Property Is Theft!

by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  393 As can be seen, Proudhon was well aware of the class nature of capitalism and the conflicts it produces. Marx, on the other hand, takes Proudhon’s use of a high-level abstraction to prove one thing to mean that Proudhon ignores the reality of class society: “What then […] is the Prometheus resuscitated by Proudhon? It is society, it is social relations based on the antagonism of classes […] Efface these relations and you have extinguished the whole of society, and your Prometheus is nothing more than a phantom […] If then, in theory, it suffices to interpret, as M. Proudhon does, the formula of the surplus of labour in the sense of equality without taking into account of the actual conditions of production, it must suffice, in practice, to make among the workers an equal distribution of wealth without changing anything in the actual conditions of production” (op. cit. 109–10). (Editor)

  394 Treatise on Political Economy.

  395 Cf. Marx, Poverty of Philosophy: “Proudhon… say[s] that J-B Say was the first to recognise ‘that in the division of labour the same cause which produces good engenders evil’” (140). Marx then quotes numerous economists showing that Say was not the first to recognise this fact, something that Proudhon did not claim. (Editor)

  396 Parcellaire as in divided, fragmented, compartmentalised. In other words, labour which is subject to extensive division of labour. For example, Adam Smith’s example in The Wealth of Nations of a worker who makes one nineteenth of a pin. (Editor)

  397 Cf. Marx: “The division of labour in the automatic factory is characterised by […] labour [which] has lost all specialised character. But from the moment that all special development ceases, the need of universality, the tendency towards an integral development of the individual begins to make itself felt” (op. cit., 157). (Editor)

  398 Cf. Marx: “Is it necessary to speak of the providential and philanthropic end which M. Proudhon discovers in the original invention and application of machinery?” (op. cit., 152).

  399 Cf. Marx, in Poverty of Philosophy, that Proudhon is unaware that “strikes have regularly given rise to invention and to the application of new machinery” as “the arms which the capitalists used to defeat revolted labour” (183). (Editor)

  400 Cf. Marx: “It is necessary to speak of the providential and philanthropic end which M. Proudhon discovers in the original invention and application of machinery? […] [F]rom 1825 all the new inventions were the result of conflicts between the worker and the capitalist who sought at all costs to depreciate the speciality of the workman. After each new strike, however unimportant, a new machine appeared. The workman was so far from seeing in the machines a kind of rehabilitation, of restoration as M. Proudhon calls it, that, in the 18th century, he for a long time resisted the nascent empire of the automation” (op. cit., 152–3). Proudhon, clearly, did not ignore the use of machinery against labour. (Editor)

  401 Cf. Marx: “the relations of production in which the bourgeoisie exists have a double character […] wealth is produced, poverty is produced also” (op. cit., 134). (Editor)

  402 The section is quoted by Marx in a mutilated form: “The period through which we are passing, that of machinery, is distinguished by a special character, it is that of the wage worker. The wage worker is posterior to the division of labour and exchange” (op. cit., 146). Given this, it is somewhat incredulous to see Marx lecture Proudhon that “[in proportion as the bourgeoisie develops, it develops in its bosom a new proletariat, a modern proletariat” (op. cit., 133). (Editor)

  403 Cf. Marx: “M. Proudhon has not got beyond the ideal of the petty bourgeois. And in order to realise this ideal he thinks of nothing better than to bring us back to the companion, or at most the master, workman of the Middle Ages” (op. cit., 157). (Editor)

  404 Proudhon’s outright rejection of returning to pre-industrial production methods did not stop Marx, nor countless Marxists, suggesting he sought a similar return to the past. Cf. Marx: “Those who, like Sismondi, would return to the just proportion of production, while conserving the existing bases of society, are reactionary, since, to be consistent, they must also desire to re-establish all the other conditions of past times” (op. cit., 73). (Editor)

  405 Cf. Marx: “In short, by the introduction of machinery the division of labour within society has been developed, the task of the workman within the factory has been simplified, capital has been accumulated, and man has been further dismembered” (op. cit., 153). (Editor)

  406 Cf. Marx: “It is important to insist upon this point, that what determines value is not the time in which a thing has been produced, but the minimum time in which it is susceptible of being produced, and this minimum is demonstrated by competition” (op. cit., 70–1). Proudhon clearly was aware of the need for competition to determine value. (Editor)

  407 Cf. Marx: “Since competition was established in France, in the eighteenth century, as a consequence of historical needs, [Proudhon thinks] this competition must not be destroyed in the nineteenth century in consequence of other historical needs” (op. cit., 161). (Editor)

  408 Cf. Marx: “The economic categories are only the theoretical expressions, the abstractions, of the social relations of production. M. Proudhon, as a true philosopher, taking the things inside out, sees in the real relations only the incarnations of these principles, of these categories, which sleep—M. Proudhon the philosopher tells us again—in the bosom of ‘the impersonal reason of humanity.’ […] [W]hat he has not understood is that these determined social relations […] are intimately attached to the productive forces. […] Thus these ideas, these categories, are not more eternal than the relations which they express. They are historical and transitory products” (op. cit., 119). See also Proudhon’s marginal comments in his copy of The Poverty of Philosophy: “Have I ever said that principles are anything other than the intellectual representation, not the generative cause, of facts?” (Proudhon, Œuvres Complètes, Rivière ed., I: 418). (Editor)

  409 Marx turns Proudhon’s very obvious sarcasm into: “‘Well and good,’ cries M. Proudhon, ‘these are well developed model workmen, etc., etc. The poverty we have here does not exist in England; it cannot cross the Channel.’” His claim that “M. Proudhon is so unfortunate as to take the foremen and overseers for ordinary workmen, and to urge upon them the advice not to cross the Channel” is equally misleading as is the notion that Proudhon “cordially agrees with the foremen of Bolton because they determine value by supply and demand” (op. cit., 183, 184, 185). (Editor)

  410 The term “acte de société ” literally means “deed of partnership.” Proudhon is referring to the process of creating and joining workplaces, contrasting the forms created within capitalism (with wage-labour as management rights reflect the capital provided) to the socialised, egalitarian, and self-managed ones of mutualism (with management rights granted automatically on joining). It should also be noted that “société” can be translated as “society” as well as “company.” (Editor)

  411 Cf. Marx in Poverty of Philosophy: “[Proudhon’s] whole system rests on the labour commodity, on labour which is trafficked, bought and sold…” (63). Proudhon repeatedly contrasts the associated (self-managed) workplaces of mutualism with capitalist firms with their “hierarchical organisation” (Chapter IV: section II) in which wage-workers toil “under a master” (Chapter XI: section III) after they “parted with their liberty” and “have sold their arms” to a boss who appropriates both the “collective power” (Chapter VI: section II) and the “surplus of labour” they create (Chapter XI: section IV).

  412 Possibly these paragraphs will not be clear to all without the explanation that the form of association discussed in them, called in French the commandite, is a joint-stock company to which the shareholders simply lend their capital, without acquiring a share in the management or incurring responsibility for the results thereof. (Translator)

  413 Marx summarised this as follows: “M. Proudhon talks to us of the social genius who, after having intrepidly pursued his zigzag route, ‘after h
aving marched with a firm step, without regret and without halting, and having arrived at the angle of monopoly, casts a melancholy and, after profound reflection, fixes imposts [taxes] on all objects of production, and creates an entire administrative organisation, on order that all employment should be delivered to the proletariat and be paid by the men of monopoly’” (op. cit., 166). (Editor)

  414 Cf. Marx: “In order to get a glimpse of the manner in which M. Proudhon treats economic details, it will suffice to say that, according to him, the impost on articles of consumption must have been established with a view to equality and in order to render assistance to the proletariat.” It soon becomes clear that Proudhon explicitly states that this was how state intervention was justified but in practice it was done to render assistance to the property-owning class. In others words, to quote Marx, “these imposts [taxes] serve precisely to give the bourgeoisie the means of conserving its position as the dominant class” (op. cit., 166). (Editor)

  415 The impôt de repartition (distributive tax) and impôt de quotité (proportional tax) were two alternative methods of taxation in France. Distributive taxation fixed the sum to be collected, then assessed the fraction of that amount that would be provided by each part of the country; proportional taxation applied to particular transactions, e.g., customs duties, sales, stock dividends, etc., so that revenue from them could only be estimated beforehand. (Editor)

  416 Earlier in the System of Economic Contradictions, Proudhon defined non-producers as the “species of functionaries which Adam Smith has designated by the word unproductive, although he admits as much as any one the utility and even the necessity of their labour in society […] [T]he functionaries called public […] obtain their right to subsistence, not by the production of real utilities, but by the very state of unproductivity in which, by no fault of their own, they are kept […] State functionaries […] the government’s employees […] a category of services […] which do not fall under the law of exchange, which cannot become the object of private speculation, competition, joint-stock association, or any sort of commerce, but which, theoretically regarded as performed gratuitously by all, but entrusted, by virtue of the law of division of labour, to a small number of special men who devote themselves exclusively to them, must consequently be paid for.” (Editor)

  417 The new law regarding service-books [livrets d’ouvrier, employment records, instituted by Napoléon I, that workers were required by law to carry, policing their mobility] has confined the independence of workers within narrower limits. The democratic press has again thundered its indignation this subject against those in power, as if they had been guilty of anything more than the application of the principles of authority and property, which are those of democracy. What the Chambers have done in regard to service-books was inevitable, and should have been expected. It is as impossible for a society founded on the proprietary principle not to end in class distinctions as for a democracy to avoid despotism, for a religion to be reasonable, for fanaticism to show tolerance. This is the law of contradiction: how long will it take us to understand it?

  418 Marx selectively quotes this passage, omitting the key phrase and so utterly changes Proudhon’s intention: “For workers to strike is illegal, and it is not only the penal code which says so, it is the economic system, it is the necessity of the established order […] That each workman should have the free disposal of his hands and of his person, that can be tolerated, but that workmen should undertake by combination to do violence to monopoly, that is what society can never permit” (op. cit., 185). (Editor)

  419 Cf. Marx: “The working class will substitute, in the course of its development, for the old order of civil society and association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will no longer be political power, properly speaking, since political power is simply the official form of the antagonism in civil society” (op. cit., 190). (Editor)

  420 The Metaphysics of Morals, 1.11.

  421 The Metaphysics of Morals, 1.15. (Editor)

  422 “I possess because I possess”; “I possess because you possess.” (Editor)

  423 A coupon is the amount of interest paid per year expressed as a percentage of the face value of a bond. A bond is, in finance, a debt security in which the issuer is the borrower (debtor) and the holder is the lender (creditor). (Editor)

  424 Proudhon writes “Il était le courtisan de la terre.” Courtesan historically referred to a courtier. However, these were often considered as insincere, skilled at flattery and intrigue, ambitious and lacking regard for the national interest and so, in French, courtesan figuratively means “sycophant.” (Editor)

  425 Proudhon is alluding to the Latin phrase “conubio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo” from Virgil’s epic, The Aeneid (4.126), in which the goddess Juno proposes to “consecrate” the passion of Dido for Aeneas through marriage, turning unstable passion into a stable bond of property. (Editor)

  426 Artaxerxes I was king of the Persian Empire from 464 BC to 424 BC. After Persia had been defeated at Eurymedon, Artaxerxes began to weaken the Athenians by funding their enemies in Greece. (Editor)

  427 Vincent de Paul (1581–1660) was a Catholic priest dedicated to serving the poor. He was canonised in 1737. (Editor)

  428 Harpagon was the name of the miser in Molière’s comedy L’Avare (The Miser). (Editor)

  429 Perrin Dandin is a simple citizen in François Rabelais’ Third Book. He seats himself as a judge and passes offhand judgements in any matter of litigation. (Editor)

  430 Bertrand du Guesclin (1320–80), known as the Eagle of Brittany, was a Breton knight and French military commander during the Hundred Years’ War. (Editor)

  431 This is an allusion to tradesmen who owned their own tools and took them in a bag or sack (“sac”) when they were dismissed from employment. Hence the expression “get the sack” which is derived from the 17th century French expression “On luy a donné son sac.” (Editor)

  432 There is a play-on-words in Proudhon’s “Chacun de vous porte dans son sac la verge qui sert à le corriger, et qui peut lui servir un jour à corriger les autre.” Corriger as well as meaning “to correct” also means “to give a good hiding to” or “to punish.” (Editor)

  433 Proudhon wrote: “Vous ne serez libres qu’après vous être rachetés, par l’asservissement de vos maîtres, de la servitude qu’ils font peser sur vous.” Racheter as well as meaning “to atone for” or “to redeem” also means “to buy” and he plays with this dual meaning. (Editor)

  434 “Thus I wish. Thus I command.” (Editor)

  435 Licitation is sale to the highest bidder. (Translator)

  436 From the Latin Bible: “Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:37–38). (Editor)

  437 A form of long-term lease that was an institution of Roman law (although derived from the Greek law) and found in French law. An owner of poorly cultivated land granted such leases so that a tenant would take on the task of improving the land. The tenant paid a small rent or canon for this right and the owner regained the land in its improved condition after a number of years. (Editor)

  438 See [Raymond-Théodore] Troplong, Contrat de Louage [Rental Contracts], Volume I, in which he argues, alone among all the jurisconsults who are his precursors and contemporaries, and with reason, as we think, that in renting, the tenant acquires a right in the thing, and that the lease gives way immediately to a real and personal share.

  439 The February Revolution 1848 saw the first major use of the Red Flag by working class insurgents. (Editor)

  440 The House of Bourbon was a European royal dynasty whose members ruled France from 1589 to 1792 when it was overthrown during the French Revolution. It was restored briefly in 1814 with the abdication of Napoléon and definitively in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo. The senior line of the Bourbons was finally overthrown in the July Revolution of
1830. A cadet branch, the House of Orléans, then ruled for 18 years until it too was overthrown by the February Revolution 1848. The Bourbons held thrones in Naples & Sicily, Spain and Parma. (Editor)

  441 The Champ de Mars in Paris (“Field of Mars,” after Mars, the god of war) was originally used for military drills. During the French Revolution, it was the setting of the Fête de la Fédération on July 14th, 1790. It was also the setting of a massacre on July 17th, 1791, when a crowd collected to draft a petition seeking the removal of King Louis XVI. On February 25th, 1848, Lamartine gave a speech in which he declared that “I will never adopt the red flag… because the tri-colour flag has made the tour of the world, under the Republic and the Empire, with our liberties and our glories, and… the red flag has only made the tour of the Champ-de-Mars, trained through torrents of the blood of the people” (quoted in Alphonse de Lamartine, History of the Girondists; Or, Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution from Unpublished Sources (New York: Harper & Bros, 1854), xix). (Editor)