Key Arguments

• Toullier explains that mere occupation could not create lasting property and that agriculture necessitated permanent property: "Agriculture was a natural consequence of the multiplication of the human race, and agriculture, in its turn, favors population, and necessitates the establishment of permanent property; for who would take the trouble to plough and sow, if he were not certain that he would reap?"
• Proudhon counters that to satisfy the cultivator, it would have sufficed to guarantee him possession of his crop and occupancy while he cultivated: "To satisfy the husbandman, it was sufficient to guarantee him possession of his crop; admit even that he should have been protected in his right of occupation of land, as long as he remained its cultivator. That was all that he had a right to expect; that was all that the advance of civilization demanded."
• Toullier continues: "So we are indebted to property for the creation of the civil State," and "Without the ties of property it never would have been possible to subordinate men to the wholesome yoke of the law; and without permanent property the earth would have remained a vast forest."
• He explicitly concludes that "permanent property, as we know it today, is the work of civil law. It is the civil law which holds that, when once acquired, property can be lost only by the action of the proprietor," and that law has turned property and possession into "two distinct and independent things"—"two things which, in the language of the law, have nothing whatever in common."
• Proudhon generalizes: "Thus the law, in establishing property, has not been the expression of a psychological fact, the development of a natural law, the application of a moral principle. It has literally created a right outside of its own province. It has realized an abstraction, a metaphor, a fiction;" and it has done so "without inquiring whether it was right or wrong."
• He denounces this civil‑law creation as having "sanctioned selfishness; it has endorsed monstrous pretensions; it has received with favor impious vows," calling it "Blind law; the law of the ignorant man; a law which is not a law; the voice of discord, deceit, and blood!" and attributes to this institution the "catastrophes which have befallen nations."

Source Quotes

Listen to the professor of Rennes, the learned Toullier:⁠— “How could this claim, made valid by occupation, become stable and permanent property, which might continue to stand, and which might be reclaimed after the first occupant had relinquished possession? “Agriculture was a natural consequence of the multiplication of the human race, and agriculture, in its turn, favors population, and necessitates the establishment of permanent property; for who would take the trouble to plough and sow, if he were not certain that he would reap?” To satisfy the husbandman, it was sufficient to guarantee him possession of his crop; admit even that he should have been protected in his right of occupation of land, as long as he remained its cultivator.

“Agriculture was a natural consequence of the multiplication of the human race, and agriculture, in its turn, favors population, and necessitates the establishment of permanent property; for who would take the trouble to plough and sow, if he were not certain that he would reap?” To satisfy the husbandman, it was sufficient to guarantee him possession of his crop; admit even that he should have been protected in his right of occupation of land, as long as he remained its cultivator. That was all that he had a right to expect; that was all that the advance of civilization demanded.

“The multiplication of the human race had rendered agriculture necessary; the need of securing to the cultivator the fruit of his labor made permanent property necessary, and also laws for its protection. So we are indebted to property for the creation of the civil State.” Yes, of our civil State, as you have made it; a State which, at first, was despotism, then monarchy, then aristocracy, today democracy, and always tyranny.

“Without the ties of property it never would have been possible to subordinate men to the wholesome yoke of the law; and without permanent property the earth would have remained a vast forest. Let us admit, then, with the most careful writers, that if transient property, or the right of preference resulting from occupation, existed prior to the establishment of civil society, permanent property, as we know it today, is the work of civil law. It is the civil law which holds that, when once acquired, property can be lost only by the action of the proprietor, and that it exists even after the proprietor has relinquished possession of the thing, and it has fallen into the hands of a third party.

In this we see what a wonderful change has been effected in property, and to what an extent Nature has been altered by the civil laws.” Thus the law, in establishing property, has not been the expression of a psychological fact, the development of a natural law, the application of a moral principle. It has literally created a right outside of its own province. It has realized an abstraction, a metaphor, a fiction; and that without deigning to look at the consequences, without considering the disadvantages, without inquiring whether it was right or wrong. It has sanctioned selfishness; it has endorsed monstrous pretensions; it has received with favor impious vows, as if it were able to fill up a bottomless pit, and to satiate hell!

It has sanctioned selfishness; it has endorsed monstrous pretensions; it has received with favor impious vows, as if it were able to fill up a bottomless pit, and to satiate hell! Blind law; the law of the ignorant man; a law which is not a law; the voice of discord, deceit, and blood! This it is which, continually revived, reinstated, rejuvenated, restored, reinforced⁠—as the palladium of society⁠—has troubled the consciences of the people, has obscured the minds of the masters, and has induced all the catastrophes which have befallen nations.

Key Concepts

• Agriculture was a natural consequence of the multiplication of the human race, and agriculture, in its turn, favors population, and necessitates the establishment of permanent property; for who would take the trouble to plough and sow, if he were not certain that he would reap?
• To satisfy the husbandman, it was sufficient to guarantee him possession of his crop; admit even that he should have been protected in his right of occupation of land, as long as he remained its cultivator.
• So we are indebted to property for the creation of the civil State.
• permanent property, as we know it today, is the work of civil law.
• Thus the law, in establishing property, has not been the expression of a psychological fact, the development of a natural law, the application of a moral principle. It has literally created a right outside of its own province. It has realized an abstraction, a metaphor, a fiction;
• Blind law; the law of the ignorant man; a law which is not a law; the voice of discord, deceit, and blood!

Context

In the long central section of § 3, after quoting Toullier’s historical‑functional account of permanent property and its relation to the civil state, Proudhon seizes on Toullier’s admission that modern property is the work of civil law to argue that the law created a fictitious, extra‑moral right that institutionalizes egoism and has disastrous social consequences.