Key Arguments

• He explicitly equates the roles of proprietor and sovereign despot: 'The proprietor, the robber, the hero, the sovereign⁠—for all these titles are synonymous⁠—imposes his will as law, and suffers neither contradiction nor control; that is, he pretends to be the legislative and the executive power at once.'
• He argues that replacing royal will by scientific law is historically conflictual precisely because of this proprietary pretension: 'the substitution of the scientific and true law for the royal will is accomplished only by a terrible struggle; and this constant substitution is, after property, the most potent element in history, the most prolific source of political disturbances.'
• He directly links property to despotism and licentious rule: 'Now, property necessarily engenders despotism⁠—the government of caprice, the reign of libidinous pleasure. That is so clearly the essence of property that, to be convinced of it, one need but remember what it is, and observe what happens around him.'
• He reminds the reader of his juridical definition: 'Property is the right to use and abuse.' From this, he infers that if government is essentially economic administration, property subverts it: 'If, then, government is economy⁠—if its object is production and consumption, and the distribution of labor and products⁠—how is government possible while property exists?'
• He reasons that if goods are property, proprietors will naturally claim kingly power in proportion to their wealth: 'And if goods are property, why should not the proprietors be kings, and despotic kings⁠—kings in proportion to their facultés bonitaires?'
• He concludes that a political order composed of such sovereign proprietors cannot be anything but disorder: 'And if each proprietor is sovereign lord within the sphere of his property, absolute king throughout his own domain, how could a government of proprietors be anything but chaos and confusion?'

Source Quotes

The executive power, belonging properly to the will, cannot be confided to too many proxies. That is the true sovereignty of the nation.35 The proprietor, the robber, the hero, the sovereign⁠—for all these titles are synonymous⁠—imposes his will as law, and suffers neither contradiction nor control; that is, he pretends to be the legislative and the executive power at once. Accordingly, the substitution of the scientific and true law for the royal will is accomplished only by a terrible struggle; and this constant substitution is, after property, the most potent element in history, the most prolific source of political disturbances.

Examples are too numerous and too striking to require enumeration. Now, property necessarily engenders despotism⁠—the government of caprice, the reign of libidinous pleasure. That is so clearly the essence of property that, to be convinced of it, one need but remember what it is, and observe what happens around him.

That is so clearly the essence of property that, to be convinced of it, one need but remember what it is, and observe what happens around him. Property is the right to use and abuse. If, then, government is economy⁠—if its object is production and consumption, and the distribution of labor and products⁠—how is government possible while property exists?

Property is the right to use and abuse. If, then, government is economy⁠—if its object is production and consumption, and the distribution of labor and products⁠—how is government possible while property exists? And if goods are property, why should not the proprietors be kings, and despotic kings⁠—kings in proportion to their facultés bonitaires?

And if goods are property, why should not the proprietors be kings, and despotic kings⁠—kings in proportion to their facultés bonitaires? And if each proprietor is sovereign lord within the sphere of his property, absolute king throughout his own domain, how could a government of proprietors be anything but chaos and confusion? § 3 Determination of the third form of Society. Conclusion.

Key Concepts

• The proprietor, the robber, the hero, the sovereign⁠—for all these titles are synonymous⁠—imposes his will as law
• property necessarily engenders despotism⁠—the government of caprice, the reign of libidinous pleasure.
• Property is the right to use and abuse.
• how is government possible while property exists?
• how could a government of proprietors be anything but chaos and confusion?

Context

Part II, immediately after the exposition of scientific government and national sovereignty, where Proudhon links his theory of property to despotism and argues that proprietary sovereignty is structurally incompatible with rational public administration.