Proudhon

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph (1809-65), was the son of a Besancon cooper. Having received a scholarship from the academy of this town for some inconsiderable philological works which he had written while working as a printer, he went to Paris and published his "Qu'est-ce que la Propriete?" (1840). "Property is robbery" ("la propriete c'est le vol") was the conclusion at which he arrived in his book. For his "Avertissement aux Proprietaires," a similar work, he was tried but acquitted. He published several works dealing with economics, and in 1848 returned to Paris to edit a paper, which was prosecuted and suppressed, and he had to leave France to escape fine and imprisonment. On his return he was confined in Ste. Pelagie, where he carried on his paper, was married, and wrote Confessions of a Revolutionist. Having in 1858 published Justice in the Revolution and the Church, he was again sentenced to imprisonment, and fled to Belgium.