Pierre Joseph Proudhon (Besançon, 15 January 1809 - Passy, 19 January 1865) was a French political and economic philosopher, was a member of the French Parliament. He is considered one of the most influential theorists and writers of anarchism, being also the first to proclaim himself anarchist, until then a term considered pejorative among revolutionaries. He was still in life called a utopian socialist by Marx and his followers, a label he never recognized. After the 1848 revolution, it became a federalist.
Proudhon was also a typographer learning Latin for himself to better print books in this language. His best known claim is that the Property is Theft! He is present in his first and greatest work, What is Property? Research on the Principle of Law and Government (Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement), published in 1840.
In 1847 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was started in Besançon, at the ARLS “Sincérité, Parfaite Union et Constance Réunies” of the Grand Orient of France. He is portrayed to this day by the GOF as "an assiduous Mason and fulfilling his duties, in addition to having strongly influenced the development of Freemasonry in France".
The publication of the book attracted the attention of the French authorities. Also attracting the interest of Karl Marx, who began to correspond with its author. The two influenced each other: they met in Paris on the occasion of Marx's exile. Their friendship finally came to an end when Marx responded to his text System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Misery with another provocatively titled The Misery of Philosophy.
The dispute became one of the origins of the division between the Marxist and anarchist wings at the meetings of the International Workers' Association. Some, like Edmund Wilson, argue that Marx's attack on Proudhon has its origin in the previous defense of Karl Grün's second, which Marx openly detested and who had authored Proudhon's translations into several languages.
