What is the Purpose
of Government?
|  |
| from
What is Property? (1840) |
| An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government |
| Pierre J. Proudhon |
Justice is the central star which governs societies, the pole around which the political world revolves, the principle and the regulator of all transactions. Nothing takes place between men save in the name of
right; nothing without the invocation of justice. Justice is not the work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only a declaration and application of
justice in all circumstances where men are liable to come in contact. If, then, the idea that we form of justice and right were ill-defined, if it were imperfect or even false, it is clear that all our legislative applications would be wrong, our institutions vicious, our politics erroneous: consequently there would be disorder and social chaos.
