.

Socialist and political theorist, born in Besançon, France. In Paris he wrote his first important book, Qu'est-ce que la propriété? (1840, What is Property?), affirming the bold paradox "property is theft', because it involves the exploitation of the labour of others. He then published his greatest work, the Système des contradictions économiques (1846, System of Economic Contradictions). During the 1848 Revolution, the violence of his utterances brought him three years' imprisonment, and after further arrest (1858) he retired to Belgium. He was amnestied in 1860.