Key Arguments

• He sums up: “liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what impenetrability is to matter⁠—a sine qua non of existence”; one cannot renounce liberty without renouncing human nature, so it admits neither increase nor diminution.
• Equality is an absolute right “because without equality there is no society”; social life presupposes equal standing before law and equal conditions of association.
• Security is an absolute right because “in the eyes of every man his own liberty and life are as precious as another’s,” and society promises full defence of each, binding itself as absolutely as individuals bind themselves.
• These three rights are absolute “because in society each associate receives as much as he gives⁠—liberty for liberty, equality for equality, security for security, body for body, soul for soul, in life and in death,” expressing a strict principle of reciprocal equivalence that defines the social contract.
• By contrast, “property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is a right outside of society”; if the wealth of each were truly social wealth, conditions would be equal for all, and it would be a contradiction to say “Property is a man’s right to dispose at will of social property.”
• Hence, if we are associated for liberty, equality, and security, “we are not associated for the sake of property”; if property is a natural right, “this natural right is not social, but antisocial,” setting property in fundamental opposition to the very idea of society.
• This conclusion ties back to his earlier empirical and fiscal arguments: the impossibility of treating property as absolute in law and public finance, and the continual conflicts it generates, confirm that property stands outside and against the social reciprocity that grounds true rights.

Source Quotes

Yet, nevertheless, sooner or later, the conversion will be effected and property be violated, because no other course is possible; because property, regarded as a right, and not being a right, must of right perish; because the force of events, the laws of conscience, and physical and mathematical necessity must, in the end, destroy this illusion of our minds. To sum up: liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what impenetrability is to matter⁠—a sine qua non of existence; equality is an absolute right, because without equality there is no society; security is an absolute right, because in the eyes of every man his own liberty and life are as precious as another’s. These three rights are absolute; that is, susceptible of neither increase nor diminution; because in society each associate receives as much as he gives⁠—liberty for liberty, equality for equality, security for security, body for body, soul for soul, in life and in death.

To sum up: liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what impenetrability is to matter⁠—a sine qua non of existence; equality is an absolute right, because without equality there is no society; security is an absolute right, because in the eyes of every man his own liberty and life are as precious as another’s. These three rights are absolute; that is, susceptible of neither increase nor diminution; because in society each associate receives as much as he gives⁠—liberty for liberty, equality for equality, security for security, body for body, soul for soul, in life and in death. But property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is a right outside of society; for it is clear that, if the wealth of each was social wealth, the conditions would be equal for all, and it would be a contradiction to say: Property is a man’s right to dispose at will of social property.

These three rights are absolute; that is, susceptible of neither increase nor diminution; because in society each associate receives as much as he gives⁠—liberty for liberty, equality for equality, security for security, body for body, soul for soul, in life and in death. But property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is a right outside of society; for it is clear that, if the wealth of each was social wealth, the conditions would be equal for all, and it would be a contradiction to say: Property is a man’s right to dispose at will of social property. Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a natural right, this natural right is not social, but antisocial.

But property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is a right outside of society; for it is clear that, if the wealth of each was social wealth, the conditions would be equal for all, and it would be a contradiction to say: Property is a man’s right to dispose at will of social property. Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a natural right, this natural right is not social, but antisocial. Property and society are utterly

Key Concepts

• To sum up: liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what impenetrability is to matter⁠—a sine qua non of existence;
• equality is an absolute right, because without equality there is no society;
• security is an absolute right, because in the eyes of every man his own liberty and life are as precious as another’s.
• These three rights are absolute; that is, susceptible of neither increase nor diminution; because in society each associate receives as much as he gives⁠—liberty for liberty, equality for equality, security for security, body for body, soul for soul, in life and in death.
• But property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is a right outside of society; for it is clear that, if the wealth of each was social wealth, the conditions would be equal for all, and it would be a contradiction to say: Property is a man’s right to dispose at will of social property.
• Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a natural right, this natural right is not social, but antisocial. Property and society are utterly

Context

Closing of §1, where Proudhon synthesizes his previous comparisons and examples into a general theoretical claim: genuine social rights rest on reciprocity within association, whereas legal property is a right asserted outside that reciprocity, and thus must be considered antisocial, preparing his subsequent argument for the negation of property.