Marx’s Critique and Transcendence of Proudhon’s Theory of Property

In What Is Property? , Proudhon pointed out that property is not a natural right, and neither labor nor occupation can bring about property. He advocated the establishment of a Bank of People and pinned his hopes on anarchism. Marx criticized that Proudhon’s refutation of property did not transcend the boundries of national economics. Proudhon’s petty-bourgeoisie stance and idealistic approach made it impossible for him to truly solve the problem of property. The superiority of Marx’s thought on property over Proudhon lies in the following three aspects. Firstly, Marx did not confine himself to the realm of jurisprudence but gradually shifted towards the economic sphere. Secondly, Marx studied the emergence and development of property from the perspective of production, examined the forms of property in human history, expounded on the process of the separation of labor and capital under the conditions of capitalistic production, and with that, property changed, and labor could no longer bring about property. Thirdly, by incorporating both labor and capital into the analysis of the property issue, Marx exposed that capitalistic property is the uncompensated appropriation of other people’s labor, pointed out that the resolution of the property issue depends on the proletariat and can only be achieved in a communist society. Only by altering the capitalistic relations of production can the bourgeois property be genuinely eliminated.