  609 In ancient Greece, an Amphiktyones was association or religious confederation of Greek communities which lived in the vicinity of a sanctuary (religious centre) which they maintained and organised celebrations for. The most important was the Amphictyonic League (Delphic Amphictyony) in which members sent two kinds of representatives to a council that met twice a year. Although primarily religious, the league exercised a political influence through its membership oath. (Editor)

  610 The Charter of 1814 created a limited monarchy rather than a fully fledged constitutional monarchy. It was based on a bicameral legislature, a Chamber of Deputies (representing an electorate of 90,000 men) and a Chamber of Peers (nominated by the King). (Editor)

  611 When the Chamber of Deputies and Chamber of Peers were recalled in March 1830, the speech of King Charles X at the opening invoked a negative reaction from many deputies. On 18 March, 221 deputies (a majority of 30) voted that the King’s ministers should have the backing of the Chambers. The King’s authoritarian response to this eventually provoked the 1830 revolution. (Editor)

  612 Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (or Lafayette) (1757–1834) was a French aristocrat and military officer. He was a general in the American Revolutionary War. and a leader of the Garde Nationale during the French Revolution. In the 1830 revolution, Lafayette established a committee as interim government, refused to become dictator and agreed to offer the crown to Louis-Phillipe. (Editor)

  613 “Neither rule nor sovereignty is given in economy.” (Editor)

  614 A list of accomplishments of the French Revolution. The Tennis Court Oath (June 20th, 1789) marked the willingness of the newly formed National Assembly to defy the King’s soldiers, and its meeting of August 4th signalled the end of the feudal system. 1791 saw the drafting of France’s first written constitution, instituting jury trials. January 21st was the date in 1793 when the King was executed. The International (metric) system of weights and measures was instituted on August 1st, 1793, and the Revolutionary calendar on November 23rd. The Great Book of the Public Debt (Grand livre de la dette publique), a single ledger consolidating and rationalising the government’s finances, was inaugurated on August 24th, 1793. (Editor)

  615 The senatus-consultum of February 17th, 1810 declared, on the grounds that Napoléon Bonaparte was heir to Charlemagne, who had formally given the Papal States to Pope Leo III in the first place (in 781), these lands belonged to the French Empire, not the Pope. This land grab, Proudhon suggests, abrogated the longstanding relations of mutual support between Church and State epitomised by Charlemagne’s rescue of Leo and Leo’s coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor (in 800). (Editor)

  616 Words supposedly spoken to King Philip II of Spain (1527–98) by his court jester. (Editor)

  617 Étienne Milliet, editor of the Journal de l’Ain, was a co-worker of Proudhon’s from his earlier days as an employee of the Gauthier printing press. (Editor)

  618 One of the publishers of Proudhon’s books. (Editor)

  619 Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) was a leader of the Italian national-liberation movement, an advocate of Italy’s unification. Le Siècle and La Presse were rival moderate and conservative newspapers. (Editor)

  620 In Chapter II, Proudhon defines the “Regime of Authority” as monarchy/patriarchy (“Government of all by one”) and panarchy/communism (“Government of all by all”). The “Regime
of Liberty” referred to democracy (“Government of all by each”) and an-archy/self-government (“Government of each by each”). (Editor)

  621 In Chapter I, Proudhon argues that all social organisations (or governments, to use his term) involve the balancing of authority by liberty, or vice versa. In Chapter V, he argues that all existing governments either involved the subordination of authority to liberty, or vice versa. (Editor)

  622 Victor Emmanuel II (Vittorio Emmanuele, 1820–78) became King of Italy in 1861. (Editor)

  623 A reference to the February Revolution 1848 and the workers revolt of June 1848 against the new Republican government. Thus “February” refers to the Liberal and Republican tendency within French politics and “June” to the radical, militant socialist tendency. (Editor)

  624 In Greek mythology, Ixion was king of the Lapiths. Brought to Olympus by Zeus, Ixion fell in love with Hera, Zeus’ wife, and as punishment Zeus ordered him bound to a fiery wheel that was always spinning across the heavens. (Editor)

  625 A slight misquotation of the Latin Bible (John 3:30): “illum oportet crescere me autem minui” (“He must increase: but I must decrease”). (Editor)