What is Property? The only requirement is that you actually read the entire book. The first 10 minutes will be a meet and greet. Then we'll start the book discussion which typically lasts 2 hours, though we do sometimes go longer if there's enough interest. This meetup will be held virtually via videoconferencing. Also note that this event will be co-hosted with two other book clubs, to ensure that we get enough participants to get a vibrant dialogue going. At the same time we will limit RSVPs so the conversation doesn't become unwieldy.
Event organizer. Viraj P. Christopher M. Jason S. Joan M. Scott V. Seth S. Proudhon argues passionately against property note, NOT possession , from all different angles including economic, philosophical and ethical. He is very clear with structuring his ideas, talks no more or less than he needs to, and takes stance against a good number of other philosophers from all ages. He also gives a good overview of historical development of possession, property and events surrounding these including revolutions.
Strongly recommend it tho This is a fascinating book overall. Strongly recommend it though don't take that 'Easy Reading Series' on the cover of the book literally if you really want to enjoy it When reading this book, it is important to keep in mind that Proudhon is not exclusively dealing with modern bourgeois property as an economic category, but mostly with the juridico-philosophical concept of property — i.
That is not to say that he understands private property as a pre-existing eternal idea, but that the power of accumulation possessed by property is to be analyzed a posteriori as the cause of the downfall and death of the most recent societies. This leads Proudhon to reduce all sorts of profit, rent, interest, benefit, etc. I have succeeded in shaking their opinions, but have made no impression on their sentiments. And one thing is to be noted which shows how far, in the minds of the people, individual sovereignty is identified with collective sovereignty, that the more ground the principles of democracy have gained, the more I have seen the working classes, both in the city and country, interpret these principles favorably to individual ownership.
If socialism is to be built upon the negation of property, and if the masses — i. It is the latter thesis that he would develop in his subsequent works on property. Jan 23, Juan Amiguet Vercher rated it really liked it Shelves: philosophy. Very few times you find a book that describes the sources of current problems, so thoroughly described and analysed that is over a century old. This is one of them. Worth reading for anyone with an interest in the origins of the current economic crisis or a good example of anarchist thought.
Jan 05, Lucas Johnston rated it really liked it. Admittedly, I skipped a bit of this. I didn't read his 10 axioms on property being impossible because it seemed, frankly, stupid.
I also skipped the second memoir because it wasn't split into sections and on my brief skim it didn't seem especially novel or important. My main takeaways from Proudhon are as follows: 1. Property, inherently, opposes equality 2. Statist communism is no solution to the conundrum that arises as a result of 1 because it enslaves the talented by forcing them to work for Admittedly, I skipped a bit of this. Statist communism is no solution to the conundrum that arises as a result of 1 because it enslaves the talented by forcing them to work for the untalented - "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" 3.
The solution to the two-fold problem posed by 1 and 2 is anarcho-communism, it combines the desirable elements of communism with the desirable elements of capitalism or property-holding For Proudhon, a genuine solution must preserve individuality and equality.
Both capitalism and communism fail in this regard because they only preserve one or the other. Thus, the only solution is to attempt to amalgamate the two into a synthesis, anarcho-communism. In anarcho-communism, individuals are not forced to produce for the worse-off, but choose to do so out of recognition of the obligations arising from their superior natural endowment.
This preserves their freedom. Since the worse-off nature of the untalented is offset by the extra production by the talented, this also solves the issue of inequality that arose in capitalism - the excess is repurposed to re-levelling equality, without levelling down. The main issue, as I view it, is that anarcho-communism is utopian. It seems, to me, unlikely that given the lack of a state apparatus, that individuals could be relied upon to produce for others in the ways that are necessary to preserve equality.
This claim becomes increasingly less plausible the larger a given society gets. Perhaps within immediate family it is especially plausible, within extended family mostly plausible, within a community somewhat-plausible, and in anything largely, exceedingly implausible.
So, unless we are expected to live in small-scale societies, which comes with its own issues a smaller talent pool, lack of access to certain desired resources , Proudhon's solution is no solution at all.
Instead, what we ought to take away from Proudhon is not his positive solutions, but his critical analyses of various arguments for original appropriation. Proudhon does an excellent job examining and exploring various answers to the question of what justifies not the use of nature's endowments, but the appropriation, or ownership of it. Proudhon does so excellently and writes in sparkling and beautiful prose so even when his arguments may not seem plausible, it remains a pleasure to read.
Dec 04, Petra added it Shelves: nonfiction. For research so I'm going to leave it unrated. Proudhon was actually the first man to call himself anarchist and this work is Proudhon's way of explaining that property is the root to injustice and inequality. I found most of it interesting at least but I have to admit that I struggled with the complex language and the translation at first.
Understanding his argument is certainly an intellectual challenge. The properties of the human body include a head, a torso, limbs, organs and everything else an average human being is composed of. He extends this definition to include objects that a human owns, possesses, or uses.
These two kinds of property are acceptable to him. The reasoning behind this notion can be tricky and confusing. This is probably because Proudhon had not followed his own chain of logic to its end. It goes something like this: one laborer extracts raw materials from the Earth, another laborer forges them into tools, and those tools get used to do farm work.
Each laborer along the chain adds something of value to the crops that are the final product. If we were to calculate a value for each step in the process based on time and effort spent in work we could conclude that each vegetable or piece of fruit is worth x amount of money when the proprietor comes to collect his goods. He buys the food in bulk which means that he pays less per item than the sum of the cost of labor put into its production.
So when a tenant farmer receives payment for his produce, the property of each laborer is being appropriated by the proprietor against their will.
Therefore, property is theft and the proprietor is a criminal. Well at least it does for about twenty or thirty seconds. The if you start to think about it in detail, the whole theory falls apart. This is as close as he comes to constructing a logically coherent argument.
Proudhon sets the bar higher here and some of his arguments in this part are smart, a little more clear and a littlre more clever. One of his strongest points is that a piece of farmland exists in time and space. The farm itself may be sentient but the land it is on exists eternally.
Furthermore, space and time are physical dimensions, kind of like vessels that are filled with things like farms, farmers, and crops. The landlord holds a lease giving the time of purchase and the boundaries of the land tract he owns but the lease does not state that he owns the time and space in which the land tract exists.
That is because it is impossible for any human to own the abstract dimensions of time and space just as it is impossible for a finite being to own something that exists infinitely like a section of Earth. Therefore, property is impossible. It is like saying a wagon is made out of wood and the wood is made out of molecules which are made out of atoms that are made out of subatomic particles.
No one can actually own subatomic particles so that means the wagon can not be owned. Now try stealing a car and using that argument as a defense in court; you would probably not be found innocent but you might end up getting locked in a hospital for the criminally insane rather than the federal penitentiary. It is an interesting concept but too far from the real world to be of much value. It might make an interesting topic of discussion in a law class though.
The third and final section is a rant. Even the most fanatical anarchists would concede that the logic has a few shortcomings. At best Proudhon will be remembered as a minor footnote in history which is certainly more than I can say for myself or most of you who are reading this, by the way.
Despite his rudimentary thinking, Proudhon was one of the first theorists of anarchism and his ideas had a strong influence on Karl Marx who lifted the ideas of collective ownership and the elimination of the bourgeoisie class directly from his thinking. Marx and Proudhon were actually friends until the two had a falling out and died as enemies. Proudhon grew up in a family of tenant farmers.
He saw first hand how the people he knew struggled with the hardest physical labor and lived in extreme poverty while the landlord paid them pennies so he could sell their crops and make a fortune doing little more than signing receipts and lending money at interest. Proudhon was good at reading, got accepted at a college and saw the French Revolution come and go, leaving the poor farmers poor and the aristocrats rich. He saw that the replacement with monarchy by parliament left the general populace just as oppressed as ever.
He desperately wanted to transform society so the farm laborers would have their fair share in life. Can be seen as an attack on the economic and political injustice of the world. Despite its naivite and limited scope, it is a sincere fight in favor of the common people who deserve more than what they get. Proudhon had no chance of winning this battle but he was determined to keep up the attack until the end. There is something admirable and noble about his attitude. So is property theft?
Proudhon does not make a convincing case but in failing to prove his point he raises a lot of questions about society and morality that are legitimate and worth contemplating. It is one sentence that has become detached from its original context to fly freely through the ethers of abstract thought to this day, a power-chord riffing through the symphonies of intellectual debate.
It is a mind-blowing thought that survives long past any other ideas put forth by Proudhon. Proudhon's groundbreaking work laid a foundation for anarchist theory as it is practiced today. The central belief that property, that which ought to be held in common for common good yet is held by an individual for personal profit, is theft, is necessary for a truly equal and just society. This text formed a first step taken further in the writings of Bakunin, Kropotkin, and others anarchist theorists who refer to this book explicitly in their later writing.
Proudhon's arguments are many, and Proudhon's groundbreaking work laid a foundation for anarchist theory as it is practiced today. Proudhon's arguments are many, and are convincing, to varying degrees. Many details of the book are weighted differently in importance and impact now than they would have been at the time the book was published.
Like many old political texts, practical details do not all apply as they would have at the time. Some predictions are woefully incomplete. And large portions of the book deal with arguments against Proudhon's contemporaries, much of which may be lost on the modern reader. So, for a book as very long as this one, though important, I would not necessarily recommend it to everyone or anyone interested in its concepts.
Voracious readers and students of anarchism will find this book fascinating and important. For the on-the-ground resistance, a good understanding of its contents is more than sufficient, and this can be found more clearly and concisely elsewhere.
I recommend Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin before this book. Much of the best of this book is contained in it. What is Property? I'm glad I read it. I'm glad to see clearly the impact it still has today. That impact, and continuing action, is far more valuable than checking off a list that this book has been read.
Jul 03, Andrew rated it it was amazing. This is an absolutely essential treatise to understanding the problems we now face here in the U. Tracing back through its historical origins, Proudhon finds that there really is little attempt by intellectuals to do much other than say "Yeah property is okay, let's move on. I can buy a piece of land, tell no one else they can use it, and then pass it down after my death to a corporation.
The strict and exclusive ownership of uncreated resource means that I can tell you that you have a right to live, and then keep you from being able to eat. If you understand this then everything else falls into place.
The recurring debate over taxation, public funding, and wealth redistribution are symptoms of this contradiction. More importantly though - there is no resolution in our current system. So long as the current system of property exists, this problem will never go away. We will be forced to periodically redistribute wealth, because the system itself creates these unnatural inequalities.
Aug 01, Frederick rated it liked it. This is the very first thing I've read by Proudhon so I imagine I have a lot to learn. Proudhon was against the right to own property as the origin of evil on earth. You can only own something you create. However, he also condemns communism as a tyranny over mankind. He says that while property is the tyranny of the strong over the weak communism is so of the weak over the strong. He claims that it is no solution to the problem. I believe that his m This is the very first thing I've read by Proudhon so I imagine I have a lot to learn.
I believe that his main points are that property is the cause of inequality and that profit is nothing more than usury. I'm sure a second reading of this would help but I want to move on to Bakunin. This book changed my perception of what I usually take for normal and ordinary about being the owner of something. The entire book is about Proudhon explaining why being the owner of something is basically a crime, to cheat, to steal and he does it in an impressive and eloquent way.
I never once got bored reading this book, his way of convincing the reader is impressive, no wonder this book caused such outrage for some and gave others hope.
Proudhon is the first person ever to declare himself an anarchist and this book explains his motivations for "creating" this political label.
I read this book one of the milestones of socialist French thought when I was about I realize now that I didn't understand more than a sentence, but it was all the same very influential in my political and social opinions. A school-mate used to call me The Anarchist. I felt strangely flattered about it.
This book contained great ideas. It is immediately apparent why Proudhon is considered the father of Anarchism. That being said, the writing style and archaic diction made the book too difficult for me--a subpar reader--to make it all the way through. Maybe I'll attempt it another time, but related internet articles will satisfy my desire for mutualist theory at the moment. Apr 16, Ram rated it really liked it.
Thumbing the nose in the face of the entire world. To stand up and question the very principles on which human society is sustained. Proudhon is a master at the art of awakening consciences sleeping in the lull of capitalistic music. Oct 28, Manuel rated it liked it Shelves: ak.
Well elaborated theory of property. Special mention to the analysis of the downfall of the Roman empire in relation with the use and abuse of property and the influence of the Christian religion in the concept of property.
May 02, Juan rated it really liked it. Property is Theft! You fight against yourself to disagree, but you cant. Well done, I am a different person then I was before I read it.
Aug 07, Alex Vega rated it really liked it. I think every so called anarchist-punk should read this, I'm not a fan of all the ideas in the book but it really stands out for the criticism of property and capitalism I think every so called anarchist-punk should read this, I'm not a fan of all the ideas in the book but it really stands out for the criticism of property and capitalism Mar 05, John rated it really liked it Shelves: anarchism.
My sixth anarchism book. Very dry read, found it hard to concentrate, would need to re-read it to solidify all the arguments in my head. Basically Proudhon argues the famous claim, that "Property is theft.
In part one, he addresses and opposes the different definitions of property to argue that they are unjust and nonsensical. The Romans defined property according to fi My sixth anarchism book.
The Romans defined property according to first claim and something having to do with use. Later thinkers reasoned that property was justified by labor, but if that's so why do land-owners who do none of the work claim the land and reap the benefits? No one really knows the origins of property but give plausible explanations. The second part is a psychological exposition of justice where he tries to explain the claim to property psychologically.
Proudhon is a mutualist who believes in anarchy, free-association and a right to a part of the means of production. His main influences were Hegel, The Bible and I forget the third. He mentions Fourier a lot, and seems heavily influenced by his Utopian Socialism too.
He is the Father of Anarchism along with William Godwin. Nov 12, Rundown rated it it was ok. Writing the review as i go.
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