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| {{mergeto|What Is Property?|date=July 2008}} | |||
| {{anarchism}} | |||
| '''Property is theft!''' (]: ''La propriété, c'est le vol!'') is a slogan coined by ] ] in his 1840 book '']''. | |||
| {{bquote|If I were asked to answer the following question: ''What is ]?'' and I should answer in one word, ''It is ]!'', my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required . . . Why, then, to this other question: ''What is ]?'' may I not likewise answer, ''It is ]!'', without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?|||Pierre-Joseph Proudhon|'']''}} | |||
| (This translation by ] renders "''c'est le vol''" as "it is robbery," although the slogan is typically rendered in English as "property is theft.") | |||
| By "property," Proudhon referred to the ] concept of the ''] of property'' — the right of the proprietor to do with his ] as he pleases, "to use and abuse," so long as in the end lie submits to state-sanctioned title, and he contrasted the supposed ] with the rights (which he considered valid) of ], ], and ]. | |||
| ==Similar phrases== | |||
| Brissot de Warville had previously written, in his ''Philosophical Researches on the Right of Property'' (''Recherches philosophiques sur le droit de propriété et le vol''), "Exclusive property is a robbery in nature."<ref name=curiosities>William Shepard Walsh, '''', p. 923</ref> ] would later write that Proudhon had taken the slogan from Warville,<ref>Karl Marx, , from ''Marx Engels Selected Works, Volume 2'', first published in ''Der Social-Demokrat'', Nos. 16, 17 and 18, February 1, 3 and 5, 1865</ref> although this is believed not to be true.<ref>Robert L. Hoffman, ''Revolutionary Justice: The Social and Political Theory of P.J. Proudhon'', (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), pp. 46-48.</ref> | |||
| ] taught ''superfluum quod tenes tu furaris'' (the superfluous property which you hold you have stolen).<ref name=curiosities/> | |||
| ] wrote {{fix|text=where?}}: "In the last analysis all property is theft."<ref name=curiosities/> | |||
| ==Criticism== | |||
| Under an ] critique, "Property is theft" is a ]. It commits the fallacy of the stolen concept which consists of the act of using a concept while ignoring, contradicting or denying the validity of the concepts on which it logically and genetically depends. Discussing the hierarchical nature of knowledge, ] states: | |||
| <blockquote>“Theft” is a concept that logically and genetically depends on the antecedent concept of “rightfully owned property” — and refers to the act of taking that property without the owner’s consent. If no property is rightfully owned, that is, if nothing is property, there can be no such concept as “theft.” Thus, the statement “All property is theft” has an internal contradiction: to use the concept “theft” while denying the validity of the concept of “property,” is to use “theft” as a concept to which one has no logical right — that is, as a stolen concept.<ref> by ] - originally published in ''The Objectivist Newsletter'' in January 1963.</ref></blockquote> | |||
| === Counter Criticism === | |||
| Naturally Proudhon was aware of the literal contradiction involved, and in fact prided himself on being a lover of ] (he also declared "property is impossible", "property is despotism" and "property is freedom"). A slightly less literal reading makes his meaning clear<ref>Woodcock, ''Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements''. Broadview press, 2004; see e.g. page 13</ref>, as explained above. | |||
| ==References== | |||
| {{Reflist}} | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
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