The question then arises as to whether Proudhon regards all property as theft. Does he condemn appropriation, or is it the mere fact of possession that he is inveighing against? This is how the public at large have viewed it, and it would be useless to deny that Proudhon owes a great deal to this interpretation, and the consequent consternation of the _bourgeoisie_. But his meaning is quite different. Private property in the sense of the free disposal of the fruits of labour and saving is in his opinion of the very essence of liberty. At bottom this is nothing more than man’s control over himself.[624] But why attack property, then? Property is attacked because it gives to the proprietor a right to an income for which he has not worked. It is not property as such, but the right of escheat, that forms the butt of Proudhon’s attack; and following the lead of Owen and other English socialists, as well as the Saint-Simonians, he directs his charges against that right of escheat which, according to circumstances and the character of the revenue, is variously known as rent, discount, money interest, agricultural privilege, sinecure, etc.[625] Like every socialist, Proudhon considered that labour alone was productive.[626] Land and capital without labour were useless. Hence the demand of the proprietor for a share of the produce as a return for the service which his capital has yielded is radically false. It is based upon the supposition that capital by itself is productive, whereas the capitalist in taking payment for it literally receives something for nothing.[627] All this is simply theft. His own definition of property is, “The right to enjoy the fruits of industry, or of the labour of others, or to dispose of those fruits to others by will.”[628] The theme is not new, and the line of thought will be resumed—by Rodbertus among others. The originality of the work consists not so much in the idea as in the brilliance of the exposition, the vehemence of the style, and the verve of the polemics hurled against the old arguments which based property upon labour, upon natural right, or upon occupation. A German writer[629] has said that, published in Germany or in England, the book would have passed unnoticed, because in both those countries the defence of property had been much more scientific than in France.[630] The whole force of the work lies, not in itself, but in the weakness of the opposing arguments, and this fact is quite sufficient to give it a certain permanent value. The treatise sent an echo through the whole world, and its author may be said to have done for French socialism what Lassalle did for German. The ideas set forth are not new, but they are expressed in phrases of wonderful penetration.