Key Arguments

• He opens the Seventh Proposition with a tripartite thesis: 'Property is impossible, because, in consuming its Receipts, it loses them; in hoarding them, it nullifies them; and in using them as Capital, it turns them against Production.'
• He then divides the analysis into three parts: I. consumption by the proprietor, II. hoarding or laying up products, and III. capitalization, arguing in each case that the proprietor’s use of revenue either annihilates wealth or undermines production and thus his own right.
• Across the three sections he insists that no mode of using proprietary income reproduces value in a socially coherent way: consumption is 'loss,' hoarding is 'nullity,' and capitalization generates an ever‑growing interest burden that suppresses wages and output.

Source Quotes

Seventh Proposition Property is impossible, because, in consuming its Receipts, it loses them; in hoarding them, it nullifies them; and in using them as Capital, it turns them against Production. I.

He may feast his eyes upon them; he may lie down with them; he may sleep with them in his arms: all very fine, but coins do not breed coins. No real property without enjoyment; no enjoyment without consumption; no consumption without loss of property⁠—such is the inflexible necessity to which God’s judgment compels the proprietor to bend. A curse upon property! III.

Key Concepts

• Seventh Proposition Property is impossible, because, in consuming its Receipts, it loses them; in hoarding them, it nullifies them; and in using them as Capital, it turns them against Production.
• Such is the inflexible necessity to which God’s judgment compels the proprietor to bend. A curse upon property!

Context

Heading and global thesis of the Seventh Proposition, which Proudhon then unpacks in three numbered sections (I–III) dealing respectively with consumption, hoarding, and capitalization of proprietary income.