What Is Property?

presentation of the question, I might dissipate the fears of good citizens. I now re-enter upon the public use of my reason, and give truth full swing. The second edition of the First Memoir on Property will immediately follow the publication of this letter. Before issuing anything further, I shall await the observations of my critics, and the cooperation of the friends of the people and of equality.

Hitherto, I have spoken in my own name, and on my own personal responsibility. It was my duty. I was endeavoring to call attention to principles which antiquity could not discover, because it knew nothing of the science which reveals them⁠—political economy. I have, then, testified as to facts; in short, I have been a witness. Now my role changes. It remains for me to deduce the practical consequences of the facts proclaimed. The position of public prosecutor is the only one which I am henceforth fitted to fill, and I shall sum up the case in the name of the people.

I am, sir, with all the consideration that I owe to your talent and your character,

Your very humble and most obedient servant,

P. J. Proudhon,
Pensioner of the Academy of Besançon.

P.S. During the session of April 2, the Chamber of Deputies rejected, by a very large majority, the literary-property bill, because it did not understand it. Nevertheless, literary property is only a special form of the right of property, which everybody claims to understand. Let us hope that this legislative precedent will not be fruitless for the cause of equality. The consequence of the vote of the Chamber is the abolition of capitalistic property⁠—property incomprehensible, contradictory, impossible, and absurd.

Endnotes

1. In the French edition of Proudhon’s works, the above sketch of his life is prefixed to the first volume of his correspondence, but the translator prefers to insert it here as the best method of introducing the author to the American public. He would, however, caution readers against accepting the biographer’s interpretation of the author’s views as in any sense authoritative; advising them, rather, to await the publication of the remainder of Proudhon’s writings, that they may form an opinion for themselves.

   —⁠Translator

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2. An Inquiry Into Grammatical Classifications. By P. J. Proudhon. A treatise which received honorable mention from the Academy of Inscriptions, May 4, 1839. Out of print. ↩

3. The Utility of the Celebration of Sunday, etc. By P. J. Proudhon. Besançon, 1839, 12mo; 2nd edition, Paris, 1841, 18mo. ↩

4. Charron, on Wisdom, Chapter xviii. ↩

5. M. Vivien, Minister of Justice, before commencing proceedings against the Memoir Upon Property, asked the opinion of M. Blanqui; and it was on the strength of the observations of this honorable academician that he spared a book which had already excited the indignation of the magistrates. M. Vivien is not the only official to whom I have been indebted, since my first publication, for assistance and protection; but such generosity in the political arena is so rare that one may acknowledge it graciously and freely. I have always thought, for my part, that bad institutions made bad magistrates; just as the cowardice and hypocrisy of certain bodies results solely from the spirit which governs them. Why, for instance, in spite of the virtues and talents for which they are so noted, are the academies generally centres of intellectual repression, stupidity, and base intrigue? That question ought to be proposed by an academy: there would be no lack of competitors. ↩

6. In Greek, σκερτικος, examiner; a philosopher whose business is to seek the truth. ↩

7. Religion, laws, marriage, were the privileges of freemen, and, in the beginning, of nobles only. Dii majorum gentium⁠—gods of the patrician families; jus gentium⁠—right of nations; that is, of families or nobles. The slave and the plebeian had no families; their children were treated as the offspring of animals. Beasts they were born, beasts they must live. ↩

8. If the chief of the executive power is responsible, so must the deputies be also. It is astonishing that this idea has never occurred to anyone; it might be made the subject of an interesting essay. But I declare that I would not, for all the world, maintain it; the people are yet much too logical for me to furnish them with arguments. ↩

9. See De Tocqueville, Democracy in the United States; and Michel Chevalier, Letters on North America. Plutarch tells us, “Life of Pericles,” that in Athens honest people were obliged to conceal themselves while studying, fearing they would be regarded as aspirants for office. ↩

10. “Sovereignty,” according to Toullier, “is human omnipotence.” A materialistic definition: if sovereignty is anything, it is a right, not a force or a faculty. And what is human omnipotence? ↩

11. The Proudhon here referred to is J. B. V. Proudhon; a distinguished French jurist, and distant relative of the author.

    —⁠Translator

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12. Here, especially, the simplicity of our ancestors appears in all its rudeness. After having made first cousins heirs, where there were no legitimate children, they could not so divide the property between two different branches as to prevent the simultaneous existence of extreme wealth and extreme poverty in the same family. For example:⁠—

    James, dying, leaves two sons, Peter and John, heirs of his fortune: James’s property is divided equally between them. But Peter has only one daughter, while John, his brother, leaves six sons. It is clear that, to be true to the principle of equality, and at the same time to that of heredity, the two estates must be divided in seven equal portions among the children of Peter and John; for otherwise a stranger might marry Peter’s daughter, and by this alliance half of the property