What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government

D AS A NATURAL RIG

IENT BASES OF PROP

nseless and immoral abuse, but only absolute domain. Vain distinction! invented as an excuse for property, and powerless against the frenzy of possession, which it neither prevents nor represses. The proprietor may, if he chooses, allow his crops to rot

nstitution of '93, property is "the right to enjoy and dispose at will o

dispose of things in the most absolute manner, provided we do

ion imposed by the code,-PROVIDED WE DO NOT OVERSTEP THE LIMITS PRESCRIBED BY THE LAWS AND REGULATIONS,-its object is not to limit property, bu

, "is a matter of fact, not of right." Toullier: "Property is a right, a legal power; possession is a fact." The tenant, the farmer, the commandite, the usufructuary, are possessors; the owner who

on-is of the highest importance; and it must be clearl

g, which gives me a claim to become a proprietor. Thus the right of the partners to a marriage over each other's person is the jus in re; that of two who are betrothed is only the jus ad rem. In the first, possession and property are united; the second i

sess to-day are proprietors by the same title as those who do possess; but, instead of inferring therefrom that property should be shared by all, I demand, in the name of general security, its entire abolition. If I fail to win my case, there is nothing left for us (the proletarian class and myself) but to cut our throats: we can ask nothing more from the justice of nations; for, as the code of procedure (art 26) tells us in its energetic style, THE PL

question, it will not be useless

ty as a Nat

OPERTY, SECURITY. What rule did the legislators of '93 follow in compiling this list? None. They laid down principles, just as they discus

iminated by the Rennes professor; why? Is it because LIBERTY implies it, or because property prohibits it? On this poi

ly potentially, and as a dormant faculty without exercise; that for the others, who do enjoy it, it is susceptible of certain transactions and modifications which do not harmonize with

f liberty, at that moment becomes a free man. When society seizes a malefactor and deprives him of his liberty, it is a case of legitimate defence: whoever violates the social compact by the commission of a crime declares himself a

obtain judgment in the courts against one occupying the most exalted station. Let the millionaire, Ahab, build a chateau upon the vineyard of Naboth: the court will have the power, according to the circumstances, to order the destruction of the chateau, though

to take security. Provided the conditions fixed by law are complied with, every citizen may be an elector, and every elector eligible. The right, once acquired, is the same for all; the law compares neither persons no

to them as they bind themselves to it. It does not say to them, "I will shield you, provided it costs me nothing; I will protec

e service of each citizen; the obligatio

s acknowledged by none: laws, morals, customs, publi

re needed. Let all contribute to these expenses: nothing more just. But why should the rich pay more than the p

ghts-liberty, equality, security, and property; to maintain order in t

of invasion, famine, or plague, causes more trouble,-the large proprietor who escapes the evil wi

isan and journeyman? Why, the police have more to fear from a few hu

e keenly than the poor man national festivi

opular pleasures; and when he wants to enjoy

ortional tax affords greater security to t

e, myself: whoever touches it offends the apple of my eye. My income of one hundred thousand francs is as inviolable as the grisette's daily wage of seventy-five centimes; h

fend property, but to destroy it. The State, through the proportional tax, becomes the chief of robbers; the State sets the example of systematic pillage: the

for it does not insure, but for vengeance and repression. The premium which this company exacts, the tax, is divided in proportion to p

sire for property. What a contradiction! In England they have a poor-rate: they wish me to pay this tax. But what relation exists between my natural and inalienable right of property and the hunger from which ten million wretched people are suffering? When religion commands us to assist our fellows, it speaks in the name of charity, not in the name of law. The obligation of benevolence, imposed upon me by Christian morality, cannot be imposed upon me as a political tax for the benefit of any person or poor-house. I will g

ty. They have the right to do it, if public necessity requires it; but where is the just indemnity promised by the charter? Not only does non

in them, and our ministers should recommend their example to the bondholders. But had the city the right to surrender them? Assuredly not. The right to security is absolute; the country can require no one to sacrifice himself. The soldier standing guard within the enemy's range is no exception to this rule. Wherever a citizen stands guard, the country stan

uage of bankrupts. The State is not only a borrower, it is an insurer and guardian of property; granting the best of security, it assures the most inviolable possession. How, then, can it force open the hands of its creditors, who have confidence in it, and then talk to them of public order an

assistance of the treasury, his bonds. The State cannot demand, without offering an equivalent, the sacrifice of an acre of the field or a corner of the vineyard; still less can it lower rents: why should it have the right to diminish the interest on bonds? This right could not justly exist, unless the bondholder could invest his fu

to touch while other kinds of property are respected; to force their r

the conversion of bonds fina

-five thousand families who derive an income f

lear, in the first place, that the reply is in reality no reply; but, to make the wrong more apparent, let us change it thus: Is it just

roperty be violated, because no other course is possible; because property, regarded as a right, and not being a right, must of right perish; be

ety; security is an absolute right, because in the eyes of every man his own liberty and life are as precious as another's. These three rights are absolute; that is, susceptible of neither increase

ROPERTY IS A MAN'S RIGHT TO DISPOSE AT WILL OF SOCIAL PROPERTY. Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a NATURAL right, this natural right i

ht that we exist; they are born with us, they live and die with us. With property it is very different, indeed. By law, property can exist without a proprietor, like a quality without a subject. It exists for the human being who as yet is not, and for the octogenarian who is no more. And yet, in spite of these wonderful prerogatives which savor of th

that it always has been, and always will be. With that proposition the savant Proudhon 11 commenced his "Treatise on the Right of Usufruct," regarding the origin of property as a useless questio

them successively, under all their aspects and in detail; and I remind the reader that, to whatever authority we appea

n, as the Titl

concerning property and the right of accession, were passed without opposition or amendment. Bonaparte, who on other questions had given his legists so much trouble, had nothing to say about propert

ion of a thing. I occupy a piece of land; the presumption is, that I am the proprietor, until the contrary is pr

dmodum theatrum cum commune sit, recte tamen dici

ient philosophy has to say a

ATED. This comparison annihilates property; moreover, it implies equality. Can I, in a theatre, occupy at the same time one place in the pit, another in the boxes,

, but that which each HAS A RIGHT to possess. Now, what have we a right to possess? That which is required for our labor and consumption; Cicero's comparison of the earth to a theatre proves it. According to that, each one may take what place he will, may beautify and adorn it, if h

d to be natural, elsewhere than in Nature? This is the method of the ancients: the fact exists, then i

nquest, then on treaties and agreements. But either these treaties and agreements distributed wealth equally, as did the original communism (the only method of distribution with which the barbarians were acquainted, and the only form of justice of which they could conceive; and then the question

iety,-a thing which the defenders of property cannot explain. But I infer therefrom that, if Providence placed the first human beings in a condition of equality, it was an indication of its desires, a model that it wished them to realize in other forms; just as the religious sentiment, which it planted in their hearts, has developed and manifested itself in various ways. Man has b

tes as f

constitution of man, but upon his actions. Writers on jurisprudence have expla

and appropriate one part of its produce to one, another part to another, must be the work of men who have

ralists, very properly compared to the right which every citizen had to the public theatre, where every man that came might occu

for the entertainment and employment of all mankind. Here every man has a right to accommoda

es of Reid

it must be equal to the quotient of the total amount of property

l times to that of the spectators, no spectator can oc

OT INNATE, BUT ACQUIRED;" consequently, it is not absolute; consequently, the occupancy on which it is based, being a conditional fact, cannot e

e taking from him the necessary means of life. He has the same right to defend the one as the other. To hinder another man's innocent labor, or to deprive him o

labor, posits a priori the equality of the means of labor, abandoning thereafter to each la

uch cruelty sickens the imagination. The proprietor, like Robinson Crusoe on his island, wards off with pike and musket the proletaire washed overboard by the wave of civilization, and seeking to gain a foothold upon the rocks of property. "Give me work!" cries he with all his might to the proprietor: "don't drive me away, I will work for you at any price." "I do not need you

estion a materialist, then an eclectic: and having comp

nces are necessary evils which do not invalidate the principle; so that it is as unreasonable to rebel against property on account of the abuses which it generates, as t

d seem, to hear certain philosophers and legislators, that at a certain moment, spontaneously and without cause, people began to use

lation,-YOUR country, YOUR parish, YOUR tailor, YOUR milkmaid; MY chamber, MY seat at the theatre, MY company and MY battalion in the National Guard. In the former sense, we may sometimes say MY labor, MY skill, MY virtue; never MY grandeur nor MY majesty: in the latter se

all prove, by quotations, that the whole theory of

this state, justice and injustice are unknown; the rights of one bear no relation to the rights of another. Al

hey all have the right to satisfy their needs without regard to the needs of others, and consequently the right to exercise their power over Nature, each according to his strength and ab

us look

xpressed, are agreed upon. Then appears for the first time justice and injustice; that is, the balan

tratagem,-this equal right to do evil, the sole source of the inequality of benefits and injuries,-they commenced to make COVENANTS EITHER IMPLIED OR EXPRESSED, and established a balance. Then these agreements and this balance were intended to secure to all equal comfort; then, by the law of contradictions, if isolation is the principle of inequality, society must produce equality. The social balan

lance, inequality has been on the increase? How is it that justice and

exist. But to have needs and means, rights and duties, is to HAVE, to POSSESS, something. They are so

E TRIANGLE or of NUMBERS; THE PROPERTY OF THE MAGNET, &c. 2. It expresses the right of absolute control over a thing by a free and intelligent being. It is used in this sense by writers on jurisprudence. Thus, in the phrase, IRON ACQUIRES THE PROPERTY OF A MAGNET, the word PROPERTY does not convey

F,-his moral personality, his capacities of enjoyment, suffering, and action,-he necessarily sees also that this SELF is exclusive proprietor of the body in which it dwells, its organs, t

ess, were I here considering only the authority of Destutt de Tracy! But the entire human race, since the origination of society and language, when metaphysics and dialectics were first born, has been guilty of this puerile confusion of thought. All which man could call his own was identified in his mind with his person. H

e mastery over his faculties, he could avoid hunger and cold; he could eat unstintedly, and walk through fire; he could move mountains, walk a hundred leagues in a minute, cure without medicines and by the sole force of his will, and could make himself immortal. He could say, "I wish to produce," and his tasks would be finished with the word

ACQUIRED, as land, water, and forests. In the state of Nature or isolation, the strongest and most skilful (that is, those best provided with innate property) stand the best chance of obtaining acquired property. Now, it is to prevent this encroachment and the war which results therefrom, that a balance (justice) has been employed, and covenants (implied or expressed) agreed upon: it is to correct

omy," in which he felt it his duty to break lances in behalf of property. His reasoning seems to be borrowed from Destutt de Tracy. He commences with this d

a distinction similar to Destutt de Tracy's of innate and acquired property,-M. Joseph Dutens concludes with these two general propositions: 1. Property is a natural and inalienable

entionality; and he says himself, speaking of the respect which people feel for property, that "their

equivalents; now he seems to distinguish between them, so much so that it would be infinitely easier to refute him than to understand him. Attracted first by the tit

all laws, all rights are given to man with this injunction: "FREE BEING, R

good, it is social. Do not f

houghts, its voluntary decisions. This accounts for the respect due to philosophy, religion, the arts industry, commerce,

d before thi

hich we call the body: the body participates then in the sacredness of liberty;

possess it legitimately.' So the legitimacy of possession rests on two conditions. First, I possess only as a free being. Suppress free activity, you destroy my power to labor. Now it is only by labor that I can use this property or thing, and it is only by using it that I possess it. Free activity is then the principle of the right of property. But that alone does not legitimate possession. A

have also the right to give it away. I have also the right to bequeath it; for if I

o; for if the first occupants have occupied every thing, what are the new comers to do? What will become of them, having an instrument with which to work, but no mat

usin's eclectic turns, which he, more than any one else, should take pains to avoid. Instead of proceeding by the method of analysis, comparison, elimination, and reduction (the only means of dis

ality which kills it. As I have already said, my sole intent is this: to show at the bottom of all these positions that inevitable major, EQUALITY; hoping here

finite, a person's power of appropriation is limited only by himself, in the sphere of the finite this same power is limited by the mathematical relation between the number of persons and the space which they occupy? Does it not follow that if one individual cannot prevent another-his fellow-man-from appropriating an amount of material equal to his own, no more can he prevent individuals yet to come; because, while i

e. Now, this right is guaranteed him by his fellows, with whom he makes an agreement to that effect. One hundred thousand men settle in a large country like France with no inhabitants: each man has a right to 1/100,000 of the land. If the number of possessors increases, each one's portion diminishes in consequence; so that, i

y that, is to confess that there is no reply to those who question the legitimacy of the fact itself. Every right must be justifiable in itself, or by some antecedent right; property is no exception. For this reason, M. Cousin has sought to base it upon the SANCTITY of the human personality, and the act by which the will assimilates a thing. "Once touched by man," says one of M. Cousin's disciples, "things receive from him a character which transforms and hum

to attempt to rigorously apply to the customs of life and to social transactions. Undoubtedly, this is a case which calls for imitation of the wise reserve of moralists and jurists, who warn us against carrying things to extremes, and who advise us to suspect every definition; because there is not one, they say, which cannot be utterly destroyed by developing its disastrous results-Omnis definiti

hen this reserve, now so much admired in philosophers-this happy medium so strongly recommended by professors of moral and political science-will be regarded as the disgraceful feature of a science without principle, and as the seal of its reprobation. In legislation and morals, as well as in geometry, axioms are absolute, definitions are certain; and all the results of a principle are to be accepted, provided they are logically deduced. Deplorable pride!

that this same jurisprudence continually tries to

he Foundation and S

xists by divine right. He traces back its origin to G

th and all its creatures, and has given it a control over them subordinate only to his own. 'Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things unde

an immense family living in brotherly union, and under the protection of a venerable f

FEET,-and I have not where to lay my head! MULTIPLY, he tells us through his interpreter, Pothier. A

and most of the things upon it; that which fell to each, from that time

t the laborer should be sole proprietor of the fruit of his labor; that is, they simply declared the fact that thereafter none could live without working. It necessarily followed that, to obtain equality of products, there must be equality of labor; and that, to obtain equality of labor, there must be equality of facilities for labor. Whoe

. de Sismondi, "who admit a man's property in the flocks which he has raised, do not refuse the crop to him who planted the seed; but they do not see why another, his equal, should not have a right to plant in his turn. The inequality which results from the pretended

metamorphosis from possessor to proprietor is legally impossible; it implies in the jurisdiction of the courts the union of possessoire and petitoire; and the mutual concessions of those who share the land are nothing less than traffic in natural rights. The original cultivators of the land, who were also the original makers of the law, were not as learned as o

of the writers on jurispru

e-Non ut ex pluribus causis idem nobis deberi potest, ita ex pluribus causis idem potest nostrum esse. The field which I have cleared, which I cultivate, on which I have built my house, w

only your right of use." Such, however, are the only titles which proprietors advance. They never have been able to discover any others. Indeed, every right-it is Pothier who says it-supposes a producing cause in the person who enjoys it; but in man who lives and dies, in this son of earth who passes away like a

Ancillon re

ich he gives to the object, not to the object itself. Useless distinction! If the form could be separated from the object, perhaps there would be room for question; but as this is

ncome of ten thousand francs; and, as very seldom happens, that this farm cannot be divided. Let us suppose farther that, by economical calculation, the annual expenses of a family are three thousand francs: the possessor of this farm should be obliged

is it, then, which ma

tance cannot be separated without destroying the thing itself, either socie

itle to added improvements, minus their cost; and whereas, in this ins

by labor shall never be admitted agains

slators always reason

s than four terms, the law-makers always disregard the latter. As long as man is opposed to man, property offsets property, and the two forces balance each othe

ssor of Rennes, the

permanent property, which might continue to stand, and which migh

re, in its turn, favors population, and necessitates the establishment of permanent property;

tion of land, as long as he remained its cultivator. That was all that he had a right to expect; that was all that the advance of civilization demanded. B

nent property; positive laws were needed, and magistrate

ing to the cultivator the fruit of his labor made permanent property necessary, and also la

te which, at first, was despotism, then monarchy, t

l writers, that if transient property, or the right of preference resulting from occupation, existed prior to the establishment of civil society, permanent property, as we know it to-day, is the work of civil law. It is the civil law

pendent things; two things which, in the language of the law, have nothing whatever in common. In this we see what

n of a moral principle. It has literally CREATED a right outside of its own province. It has realized an abstraction, a metaphor, a fiction;

nd law; the law of the ignorant man; a law which is not a law; the voice of discord, deceit, and blood! This it is which, continually revived, reinstated, rejuvenated, restored, re-en

s ignorant ministers deify; who have as little desire to

in creating the domain of property? What pr

lieve it? It

superable obstacles. Every year saw the people multiply, and the cupidity of the husbandman increase: it was thought best to put a bridle on ambition by setting boundaries which ambition would in vain attempt to overstep. Thus the soil came to be appropriated through need of the equality which is essential to public security and peaceable possession. Undoubtedly the division was never geographically equa

rians,-instead of indulging in annual quarrels and fights, instead of continually moving their houses, fu

ices which he had just rendered to his country; his estate ought to be restored to him. It became, therefore, customary to

nd parents, according to the degree of relationship which they bore to the deceased, should be the heirs of their ancestors. Thence came, in the first place, the feudal and patriarchal custom of recognizing only one heir; the

nd the true social science? How could these men, who never had the faintest idea of s

lator does not express it: the savant discovers and formulates it." But in fact, the law, according to M. Ch. Comte, who has devoted half a volume to its definition, was in the beginning only the EXPRESSION OF A WANT, and the indication of the means of supplying it; and up to this time it h

he right to transfer, sell, give, gain, and lose it; that it tends, consequently, to nothing less than the destruction of that equality which they established it to maintain. And though they should have

animo-it carries with it the right to let, to lease, to loan at interest, to profit by exchange, to s

re's method of preserving equality of wealth, families will soon become victims of the most disastrous exclusions; and s

r ever, whoever may be the recognized heir. But the St. Simonians wish the heir to be designated by the magistrate; others wish him to be chosen b

purpose of avoiding the manifold disturbances which follow in the wake of chance that Nature, after having created us equal, suggests to us the principle of he

see.... But why n

ough, and this is not the tim

d the application of justice; just as he was mistaken regarding the cause of meteors and the movement of the heavenly bodies. His old opinions cannot be taken for articles of faith. Of what consequence is it to us that the Indian race was divided into four classes; that, on the banks of the Nile and the Ganges, blood and position formerly determined the distribution of the land; that the Greeks

iple; the decision of the religions which have sanctioned it is of no effect, because in all ages the priest has submitted to the prince, and the gods have always spoken as

n, this dithyra

is the most important o

rchy is the

se of man's prosp

was supposed to

existence, the shelter of his family; in a word, the corner-stone o

alone produ

l princ

ernal, like ev

l and civil i

titution and every law bas

n as preciou

rich pro

f the cultivation of

to be a tenant, would the

and the moral

erty, labor is not a con

ication o

quality of fortunes? A ba

moral

tomach knows

ublic

e preservatio

e right of

stumbling-block of all which

p and co

ch he may labor; and since, on the other hand, the number of occupants varies continually with the births and deaths,-it follows that the quantity of material which each laborer may claim varies with the number o

; he must use it in conformity with general utility, with a view to its preservation and development; he has no power to transform it, to diminish it, or to change its nature; he cannot so divide the

nce, the most monstrous pretension that the civil laws ever sanctioned. Man receives his usufruct from the

e doubt these things to-day? Will it be necessary to again take arms for their

EQUAL RIGHT

THE WILL, BUT BY THE VARIABLE CONDITIONS

titution can admit! These are axioms which th

artisans of another system: "Labor,

, and I shall soon have to ask your pardon for having demonstrated things clea