Key Arguments

• He notes that “Everybody, in France, demands the conversion of the five percent bonds,” which implies “the complete sacrifice of one species of property,” and while necessity may justify it, the charter’s promise of “just indemnity” is not and cannot be fulfilled, since an indemnity equal to the property sacrificed would render the conversion useless.
• Using the siege of Calais as an analogy, he argues that while Eustache and others could nobly offer themselves, the city had no right to surrender them; similarly, the country has no right to demand the sacrifice of property or security from particular citizens, because “The right to security is absolute; the country can require no one to sacrifice himself.”
• The soldier on guard is not an exception: wherever a citizen stands guard, “the country stands guard with him”; danger and devotion must be common, and scapegoating some for others (following Caiaphas’s maxim that one man should die for the nation) is the doctrine of tyrants and the degraded populace.
• Civil law’s rule that perpetual annuities are redeemable may be good for those who want equality of labor and wealth, but “from the point of view of the proprietor, and in the mouth of conversionists, it is the language of bankrupts,” since the State, as insurer and guardian of property, promises the “most inviolable possession.”
• The State, having guaranteed bonds as one form of property equivalent to fields, vineyards, and rents, cannot justly diminish bond interest while other properties are untouched; to do so is to violate the social contract and “outlaw the bondholders,” especially because the bondholder, confined to the State, cannot reinvest elsewhere on equal terms when the State itself controls borrowing conditions.
• He likens the converting State not to a debtor honourably discharging its debt, but to “a stock-company which allures its stockholders into a trap, and there, contrary to its authentic promise, exacts from them twenty, thirty, or forty percent of the interest on their capital,” characterizing conversion as a breach of faith.
• The final rhetorical question and answer about sacrificing forty‑five thousand bondholding families versus overtaxing millions of taxpayers shows that property rights are being balanced and sacrificed like lives in war, contradicting the notion of property as an absolute right and revealing the impossibility of fully respecting property in public finance.
• He concludes that despite defenders’ awareness of these problems, “sooner or later, the conversion will be effected and property be violated,” because “property, regarded as a right, and not being a right, must of right perish,” under the pressure of events, conscience, and physical and mathematical necessity.

Source Quotes

Now, my possessions are my own; no one has a claim upon them: I object to the placing of the third theological virtue in the order of the day. Everybody, in France, demands the conversion of the five percent bonds; they demand thereby the complete sacrifice of one species of property. They have the right to do it, if public necessity requires it; but where is the just indemnity promised by the charter?

Everybody, in France, demands the conversion of the five percent bonds; they demand thereby the complete sacrifice of one species of property. They have the right to do it, if public necessity requires it; but where is the just indemnity promised by the charter? Not only does none exist, but this indemnity is not even possible; for, if the indemnity were equal to the property sacrificed, the conversion would be useless. The State occupies the same position today toward the bondholders that the city of Calais did, when besieged by Edward III, toward its notables.

Assuredly not. The right to security is absolute; the country can require no one to sacrifice himself. The soldier standing guard within the enemy’s range is no exception to this rule.

No one has the right to flee from danger; no one can serve as a scapegoat. The maxim of Caiaphas⁠—it is right that a man should die for his nation⁠—is that of the populace and of tyrants; the two extremes of social degradation. It is said that all perpetual annuities are essentially redeemable.

It is said that all perpetual annuities are essentially redeemable. This maxim of civil law, applied to the State, is good for those who wish to return to the natural equality of labor and wealth; but, from the point of view of the proprietor, and in the mouth of conversionists, it is the language of bankrupts. The State is not only a borrower, it is an insurer and guardian of property; granting the best of security, it assures the most inviolable possession.

This maxim of civil law, applied to the State, is good for those who wish to return to the natural equality of labor and wealth; but, from the point of view of the proprietor, and in the mouth of conversionists, it is the language of bankrupts. The State is not only a borrower, it is an insurer and guardian of property; granting the best of security, it assures the most inviolable possession. How, then, can it force open the hands of its creditors, who have confidence in it, and then talk to them of public order and security of property?

How, then, can it force open the hands of its creditors, who have confidence in it, and then talk to them of public order and security of property? The State, in such an operation, is not a debtor who discharges his debt; it is a stock-company which allures its stockholders into a trap, and there, contrary to its authentic promise, exacts from them twenty, thirty, or forty percent of the interest on their capital. That is not all.

All this is clearly understood by the defenders of the present system. 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.

Key Concepts

• Everybody, in France, demands the conversion of the five percent bonds; they demand thereby the complete sacrifice of one species of property.
• They have the right to do it, if public necessity requires it; but where is the just indemnity promised by the charter? Not only does none exist, but this indemnity is not even possible; for, if the indemnity were equal to the property sacrificed, the conversion would be useless.
• The right to security is absolute; the country can require no one to sacrifice himself.
• The maxim of Caiaphas⁠—it is right that a man should die for his nation⁠—is that of the populace and of tyrants; the two extremes of social degradation.
• This maxim of civil law, applied to the State, is good for those who wish to return to the natural equality of labor and wealth; but, from the point of view of the proprietor, and in the mouth of conversionists, it is the language of bankrupts.
• The State is not only a borrower, it is an insurer and guardian of property; granting the best of security, it assures the most inviolable possession.
• in such an operation, is not a debtor who discharges his debt; it is a stock-company which allures its stockholders into a trap, and there, contrary to its authentic promise, exacts from them twenty, thirty, or forty percent of the interest on their capital.
• because property, regarded as a right, and not being a right, must of right perish;

Context

Extended middle section of §1, where Proudhon uses the contemporary debate over converting 5% government bonds and the doctrine of redeemable annuities to argue that a State founded on the principle of property inevitably ends up violating that very property, showing that property cannot be a true, absolute right.