Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
1809-1865 · Libertarian Socialism · Prominent
Proudhon was a self-taught French printer and the first man to call himself an anarchist. Property is theft, he wrote in 1840, and launched a movement with the phrase. His target was income claimed on other people's unearned labor through rent and profit, which he counted as one man's domination of another. He thought it just to hold what you use and need, and he gave that a different name, possession.
Signature
The position Proudhon is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Order
- leans Horizontal
- Government
- Anarchy / Federal Republic
Positions on the 7 axes the sources answer
- Society
- mildly leans Individualism (64 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- leans Constructed (25 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (82 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Opposition
- mildly leans Sublation (33 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Ignorance
- leans Bondage (25 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- mildly between Local and Global (45 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
13 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Proudhon refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Government
- Anarchy / Federal Republic
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom / Justice
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Agency
- Radical Freedom
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Economy
- Cooperative Commonwealth
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Self-Sovereignty
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Paradox
- Productive Tension
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Primary Bond
- Family
What is your primary bond and loyalty?