What is Property?: Property is Theft! | Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

362 pages | Critical Editions | 4.5.22

'One of the most vigorous thinkers of the age ... the prophet of modern society.' The New York Times

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was one of the most important and influential political theorists of the 19th century. On publication, Proudhon's first significant book What Is Property? created a sensation - in its pages, he declared 'I am an anarchist' and 'Property is theft!' The latter is Proudhon's - and potentially anarchism's - most famous quote, but maybe also the most misconstrued.

'When [Proudhon] says that property is theft, he's talking about the constitutional right to exclusive ownership ... In the world, everything belongs to everybody in common; you have to invent a principle to justify why I should have more than you. And as soon as you do that, Proudhon says, you deprive everybody else of ownership. The dispossessed become reliant on the owners for everything, to maintain their well-being and subsistence. And although they work and produce, they have to give up most of it to somebody else. That's the theft.' - Ruth Kinna