Proudhon, who was born in Besançon, was a printer who taught himself Latin in order to better print books in the language. His best-known assertion is that "property is theft!", contained in his first major work, What Is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and Government (Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement), published in 1840. The book's publication attracted the attention of the French authorities. It also attracted the scrutiny of Karl Marx, who started a correspondence with its author. The two influenced each other and they met in Paris while Marx was exiled there. Their friendship finally ended when Marx responded to Proudhon's The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty with the provocatively titled The Poverty of Philosophy. The dispute became one of the sources of the split between the anarchist and Marxist wings of the International Working Men's Association. Some such as Edmund Wilson have contended that Marx's attack on Proudhon had its origin in the latter's defense of Karl Grün, whom Marx bitterly disliked, but who had been preparing translations of Proudhon's work.[16][17][18]
^Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) [1959]. "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". European Socialism: A History of Ideas and Movements from the Industrial Revolution to Hitler's Seizure of Power. University of California Press. pp. 59, 63. "In France, post-Utopian socialism begins with Peter Joseph Proudhon. [...] [Proudhon] was the most profound thinker among pre-Marxian socialists."
^Eatwell, Roger; Wright, Anthony (1999). Contemporary Political Ideologies (2nd ed.). London: Continuum. p. 82. ISBN9781855676053.
^Newman, Michael (2005). Socialism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN9780192804310.
^Docherty, James C.; Lamb, Peter, eds. (2006). Historical Dictionary of Socialism. Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements. 73 (2nd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press. p. 284. ISBN9780810855601. See also Lamb, Peter (2015). Historical Dictionary of Socialism (3rd ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 36, 57, 161, 263, 385. ISBN9781442258273.
^Guérin, Daniel (1989) [1970]. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. New York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN9780853451754.
^Merriman, John M. (2009). How a Bombing in Fin-de-Siècle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 42. ISBN9780300217933.
^Leier, Mark (2006). Bakunin: The Creative Passion. New York: Seven Stories Press. p. 211. ISBN9781583228944.
^Binkley, Robert C. (1963) [1935]. Realism and Nationalism 1852–1871. Read Books. p. 118.
^Woodcock, George, ed. (1977). The Anarchist Reader. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Press. p. 68. ISBN9780391007093. "This third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property, I call liberty."
^Faguet, Émile (1970). Politicians & Moralists of the Nineteenth Century. Freeport: Books for Libraries Press. p. 147. ISBN0836918282.
^Hamilton, Peter (1995). Émile Durkheim. New York: Routledge. p. 79. ISBN0415110475.
^Knowles, Rob (Winter 2000). "Political Economy from Below: Communitarian Anarchism as a Neglected Discourse in Histories of Economic Thought". History of Economics Review. 31 (1): 30–47. doi:10.1080/10370196.2000.11733332
^Bowen, James; Purkis, Jonathan (2004). Changing Anarchism: Anarchist Theory and Practice in a Global Age. Manchester University Press. p. 24. ISBN9780719066948.
^Alger, Abby Langdon; Martin, Henri (1877). A Popular History of France from the First Revolution to the Present Time. D. Estes and C. E. Lauria. p. 189.