Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
French anarchist and socialist (1809–1865), the first to call himself an anarchist; "property is theft!"
At a glance
Main ideas
Property is theft, Mutualism, Anarchy as order …
See all 5Books to start with
What Is Property?, The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century …
See all 4Connections
Mikhail Bakunin and What Is Property?
See all 2
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- Proudhon was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher and economist who founded mutualism.
- He was the first person known to call himself an anarchist.
- A printer by trade, he made his name with What Is Property? (1840) and its claim that "property is theft!".
- He sat in the French Parliament after the 1848 Revolution.
- His break with Karl Marx became one source of the split between anarchists and Marxists.
Why it matters
- Many consider him the "father of anarchism"; his ideas fed later currents from collectivist anarchism to anarcho-syndicalism.
Key facts
- Born
- 15 Jan 1809, Besançon, France1
- Died
- 19 Jan 1865, Passy; buried at Montparnasse cemetery, Paris1
- Trade
- Printer, apprenticed from 1827; taught himself Latin to print books in it1
- Trial
- Tried at Besançon for Warning to Proprietors (1842) and acquitted1
- Politics
- Member of the French Parliament after the Revolution of 18481
- Marx
- Corresponded with and met Marx; Marx answered his Philosophy of Poverty (1846) with The Poverty of Philosophy1
- Private writings
- His diaries, published from 1960, show hatred of Jews; his posthumous La Pornocratie has been called the most consistent anti-feminist tract of its time1
Main ideas
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Property is theft1
Aimed at the owner who draws rent and profit from a legal title without occupying or working the property.
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Mutualism1
Artisans, peasants and cooperatives trading on a market, with large workplaces run democratically by workers' associations.
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Anarchy as order1
"As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy": the absence of a master or sovereign.
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Federalism1
In later work, a decentralized federation of communes, "the balancing of authority by liberty".
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Reform without revolution1
He held that social revolution could come peacefully and argued against force as a means of reform.
Books to start with
The line under a date fills as it gets older: empty when new, full at 2 years.
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His first major work, the source of "property is theft!".
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The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty1
The book Marx attacked in The Poverty of Philosophy.
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General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century1
Urges "a society without authority".
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The Principle of Federation1
Revises his anti-state position into a theory of federal government.
Connections
Links
Sources
Last checked against its sources today
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