What Is Property?

In this treatise, Proudhon contrasts the legitimate right to possession, in which individuals own the products of their labor and the necessary means of production, and the illegitimate right to property, the absolute right granted to proprietors by civil laws to “use and abuse.” Proudhon examines the implications of the right to property and concludes that, among other things, property is “impossible,” “homicide,” and “the mother of tyranny.” As an alternative to both the proprietary and communist systems of economic organization, Proudhon advances his anarchist economic theory of “mutualism,” in which a socialist society would be organized based on free market exchanges wherein the value of a good or service is determined by the time and expense it has cost the laborer to produce.

This edition of What Is Property? was translated in 1876 by Benjamin Tucker, who was a notable advocate of individualist anarchism in his own right in the United States.

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