He begins the System with a discourse on God: interesting since he's an atheist. He states that without the hypothesis of God reliable social studies can not be done. He argues strongly against socialism and its limitations and I feel the brief comments on his work do not do him justice. He seriously considers the God hypothesis and is not blindly following socialist thought. I find him to be a thoughtful critic of ideas throughout.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a 19th Century French politician, philosopher, and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first person to call himself an "anarchist". His best-known assertion is that Property is Theft!, contained in his first major work, What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and Government (Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement), published in 1840. The book's publication attracted the attention of the French authorities. It also attracted the scrutiny of Karl Marx, who started a correspondence with its author. The two influenced each other: they met in Paris while Marx was exiled there. Their friendship finally ended when Marx responded to Proudhon's The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty with the provocatively titled The Poverty of Philosophy. Proudhon favored workers' associations or co-operatives, as well as individual worker/peasant possession, over private ownership or the nationalization of land and workplaces. He considered that social revolution could be achieved in a peaceful manner. In The Confessions of a Revolutionary Proudhon asserted that, Anarchy is Order, the phrase which much later inspired, in the view of some, the anarchist circled-A symbol, today "one of the most common graffiti on the urban landscape." He unsuccessfully tried to create a national bank, to be funded by what became an abortive attempt at an income tax on capitalists and stockholders. Similar in some respects to a credit union, it would have given interest-free loans.