Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhonwas a French politician and the founder of mutualist philosophy. He was the first person to declare himself an anarchist and is widely regarded as one of the ideology's most influential theorists. Proudhon is even considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". He became a member of the French Parliament after the revolution of 1848, whereafter he referred to himself as a federalist...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth15 January 1809
CountryFrance
As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.
All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization.
Of my private life I have nothing to say: it does not concern others. I have always had little liking for autobiographies and have no interest in anyone's affairs. History proper and novels hold no attractions for me except insofar as, I can discern there, as within our immortal Revolution, the adventures of the mind.
I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else; that is the alpha and omega of my argument: to others I leave the business of governing the world.
A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.
If one were to ask. . ."What is slavery?" and I should answer in one word, "murder," my meaning would be understood at once. Why, then, to this other question: "What is property?" may I not likewise answer, "theft". . .?
Whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and tyrant, and I declare him my enemy.
Liberty is not the daughter but the mother of order.
We want property, but property restored to its proper limits, that is to say, free distribution of the products of labour, property minus usury!
The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.
Justice is a faculty that may be developed. This development is what constitutes the education of the human race.
In any given society the authority of man over man runs in inverse proportion to the intellectual development of that society.
I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.
To be governed is, under pretext of public utility and in the name of the general interest, to be laid under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, exhausted, hoaxed and robbed; then, upon the slightest resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, annoyed, hunted down, pulled about, beaten, disarmed, bound, imprisoned, shot, judged, condemned, banished, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and, to crown all, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored.