Person

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

1809–1865 · 19th century

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French socialist thinker and the first person to call himself an anarchist. His book What Is Property? of 1840 answered that 'property is theft', and he advocated mutualism, a society of independent producers exchanging through free credit and voluntary contracts without a centralised state. His followers were influential in the French labour movement, the First International and the Paris Commune.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Image: Gustave Courbet · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 1 state history

Paris Commune

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pierre-joseph-proudhon
MLA
“Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pierre-joseph-proudhon. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pierre-joseph-proudhon.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pierre-joseph-proudhon (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻