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
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.
The law does not generate justice. The law is nothing but a declaration and application of what is just.
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.
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 to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued, enrolled - by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so.
To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-ridden, regulated, penned up, indoctrinated, preached at, checked, appraised, seized, censured, commanded, by beings who have neither title, nor knowledge, nor virtue. To be governed is to have every operation, every transaction, every movement noted, registered, counted, rated, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, refused, authorized, indorsed, admonished, prevented, reformed, redressed, corrected.
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.