Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

About the author

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Founder of Mutualist Anarchism

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was born on January 15, 1809, in France and passed away on January 19, 1865. He is known as a French printer who propagated the philosophy of anarchism. His philosophy greatly influenced the French workers' movement and he is known as the 'father of anarchism'. Proudhon's writings include the famous 'What Is Property?', where he argued that property is theft.

Despite coming from a poor peasantry background, Proudhon rose to become an influential political philosopher and theorist. During his lifetime, he critiqued the prevalent political and capitalist systems while advocating for a more equitable society in the line of anarchism and mutualism. Proudhon’s writings and views formed the core of many anarchist movements across the globe. His ideas remain influential in today's political landscape, particularly within anarchist and socialist movements.

Date of Birth: 15 January 1809

Date of Death: 19 January 1865

Country of Birth: France

Political Ideas: Mutualism, Federalism

Quotes Available: 23

Quotes by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.

The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.

Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak.

Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist.

Property is impossible.

To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue.

Louis Blanc has gone so far as to reverse the republic motto, as if he wanted to revolutionize the revolution. He no longer says, as everybody else says, and according to tradition, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; he says Equality, Fraternity, Liberty!

The government of man by man (under whatever name it be disguised) is oppression.

I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none.

We had never understood the meaning of these words, so common and yet so sacred: Justice, equity, liberty.

Liberty is not daughter of order but mother of order.

They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, "So perish idlers and vagrants!"

All my political ideas boil down to this formula: political federation or decentralization.

What do I, a proletarian, care for the tranquility and security of the rich? I care as little for public order as for the proprietor's safety. I ask to live a laborer; otherwise I will die a warrior.

Yes: all men believe and repeat that equality of conditions is identical with equality of rights; that property and robbery are synonymous terms; that every social advantage accorded, or rather usurped, in the name of superior talent or service, is iniquity and extortion. All men in their hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made to understand it.

Whosoever lays a hand on me in order to govern me is a usurper and a tyrant; I declare him my enemy.

What is property? It is robbery!

All parties without exception, when they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism.

Philosophy will not change the course of events: destiny will fulfill itself regardless of prophecy. Besides, must not justice be done and our education be finished?

Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth!

We should not put forward revolutionary action as a means of social reform, because that pretended means would simply be an appeal to force, to arbitrariness, in brief, a contradiction.

Fear of the people is the defect of all those who belong to authority. The people, as concerns power, is the enemy.

Equality! I had always thought that it was the natural fruit of Liberty, which has no need of theory nor of constraint.

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