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In his notorious What is property?(1840), Proudhon declared that "property is theft", "property is despotism". When he said this, he was referring to the idle landowner who, he believed, stole the profits from labors. Proudhon opposed both individual and collective property. However, he later abandoned his advocacy of 'possession' over 'property'. His view on property was in constant change. In his posthumous work, Theory of Property(1865), he said that "property is the only power that can act as a counterweight to the State." Hence Proudhon could retain the idea of property as theft, and at the same time offer a new definition of it as liberty. Both 'property-theft' and 'property-liberty' are acceptable in his own theory of property.But Proudhon did not see a contradiction between these two slogans. This was because he distinguished between property created by coercion and property created by labor. In asserting that property is liberty, he was referring especially to the peasants' small holdings. Proudhon believed that the property in the product of labor is essential to liberty, and legitimate, while property in natural ressources that strayed from 'possession' was the basis for tyranny, and illegitimate. Overall his theory of property is a bit confused and confusing. In fact, his whole aim seems to be to show that property must be corruptible, but that this corruption is possible basis for liberty, if well conducted and revised.