Pierre Joseph Proudhon

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph (1809–65), French social thinker. He first gained notoriety with his book What is Property? (1840). He advocated a society in which property would be distributed among free individuals who cooperated spontaneously outside a framework of state authority—a philosophy he called mutualism. In 1847 he clashed with Karl Marx, thus starting a struggle between libertarian and authoritarian views on socialism which continued long after his death.