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
Whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and tyrant, and I declare him my enemy.
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.
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.
All men are equal and free: society by nature, and destination, is therefore autonomous and ungovernable. If the sphere of activity of each citizen is determined by the natural division of work and by the choice he makes of a profession, if the social functions are combined in such a way as to produce a harmonious effect, order results from the free activity of all men; there is no government. Whoever puts a hand on me to govern me is an usurper and a tyrant; I declare him my enemy.
it is the liberty that is the mother, not the daughter, of order.
AXIOM. — Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over any thing which he has stamped as his own.
By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me.
Property is impossible.
To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance.
The notion of anarchy ...means that once industrial functions have taken over from political functions, then business transactions and exchange alone produce the social order.
Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak.
As soon as I set foot in the parliamentary Sinai, I ceased to be in touch with the masses.
All men in their hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made to understand it.
Anarchy is... a form of government or constitution in which public and private consciousness , formed through the development of science and law , is alone sufficient to maintain order and guarantee all liberties.