Quiz: What Is Property?

All 30 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. What comparison does Proudhon use to illustrate the difference between possession and property?

   A tenant is a proprietor, a landlord is a possessor A reader is a possessor, an author is a proprietor A soldier is a possessor, a king is a proprietor A lover is a possessor, a husband is a proprietor
2. 2. Which three courses does Proudhon say the capitalist must choose among to discharge his debt to the producer?

   Education, insurance, or emigration of the surplus labourers at the State’s expense Profit-sharing, public ownership, or a tax on rent Higher wages, shorter hours, or a pension in old age paid by the master to each worker Division of the product, reciprocity of service, or guarantee of perpetual labour
3. 3. Which of these is not one of the three fundamental principles of modern society that Proudhon says 1789 and 1830 established?

   Property Inequality of wealth and rank The separation of church and state The sovereignty of the human will, or despotism
4. 4. Which definition of property, from the constitution of 1793, does Proudhon call “grossly mistaken”?

   A sacred and inviolable right The right of the first occupant The right to enjoy the fruit of one’s labour The right to use and abuse
5. 5. What custom of the printing-offices does Proudhon hold up as a model of distributive justice?

   Foremen are elected by the compositors each year Every printer is paid the same daily wage whatever his output In slack times compositors and pressmen share out the available work Profits are divided equally between master and journeymen
6. 6. Asked whether he is a democrat, a monarchist, a constitutionalist, an aristocrat or a supporter of mixed government, what does Proudhon call himself?

   A Christian communist An anarchist A constitutional democrat A Saint-Simonian
7. 7. In Proudhon’s “Hegelian formula”, which are the thesis and the antithesis?

   Property is the thesis and communism the antithesis Instinct is the thesis and reason the antithesis Communism is the thesis and property the antithesis Monarchy is the thesis and democracy the antithesis
8. 8. Which pamphlet does Proudhon describe as a “sudden revelation” to the French people before the Revolution?

   Rousseau’s Social Contract Sieyès’s pamphlet on the third estate Montesquieu’s treatise The Spirit of the Laws Babeuf’s manifesto of the Conspiracy of the Equals
9. 9. How does Proudhon treat the forty thousand francs spent on the physician’s education in Say’s example?

   As a gift from nature that adds nothing to his fortune As a debt the physician owes to those who paid it, not as capital he owns As a sum the state should repay to the physician’s parents out of public taxes As capital entitling the physician to a permanent income from his patients
10. 10. What example does Proudhon use to show the power of combined labour that the capitalist never pays for?

    A dozen masons passing stones along a row to build a wall The building of the pyramids by the subjects of the pharaohs Ten workers in a pin factory making thousands of pins a day between them 200 grenadiers raising the Luxor obelisk in hours
11. 11. What name does Proudhon give to the third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property?

    Fraternity Association Mutuality Liberty
12. 12. With which other question and answer does Proudhon compare “What is property? It is robbery”?

    What is slavery? It is murder. What is justice? A daughter of heaven. What is the third estate? Everything. What is the king? The servant of the people.
13. 13. Why, according to Proudhon, are water, air and light common things?

    Because no one has ever been able to fence them Because they are inexhaustible Because the Civil Code declares them common Because they are indispensable to life
14. 14. Which naturalist does Proudhon credit with ending the controversy by separating instinct from intelligence?

    Frédéric Cuvier Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Baron Georges Cuvier Georges-Louis de Buffon
15. 15. Proudhon estimates French wages at twenty thousand millions of francs and the price of their products at twenty-five thousand millions. What does he conclude?

    Workers must borrow a quarter of their wages each year from the State or the banks Workers lose a tenth of their product to taxes Workers must pay five for what they produced for four, or fast one day in five Workers must emigrate or accept lower wages
16. 16. What is Proudhon’s objection to Say’s explanation that land became property because it is fixed and limited, unlike air and water?

    It contradicts Ricardo’s theory of differential rent It explains how land could be appropriated, not by what right It ignores the fact that land, too, is unlimited in extent It forgets that air and water have also never been appropriated
17. 17. How does Proudhon’s illiterate peasant answer the question of how many nails a pair of shoes is worth?

    As many as the price fixed by the market on that day As many as can be made in the same time and with the same expense As many as the shoemaker needs to live on until he can make his next sale As many as the buyer is willing to give
18. 18. How, according to Proudhon, does the landowner differ from the blacksmith who makes the farmer’s tools?

    The blacksmith charges interest, while the owner charges only rent The blacksmith is paid once and gives up the tool; the owner is paid for ever and keeps it The owner pays for the repairs, while the blacksmith does not The blacksmith works for wages, while the owner takes a share of the crop
19. 19. How does Proudhon distinguish “revolution” from “progress”?

    Revolution changes ideas thoroughly, as Copernicus did; progress only modifies them Revolution belongs to politics, as with Robespierre; progress belongs to science, as with Newton Revolution is a violent overthrow, as in 1793; progress is a peaceful reform of laws, as under the Charter of 1814 Revolution changes the rulers, as in 1830; progress only changes the laws, as in the Civil Code
20. 20. How does Proudhon contrast property and communism?

    Both are forms of exploitation of the weak by the strong Property is the rule of the few; communism, the rule of the clergy Property exploits the weak by the strong; communism, the strong by the weak Property rests on labour and merit; communism rests on conquest and brute force
21. 21. To whom is the letter that served as the preface to the first edition addressed?

    The workers of Lyon The Minister of Justice The members of the Academy of Besançon The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in Paris
22. 22. What axiom does Proudhon lay down at the start of his proof that property is impossible?

    Property is the right of increase the owner claims over whatever he has stamped as his own Property is a natural right older than society Property is the sum of the rights to use and abuse a thing Property is the right to enjoy the fruit of one’s own labour as one pleases
23. 23. To what does Cicero compare the earth, in the passage Proudhon cites?

    A family estate divided by lot among the heirs of their common father A ship on which every passenger has his own berth A theatre common to all, each seat its taker’s A market where each buys whatever he needs to live
24. 24. How does Proudhon describe the labourer’s relation to society at the end of the chapter?

    As a debtor who of necessity dies insolvent As a partner entitled to an equal share of the profits As a tenant who slowly buys his share of the soil As a creditor whom society never repays
25. 25. Whose fable of the lion’s share does Proudhon say sums up “all the forms of property” in four lines?

    Aesop Avianus Horace Phaedrus
26. 26. What are the two titles on which, Proudhon says, the right of property is claimed to rest?

    Inheritance and purchase Occupation and labour Divine grant and royal charter Conquest and treaty
27. 27. According to Proudhon, what remains unpaid when a capitalist has paid every worker his daily wage?

    The cost of the tools they wore out The collective force produced by their combined labour The rent of the land on which they worked, owed to its proprietor The interest on the capital he advanced
28. 28. What does Blanqui say he did when he reported on the book?

    He persuaded the Academy of Besançon to withdraw the pension it had granted Proudhon for his studies He arranged for the book to be translated into English He averted a prosecution by calling it an academic dissertation, not an incendiary manifesto He recommended Proudhon for a chair of political economy
29. 29. What did the Academy resolve on 24 August 1840 about the book?

    To award it a prize and print it at the Academy’s expense for distribution to its members To send it to the courts for prosecution To disavow and condemn it, and have the dedication omitted from any second edition To ask Blanqui to write a refutation
30. 30. In Proudhon’s parable of the colony of thirty families, how do a few become proprietors of the whole district?

    One settler pays the others in food to clear his land, then hires them and buys their neglected plots A government official sells the common forests and pastures to the highest bidder The settlers vote to give the best land to the most skilful farmers The natives return and reclaim all but a few holdings