ABSTRACT
The most well-known economic ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon are those regarding property and credit. These were translated into English and have been written about by economists and other analysts of his ideas since they were formulated. For Proudhon, money credit, or usury in any form, was never intended to be part of a transformed society. Institutions for the exchange of products and gratuitous credit, however, definitely remained a part of his vision. Proudhon's characterization of property as theft, then, was a consequence of the illegitimate usurpation of a right to property, and the raising of a rent or interest on that property at the expense of the possessor or occupant. Proudhon asserted that 'Value is the corner-stone of the economic edifice'. Proudhon began developing his remedy for competition by drawing out a relationship between it and 'association,' understood in a general sense: 'Competition, in effect, is the expression of collective activity'.
