Not a book I'd recommend as an introduction to anarchism or something like that but still a fascinating and fiery text. Most notable on the "very bad" side is that women are referred to approximately twice, where they're called as different to men as men are to goats and it's said they should probably be "excluded from society"! Christ. This is symptomatic of a wider problem, where he doesn't really seem to consider the full implications of what he says past the abstract - for example he seems to still believe in nations and the structure of French society post-revolution, although he's not really explicit. In addition, his reasoning is based to a very large extent on the ideas of external non-human "justice", "liberty" and "reason," which is hard to accept now, especially as he says a lot of things are "just" or whatever with no reasoning, which makes his uncritical acceptance of his own society's ideals even more obvious and awkward.

Despite this, I still enjoyed it and found his arguments interesting. His demolition of the concept of property based on the arguments used in defence of it at the time is incredibly effective and not really diminished by changing defences since. His style is passionate and, even though antiquated, inspiring. His vision of society isn't really detailed and is pretty utopian but still good reading. As a historical document, his adherence to the ideals of and regular references to the French Revolution as well as his clear rooting in that tradition is interesting.

overall pretty decent but very varied and what you get out of it depends on what you're expecting ( )

The book has a biographical essay by J. A. Langlois, "P. J. Proudhon, His Life and Work."

This is an important but difficult book. It is important in that it impacted Karl Marx and much of the modern socialist thinking. It is difficult in several ways, only a few of which could be difficulties introduced by this translation. It could have been classified as political science, philosophy, or natural law due to the scattered implications of what Proudhon writes. This scattering of thoughts is really a series of thoughts to justify his conclusion, that private property is theft and must be forbidden. This version (the 1874 Tucker translation) includes a biography of Proudhon by his sister.

In aggregate, the book is a strong argument for socialist or communist governance and for views of property that are almost exactly the opposite of Adam Smith. A careful review of its content does provide details of the development and background of certain arguments about property which may help to understand (pro or con) the socialist position. ( )

The title is perhaps one of the most famous rhetorical questions ever, and should be placed historically in the same range as "Quo usque tandem, Catilina" etc. Proudhon sets himself the task of analyzing the foundations of modern society, and inevitably is drawn towards a critique of the modern political economy, as was popular in the 19th century.
Just like Locke, he then "reverse engineers" the economic relations to find their basis in private property, but quite unlike Locke he brilliantly argues why this is in fact an evil thing and not a force for good, as Locke thought. Working from the hypothetical "state of nature", he shows how possession during use is a natural phenomenon, but a permanent property claim over something that was once part of nature is a later invention, and has since caused all strife and misery that competition over scarce goods is wont to do.

As a critique of modern society, this work deserves reading by everyone, regardless of whether you approve of current economic structures or not. The only downside to the book is Proudhon's rather messy attempt to offer an additional immanent critique of capitalism, which only leads the reader to conclude economic ignorance. That is a pity, for the question itself is not only worth asking, but of the various historical answers given this is one of the best argued and most radical.

Notable is Proudhon's influence on Marx and their subsequent falling out over Proudhon's idealism, as seen in his later work "The Philosophy of Poverty" and Marx's reply "The Poverty of Philosophy". ( )