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"Property is theft!" (french: La propriété, c'est le vol!) is a slogan coined by French anarchist
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
in his 1840 book ''What Is Property? or, An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government''.


Overview

By "property", Proudhon referred to a concept regarding land property that originated in
Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
: the ''sovereign right of property'', the right of the proprietor to do with his
property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
as he pleases, "to use and abuse," so long as in the end he submits to state-sanctioned title. Proudhon contrasts the supposed
right of property Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...
with the rights (which he considered valid) of
liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
,
equality Equality may refer to: Society * Political equality, in which all members of a society are of equal standing ** Consociationalism, in which an ethnically, religiously, or linguistically divided state functions by cooperation of each group's elite ...
, and
security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...
. Proudhon was clear that his opposition to property did not extend to exclusive possession of labor-made wealth. In the ''Confessions d'un révolutionnaire'' Proudhon further explained his use of this phrase:


Similar phrases

Jacques Pierre Brissot Jacques Pierre Brissot (, 15 January 1754 – 31 October 1793), who assumed the name of de Warville (an English version of "d'Ouarville", a hamlet in the village of Lèves where his father owned property), was a leading member of the Girondins dur ...
had previously written, in his ''Philosophical Inquiries on the Right of Property'' (''Recherches philosophiques sur le droit de propriété et le vol''), "Exclusive property is a robbery in nature."William Shepard Walsh,
Handy-book of Literary Curiosities
', p. 923
Marx would later write in an 1865 letter to a contemporary that Proudhon had taken the slogan from Warville,
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Letter to J. B. Schweizer
, from ''Marx Engels Selected Works, Volume 2'', first published in ''Der Social-Demokrat'', Nos. 16, 17 and 18, February 1, 3 and 5, 1865
(a name assumed by
Brissot Jacques Pierre Brissot (, 15 January 1754 – 31 October 1793), who assumed the name of de Warville (an English version of "d'Ouarville", a hamlet in the village of Lèves where his father owned property), was a leading member of the Girondins du ...
) although this is contested by subsequent scholarship. The phrase also appears in 1797 in the Marquis de Sade's text ''
L'Histoire de Juliette ''Juliette'' is a novel written by the Marquis de Sade and published 1797 in literature, 1797–1801 in literature, 1801, accompanying Sade's 1797 version of his novel ''Justine (Sade), Justine''. While Justine, Juliette's sister, was a virtue, ...
'': "Tracing the right of property back to its source, one infallibly arrives at usurpation. However, theft is only punished because it violates the right of property; but this right is itself nothing in origin but theft". Similar phrases also appear in the works of
Saint Ambrose Ambrose of Milan ( la, Aurelius Ambrosius; ), venerated as Saint Ambrose, ; lmo, Sant Ambroeus . was a theologian and statesman who served as Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. He expressed himself prominently as a public figure, fiercely promo ...
, who taught that ''superfluum quod tenes tu furaris'' (the superfluous property which you hold you have stolen) and
Basil of Caesarea Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great ( grc, Ἅγιος Βασίλειος ὁ Μέγας, ''Hágios Basíleios ho Mégas''; cop, Ⲡⲓⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ Ⲃⲁⲥⲓⲗⲓⲟⲥ; 330 – January 1 or 2, 379), was a bishop of Ca ...
(''Ascetics'', 34, 1–2).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
made the same general point when he wrote: "The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying 'This is mine', and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody." Irish Marxist
James Connolly James Connolly ( ga, Séamas Ó Conghaile; 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916) was an Irish republican, socialist and trade union leader. Born to Irish parents in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, Connolly left school for working life at the a ...
referred to the socialist movement as the "Great Anti-Theft Movement of the Twentieth Century."


Criticism

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, although initially favourable to Proudhon's work, later criticised, among other things, the expression "property is theft" as self-refuting and unnecessarily confusing, writing that theft' as a forcible violation of property presupposes the existence of property" and condemning Proudhon for entangling himself in "all sorts of fantasies, obscure even to himself, about true bourgeois property".
Max Stirner Johann Kaspar Schmidt (25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), known professionally as Max Stirner, was a German post-Hegelian philosopher, dealing mainly with the Hegelian notion of social alienation and self-consciousness. Stirner is often seen a ...
was highly critical of Proudhon, and in his work, ''
The Ego and Its Own ''The Ego and Its Own'' (german: Der Einzige und sein Eigentum), also translated as ''The Unique and its Property'', is an 1844 work by German philosopher Max Stirner. It presents a post-Hegelian critique of Christianity and traditional morality ...
'', made the same criticism of Proudhon's expression before Marx, asking, "Is the concept 'theft' at all possible unless one allows validity to the concept 'property'? How can one steal if property is not already extant? ... Accordingly property is not theft, but a theft becomes possible only through property."Stirner, Max. ''The Ego and Its Own.'' Edited by David Leopold. p. 223


Footnotes

a. This translation by
Benjamin Tucker Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (; April 17, 1854 – June 22, 1939) was an American individualist anarchist and libertarian socialist.Martin, James J. (1953)''Men Against the State: The Expositers of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827–1908''< ...
renders "''c'est le vol''" as "it is robbery", although the slogan is typically rendered in English as "property is theft".


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Property Is Theft! 1840s neologisms Anarchist theory Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Political catchphrases French political catchphrases Quotations from literature Quotations from philosophy