Property Is Theft!

by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Authority is therefore the first social idea to have been devised by humanity.

  And the second was to work immediately for the abolition of authority, each person wanting it to serve as the guarantor of their own liberty against the liberty of others: this was the inevitable result and is the inevitable function of a division into Parties.

  Authority was scarcely inaugurated in the world when it became the object of universal conflict. Authority, Government, Power, State—these words all signify the same thing; each one of these embodies the means to exploit and oppress others. Absolutists, Doctrinaires, Demagogues and Socialists always turn their gaze towards authority like a magnet to a pole.

  As a result of this, there rises the aphorism from the Radical Party491 that the Doctrinaires and Absolutists of course do not disavow: The social revolution is the end; the political revolution (i.e. the transfer of authority) is the means. What this means is: “Give us the power of life and death over you, the people, and your possessions, and we will give you liberty.” Kings and priests have been repeating this for the last six thousand years.

  And thus government and the Parties are reciprocally, one to the other, Cause, End and Means. They exist for one another; their destiny is shared: it is to call daily on the people to emancipate themselves; it is to energetically solicit their support by suppressing their powers of discrimination; it is to shape their minds and push them in the direction of progress by prejudice, by restrictions, by a calculated resistance to all their ideas, to all their needs. You will not do this; you will abstain from that: the government, irrespective of which party happens to hold power, has never known how to say anything else. Prohibition, since Eden, has been the school of the human race. However, once Man has reached the age of majority, government and parties must disappear. This conclusion is reached by the same rigorous logic, using the same sense of inevitability by which socialism has emerged out of absolutism, philosophy out of religion, and even by which equality emerges out of inequality.

  If one seeks, by means of philosophical analysis, to understand authority, its principles, its forms, its effects, one soon recognises that the constitution of authority, both spiritual and temporal, is nothing other than a preparatory organism, essentially parasitic and corruptible, incapable itself of creating anything else, such is its form, such is the idea that it represents, namely tyranny and misery. Philosophy affirms, in consequence, and contrary to faith, that the constitution of an authority over the people is only a transitional establishment; that power is not in any way a conclusion of science but a product of spontaneity, itself disappearing as soon as it develops a sense of itself; that, far from growing and strengthening in time, as the rival parties who besiege it assume, it has to reduce itself indefinitely and become absorbed into the industrial organisation; that, in consequence, it should not be placed above but under society; and in turning the aphorism of the Radicals around, it concludes: The political revolution, (i.e., the abolition of authority among men) is the end; the social revolution is the means.

  And this is why, adds the philosopher, that all the Parties, without exception, and to the extent that they affect power, are all varieties of absolutism, and this is, therefore, why there will no be liberty for citizens, no order in society, no union among workers until the renunciation of authority has replaced the current faith in authority within the political catechism.

  No more parties;

  No more authority;

  Absolute liberty for man and citizen.

  In three short phrases, I have summed up my expression of political faith. It is in this spirit of governmental negation that I once said to a man of rare intelligence, but who had the weakness to want to become a minister:

  “Work with us for the demolition of government! Become a revolutionary for the transformation of Europe and the world, and remain a journalist” (Représentant du Peuple, June 5th, 1848).

  The response I received was:

  “There are two ways to be a revolutionary: from above, which is revolution by initiative, by intelligence, by progress, by ideas; and from below, which is revolution by insurrection, by force, by despair, on the streets.

  “I am and always have been a revolutionary from above; I am not and never have been a revolutionary from below.

  “So don’t ever expect me to work together with anyone for the demolition of any government; my spirit refuses to act thus. I follow a single political thought and idea: to improve the government” (La Presse, June 6th, 1848).

  In this distinction of from above and from below, there is a great deal of bluster but little truth. M. de Girardin, explaining his thoughts in this way, believes himself to have expressed an idea which is as new as it is profound; but he has simply reproduced the eternal illusion of the Demagogues who, believing, with the help of power, that they are advancing their revolutions, are in fact merely serving to undermine them. Let us have a closer look at the thoughts of M. de Girardin.

  This ingenious publicist has decided to call revolution by initiative, by intelligence, by progress and ideas the revolution from above; he has decided to call revolution by means of insurrection and despair the revolution from below. However, exactly the opposite is true.

  From above, in the thinking of the writer I am quoting, evidently signifies power; from below signifies the people. On the one hand we have the actions of government; on the other, the initiative of the masses.

  It is a question then of identifying which of these initiatives, that of the government or that of the people, is the most intelligent, the most progressive, the most peaceful.

  Nevertheless, revolution from above is (and I will explain why later) inevitably revolution according to the whims of the Prince, the arbitrary judgement of a minister, the fumblings of an Assembly or the violence of a club: it is a revolution of dictatorship and despotism.

  And that is revolution as practised by Louis XIV, Napoléon, Charles X; and it was thus that Messrs. Guizot, Louis Blanc and Léon Faucher sought to act. The Whites, The Blues, The Reds are all in agreement on this!

  Revolution on the initiative of the masses is a revolution by the concerted action of the citizens, by the experience of the workers, by the progress and diffusion of enlightenment, revolution by the means of liberty. Condorcet, Turgot, Robespierre all sought a revolution from below, from true democracy. One of the men who created revolution the most and governed the least was Saint Louis.492 France at the time of Saint Louis ran itself; it produced, as a vine produces buds, its lords and its vassals; when the king published his famous resolution, it was simply a formalisation of the public will.

  Socialism gave in fully to the illusion of radicalism; the saintly Plato, more than 2000 years ago was a tragic example of this. Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, Cabet, Louis Blanc, all believers in the organisation of labour by the State, by Capital, by whatever authority, appealed, like M. de Girardin to revolution from above. Instead of teaching the people how to organise themselves, by calling on their experience and their reasoning, they demanded Power. In what way, then, do they differentiate themselves from despots? They are also utopians, like all despots: as one despot steps down, another fills his shoes!

  The conclusion is that government can never be revolutionary quite simply because it is government. Society alone, the masses armed with their intelligence, can create revolution; society alone is able to deploy all its spontaneity, to analyse and explain the mystery of its destiny and its origin, to change its faith and its philosophy, because it alone is capable of fighting against its originator and bearing its fruit. Governments are God’s scourge, established to discipline the world: do you really expect them to destroy themselves, to create freedom, to make revolution?

  They cannot act otherwise. All revolutions since the coronation of the first king up until the Declaration of the Rights of Man were achieved by the spontaneity of the people: governments have always hindered, always suppressed, always beaten back; they have never created revolution.
Their role is not to create change but to control it. And anyway, what is repugnant is that even if they possessed revolutionary science, social science, they could not apply it because they would have been unable to do so, they would not have the right. It would be necessary for them first of all to lay out their science before the people in order to obtain the consent of the citizens: which is to ignore the nature of authority and of power.

  The facts here confirm the theory. The nations which have the most freedom are those where power holds the least sway, where its role is most restrained: one only needs to cite the United States of America, Switzerland, England and Holland. On the other hand, witness that the most subservient nations are those where power is best organised and strongest. And yet we continue to complain that we are not governed enough, and we demand strong government, always stronger government!

  The Church said in times past, speaking like a tender mother: “All for the people, but all by the priests.”

  The Monarchy came after the Church: “All for the people, but all by the Prince.”

  The Doctrinaires: “All for the people, but all by the Bourgeoisie.”

  The Radicals changed the formula, but failed to change the principle: “All for the people, but all by the State.”

  It is always the same governmentalism, the same communism.

  Who then is going to finally conclude; “All for the people, all by the people, including the government”? All for the people: agriculture, commerce, industry, philosophy, religion, police, etc. All by the people: government and religion, as well as agriculture and commerce.

  Democracy is the abolition of all means to power, both spiritual and temporal, legislative, executive, judicial, and proprietary. It is not the Bible, without doubt, that reveals this to us: it is the logic of societies; it is the inevitable outcome of revolutionary acts; it is all of modern philosophy.

  Following M. de Lamartine, and in accordance with M. de Genoude, it is government’s responsibility to say: I want. The country has only to reply: I consent.

  And the experience of centuries tells the people that the best government is that which manages best to render itself powerless. Do we need parasites in order to work or priests in order to speak to God? We do not need elected persons to govern us either.

  The exploitation of man by man, someone once said, is theft. Well, government of man by man is slavery; and all positive religion, right up to the dogma of papal infallibility, is surely nothing other than the adoration of man by man, in other words, idolatry.

  Absolutism, founded simultaneously on the power of the Church, the State and their collective stored wealth, has multiplied, like a web, the chains on humanity. As a result of the exploitation of man by man, as a result of government of man by man, we now have:

  The judgement of man by man;

  The condemnation of man by man;

  And, to finish the sequence, the punishment of man by man!

  These religious, political and judicial institutions, of which we are so proud, which we have come to respect, which we are obliged to obey, right up until they wither and fall like fruit falling in its season, are the instruments of our apprenticeship, visible signs of the government of Instinct over humanity, the weakened but not disfigured remains of the bloody customs that bear witness to our darkest human age. Cannibalism disappeared a long time ago, not without constant resistance from those who held power, in conjunction with their atrocious practices: it still exists within the spirit of our institutions, and, by way of example, I point to the Eucharistic Sacrament 493 and to the Penal Code.

  Philosophical reason rejects this barbaric symbolism; it proscribes these exaggerated forms of human respect. And it did not intend, [as] with the Radicals and the Doctrinaires, that one can proceed to this reform by means of legislative authority; it does not admit that anyone has the right to attempt to work for the best interests of the people in spite of the people, that it is acceptable to set a nation free even if it wants to be governed. Philosophy only puts its faith in reforms which have come out of the free will of societies: the only revolutions that it admits are those which proceed on the initiative of the masses; it denies, in the most absolute manner, the revolutionary competence of governments.

  To sum up:

  If you do not question faith, the fragmentation of society looks like the terrible result of the original fall of man. It is what Greek mythology explained through the fable of the warriors born from the teeth of serpents that went on to kill one another after their birth. God, according to the myth, left the government of humanity in the hands of warring parties, such that discord established its reign on Earth, and that Man learned, under perpetual tyranny, to look constantly back to a bygone age.

  According to this reasoning, governments and parties are merely the inevitable implementers of the fundamental concepts of society, a realisation of the abstractions, a metaphysical pantomime whose meaning is liberty.

  I have made my profession of faith. You are familiar with the personalities who, in this summing up of my political life, are obliged to play the principal parts; you know what the subject of my presentation is going to be: please consider well what I am now going to describe to you.

  CHAPTER VI

  24 FEBRUARY: PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

  SOMEWHERE I SAID that society is a metaphysics in action, a sort of logic that plays itself out on a grand scale.494 What the general study of history and the profounder study of political economy had revealed to me was rendered palpable by the experience of the events that took place in the course of two years.

  Every government establishes itself in contradiction of the one that preceded it: that is its reason for evolving as it does and the justification for its existence. The July government was in opposition to the claims of legitimacy; legitimacy was in opposition to the Empire; the latter was in opposition to the Directory, which was established by the hate directed against the Convention, which was itself convoked to do away with the badly reformed monarchy of Louis XVI.

  According to this law of evolution Louis Philippe’s government, unexpectedly overthrown, in turn required its contrary. On the 24th of February the failure of capital took place; on the 25th the government of labour was inaugurated.495 The provisional government’s decree guaranteeing the right to work was in effect the birth of February’s republic. Good God! Were six thousand years of revolutionary arguments necessary to lead us to this conclusion?...

  Again the theory of antinomies was confirmed by experience: perhaps those who deny that any role is played by philosophy in the vicissitudes of human affairs and ascribe everything to an invisible power will finally tell us why reason explains all, even error and crime, while faith alone explains nothing?

  The fact that the government of workers succeeded that of capitalists was not only logical but just. Capital, which had set itself up as the principle and goal of social institutions, had not been able to sustain itself; the proof was supplied that far from being the principle, it is the product, and that property is no more the driving and shaping force of society than divine right or the sword. After having corrupted everything capitalist theory had even put capital itself at risk.

  In this respect the facts were flagrantly obvious; their witness spoke loud and clear. At the time of the February Revolution commerce and industry, which had been suffering for some years, were in a sad state of stagnation, agriculture was deeply in debt, workshops were out of work, the shops had a superfluity of goods but no turnover, the finances of the State were in just as desperate a condition as those of private individuals. In spite of the periodic growth of the budget, which from 1830 to 1848 had risen progressively from one hundred thousand to one and a half million, the upper and lower houses of parliament had discerned a deficit amounting to 800 million according to some and to others one billion; in this general increase of costs the pay of the officials alone represented an annual sum of 65 million. The bankocrats, who in 1830 had made a revolution in the name o
f interest and promised a cheap government while affecting the title of economists much more than that of politicians, these philosophers of debit and credit spent half as much again as the government of legitimacy and once as much again as the imperial government, without being able to balance receipts and expenses.

  So the proof was definite: it wasn’t capital, interest, usury, parasitism and monopoly which the legislator of 1830 had meant to say, it was labour. Certainly the pretended principle of the July revolution was just as incapable of producing Order as it was of producing Liberty; it was necessary to go higher up, i.e. lower down, it was necessary to go down to the proletariat, down to nothingness. The February Revolution was therefore logically and justly termed the revolution of the workers. How could the bourgeoisie of’89, of ’99, of 1814 and 1830, this bourgeoisie that had passed through the descending chain of governmental forms from catholicism and feudalism down to capital, which only desired to produce and exchange goods, which only attained power through work and the economy, how could it see any danger to its own interests in the republic of labour?

  In this way the February Revolution imposed itself on people’s minds with both de facto and legal authority. The bourgeoisie, vanquished as it was, I do not say by the people—thank the Lord, there had been no conflict between the bourgeoisie and the people in February—but conquered by itself, confessed its defeat. Though taken aback by the unexpected turn of events and disquieted by the spirit and tendencies of the Republic, it did agree that certainly constitutional monarchy had had its day and that it was necessary to reform the government from top to bottom. Thus it resigned itself to supporting the new establishment with its approval and even its capital resources. Had it not, by its opposition and impatience, in fact stimulated the emergence of the very regime that became a material obstacle to its commerce, its industry and its well-being?... It is also true that the emergence of the Republic experienced even fewer contradictions than that of Louis-Philippe, since everyone had begun to grasp the meaning of the times and revolutions!