Simplified Version of Proudhon’s Argument

In Proudhon’s period, the animating assumption of essentially all works on property was that God created the earth and gave it to mankind in common to use. This was the long-standing Christian view, which was notably reflected in Thomist thought and even received a ringing endorsement from John Locke. The Christianist idea of the common ownership of all of the earth is Proudhon’s starting point.

From there, a question arises: if God initially gave the entire earth to mankind to own in common, then how can you ever have individual property? Or, to borrow a line from Locke, since the earth is given to mankind in common, “it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one should ever come to have a property in any thing.” The correct answer to this question, reached by Proudhon but not Locke, is that the only way to move from universal common ownership to individual private ownership is through theft. When an individual appropriates pieces of the earth (e.g. land) out of the commons and into private ownership, that individual steals from everyone else. Everyone else’s ownership share in that piece of the earth is taken from them, violently and without their consent.

Society Has a Right to Seize Ill-Gotten Gains

New York Times Archives | MARCH 20,1993

To the Editor:

“The Court Slows Property Seizures” (editorial, Feb. 27) criticizes the efforts of law enforcement that you describe thus: “The Justice Department wanted to seize the home of a woman in Rumson, N.J., because it was bought with drug money, without giving her a chance to prove that she was an innocent party.”

However, the weight of legal tradition, fairness and logic argue that the gift recipient should not be allowed to keep the profits of the donor’s crime. For centuries, the law has recognized that someone who innocently receives a gift of stolen or embezzled property has a lesser right to that property than the original rightful owner. The reason is that the recipient — no matter how innocent — is given the property at no cost; to forfeit the property is only to surrender a windfall.

Few people would suggest that the original victim should continue to suffer wrongful deprivation so that the gift recipient can continue to benefit.

The same principle underlies this case.

New York Times Archives | MARCH 20,1993