In intention, then, Proudhon was a communist in the sense of the definition given in this work. No man ever preached more plainly and unreservedly absolute equality as an ideal. He was not a communist in the sense of favoring communities such as we see in a few places at present, because they involve control and authority. He was, on the contrary, in favor of anarchic equality. The distinction might be made by saying that he was a communist, but not a communitarian. I have, nevertheless, spoken of him several times as a socialist, because the entire tendency of every positive proposal which he made was socialistic, and not communistic. Equality has no logical connection with his projects. He proposed to transform property into possession, which means simply limiting very materially the rights of property. Now, how could this change be so restricted without allowing inequalities to arise? Each one cultivates his land as he pleases and works as he will, all authority being banished from the face of the earth. Can any one, without resorting to some supernatural and unwarranted theory, suppose that all would derive the same products from the same instruments? Then let us take up the case of gratuitous credit. Will all avail themselves of it with equal profit in anarchy? What is to prevent my accumulating labor receipts if my production exceeds consumption? Or shall the state or some outside body prevent my taking more than I consume from the magazines or banks, whatever they are called? If so, do we not have all the interference and control of the hated community? It is thus seen that Proudhon is inconsistent as well as paradoxical, and is unable to effect his synthesis. The following ten statements contain, in Proudhon’s own words, a _résumé_ of the system which we have just examined: “I. Individual possession is the condition of social life; ... Property is the suicide of society.... “II. The right of occupation being equal for all, possession varies according to the number of possessors.... “III. The effect of labor being the same for all, property is lost by its use on the part of others and by rent. “IV. All human labor proceeding necessarily from a collective force, all property becomes, for the same reason, collective and indivisible; in terms more precise, labor destroys property. “V. Every capacity for labor being, the same as every instrument of labor, an accumulated capital or collective property, _inequality of remuneration and of fortune_, under pretext of inequality of capacity, _is injustice and theft_. “VI. Commerce has for its necessary conditions the liberty of contractors and the equivalence of products exchanged; now, value having for its expression the sum of the time and of the expense which each product costs, and liberty being inviolable, the laborers necessarily remain equal in wages, as they are in duties and in rights.