200 Jahre Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: Zum Begriff des Eigentums

SummaryContrary to what is usually believed, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) was not opposed to ownership as such. He believed that to grant people to be “owners” even up to a different degree could have beneficiary effects for the whole of society. This article raises questions about the basis of the conceptual distinction that allowed him to express a negative attitude towards “property” while regarding as positive the social, legal, and economical relationship called “ownership”. In the course of answering these questions I will address Proudhon’s view of what can and cannot explain grave income differences, which ultimately lead him to a criticism of the Contractualist’s picture on which the justification of having authority and power about land and people rests. This will make more intelligible Proudhon’s talk of “the impossibility of property” and is supposed to show that the one very phrase for which Proudhon is famous does not express a self contradictory view. In closing I will also address questions about the dependency of Proudhon’s criticism on particular economical situation of France in the 19th century.