What is Property?

you will take rank in science, whose first duty is calm and impartiality.

"Farewell, sir! It is not possible to have more esteem for a man than I have for you.

Certainly, I would have a few reservations to make regarding this noble and eloquent epistle; but, I confess, I have more heart in realizing the kind of prediction that ends it than in gratuitously increasing the number of my antagonists. So much controversy tires and bores me. The intelligence spent on battles of words is like that used in war: it is wasted intelligence. M. Blanqui acknowledges that there is a crowd of abuses in property, and odious abuses; for my part, I call exclusively property the sum of these abuses. For one as for the other, property is a polygon whose angles must be beaten down: but, once the operation is done, M. Blanqui maintains that the figure will still be a polygon (a hypothesis accepted in mathematics, although it is not proven), while I claim that this figure will be a circle. Honest people could still come to an understanding for less.

Moreover, I agree that in the current state of the question, the mind may legitimately hesitate regarding the abolition of property. It is not enough, indeed, to win the case, to ruin a recognized principle, which has the undeniable merit of summarizing the system of our political beliefs; one must also establish the contrary principle, and formulate the system that follows from it. Furthermore, it