Note 623 — Chapter V · : PROUDHON AND THE SOCIALISM OF 1848

It has been said that Proudhon borrowed this formula from Brissot de Warville, the author of a work entitled Recherches philosophiques sur le Droit de Propriété et sur le Vol, considérés dans la Nature et dans la Société. It was first published in 1780, and reappeared with some modifications in vol. vi, pp. 261 et seq., of his Bibliothèque philosophique du Législateur (1782). But this is a mistake. Proudhon declares that the work was unknown to him (Justice, vol. i, p. 301); and, moreover, the formula is not there at all. Brissot’s point of view is entirely different from Proudhon’s. The former believes that in a state of nature the right of property is simply the outcome of want, and disappears when that want is satisfied; that man, and even animals and plants, has a right to everything that can satisfy his wants, but that the right disappears with the satisfaction of the want. Consequently theft perpetrated under the pressure of want simply means a return to nature. The rich are really the thieves, because they refuse to the culprit the lawful satisfaction of his needs. The result is a plea for a more lenient treatment of thieves. But Brissot is very careful not to attack civil property, which is indispensable for the growth of wealth and the expansion of commerce, although it has no foundation in a natural right (p. 333). There is no mention of unearned income. Proudhon, on the other hand, never even discusses the question as to whether property is based upon want or not. He would certainly have referred to this if he had read Brissot.