Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

34 / ANARCHISM
1987, page 13). Prnudhon's early socialism was 1110re egalitarian than Fourier's, and explicitly,
if Iwt collSistelltiy, anarchist (see my introduction to the 1989 Pluto Press edition of
Proudhon's The General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century). What is
Property was II is first major publication, a ground-breaking critique of property rights and
the principle of government. In The Holy Family (1845), Marx, later Proudhon's 1lOstile oppOllent,
described the book as "the first resolute, pitiless and at tI,e same time scientific" critique
of property. Both ProudllOn and his book became notorious fo r the slartling phrase,
"Property is theft!" by which ProudllOn meant the appropriation by capitalists of the benefit
of the workers' combined labour. Tllefollowing excerpts, which can only give aJlavour of ti,e
book, are takenji"olll Benjamin Tucker's 1876 1ranslalion, with some minor modifications.
IF I WERE ASKED TO ANSWER the fo llowing 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 of life and death; and that to enslave a
man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question: What is property may I not likewise
answer, It is theft, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second
proposition being no other than a transformation of the first
..."The capitalist," they say, "has paid the labourers their daily wages." To be accurate,
it must be said that the capitalist has paid as many times one day's wage as he
has e mployed labourers each day-wh ich is not at al! the same thing. for he hd pdiJ
nothing for that immense power which results from the union and harmony of labourers,
and the convergence and simultaneousness of their efforts. Two hundred
grenadiers stood the obelisk of Luxor upon its base in a few hours; do you suppose
that one man could have accomplished the same task in two hundred days Nevertheless,
on the books of the capitalist, the amount of wages paid would have been
the same. Well, a desert to prepare fo r cultivation, a house to build, a factory to
run-all these are obelisks to erect, mountains to move. The smallest fo rtune, the
most insignificant establishment, the setting in motion of the lowest industry, demand
the concurrence of so many different kinds of labour and skill, that one man
could not possibly execute the whole of them ...
Labour leads us to equality. Every step that we take brings us nearer to it; and if
labourers had equal strength, diligence, and industry, clearly their fo rtunes would be
equal also. Indeed, if, as is pretended-and as we have admitted-the labourer is
proprietor of the value which he creates, it follows:
1. That the labourer acquires at the expense of the idle proprietor;