What is Property? (1840; Benjamin Tucker translation)

Their wordsTo restore religion, gentlemen, it is necessary to condemn the Church.

Their wordsWhy, then, to this other question: WHAT IS PROPERTY! may I not likewise answer, IT IS ROBBERY, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?

Their wordsI contend that neither labor, nor occupation, nor law, can create property; that it is an effect without a cause: am I censurable?

Their wordsIf you wish to enjoy political equality, abolish property; otherwise, why do you complain?

Their wordsBy this method of investigation, we soon see that every argument which has been invented in behalf of property, WHATEVER IT MAY BE, always and of necessity leads to equality; that is, to the negation of property.

Their wordsIn the matter of property, use and abuse are necessarily indistinguishable.

Their wordsTo 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.

Their wordsMan receives his usufruct from the hands of society, which alone is the permanent possessor. The individual passes away, society is deathless.

Their wordsLay hold who will, or who can, of the sun's rays, the passing breeze, or the sea's billows; he has my consent, and my pardon for his bad intentions. But let any living man dare to change his right of territorial possession into the right of property, and I will declare war upon him, and wage it to the death!

Their wordsIn a word, equality of rights is proved by equality of needs. Now, equality of rights, in the case of a commodity which is limited in amount, can be realized only by equality of possession.

Their wordsThe right of use and abuse belongs no more to nations than to men; and the time will come when a war waged for the purpose of checking a nation in its abuse of the soil will be regarded as a holy war.

Their wordsThe tenant, by improving the land, has imparted a new value to the property; he, therefore, has a right to a part of the property.

Their wordsTo be accurate, it must be said that the capitalist has paid as many times one day's wage as he has employed laborers each day,—which is not at all the same thing. For he has paid nothing for that immense power which results from the union and harmony of laborers, and the convergence and simultaneousness of their efforts.

Their wordsNow, it is impossible to place a money value on any talent whatsoever, since talent and money have no common measure.

Their wordsJust as the creation of every instrument of production is the result of collective force, so also are a man's talent and knowledge the product of universal intelligence and of general knowledge slowly accumulated by a number of masters, and through the aid of many inferior industries.

Their wordsThe laborer, in his relation to society, is a debtor who of necessity dies insolvent. The proprietor is an unfaithful guardian who denies the receipt of the deposit committed to his care, and wishes to be paid for his guardianship down to the last day.

Their wordsIn a country where property exists, equality of electoral rights is a violation of property.

Their wordsCommunism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak.

Their wordsCommunism is essentially opposed to the free exercise of our faculties, to our noblest desires, to our deepest feelings.

Their wordsAlthough a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist.

Their wordsPossession is a right; property is against right. Suppress property while maintaining possession, and, by this simple modification of the principle, you will revolutionize law, government, economy, and institutions; you will drive evil from the face of the earth.

Their wordsThe government of man by man (under whatever name it be disguised) is oppression. Society finds its highest perfection in the union of order with anarchy.