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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

French politician, philosopher, anarchist and socialist (1809-1865) · France · Politicians · Died at 56 · also Belgium

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He coined the phrase "property is theft!" and became the first person to publicly claim the label anarchist - not as an insult but as a position. His 1840 pamphlet launched a political tradition and a lifelong argument with Marx.

AcademicsAcademicEconomicsPoliticsJournalismPhilosophyLiteratureFrance

A life in dates

1865Died19 January 18651863“All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation.”In their wordsDu principe Fédératif [Principle of Federation] (1863)

1848Named Member of the 1848 Constituent AssemblyOffice4 June 1848 to 26 May 18491840“The nineteenth century is in my eyes a creative age in which new principles are produced but in which nothing written will endure.”In their wordsPreface

“I should like to restore with one hand what I destroy with the other. When pruning an old tree one should avoid destroying the buds and fruit; you know this is as well as anyone.”In their wordsPreface

“Justice is not the work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only the declaration and application of what is just in all circumstances where men have relations with one another.”In their wordsChapter One

“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.”In their wordsCh. I: "Method Pursued in this Work. The Idea of a Revolution"

“Of what consequence to you, reader, is my obscure individuality? I live, like you, in a century in which reason submits only to fact and to evidence.”In their wordsCh. I: "Method Pursued in this Work. The Idea of a Revolution"

1809Born15 January 1809

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Portrait Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (cropped)Portrait Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (cropped)16 Représentants montagnards à leurs bancs de l'Assemblée constituante, 184816 Représentants montagnards à leurs bancs de l'Assemblée constituante, 184816 Représentants à leurs bancs de l'Assemblée constituante, 184816 Représentants à leurs bancs de l'Assemblée constituante, 184819th century anarchists, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin (1)19th century anarchists, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin (1)19th century anarchists, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin (2)19th century anarchists, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin (2)19th century anarchists, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin19th century anarchists, Proudhon, Bakunin, KropotkinActes de la révolutionActes de la révolutionAlfred Daniel, Iphigenie 1964Alfred Daniel, Iphigenie 1964

In their own words 10

,
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
,
10 statements, newest first

  1. All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation.

    1863, Du principe Fédératif [Principle of Federation] (1863), Own words

  2. The nineteenth century is in my eyes a creative age in which new principles are produced but in which nothing written will endure.

    1840, Preface, Own words

  3. I should like to restore with one hand what I destroy with the other. When pruning an old tree one should avoid destroying the buds and fruit; you know this is as well as anyone.

    1840, Preface, Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

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About this person

Born in Besançon in 1809, Proudhon was a printer who taught himself Latin to set books he couldn't otherwise read. What Is Property?, published in 1840, caught the attention of both French authorities and Karl Marx, who began a correspondence that turned into a Paris friendship during Marx's exile. The friendship shattered when Marx answered Proudhon's The System of Economic Contradictions with The Poverty of Philosophy, a dispute that helped split the anarchist and Marxist wings of the International Working Men's Association. Elected to the French Parliament after the 1848 Revolution, Proudhon called himself a federalist and pushed for workers' councils, cooperatives, and a national bank offering interest-free loans funded by a tax on capitalists - an attempt that failed. He died in 1865, leaving a mutualist philosophy that splintered into individualist anarchism, collectivist anarchism, anarcho-communism, and anarcho-syndicalism.

Country
France
Category
Politicians
Type
Politician
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1809 to 1865 · aged 56

Politicians from France 6

Jean-Philippe Tanguy71.0Édouard Philippe70.4Sophia Chikirou71.3Salome Zourabichvili70.3François-Xavier Bellamy71.7Louis XIII of France70.0

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