Key Arguments

• He asserts that occupation, properly understood, leads to equality and prevents property: “Not only does occupation lead to equality, it prevents property,” because every human being “has the right of occupation, and, in order to live, must have material for cultivation on which he may labor.”
• He reasons that because the number of occupants constantly changes with births and deaths, the share each can justly occupy must vary with population: “since, on the other hand, the number of occupants varies continually with the births and deaths⁠—it follows that the quantity of material which each laborer may claim varies with the number of occupants; consequently, that occupation is always subordinate to population.”
• From this variability he infers that possession cannot be fixed in right and therefore cannot become property: “Finally, that, inasmuch as possession, in right, can never remain fixed, it is impossible, in fact, that it can ever become property.”
• He concludes that every occupant is necessarily only a possessor or usufructuary, a status incompatible with proprietorship: “Every occupant is, then, necessarily a possessor or usufructuary⁠—a function which excludes proprietorship.”
• He defines the strict duties of the usufructuary: “he is responsible for the thing entrusted to him; he must use it in conformity with general utility, with a view to its preservation and development; he has no power to transform it, to diminish it, or to change its nature; he cannot so divide the usufruct that another shall perform the labor while he receives the product,” thereby explicitly excluding rentier relations.
• He places the usufructuary “under the supervision of society, submitted to the condition of labor and the law of equality,” making social oversight and equality intrinsic limits on any individual’s rights in things.
• He declares that this conception “annihilated the Roman definition of property⁠—the right of use and abuse⁠—an immorality born of violence, the most monstrous pretension that the civil laws ever sanctioned,” explicitly rejecting dominium as jus utendi et abutendi as morally monstrous.
• He asserts that society alone is the permanent possessor: “Man receives his usufruct from the hands of society, which alone is the permanent possessor. The individual passes away, society is deathless,” grounding the denial of individual property in the transience of persons versus the permanence of the social whole.
• He formulates the decisive axiom: “All have an equal right of occupancy. / The amount occupied being measured, not by the will, but by the variable conditions of space and number, property cannot exist,” tying the impossibility of property to the principle of equal right and the objective limits of space and population.
• He notes that no existing code or constitution recognizes these axioms: “This no code has ever expressed; this no constitution can admit! These are axioms which the civil law and the law of nations deny!⁠ ⁠…,” highlighting the radical opposition between his doctrine of social usufruct and positive law.

Source Quotes

“All morality⁠—” A famished stomach knows no morality⁠— “All public order⁠—” Certainly, the preservation of property⁠— “Rest on the right of property.”14 Cornerstone of all which is, stumbling-block of all which ought to be⁠—such is property. To sum up and conclude:⁠— Not only does occupation lead to equality, it prevents property. For, since every man, from the fact of his existence, has the right of occupation, and, in order to live, must have material for cultivation on which he may labor; and since, on the other hand, the number of occupants varies continually with the births and deaths⁠—it follows that the quantity of material which each laborer may claim varies with the number of occupants; consequently, that occupation is always subordinate to population.

To sum up and conclude:⁠— Not only does occupation lead to equality, it prevents property. For, since every man, from the fact of his existence, has the right of occupation, and, in order to live, must have material for cultivation on which he may labor; and since, on the other hand, the number of occupants varies continually with the births and deaths⁠—it follows that the quantity of material which each laborer may claim varies with the number of occupants; consequently, that occupation is always subordinate to population. Finally, that, inasmuch as possession, in right, can never remain fixed, it is impossible, in fact, that it can ever become property.

Finally, that, inasmuch as possession, in right, can never remain fixed, it is impossible, in fact, that it can ever become property. Every occupant is, then, necessarily a possessor or usufructuary⁠—a function which excludes proprietorship. Now, this is the right of the usufructuary: he is responsible for the thing entrusted to him; he must use it in conformity with general utility, with a view to its preservation and development; he has no power to transform it, to diminish it, or to change its nature; he cannot so divide the usufruct that another shall perform the labor while he receives the product.

Every occupant is, then, necessarily a possessor or usufructuary⁠—a function which excludes proprietorship. Now, this is the right of the usufructuary: he is responsible for the thing entrusted to him; he must use it in conformity with general utility, with a view to its preservation and development; he has no power to transform it, to diminish it, or to change its nature; he cannot so divide the usufruct that another shall perform the labor while he receives the product. In a word, the usufructuary is under the supervision of society, submitted to the condition of labor and the law of equality.

In a word, the usufructuary is under the supervision of society, submitted to the condition of labor and the law of equality. Thus is annihilated the Roman definition of property⁠—the right of use and abuse⁠—an immorality born of violence, the most monstrous pretension that the civil laws ever sanctioned. Man receives his usufruct from the hands of society, which alone is the permanent possessor.

Thus is annihilated the Roman definition of property⁠—the right of use and abuse⁠—an immorality born of violence, the most monstrous pretension that the civil laws ever sanctioned. Man receives his usufruct from the hands of society, which alone is the permanent possessor. The individual passes away, society is deathless. What a profound disgust fills my soul while discussing such simple truths!

And can force, in default of reason, alone introduce them into our laws? All have an equal right of occupancy. The amount occupied being measured, not by the will, but by the variable conditions of space and number, property cannot exist. This no code has ever expressed; this no constitution can admit!

The amount occupied being measured, not by the will, but by the variable conditions of space and number, property cannot exist. This no code has ever expressed; this no constitution can admit! These are axioms which the civil law and the law of nations deny!⁠ ⁠… But I hear the exclamations of the partisans of another system: “Labor, labor! that is the basis of property!” Reader, do not be deceived.

Key Concepts

• Not only does occupation lead to equality, it prevents property.
• since every man, from the fact of his existence, has the right of occupation, and, in order to live, must have material for cultivation on which he may labor; and since, on the other hand, the number of occupants varies continually with the births and deaths⁠—it follows that the quantity of material which each laborer may claim varies with the number of occupants; consequently, that occupation is always subordinate to population.
• Every occupant is, then, necessarily a possessor or usufructuary⁠—a function which excludes proprietorship.
• he has no power to transform it, to diminish it, or to change its nature; he cannot so divide the usufruct that another shall perform the labor while he receives the product.
• Thus is annihilated the Roman definition of property⁠—the right of use and abuse⁠—an immorality born of violence, the most monstrous pretension that the civil laws ever sanctioned.
• Man receives his usufruct from the hands of society, which alone is the permanent possessor. The individual passes away, society is deathless.
• All have an equal right of occupancy. The amount occupied being measured, not by the will, but by the variable conditions of space and number, property cannot exist.
• This no code has ever expressed; this no constitution can admit! These are axioms which the civil law and the law of nations deny!⁠ ⁠…

Context

In the concluding section of § 3, Proudhon draws together his critique of occupation and civil law into a positive doctrine: equal right of occupancy, demographic variability, and the social nature of usufruct show that individuals can only hold things as supervised users under an egalitarian law, while society remains the permanent possessor—thereby morally and juridically abolishing the Roman notion of property as a right of use and abuse.