What is Property?

What is Property? Or, An Inquiry Into The Principle of Right and of Government  (1840)  by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Contents

• P. J. Proudhon: His Life And His Works
• Preface
• First Memoir: Chapter I: Method Pursued In This Work -- The Idea of a Revolution
• Chapter II: Property Considered As A Natural Right -- Occupation And Civil Law As Efficient Bases of Property -- Definitions
  1. Property as a Natural Right.
  2. Occupation as the Title to Property.
  3. Civil Law as the Foundation and Sanction of Property.
• Chapter III: Labor As The Efficient Cause of the Domain of Property
  1. The Land cannot be appropriated.
  2. Universal Consent no Justification of Property.
  3. Prescription gives no Title to Property.
  4. Labor.--That Labor has no Inherent Power to appropriate Natural Wealth.
  5. That Labor leads to Equality of Property.
  6. That in Society all Wages are Equal.
  7. That Inequality of Powers is the Necessary Condition of Equality of Fortunes.
  8. That, from the stand-point of Justice, Labor destroys Property.
• Chapter IV: That Property Is Impossible
  • Demonstration
  • Axiom: Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over any thing which he has stamped as his own.
  1. First Proposition: Property is Impossible, because it demands Something for Nothing.
  2. Second Proposition: Property is Impossible, because, wherever it exists, Production costs more than it is worth.
  3. Third Proposition: Property is Impossible, because, with a given Capital, Production is proportional to Labor, not to Property.
  4. Fourth Proposition: Property is Impossible, because it is Homicide.
  5. Fifth Proposition: Property is Impossible, because, if it exists, Society devours itself.
     • Appendix to the Fifth Proposition.
  6. Sixth Proposition: Property is Impossible, because it is the Mother of Tyranny.
  7. Seventh Proposition: Property is Impossible, because, in consuming its Receipts, it loses them; in hoarding them, it nullifies them; and, in using them as Capital, it turns them against Production.
  8. Eighth Proposition: Property is Impossible, because its Power of Accumulation is infinite, and is exercised only over Finite Quantities.
  9. Ninth Proposition: Property is Impossible, because it is powerless against Property.
  10. Tenth Proposition: Property is Impossible, because it is the Negation of Equality.
• Chapter V: Psychological Exposition of the Idea of Justice and In Justice, and a Determination of the Principle of Government and of Right
  • PART I
    1. Of the Moral Sense in Man and the Animals.
    2. Of the First and Second Degrees of Sociability.
    3. Of the Third Degree of Sociability.
  • PART II
    1. Of the Causes of our Mistakes. The Origin of Property.
    2. Characteristics of Communism and of Property.
    3. Determination of the Third Form of Society. Conclusion.
• Second Memoir: Letter to M. Blanqui on Property

This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.