Chapter 1: Method Pursued in This Work

If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power

Chapter 2: Property Considered as a Natural Right

Definitions The Roman law defined property as the right to use and abuse one’s own within the limits of the law – jus utendi et abutendi re suâ, guatenus juris ratio patitur. A justification of the word abuse has been attempted, on the ground that it signifies, not senseless and immoral abuse, but only

Chapter 3: Labor as the Efficient Cause of the Domain of Property

Nearly all the modern writers on jurisprudence, taking their cue from the economists, have abandoned the theory of first occupancy as a too dangerous one, and have adopted that which regards property as born of labor. In this they are deluded; they reason in a circle. To labor it is necessary to occupy, says

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Chapter 4: Property is Impossible

The last resort of proprietors, – the overwhelming argument whose invincible potency reassures them, – is that, in their opinion, equality of conditions is impossible. “Equality of conditions is a chimera,” they cry with a knowing air; “distribute wealth equally today – tomorrow this equality will have vanished.” To this hackneyed objection, which they

Chapter 5: Psychological Exposition of the Idea of Justice and Injustice

Psychological Exposition of the Idea of Justice and Injustice, and a Determination of the Principle of Government and of Right Property is impossible; equality does not exist. We hate the former, and yet wish to possess it; the latter rules all our thoughts, yet we know not how to reach it. Who will explain

SECOND MEMOIR: A Letter to M. Blanqui – Part 1

PARIS, April 1, 1841. Monsieur, – Before resuming my “Inquiries into Government and Property,” it is fitting, for the satisfaction of some worthy people, and also in the interest of order, that I should make to you a plain, straightforward explanation. In a much-governed State, no one would be allowed to attack the external

SECOND MEMOIR: A Letter to M. Blanqui – Part 2

The phrase equality of fortunes chafes people, as if it referred to a condition of the other world, unknown here below. There are some persons, radicals as well as moderates, whom the very mention of this idea fills with indignation. Let, then, these silly aristocrats abolish mercantile societies and insurance companies, which are founded

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SECOND MEMOIR: A Letter to M. Blanqui – Part 3

In Rome, as in all other places, the dissension between the rich and the poor was not caused directly by the desire for wealth (people, as a general thing, do not covet that which they deem it illegitimate to acquire), but by a natural instinct of the plebeians, which led them to seek the