In 1840, two short expressions, a mere seven words, transformed socialist politics forever. One put a name to a tendency within the working class movement: “I am an Anarchist.”  The other presented a critique and a protest against inequality which still rings: “Property is Theft!”

A few years back, I published a few articles in Freedom on raising the demand for co-operatives in response to the economic crisis. These were ‘Bailouts or co-operatives?’ and ‘Co-operatives and conflicts!’ (although they appeared in Freedom slightly edited). The last was in reply to another article on this subject, which was replied to on-line.

This is the English translation of the principle piece of evidence in an anti-terrorism case in France. Nine people were arrested in 2008, mostly in the village of Tarnac, under the charge of sabotaging overhead electrical lines on the French railways. With only little circumstantial evidence available, the French Interior Minister has associated them with a ultra-left insurrectionary movement and singled out this book as a “manual for terrorism.” It is not that, but is it a manual for revolution?

Toast to the Revolution

Le Peuple

17^th October 1848

Translation by Shawn P. Wilbur

Citizens,

When our friends of the democratic republic, apprehensive of our ideas and our inclinations, cry out against the qualification of socialist which we add to that of democrat, of what do they reproach us? — They reproach us for not being revolutionaries.

Instead of trying to squeeze Marxism into syndicalism, it would be better to ask why so many “Marxists” rejected the legacy of Marx and embraced positions (revolutionary unionism, primacy of economic struggle, the general strike, unions as the structure of a socialist society, etc.) which were expounded by Bakunin and attacked by the founders of their ideology. Looking at what the syndicalists themselves said, the ideas of Bakunin and what Marx and Engels advocated, it quickly becomes apparently that Marxism was not one of the “core ideological elements” of syndicalism. In reality, syndicalism was simply, as so many syndicalists and others stressed, a new name for the ideas raised in the IWMA and for which Bakunin was a leading advocate.Syndicalism, Anarchism and Marxism

Election Manifesto of ‘Le Peuple’

Le Peuple

8-15^th November 1848

Translator: Paul Sharkey

The central electoral committee, comprising delegates from the fourteen Seine arrondissements and designed to make preparation for the election of the president of the Republic, has just concluded its operations.

Letter to Workers on Elections

Translated by Paul Sharkey

Passy, March 8, 1864

To workers,

Supplemental Material (online only)

This webpage contains material by or about Proudhon which did not, for whatever reason, get included into "Property is Theft!" or its introduction or was translated or produced after it was completed.

By Proudhon

Letter to workers on elections (1864)

About Proudhon

Letter to M.Blanqui on Property

What is Property? Second Memoir

Translator: Benjamin R. Tucker

Paris, April 1, 1841

Monsieur,

[...]

Appendix: The Theory of Property

1865

Translator: Shawn P. Wilbur

“If I ever find myself a proprietor, may God and men, the poor especially, forgive me for it!”