Key Arguments

• He proposes a thought experiment: 'If men, living in equality, should grant to one of their number the exclusive right of property; and this sole proprietor should lend one hundred francs to the human race at compound interest, payable to his descendants twenty-four generations hence⁠—at the end of six hundred years this sum of one hundred francs, at five percent, would amount to 107,854,010,777,600 francs.'
• He compares this figure to national wealth: it equals 'two thousand six hundred and ninety-six and one-third times the capital of France (supposing her capital to be 40,000,000,000),' showing that a trivial original loan would, by legal right, justify a claim vastly exceeding a whole country's capital.
• He then further radicalizes the absurdity: the resulting amount is 'more than twenty times the value of the terrestrial globe!' thereby underlining that the legal logic of compound interest generates claims that materially cannot be satisfied on any conceivable planetary scale.
• He offers a legal-historical variant: 'Suppose that a man, in the reign of St. Louis, had borrowed one hundred francs, and had refused⁠—he and his heirs after him⁠—to return it.' Even if their lack of title and the interruption of prescription were acknowledged at every step, 'by our laws, the last heir would be obliged to return the one hundred francs with interest, and interest on the interest; which in all would amount, as we have seen, to nearly one hundred and eight thousand billions.'
• This second example shows that the standing legal principles regarding debt, interest, and prescription would demand repayment on an impossible scale, revealing an internal contradiction between civil law and mathematical reality.
• He notes that actual fortunes often grow faster than his conservative example: 'Every day, fortunes are growing in our midst much more rapidly than this. The preceding example supposed the interest equal to one-twentieth of the capital⁠—it often equals one-tenth, one-fifth, one-half of the capital; and sometimes the capital itself.'
• Because these growth rates are permitted and enforced by law, but their indefinite continuation is mathematically incompatible with finite wealth, Proudhon infers that property rights anchored in such interest are impossible and inherently spoliative.

Source Quotes

Eighth Proposition Property is impossible, because its power of Accumulation is infinite, and is exercised only over finite quantities. If men, living in equality, should grant to one of their number the exclusive right of property; and this sole proprietor should lend one hundred francs to the human race at compound interest, payable to his descendants twenty-four generations hence⁠—at the end of six hundred years this sum of one hundred francs, at five percent, would amount to 107,854,010,777,600 francs; two thousand six hundred and ninety-six and one-third times the capital of France (supposing her capital to be 40,000,000,000), or more than twenty times the value of the terrestrial globe! Suppose that a man, in the reign of St. Louis, had borrowed one hundred francs, and had refused⁠—he and his heirs after him⁠—to return it.

If men, living in equality, should grant to one of their number the exclusive right of property; and this sole proprietor should lend one hundred francs to the human race at compound interest, payable to his descendants twenty-four generations hence⁠—at the end of six hundred years this sum of one hundred francs, at five percent, would amount to 107,854,010,777,600 francs; two thousand six hundred and ninety-six and one-third times the capital of France (supposing her capital to be 40,000,000,000), or more than twenty times the value of the terrestrial globe! Suppose that a man, in the reign of St. Louis, had borrowed one hundred francs, and had refused⁠—he and his heirs after him⁠—to return it. Even though it were known that the said heirs were not the rightful possessors, and that prescription had been interrupted always at the right moment⁠—nevertheless, by our laws, the last heir would be obliged to return the one hundred francs with interest, and interest on the interest; which in all would amount, as we have seen, to nearly one hundred and eight thousand billions.

Suppose that a man, in the reign of St. Louis, had borrowed one hundred francs, and had refused⁠—he and his heirs after him⁠—to return it. Even though it were known that the said heirs were not the rightful possessors, and that prescription had been interrupted always at the right moment⁠—nevertheless, by our laws, the last heir would be obliged to return the one hundred francs with interest, and interest on the interest; which in all would amount, as we have seen, to nearly one hundred and eight thousand billions. Every day, fortunes are growing in our midst much more rapidly than this.

Even though it were known that the said heirs were not the rightful possessors, and that prescription had been interrupted always at the right moment⁠—nevertheless, by our laws, the last heir would be obliged to return the one hundred francs with interest, and interest on the interest; which in all would amount, as we have seen, to nearly one hundred and eight thousand billions. Every day, fortunes are growing in our midst much more rapidly than this. The preceding example supposed the interest equal to one-twentieth of the capital⁠—it often equals one-tenth, one-fifth, one-half of the capital; and sometimes the capital itself. The Fourierists⁠—irreconcilable enemies of equality, whose partisans they regard as sharks⁠—intend, by quadrupling production, to satisfy all the demands of capital, labor, and skill.

Key Concepts

• If men, living in equality, should grant to one of their number the exclusive right of property; and this sole proprietor should lend one hundred francs to the human race at compound interest, payable to his descendants twenty-four generations hence⁠—at the end of six hundred years this sum of one hundred francs, at five percent, would amount to 107,854,010,777,600 francs;
• two thousand six hundred and ninety-six and one-third times the capital of France (supposing her capital to be 40,000,000,000), or more than twenty times the value of the terrestrial globe!
• Suppose that a man, in the reign of St. Louis, had borrowed one hundred francs, and had refused⁠—he and his heirs after him⁠—to return it.
• the last heir would be obliged to return the one hundred francs with interest, and interest on the interest; which in all would amount, as we have seen, to nearly one hundred and eight thousand billions.
• Every day, fortunes are growing in our midst much more rapidly than this. The preceding example supposed the interest equal to one-twentieth of the capital⁠—it often equals one-tenth, one-fifth, one-half of the capital; and sometimes the capital itself.

Context

Numerical and juridical illustration in the Eighth Proposition, where Proudhon uses compound-interest calculations and existing legal rules on debt and prescription to show that legally-sanctioned accumulation produces claims that far exceed any possible economic base, thereby exposing property and interest as mathematically and morally untenable.