title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Whitebark pine communities have been heavily damaged due to the effects of blister rust, a non native fungus. In Glacier and the surrounding region, 30% of the whitebark pine trees have died and over 70% of the remaining trees are currently infected. The whitebark pine provides a high fat pine cone seed, commonly known as the pine nut, that is a favorite food of red squirrels and Clark's nutcracker. Both grizzlies and black bears are known to raid squirrel caches of pine nuts, one of the bears' favorite foods. Between 1930 and 1970, efforts to control the spread of blister rust were unsuccessful, and continued destruction of whitebark pines appears likely, with attendant negative impacts on dependent species.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Virtually all the historically known plant and animal species, with the exception of the bison and woodland caribou, are still present, providing biologists with an intact ecosystem for plant and animal research. Two threatened species of mammals, the grizzly bear and the lynx, are found in the park. Although their numbers remain at historical levels, both are listed as threatened because in nearly every other region of the U.S. outside of Alaska, they are either extremely rare or absent from their historical range. On average, one or two bear attacks on humans occur each year. There have been 11 bear-related deaths since 1971, and 20 non-fatal injuries since 2001. The exact number of grizzlies and lynx in the park is unknown; however, the first ever scientific survey of the lynx population in the park was completed in 2021. The collected data will help researchers determine the number of individual lynx that populate certain areas of the park. Reports from state and federal resource agencies, such as the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, indicate that as of 2021, the grizzly population throughout the millions of acres in and around Glacier Park has climbed to around 1,051–more than triple the 300 or so population estimates in 1975 when grizzlies were first listed as a threatened species. While exact population numbers for grizzlies and the smaller black bear are still unknown, biologists have implemented a variety of methods in their efforts to achieve more accuracy in determining population range. Another study has indicated that the wolverine, another very rare mammal in the lower 48 states, also lives in the park. Other mammals such as the mountain goat (the official park symbol), bighorn sheep, moose, elk, mule deer, skunk, white-tailed deer, bobcat, coyote, and cougar are either plentiful or common. Unlike in Yellowstone National Park, which implemented a wolf reintroduction program in the 1990s, it is believed that wolves recolonized Glacier National Park naturally during the 1980s. Sixty-two species of mammals have been documented including badger, river otter, porcupine, mink, marten, fisher, two species of marmots, six species of bats, and numerous other small mammals.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Over 260 species of birds have been recorded, with raptors such as the bald eagle, golden eagle, peregrine falcon, osprey and several species of hawks residing year round. The harlequin duck is a colorful species of waterfowl found in the lakes and waterways. The great blue heron, tundra swan, Canada goose and American wigeon are species of waterfowl more commonly encountered in the park. Great horned owl, Clark's nutcracker, Steller's jay, pileated woodpecker and cedar waxwing reside in the dense forests along the mountainsides, and in the higher altitudes, the ptarmigan, timberline sparrow and rosy finch are the most likely to be seen. The Clark's nutcracker is less plentiful than in past years due to the decline in the number of whitebark pines.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Because of the colder climate, ectothermic reptiles are all but absent, with two species of garter snake and the western painted turtle being the only three reptile species proven to exist. Similarly, only six species of amphibians are documented, although those species exist in large numbers. After a forest fire in 2001, a few park roads were temporarily closed the following year to allow thousands of western toads to migrate to other areas.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: A total of 23 species of fish reside in park waters, and native game fish species found in the lakes and streams include the westslope cutthroat trout, northern pike, mountain whitefish, kokanee salmon and Arctic grayling. Glacier is also home to the threatened bull trout, which is illegal to possess and must be returned to the water if caught inadvertently. Introduction in previous decades of lake trout and other non-native fish species has greatly impacted some native fish populations, especially the bull trout and west slope cutthroat trout.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Forest fires were viewed for many decades as a threat to protected areas such as forests and parks. As a better understanding of fire ecology developed after the 1960s, forest fires were understood to be a natural part of the ecosystem. The earlier policies of suppression resulted in the accumulation of dead and decaying trees and plants, which would normally have been reduced had fires been allowed to burn. Many species of plants and animals actually need wildfires to help replenish the soil with nutrients and to open up areas that allow grasses and smaller plants to thrive.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Glacier National Park has a fire management plan which ensures that human-caused fires are generally suppressed. In the case of natural fires, the fire is monitored and suppression is dependent on the size and threat the fire may pose to human safety and structures.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Increased population and the growth of suburban areas near parklands, has led to the development of what is known as Wildland Urban Interface Fire Management, in which the park cooperates with adjacent property owners in improving safety and fire awareness. This approach is common to many other protected areas. As part of this program, houses and structures near the park are designed to be more fire resistant. Dead and fallen trees are removed from near places of human habitation, reducing the available fuel load and the risk of a catastrophic fire, and advance warning systems are developed to help alert property owners and visitors about forest fire potentials during a given period of the year. Glacier National Park has an average of 14 fires with burnt each year. In 2003, burned in the park after a five-year drought and a summer season of almost no precipitation. This was the most area transformed by fire since the creation of the park in 1910.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Glacier is distant from major cities. The closest airport is in Kalispell, Montana, southwest of the park. Amtrak’s Empire Builder stops seasonally at East Glacier, and year-round at West Glacier and Essex. A fleet of restored 1930s White Motor Company coaches, called Red Jammers, offer tours on all the main roads in the park. The drivers of the buses are called "Jammers", due to the gear-jamming that formerly occurred during the vehicles' operation. The tour buses were rebuilt in 2001 by Ford Motor Company. The bodies were removed from their original chassis and built on modern Ford E-Series van chassis. They were also converted to run on propane to lessen their environmental impact.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Historic wooden tour boats, some dating back to the 1920s, operate on some of the larger lakes. Several of these boats have been in continuous seasonal operation at Glacier National Park since 1927 and carry up to 80 passengers. Three of these decades-old boats were added to the National Register of Historic Places in January 2018.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Hiking is popular in the park. Over half of the visitors to the park report taking a hike on the park's nearly of trails. of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail spans most of the distance of the park north to south, with a few alternative routes at lower elevations if high altitude passes are closed due to snow. The Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail crosses the park on from east to west.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Dogs are not permitted on any trails in the park due to the presence of bears and other large mammals. Dogs are permitted at front country campsites that can be accessed by a vehicle and along paved roads.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Many day hikes can be taken in the park. Back-country camping is allowed at campsites along the trails. A permit is required and can be obtained from certain visitor centers or arranged for in advance. Much of Glacier's backcountry is usually inaccessible to hikers until early June due to accumulated snowpack and avalanche risk, and many trails at higher altitudes remain snow-packed until July. Campgrounds that allow vehicle access are found throughout the park, most of which are near one of the larger lakes. The campgrounds at St. Mary and at Apgar are open year-round, but conditions are primitive in the off-season, as the restroom facilities are closed and there is no running water. All campgrounds with vehicle access are usually open from mid-June until mid-September. Guide and shuttle services are also available.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: The park attracts many climbers though the rock quality is old and loose in the Lewis Overthrust fault structure. The seminal literature on climbing in the park, "A Climber's Guide to Glacier National Park", was written by J. Gordon Edwards in 1961, with the latest edition published in 1995. The Glacier Mountaineers Society sponsors climbing in the park, issuing awards to those climbers who summit all peaks or all five technical peaks.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: The park is a popular destination for fly fishing. A permit is not required to fish in park waters. The threatened bull trout must be released immediately back to the water if caught; otherwise, the regulations on limits of catch per day are liberal.


title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)

text: Winter recreation in Glacier is limited. Snowmobiling is illegal throughout the park. Cross-country skiing is permitted in the lower altitude valleys away from avalanche zones.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: In psychology and neuroscience, executive dysfunction, or executive function deficit, is a disruption to the efficacy of the executive functions, which is a group of cognitive processes that regulate, control, and manage other cognitive processes. Executive dysfunction can refer to both neurocognitive deficits and behavioural symptoms. It is implicated in numerous psychopathologies and mental disorders, as well as short-term and long-term changes in non-clinical executive control.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Executive functioning is a theoretical construct representing a domain of cognitive processes that regulate, control, and manage other cognitive processes. Executive functioning is not a unitary concept; it is a broad description of the set of processes involved in certain areas of cognitive and behavioural control. Executive processes are integral to higher brain function, particularly in the areas of goal formation, planning, goal-directed action, self-monitoring, attention, response inhibition, and coordination of complex cognition and motor control for effective performance. Deficits of the executive functions are observed in all populations to varying degrees, but severe executive dysfunction can have devastating effects on cognition and behaviour in both individual and social contexts on a day to day basis.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Executive dysfunction does occur to a minor degree in all individuals on both short-term and long-term scales. In non-clinical populations, the activation of executive processes appears to inhibit further activation of the same processes, suggesting a mechanism for normal fluctuations in executive control. Decline in executive functioning is also associated with both normal and clinical aging. The decline of memory processes as people age appears to affect executive functions, which also points to the general role of memory in executive functioning.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Executive dysfunction appears to consistently involve disruptions in task-oriented behavior, which requires executive control in the inhibition of habitual responses and goal activation. Such executive control is responsible for adjusting behaviour to reconcile environmental changes with goals for effective behaviour. Impairments in set shifting ability are a notable feature of executive dysfunction; set shifting is the cognitive ability to dynamically change focus between points of fixation based on changing goals and environmental stimuli. This offers a parsimonious explanation for the common occurrence of impulsive, hyperactive, disorganized, and aggressive behaviour in clinical patients with executive dysfunction. A more recent study done just confirms what has been stated previously - that there is a lack of self-control, greater impulsivity, and greater disorganization with executive dysfunction, leading to greater amounts of aggressive behavior.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Executive dysfunction, particularly in working memory capacity, may also lead to varying degrees of emotional dysregulation, which can manifest as chronic depression, anxiety, or hyperemotionality. Russell Barkley proposed a hybrid model of the role of behavioural disinhibition in the presentation of ADHD, which has served as the basis for much research of both ADHD and broader implications of the executive system.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Other common and distinctive symptoms of executive dysfunction include utilization behaviour, which is compulsive manipulation/use of nearby objects due simply to their presence and accessibility (rather than a functional reason); and imitation behaviour, a tendency to rely on imitation as a primary means of social interaction. Research also suggests that executive set shifting is a co-mediator with episodic memory of feeling-of-knowing (FOK) accuracy, such that executive dysfunction may reduce FOK accuracy.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: There is some evidence suggesting that executive dysfunction may produce beneficial effects as well as maladaptive ones. Abraham et al. demonstrate that creative thinking in schizophrenia is mediated by executive dysfunction, and they establish a firm etiology for creativity in psychoticism, pinpointing a cognitive preference for broader top-down associative thinking versus goal-oriented thinking, which closely resembles aspects of ADHD. It is postulated that elements of psychosis are present in both ADHD and schizophrenia/schizotypy due to dopamine overlap.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The cause of executive dysfunction is heterogeneous, as many neurocognitive processes are involved in the executive system and each may be compromised by a range of genetic and environmental factors. Learning and development of long-term memory play a role in the severity of executive dysfunction through dynamic interaction with neurological characteristics. Studies in cognitive neuroscience suggest that executive functions are widely distributed throughout the brain, though a few areas have been isolated as primary contributors. Executive dysfunction is studied extensively in clinical neuropsychology as well, allowing correlations to be drawn between such dysexecutive symptoms and their neurological correlates. More recent research confirms that executive dysfunction has a positive correlation with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Executive processes are closely integrated with memory retrieval capabilities for overall cognitive control; in particular, goal/task-information is stored in both short-term and long-term memory, and effective performance requires effective storage and retrieval of this information.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Executive dysfunction characterizes many of the symptoms observed in numerous clinical populations. In the case of acquired brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases there is a clear neurological etiology producing dysexecutive symptoms. Conversely, syndromes and disorders are defined and diagnosed based on their symptomatology rather than etiology. Thus, while Parkinson's disease, a neurodegenerative condition, causes executive dysfunction, a disorder such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is a classification given to a set of subjectively-determined symptoms implicating executive dysfunction – current models indicate that such clinical symptoms are caused by executive dysfunction.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: As previously mentioned, executive functioning is not a unitary concept. Many studies have been conducted in an attempt to pinpoint the exact regions of the brain that lead to executive dysfunction, producing a vast amount of often conflicting information indicating wide and inconsistent distribution of such functions. A common assumption is that disrupted executive control processes are associated with pathology in prefrontal brain regions. This is supported to some extent by the primary literature, which shows both pre-frontal activation and communication between the pre-frontal cortex and other areas associated with executive functions such as the basal ganglia and cerebellum.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: In most cases of executive dysfunction, deficits are attributed to either frontal lobe damage or dysfunction, or to disruption in fronto-subcortical connectivity. Neuroimaging with PET and fMRI has confirmed the relationship between executive function and functional frontal pathology. Neuroimaging studies have also suggested that some constituent functions are not discretely localized in prefrontal regions. Functional imaging studies using different tests of executive function have implicated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to be the primary site of cortical activation during these tasks. In addition, PET studies of patients with Parkinson's disease have suggested that tests of executive function are associated with abnormal function in the globus pallidus and appear to be the genuine result of basal ganglia damage.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: With substantial cognitive load, fMRI signals indicate a common network of frontal, parietal and occipital cortices, thalamus, and the cerebellum. This observation suggests that executive function is mediated by dynamic and flexible networks that are characterized using functional integration and effective connectivity analyses. The complete circuit underlying executive function includes both a direct and an indirect circuit. The neural circuit responsible for executive functioning is, in fact, located primarily in the frontal lobe. This main circuit originates in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex/orbitofrontal cortex and then projects through the striatum and thalamus to return to the prefrontal cortex.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Not surprisingly, plaques and tangles in the frontal cortex can cause disruption in functions as well as damage to the connections between prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. Another important point is in the finding that structural MRI images link the severity of white matter lesions to deficits in cognition.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The emerging view suggests that cognitive processes materialize from networks that span multiple cortical sites with closely collaborative and over-lapping functions. A challenge for future research will be to map the multiple brain regions that might combine with each other in a vast number of ways, depending on the task requirements.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Certain genes have been identified with a clear correlation to executive dysfunction and related psychopathologies. According to Friedman "et al." (2008), the heritability of executive functions is among the highest of any psychological trait. The dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) with 7'-repeating polymorphism (7R) has been repeatedly shown to correlate strongly with impulsive response style on psychological tests of executive dysfunction, particularly in clinical ADHD. The catechol-o-methyl transferase gene (COMT) codes for an enzyme that degrades catecholamine neurotransmitters (DA and NE), and its Val158Met polymorphism is linked with the modulation of task-oriented cognition and behavior (including set shifting) and the experience of reward, which are major aspects of executive functioning. COMT is also linked to methylphenidate (stimulant medication) response in children with ADHD. Both the DRD4/7R and COMT/Val158Met polymorphisms are also correlated with executive dysfunction in schizophrenia and schizotypal behaviour.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: There are several measures that can be employed to assess the executive functioning capabilities of an individual. Although a trained non-professional working outside of an institutionalized setting can legally and competently perform many of these measures, a trained professional administering the test in a standardized setting will yield the most accurate results.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The Clock drawing test (CDT) is a brief cognitive task that can be used by physicians who suspect neurological dysfunction based on history and physical examination. It is relatively easy to train non-professional staff to administer a CDT. Therefore, this is a test that can easily be administered in educational and geriatric settings and can be utilized as a precursory measure to indicate the likelihood of further/future deficits. Also, generational, educational and cultural differences are not perceived as impacting the utility of the CDT.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The procedure of the CDT begins with the instruction to the participant to draw a clock reading a specific time (generally 11:10). After the task is complete, the test administrator draws a clock with the hands set at the same specific time. Then the patient is asked to copy the image. Errors in clock drawing are classified according to the following categories: omissions, perseverations, rotations, misplacements, distortions, substitutions and additions. Memory, concentration, initiation, energy, mental clarity and indecision are all measures that are scored during this activity. Those with deficits in executive functioning will often make errors on the first clock but not the second. In other words, they will be unable to generate their own example, but will show proficiency in the copying task.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The cognitive mechanism involved in the Stroop task is referred to as directed attention. The Stroop task requires the participant to engage in and allows assessment of processes such as attention management, speed and accuracy of reading words and colours and of inhibition of competing stimuli. The stimulus is a colour word that is printed in a different colour than what the written word reads. For example, the word "red" is written in a blue font. One must verbally classify the colour that the word is displayed/printed in, while ignoring the information provided by the written word. In the aforementioned example, this would require the participant to say "blue" when presented with the stimulus. Although the majority of people will show some slowing when given incompatible text versus font colour, this is more severe in individuals with deficits in inhibition. The Stroop task takes advantage of the fact that most humans are so proficient at reading colour words that it is extremely difficult to ignore this information, and instead acknowledge, recognize and say the colour the word is printed in. The Stroop task is an assessment of attentional vitality and flexibility. More modern variations of the Stroop task tend to be more difficult and often try to limit the sensitivity of the test.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is used to determine an individual's competence in abstract reasoning, and the ability to change problem-solving strategies when needed. These abilities are primarily determined by the frontal lobes and basal ganglia, which are crucial components of executive functioning; making the WCST a good measure for this purpose.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The WCST utilizes a deck of 128 cards that contains four stimulus cards. The figures on the cards differ with respect to color, quantity, and shape. The participants are then given a pile of additional cards and are asked to match each one to one of the previous cards. Typically, children between ages 9 and 11 are able to show the cognitive flexibility that is needed for this test.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Another prominent test of executive dysfunction is known as the Trail-making test. This test is composed of two main parts (Part A & Part B). Part B differs from Part A specifically in that it assesses more complex factors of motor control and perception. Part B of the Trail-making test consists of multiple circles containing letters (A-L) and numbers (1-12). The participant's objective for this test is to connect the circles in order, alternating between number and letter (e.g. 1-A-2-B) from start to finish. The participant is required not to lift their pencil from the page. The task is also timed as a means of assessing speed of processing. Set-switching tasks in Part B have low motor and perceptual selection demands, and therefore provide a clearer index of executive function. Throughout this task, some of the executive function skills that are being measured include impulsivity, visual attention and motor speed.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The executive system's broad range of functions relies on, and is instrumental in, a broad range of neurocognitive processes. Clinical presentation of severe executive dysfunction that is unrelated to a specific disease or disorder is classified as a dysexecutive syndrome, and often appears following damage to the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex. As a result, executive dysfunction is implicated etiologically and/or co-morbidly in many psychiatric illnesses, which often show the same symptoms as the dysexecutive syndrome. It has been assessed and researched extensively in relation to cognitive developmental disorders, psychotic disorders, affective disorders, and conduct disorders, as well as neurodegenerative diseases and acquired brain injury (ABI).


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Environmental dependency syndrome is a dysexecutive syndrome marked by significant behavioural dependence on environmental cues and is marked by excessive imitation and utilization behaviour. It has been observed in patients with a variety of etiologies including ABI, exposure to phendimetrazine tartrate, stroke, and various frontal lobe lesions.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Schizophrenia is commonly described as a mental disorder in which a person becomes detached from reality because of disruptions in the pattern of thinking and perception. Although the etiology is not completely understood, it is closely related to dopaminergic activity and is strongly associated with both neurocognitive and genetic elements of executive dysfunction. Individuals with schizophrenia may demonstrate amnesia for portions of their episodic memory. Observed damage to explicit, consciously accessed, memory is generally attributed to the fragmented thoughts that characterize the disorder. These fragmented thoughts are suggested to produce a similarly fragmented organization in memory during encoding and storage, making retrieval more difficult. However, implicit memory is generally preserved in patients with schizophrenia.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Patients with schizophrenia demonstrate spared performance on measures of visual and verbal attention and concentration, as well as on immediate digit span recall, suggesting that observed deficits cannot be attributed to deficits in attention or short-term memory. However, impaired performance was measured on psychometric measures assumed to assess higher order executive function. Working memory and multi-tasking impairments typically characterize the disorder. Persons with schizophrenia also tend to demonstrate deficits in response inhibition and cognitive flexibility.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Patients often demonstrate noticeable deficits in the central executive component of working memory as conceptualized by Baddeley and Hitch. However, performance on tasks associated with the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad are typically less affected. More specifically, patients with schizophrenia show impairment to the central executive component of working memory, specific to tasks in which the visuospatial system is required for central executive control. The phonological system appears to be more generally spared overall.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: A triad of core symptoms – inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity – characterize attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Individuals with ADHD often experience problems with organization, discipline, and setting priorities, and these difficulties often persist from childhood through adulthood. In both children and adults with ADHD, an underlying executive dysfunction involving the prefrontal regions and other interconnected subcortical structures has been found. As a result, people with ADHD commonly perform more poorly than matched controls on interference control, mental flexibility and verbal fluency. Also, a more central impairment in self-regulation is noted in cases of ADHD. However, some research has suggested the possibility that the severity of executive dysfunction in individuals with ADHD declines with age as they learn to compensate for the aforementioned deficits. Thus, a decrease in executive dysfunction in adults with ADHD as compared to children with ADHD is thought reflective of compensatory strategies employed on behalf of the adults (e.g. using schedules to organize tasks) rather than neurological differences.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Although ADHD has typically been conceptualized in a categorical diagnostic paradigm, it has also been proposed that this disorder should be considered within a more dimensional behavioural model that links executive functions to observed deficits. Proponents argue that classic conceptions of ADHD falsely localize the problem at perception (input) rather than focusing on the inner processes involved in producing appropriate behaviour (output). Moreover, others have theorized that the appropriate development of inhibition (something that is seen to be lacking in individuals with ADHD) is essential for the normal performance of other neuropsychological abilities such as working memory, and emotional self-regulation. Thus, within this model, deficits in inhibition are conceptualized to be developmental and the result of atypically operating executive systems.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Autism is diagnosed based on the presence of markedly abnormal or impaired development in social interaction and communication and a markedly restricted or repetitive repertoire of stereotypic movements, activities, and/or interests. It is a disorder that is defined according to behaviour as no specific biological markers are known. Due to the variability in severity and impairment in functioning exhibited by autistic people, the disorder is typically conceptualized as existing along a continuum (or spectrum) of severity.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Although there has been some debate, inhibition is generally no longer considered to be an executive function deficit in autistic people. Autistic individuals have demonstrated differential performance on various tests of inhibition, with results being taken to indicate a general difficulty in the inhibition of a habitual response. However, performance on the Stroop task, for example, has been unimpaired relative to matched controls. An alternative explanation has suggested that executive function tests that demonstrate a clear rationale are passed by autistic individuals. In this light, it is the design of the measures of inhibition that have been implicated in the observation of impaired performance rather than inhibition being a core deficit.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: In general, autistic individuals show relatively spared performance on tasks that do not require mentalization. These include: use of desire and emotion words, sequencing behavioural pictures, and the recognition of basic facial emotional expressions. In contrast, autistic individuals typically demonstrated impaired performance on tasks that do require mentalizing. These include: false beliefs, use of belief and idea words, sequencing mentalistic pictures, and recognizing complex emotions such as admiring or scheming.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder that is characterized by both highs (mania) and lows (depression) in mood. These changes in mood sometimes alternate rapidly (changes within days or weeks) and sometimes not so rapidly (within weeks or months). Current research provides strong evidence of cognitive impairments in individuals with bipolar disorder, particularly in executive function and verbal learning. Moreover, these cognitive deficits appear to be consistent cross-culturally, indicating that these impairments are characteristic of the disorder and not attributable to differences in cultural values, norms, or practice. Functional neuroimaging studies have implicated abnormalities in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex as being volumetrically different in individuals with bipolar disorder.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Individuals affected by bipolar disorder exhibit deficits in strategic thinking, inhibitory control, working memory, attention, and initiation that are independent of affective state. In contrast to the more generalized cognitive impairment demonstrated in persons with schizophrenia, for example, deficits in bipolar disorder are typically less severe and more restricted. It has been suggested that a "stable dys-regulation of prefrontal function or the subcortical-frontal circuitry [of the brain] may underlie the cognitive disturbances of bipolar disorder". Executive dysfunction in bipolar disorder is suggested to be associated particularly with the manic state, and is largely accounted for in terms of the formal thought disorder that is a feature of mania. It is important to note, however, that patients with bipolar disorder with a history of psychosis demonstrated greater impairment on measures of executive functioning and spatial working memory compared with bipolar patients without a history of psychosis suggesting that psychotic symptoms are correlated with executive dysfunction.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Parkinson's disease (PD) primarily involves damage to subcortical brain structures and is usually associated with movement difficulties, in addition to problems with memory and thought processes. Persons affected by PD often demonstrate difficulties in working memory, a component of executive functioning. Cognitive deficits found in early PD process appear to involve primarily the fronto-executive functions. Moreover, studies of the role of dopamine in the cognition of PD patients have suggested that PD patients with inadequate dopamine supplementation are more impaired in their performance on measures of executive functioning. This suggests that dopamine may contribute to executive control processes. Increased distractibility, problems in set formation and maintaining and shifting attentional sets, deficits in executive functions such as self-directed planning, problems solving, and working memory have been reported in PD patients. In terms of working memory specifically, persons with PD show deficits in the areas of: a) spatial working memory; b) central executive aspects of working memory; c) loss of episodic memories; d) locating events in time.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Since 1997, there has been experimental and clinical practice of psychosocial treatment for adults with executive dysfunction, and particularly attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Psychosocial treatment addresses the many facets of executive difficulties, and as the name suggests, covers academic, occupational and social deficits. Psychosocial treatment facilitates marked improvements in major symptoms of executive dysfunction such as time management, organization and self-esteem. One kind of psychosocial treatment has been found to be particularly helpful, Behavioral Parent Training (BPT). Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) helps parents learn, through the help of a trained mental health professional, how to help their child behave better. This outlines proper use of reward and punishment with the child, mostly using methods of positive and negative reinforcement rather than punishment. For example, taking away a positive reinforcement such as praise, as opposed to adding a punishment. Psychosocial treatments are effective for adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well. One study shows that there are a number of useful psychosocial interventions that help adults with ADHD live better lives too. These included mindfulness training, cognitive based behavioral therapy, as well as education to help the participants recognize problem behaviors in their lives.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is a frequently suggested treatment for executive dysfunction, but has shown limited effectiveness. However, a study of CBT in a group rehabilitation setting showed a significant increase in positive treatment outcome compared with individual therapy. Patients' self-reported symptoms on 16 different ADHD/executive-related items were reduced following the treatment period.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The use of auditory stimuli has been examined in the treatment of dysexecutive syndrome. The presentation of auditory stimuli causes an interruption in current activity, which appears to aid in preventing "goal neglect" by increasing the patients' ability to monitor time and focus on goals. Given such stimuli, subjects no longer performed below their age group average IQ.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Patients with acquired brain injury have also been exposed to goal management training (GMT). GMT skills are associated with paper-and-pencil tasks that are suitable for patients having difficulty setting goals. From these studies there has been support for the effectiveness of GMT and the treatment of executive dysfunction due to ABI.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: An understanding of how executive dysfunction shapes development has implications how we conceptualize executive functions and their role in shaping the individual. Disorders affecting children such as ADHD, along with oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, high functioning autism, and Tourette's syndrome have all been suggested to involve executive functioning deficits. The main focus of current research has been on working memory, planning, set shifting, inhibition, and fluency. This research suggests that differences exist between typically functioning, matched controls, and clinical groups, on measures of executive functioning.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Some research has suggested a link between a child's abilities to gain information about the world around them and having the ability to override emotions in order to behave appropriately. One study required children to perform a task from a series of psychological tests, with their performance used as a measure of executive function. The tests included assessments of: executive functions (self-regulation, monitoring, attention, flexibility in thinking), language, sensorimotor, visuospatial, and learning, in addition to social perception. The findings suggested that the development of theory of mind in younger children is linked to executive control abilities with development impaired in individuals who exhibit signs of executive dysfunction.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Both ADHD and obesity are complicated disorders and each produces a large impact on an individual's social well-being. This being both a physical and psychological disorder has reinforced that obese individuals with ADHD need more treatment time (with associated costs), and are at a higher risk of developing physical and emotional complications. The cognitive ability to develop a comprehensive self-construct and the ability to demonstrate capable emotion regulation is a core deficit observed in people with ADHD and is linked to deficits in executive function. Overall, low executive functioning seen in individuals with ADHD has been correlated with tendencies to overeat, as well as with emotional eating. This particular interest in the relationship between ADHD and obesity is rarely clinically assessed and may deserve more attention in future research.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: It has been made known that young children with behavioral problems show poor verbal ability and executive functions. The exact distinction between parenting style and the importance of family structure on child development is still somewhat unclear. However, in infancy and early childhood, parenting is among the most critical external influences on child reactivity. In Mahoney's study of maternal communication, results indicated that the way mothers interacted with their children accounted for almost 25% of variability in children's rate of development. Every child is unique, making parenting an emotional challenge that should be most closely related to the child's level of emotional self-regulation (persistence, frustration and compliance). A promising approach that is currently being investigated amid intellectually disabled children and their parents is responsive teaching. Responsive teaching is an early intervention curriculum designed to address the cognitive, language, and social needs of young children with developmental problems. Based on the principle of "active learning", responsive teaching is a method that is currently being applauded as adaptable for individual caregivers, children and their combined needs The effect of parenting styles on the development of children is an important area of research that seems to be forever ongoing and altering. There is no doubt that there is a prominent link between parental interaction and child development but the best child-rearing technique continues to vary amongst experts.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The prefrontal lobe controls two related executive functioning domains. The first is mediation of abilities involved in planning, problem solving, and understanding information, as well as engaging in working memory processes and controlled attention. In this sense, the prefrontal lobe is involved with dealing with basic, everyday situations, especially those involving metacognitive functions. The second domain involves the ability to fulfill biological needs through the coordination of cognition and emotions which are both associated with the frontal and prefrontal areas.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: From an evolutionary perspective, it has been hypothesized that the executive system may have evolved to serve several adaptive purposes. The prefrontal lobe in humans has been associated both with metacognitive executive functions and emotional executive functions. Theory and evidence suggest that the frontal lobes in other primates also mediate and regulate emotion, but do not demonstrate the metacognitive abilities that are demonstrated in humans. This uniqueness of the executive system to humans implies that there was also something unique about the environment of ancestral humans, which gave rise to the need for executive functions as adaptations to that environment. Some examples of possible adaptive problems that would have been solved by the evolution of an executive system are: social exchange, imitation and observational learning, enhanced pedagogical understanding, tool construction and use, and effective communication.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: In a similar vein, some have argued that the unique metacognitive capabilities demonstrated by humans have arisen out of the development of a sophisticated language (symbolization) systems and culture. Moreover, in a developmental context, it has been proposed that each executive function capability originated as a form of public behaviour directed at the external environment, but then became self-directed, and then finally, became private to the individual, over the course of the development of self-regulation. These shifts in function illustrate the evolutionarily salient strategy of maximizing longer-term social consequences over near-term ones, through the development of an internal control of behaviour.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Flexibility problems are more likely to be related to anxiety, and metacognition problems are more likely to be related to depression.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: In the classroom environment, children with executive dysfunction typically demonstrate skill deficits that can be categorized into two broad domains: a) self-regulatory skills; and b) goal-oriented skills. The table below is an adaptation of McDougall's summary and provides an overview of specific executive function deficits that are commonly observed in a classroom environment. It also offers examples of how these deficits are likely to manifest in behaviour.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Teachers play a crucial role in the implementation of strategies aimed at improving academic success and classroom functioning in individuals with executive dysfunction. In a classroom environment, the goal of intervention should ultimately be to apply external control, as needed (e.g. adapt the environment to suit the child, provide adult support) in an attempt to modify problem behaviours or supplement skill deficits. Ultimately, executive function difficulties should not be attributed to negative personality traits or characteristics (e.g. laziness, lack of motivation, apathy, and stubbornness) as these attributions are neither useful nor accurate.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Several factors should be considered in the development of intervention strategies. These include, but are not limited to: developmental level of the child, comorbid disabilities, environmental changes, motivating factors, and coaching strategies. It is also recommended that strategies should take a proactive approach in managing behaviour or skill deficits (when possible), rather than adopt a reactive approach. For example, an awareness of where a student may have difficulty throughout the course of the day can aid the teacher in planning to avoid these situations or in planning to accommodate the needs of the student.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: People with executive dysfunction have a slower cognitive processing speed and thus often take longer to complete tasks than people who demonstrate typical executive function capabilities. This can be frustrating for the individual and can serve to impede academic progress. Disorders affecting children such as ADHD, along with oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, high functioning autism and Tourette's syndrome have all been suggested to involve executive functioning deficits. The main focus of current research has been on working memory, planning, set shifting, inhibition, and fluency. This research suggests that differences exist between typically functioning, matched controls and clinical groups, on measures of executive functioning.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Moreover, some people with ADHD report experiencing frequent feelings of drowsiness. This can hinder their attention for lectures, readings, and completing assignments. Individuals with this disorder have also been found to require more stimuli for information processing in reading and writing. Slow processing may manifest in behavior as signaling a lack of motivation on behalf of the learner. However, slow processing is reflective of an impairment of the ability to coordinate and integrate multiple skills and information sources.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: The main concern with individuals with autism regarding learning is in the imitation of skills. This can be a barrier in many aspects such as learning about others intentions, mental states, speech, language, and general social skills. Individuals with autism tend to be dependent on the routines that they have already mastered, and have difficulty with initiating new non-routine tasks. Although an estimated 25–40% of people with autism also have a learning disability, many will demonstrate an impressive rote memory and memory for factual knowledge. As such, repetition is the primary and most successful method for instruction when teaching people with autism.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Being attentive and focused for people with Tourette's syndrome is a difficult process. People affected by this disorder tend to be easily distracted and act very impulsively. That is why it is very important to have a quiet setting with few distractions for the ultimate learning environment. Focusing is particularly difficult for those who are affected by Tourette's syndrome comorbid with other disorders such as ADHD or obsessive-compulsive disorder, it makes focusing very difficult. Also, these individuals can be found to repeat words or phrases consistently either immediately after they are learned or after a delayed period of time.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Prefrontal dysfunction has been found as a marker for persistent, criminal behavior. The prefrontal cortex is involved with mental functions including; affective range of emotions, forethought, and self-control. Moreover, there is a scarcity of mental control displayed by individuals with a dysfunction in this area over their behavior, reduced flexibility and self-control and their difficulty to conceive behavioral consequences, which may conclude in unstable (or criminal) behavior. In a 2008 study conducted by Barbosa & Monteiro, it was discovered that the recurrent criminals that were considered in this study had executive dysfunction. In view of the fact that abnormalities in executive function can limit how people respond to rehabilitation and re-socialization programs these findings of the recurrent criminals are justified. Statistically significant relations have been discerned between anti-social behavior and executive function deficits. These findings relate to the emotional instability that is connected with executive function as a detrimental symptom that can also be linked towards criminal behavior. Conversely, it is unclear as to the specificity of anti-social behavior to executive function deficits as opposed to other generalized neuropsychological deficits. The uncontrollable deficiency of executive function has an increased expectancy for aggressive behavior that can result in a criminal deed. Orbitofrontal injury also hinders the ability to be risk avoidant, make social judgments, and may cause reflexive aggression. A common retort to these findings is that the higher incidence of cerebral lesions among the criminal population may be due to the peril associated with a life of crime. Along with this reasoning, it would be assumed that some other personality trait is responsible for the disregard of social acceptability and reduction in social aptitude.


title: Executive dysfunction

text: Furthermore, some think the dysfunction cannot be entirely to blame. There are interacting environmental factors that also have an influence on the likelihood of criminal action. This theory proposes that individuals with this deficit are less able to control impulses or foresee the consequences of actions that seem attractive at the time (see above) and are also typically provoked by environmental factors. One must recognize that the frustrations of life, combined with a limited ability to control life events, can easily cause aggression and/or other criminal activities.


title: Toltec

text: The Toltec culture () was a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology, reaching prominence from 950 to 1150 CE. The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from "Tōllān" (Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization; in the Nahuatl language the word "Tōltēkatl" (singular) or "Tōltēkah" (plural) came to take on the meaning "artisan". The Aztec oral and pictographic tradition also described the history of a Toltec Empire, giving lists of rulers and their exploits.


title: Toltec

text: Modern scholars debate whether the Aztec narratives of Toltec history should be given credence as descriptions of actual historical events. While all scholars acknowledge that there is a large mythological part of the narrative, some maintain that, by using a critical comparative method, some level of historicity can be salvaged from the sources. Others maintain that continued analysis of the narratives as sources of actual history is futile and hinders access to actual knowledge of the culture of Tula de Allende.


title: Toltec

text: Other controversies relating to the Toltecs include the question of how best to understand the reasons behind the perceived similarities in architecture and iconography between the archaeological site of Tula and the Maya site of Chichén Itzá. Researchers are yet to reach a consensus in regards to the degree or direction of influence between these two sites.


title: Toltec

text: While the exact origins of the culture are unclear, it likely developed out of a mixture of the Nonoalca people from the southern Gulf Coast and a group of sedentary Chichimeca from northern Mesoamerica; the former of these likely composed the majority of the new culture and were influenced by the Mayan culture centered in Teotihuacan. During Teotihuacan's apogee in the Early Classic period, these people were tightly integrated into the political and economic systems of the state and formed multiple large settlements in the Tula region, most notably Villagran and Chingu.


title: Toltec

text: Beginning around 650 CE, the majority of these settlements were abandoned as a result of Teotihuacan's decline, and the Coyotlatelco rose as the dominant culture in the region. It is with the Coyotlatelco that Tula, as it relates to the Toltec, was founded along with a number of hilltop communities. Tula Chico, as the settlement is referred to during this phase, grew into a small regional state out of the consolidation of the surrounding Coyotlatelco sites. The settlement was roughly three to six square kilometers in size with a grided urban plan and a relatively large population. The complexity of the main plaza was especially distinct from other Coyotlatelco sites in the area with multiple ball courts and pyramids. The Toltec culture as it is understood during its peak can be tied directly to Tula Chico; after the site was burned and abandoned at the end of the Epiclassic period, Tula Grande was soon constructed bearing strong similarities 1.5 kilometers to the south. It is during the Early Postclassic period that Tula Grande and its associated Toltec culture would become the dominant force in the broader region.


title: Toltec

text: Some archaeologists, such as Richard Diehl, argue for the existence of a Toltec archaeological horizon characterized by certain stylistic traits associated with Tula, Hidalgo and extending to other cultures and polities in Mesoamerica. Traits associated with this horizon are include the Mixtec-Puebla style of iconography, Tohil plumbate ceramic ware, and Silho or X-Fine Orange Ware ceramics. The presence of stylistic traits associated with Tula in Chichén Itzá is also taken as evidence for a Toltec horizon. Especially the nature of interaction between Tula and Chichén Itzá has been controversial with scholars arguing for either military conquest of Chichén Itzá by Toltecs, Chichén Itzá establishing Tula as a colony or only loose connections between the two. The existence of any meaning of the Mixteca-Puebla art style has also been questioned.


title: Toltec

text: A contrary viewpoint is argued in a 2003 study by Michael E. Smith and Lisa Montiel who compare the archaeological record related to Tula Hidalgo to those of the polities centered in Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan. They conclude that relative to the influence exerted in Mesoamerica by Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan, Tula's influence on other cultures was negligible and was probably not deserving of being defined as an empire, but more of a kingdom. While Tula does have the urban complexity expected of an imperial capital, its influence and dominance was not very far reaching. Evidence for Tula's participation in extensive trade networks has been uncovered; for example, the remains of a large obsidian workshop.


title: Toltec

text: At its height, Tula Grande had an estimated population of as many as 60,000 and covered 16 square kilometers of hills, plains, valleys, and marsh. Some of the most prominent examples of the Toltec material culture at the site include pyramids, ball-courts, and the Atalantean warrior sculptures on top of Pyramid B. Various civic buildings surrounding a central plaza are especially distinctive, as excavations show the use of columns inside these buildings and in surrounding colonnades. One of these buildings, known as Building 3, is argued to have been a symbolically powerful building for the Toltec due to its reference in architecture to the historic and mythic homes of the people's ancestors. The physical layout of the broader plaza also partakes in referencing a shared past; its sunken colonnaded hall units are incredibly similar to those at cities of Tula's ancestral peoples. Importantly, these halls are known to have served as places to engage with both regional and long-distance trade networks and were possibly also used for diplomatic relations, suggesting that Tula Grande used these structures for a similar end. To that point, imported goods at Tula Grande shows that the Toltecs indeed interacted commercially with sites throughout Mesoamerica; shared ceramic and ritual figurine styles between Tula and regions such as Socunusco supplement this idea. Additionally, surveys of Tula Grande have suggested the existence of an "extensive and highly specialized workshop-based obsidian industry," at the site that could have been one of the sources of the city's economic and political power, taking on Teotihuacan's previous role as the region's distributor. A survey done by Healan et al. recovered roughly 16,000 pieces of obsidian from the site's urban zone and over 25,000 from its surrounding residential areas. Tula's involvement in obsidian trade is also evidence for the city's interaction with another powerful city in the region, Chichén Itzá, as the vast majority of obsidian at both sites comes from the same two geological sources.


title: Toltec

text: One of the earliest historical mentions of Toltecs was by the Dominican friar Diego Durán, who was best known for being one of the first westerners to study the history of Mesoamerica. Durán's work remains relevant to Mesoamerican societies, and based on his findings Durán claims that the Toltecs were disciples of the "High Priest Topiltzin." Topiltzin and his disciples were said to have preached and performed miracles. "Astonished, the people called these men Toltecs," which Duran says, "means Masters, or Men Wise in Some Craft." Duran speculated that this Topilzin may have been the Thomas the Apostle sent to preach the Christian Gospel among the "Indians", although he provides nothing more than circumstantial evidence of any contact between the hemispheres.


title: Toltec

text: The later debate about the nature of the Toltec culture goes back to the late 19th century. Mesoamericanist scholars such as Mariano Veytia, Manuel Orozco y Berra, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, and Francisco Clavigero all read the Aztec chronicles and believed them to be realistic historic descriptions of a pan-Mesoamerican empire based at Tula, Hidalgo. This historicist view was first challenged by Daniel Garrison Brinton who argued that the "Toltecs" as described in the Aztec sources were merely one of several Nahuatl-speaking city-states in the Postclassic period, and not a particularly influential one at that. He attributed the Aztec view of the Toltecs to the "tendency of the human mind to glorify the good old days" and the confounding of the place of Tollan with the myth of the struggle between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. Désiré Charnay, the first archaeologist to work at Tula, Hidalgo, defended the historicist views based on his impression of the Toltec capital, and was the first to note similarities in architectural styles between Tula and Chichén Itza. This led him to posit the theory that Chichén Itzá had been violently taken over by a Toltec military force under the leadership of Kukulcan. Following Charnay the term "Toltec" has since been associated with the influx of certain Central Mexican cultural traits into the Maya sphere of dominance that took place in the late Classic and early Postclassic periods; the Postclassic Mayan civilizations of Chichén Itzá, Mayapán and the Guatemalan highlands have been referred to as "Toltecized" or "Mexicanized" Mayas.


title: Toltec

text: The historicist school of thought persisted well in to the 20th century, represented in the works of scholars such as David Carrasco, Miguel León-Portilla, Nigel Davies and H. B. Nicholson, which all held the Toltecs to have been an actual ethnic group. This school of thought connected the "Toltecs" to the archaeological site of Tula, which was taken to be the Tollan of Aztec myth. This tradition assumes that much of central Mexico was dominated by a Toltec Empire between the 10th and 12th century AD. The Aztecs referred to several Mexican city states as Tollan, "Place of Reeds", such as "Tollan Cholollan". Archaeologist Laurette Séjourné, followed by the historian Enrique Florescano, have argued that the "original" Tollan was probably Teotihuacán. Florescano adds that the Mayan sources refer to Chichén Itzá when talking about the mythical place Zuyua (Tollan).


title: Toltec

text: Many historicists such as H. B. Nicholson (2001 (1957)) and Nigel Davies (1977) were fully aware that the Aztec chronicles were a mixture of mythical and historical accounts; this led them to try to separate the two by applying a comparative approach to the varying Aztec narratives. For example, they seek to discern between the deity Quetzalcoatl and a Toltec ruler often referred to as Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl.


title: Toltec

text: In recent decades the historicist position has fallen out of favor for a more critical and interpretive approach to the historicity of the Aztec mythical accounts based on the original approach of Brinton. This approach applies a different understanding of the word Toltec to the interpretation of the Aztec sources, interpreting it as largely a mythical and philosophical construct by either the Aztecs or Mesoamericans generally that served to symbolize the might and sophistication of several civilizations during the Mesoamerican Postclassic period. The Nahuatl word for 'Toltec', for example, can mean 'master artisan' as well as 'inhabitant of Tula, Hidalgo', and the word "Tollan" (known as "Tula" in modern times) can refer specifically to Tula, Hidalgo, or more generally to all great cities through meaning 'place of the reeds'.


title: Toltec

text: Much of the questioning of these Aztec narratives is due to the lack of archaeological evidence to support them. Aztec accounts tell that the Toltec discovered medicine, designed the calendar system, created the Nahuatl language. More broadly, the Aztec traced most of their own societal achievements to the Toltec and their city Tollan, which was idolized as the epitome of state civilization with an enormous influence in the surrounding region. However, Tula—the site attributed with this Tollan—lacks much of the splendor that the Aztecs describe. For example, Tula was mainly built out of the relatively soft and unimpressive adobe brick, and while Tula certainly was a major regional city in its time, it was minuscule both in population and in influence in comparison to both its predecessor, Teotihuacan, and its Aztec descendant, Tenochtitlan. Additional material remains at Tula, such as the destruction of Toltec buildings and monumental art coinciding with the arrival of Aztec ceramics, suggest that the Aztecs' reverence of the Toltec might have been mostly propagandistic, intentionally overexaggerating the previous culture to use it as a steppingstone for their own.


title: Toltec

text: Scholars such as Michel Graulich (2002) and Susan D. Gillespie (1989) maintained that the difficulties in salvaging historic data from the Aztec accounts of Toltec history are too great to overcome. For example, there are two supposed Toltec rulers identified with Quetzalcoatl: the first ruler and founder of the Toltec dynasty and the last ruler, who saw the end of the Toltec glory and was forced into humiliation and exile. The first is described as a valiant triumphant warrior, but the last as a feeble and self-doubting old man. This caused Graulich and Gillespie to suggest that the general Aztec cyclical view of time, in which events repeated themselves at the end and beginning of cycles or eras was being inscribed into the historical record by the Aztecs, making it futile to attempt to distinguish between a historical Topiltzin Ce Acatl and a Quetzalcoatl deity. Graulich argued that the Toltec era is best considered the fourth of the five Aztec mythical "Suns" or ages, the one immediately preceding the fifth Sun of the Aztec people, presided over by Quetzalcoatl. This caused Graulich to consider that the only possibly historical data in the Aztec chronicles are the names of some rulers and possibly some of the conquests ascribed to them.


title: Toltec

text: Furthermore, among the Nahuan peoples the word "Tolteca" was synonymous with artist, artisan or wise man, and "Toltecayotl", literally 'Toltecness', meant art, culture, civilization, and urbanism and was seen as the opposite of "Chichimecayotl" ('Chichimecness'), which symbolized the savage, nomadic state of peoples who had not yet become urbanized. This interpretation argues that any large urban center in Mesoamerica could be referred to as "Tollan" and its inhabitants as Toltecs – and that it was a common practice among ruling lineages in Postclassic Mesoamerica to strengthen claims to power by asserting Toltec ancestry. Mesoamerican migration accounts often state that Tollan was ruled by Quetzalcoatl (or "Kukulkan" in Yucatec and "Q'uq'umatz" in K'iche'), a godlike mythical figure who was later sent into exile from Tollan and went on to found a new city elsewhere in Mesoamerica. According to Patricia Anawalt, a professor of anthropology at UCLA, assertions of Toltec ancestry and claims that their elite ruling dynasties were founded by Quetzalcoatl have been made by such diverse civilizations as the Aztec, the K'iche' and the Itza' Mayas.


title: Toltec

text: While the skeptical school of thought does not deny that cultural traits of a seemingly central Mexican origin have diffused into a larger area of Mesoamerica, it tends to ascribe this to the dominance of Teotihuacán in the Classic period and the general diffusion of cultural traits within the region. Recent scholarship, then, does not see Tula, Hidalgo as the capital of the Toltecs of the Aztec accounts. Rather, it takes "Toltec" to mean simply an inhabitant of Tula during its apogee. Separating the term "Toltec" from those of the Aztec accounts, it attempts to find archaeological clues to the ethnicity, history and social organization of the inhabitants of Tula.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist, politician, philosopher, economist and the founder of mutualist philosophy. He was the first person to declare himself an "anarchist", using that term, and is widely regarded as one of anarchism's most influential theorists. Proudhon is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". Proudhon became a member of the French Parliament after the Revolution of 1848, whereafter he referred to himself as a "federalist". Proudhon described the liberty he pursued as "the synthesis of communism and property". Some consider his mutualism to be part of individualist anarchism while others regard it to be part of social anarchism.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon, who was born in Besançon, was a printer who taught himself Latin in order to better print books in the language. 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 and 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". The dispute became one of the sources of the split between the anarchist and Marxist wings of the International Working Men's Association. Some such as Edmund Wilson have contended that Marx's attack on Proudhon had its origin in the latter's defense of Karl Grün, whom Marx bitterly disliked, but who had been preparing translations of Proudhon's work.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon favored workers' council and associations or cooperatives as well as individual worker/peasant possession over private ownership or the nationalization of land and workplaces. He considered social revolution to be achievable in a peaceful manner. Proudhon unsuccessfully tried to create a national bank, to be funded by what became an abortive attempt at an income tax on capitalists and shareholders. Similar in some respects to a credit union, it would have given interest-free loans. After the death of his follower Mikhail Bakunin, Proudhon's libertarian socialism diverged into individualist anarchism, collectivist anarchism, anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism, with notable proponents such as Carlo Cafiero, Joseph Déjacque, Peter Kropotkin and Benjamin Tucker.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon was born in Besançon, France, on 15 January 1809 at 23 Rue du Petit Battant in the suburb of Battant. His father Claude-François Proudhon, who worked as a brewer and a cooper, was originally from the village of Chasnans, near the border with Switzerland. His mother Catherine Simonin was from Cordiron. Claude-François and Catherine had five boys together, two of whom died at a very young age. Proudhon's brothers Jean-Etienne and Claude were born in 1811 and 1816 respectively and both maintained a very close relationship with Proudhon.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: As a boy, he mostly worked in the family tavern, helped with basic agricultural work and spent time playing outdoors in the countryside. Proudhon received no formal education as a child, but he was taught to read by his mother, who had him spelling words by age three. However, the only books that Proudhon was exposed to until he was 10 were the Gospels and the Four Aymon Brothers and some local almanacs. In 1820, Proudhon's mother began trying to get him admitted into the city college in Besançon. The family was far too poor to afford the tuition, but with the help of one of Claude-François' former employers, she managed to gain a bursary which deducted 120 francs a year from the cost. Proudhon was unable to afford basic things like books or shoes to attend school which caused him great difficulties and often made him the object of scorn by his wealthier classmates. In spite of this, Proudhon showed a strong will to learn and spent much time in the school library with a pile of books, exploring a variety of subjects in his free time outside of class.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: In 1827, Proudhon began an apprenticeship at a printing press in the house of Bellevaux in Battant. On Easter of the following year, he transferred to a press in Besançon owned by the family of one of his schoolmates, Antoine Gauthier. Besançon was an important center of religious thought at the time and most of the works published at Gauthier were ecclesiastical works. During the course of his work, Proudhon spent hours every day reading this Christian literature and began to question many of his long-held religious beliefs which eventually led him to reject Christianity altogether. In his first book, What is Property?, he stated his religious journey began with Protestantism and ended with being a Neo Christian.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Over the years, Proudhon rose to be a corrector for the press, proofreading their publications. By 1829, he began to become more interested in social issues than religious theory. Of particular importance during this period was his encounter with Charles Fourier, who in 1829 came to Gauthier as a customer seeking to publish his work "Le Nouveau Monde Industriel et Sociétaire". Proudhon supervised the printing of the book, which gave him ample opportunity to talk with Fourier about a variety of social and philosophical issues. These discussions left a strong impression on Proudhon and influenced him throughout his life. It was also during this time that Proudhon formed one of his closest friendships with Gustave Fallot, a scholar from Montebéliard who came from a family of wealthy French industrialists. Impressed by Proudhon's corrections of one of his Latin manuscripts, Fallot sought out his friendship and the two were soon regularly spending their evenings together discussing French literature by Michel de Montaigne, François Rabelais, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Denis Diderot and many other authors to whom Proudhon had not been exposed during his years of theological readings.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: In September 1830, Proudhon became certified as a journeyman compositor. The period following this was marked by unemployment and poverty, with Proudhon travelling around France (also briefly to Neuchâtel, Switzerland) where he unsuccessfully sought stable employment in printing and as a schoolteacher. During this period, Fallot offered financial assistance to Proudhon if he came to Paris to study philosophy. Proudhon accepted his offer despite concerns about how it might disrupt his career in the printing trade. He walked from Besançon to Paris, arriving in March at the Rue Mazarin in the Latin Quarter, where Fallot was living at the time. Proudhon began mingling amongst the circle of metropolitan scholars surrounding Fallot, but he felt out of place and uncomfortable amidst people who were both wealthier and more accustomed to scholarly debate. Ultimately, Proudhon found that he preferred to spend the majority of his time studying alone and was not fond of urban life, longing to return home to Besançon. The cholera outbreak in Paris granted him his wish as Fallot was struck with the illness, making him unable to financially support Proudhon any longer. After Proudhon left, he never saw Fallot (who died in 1836) again. However, this friendship was one of the most important events in Proudhon's life as it is what motivated him to leave the printing trade and pursue his studies of philosophy instead.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: After an unsuccessful printing business venture in 1838, Proudhon decided to dedicate himself fully to scholarly pursuits. He applied for the Suard Pension, a bursary that would enable him to study at the Academy of Besançon. Proudhon was selected out of several candidates primarily due to the fact that his income was much lower than the others and the judges were extremely impressed by his writing and the level of education he had given himself while working as an artisan. Proudhon arrived in Paris towards the end of autumn in 1838.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: In 1839, the Academy of Besançon held an essay competition on the subject of the utility of the celebration of Sunday in regard to hygiene, morality and the relationship of the family and the city. Proudhon's entry, titled "De la Célébration du dimanche", essentially used the essay subject as a pretext for discussing a variety of political and philosophical ideas and in it one can find the seeds of his later revolutionary ideas. Many of his ideas on authority, morality and property disturbed the essay judges at the Academy and Proudhon was only awarded the bronze medal (something in which Proudhon took pride because he felt that this was an indicator that his writing made elite academics uncomfortable).


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: In 1840, Proudhon published his first work "Qu'est-ce que la propriété?", or "What Is Property?" His third memoir on property was a letter to the Fourierist writer Considérant, published in 1842 under the title "Warning to Proprietors". Proudhon was tried for it at Besançon, but he was acquitted when the jury found that they could not condemn him for a philosophy that they themselves could not understand. In 1846, he published the "Système des contradictions économiques ou Philosophie de la misère" ("The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty") which prompted a book-length critique from Karl Marx entitled "The Poverty of Philosophy", commencing a rift between anarchism and Marxism and anarchists and Marxists that would be continued by the Bakuninists and collectivist anarchists (the followers of Mikhail Bakunin) in the First International and that lasts to this day.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: For some time, Proudhon ran a small printing establishment at Besançon, but without success. Afterwards, he became connected as a kind of manager with a commercial firm in Lyon, France. In 1847, he left this job and finally settled in Paris, where he was now becoming celebrated as a leader of innovation. In this year, he also became a Freemason.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: In Spain, Ramón de la Sagra established the anarchist journal "El Porvenir" in La Coruña in 1845 which was inspired by Proudhon's ideas. Catalan politician Francesc Pi i Margall became the principal translator of Proudhon's works into Spanish and later briefly became President of Spain in 1873 while being the leader of the Federal Democratic Republican Party. According to George Woodcock, "[t]hese translations were to have a profound and lasting effect on the development of Spanish anarchism after 1870, but before that time Proudhonian ideas, as interpreted by Pi, already provided much of the inspiration for the federalist movement which sprang up in the early 1860s". According to the "Encyclopædia Britannica", "[d]uring the Spanish revolution of 1873, Pi i Margall attempted to establish a decentralized, or 'cantonalist,' political system on Proudhonian lines".


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon was the first person to refer to himself as an "anarchist". Proudhon's anarchist mutualism is considered as a middle way or synthesis between individualist anarchism and social anarchism. According to Larry Gambone, Proudhon was a "social individualist anarchist". Both anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin and individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker defined anarchism as "the no-government form of socialism" and "the abolition of the State and the abolition of usury", respectively. In this, Kropotkin and Tucker were following the definition of Proudhon, who stated that "[w]e do not admit the government of man by man any more than the exploitation of man by man."


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: In "What Is Property?", published in 1840, Proudhon defined "anarchy" as "the absence of a master, of a sovereign" and wrote that "[a]s man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy". In 1849, Proudhon declared in "Confessions of a Revolutionary" that "[w]hoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and tyrant, and I declare him my enemy". In "The General Idea of the Revolution" (1851), Proudhon urged a "society without authority". In a subchapter called "What is Government?", Proudhon wrote:


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Towards the end of his life, Proudhon modified some of his earlier views. In "The Principle of Federation" (1863), Proudhon modified his earlier anti-state position, arguing for "the balancing of authority by liberty" and put forward a decentralized "theory of federal government". Proudhon also defined anarchy differently as "the government of each by himself" which meant "that political functions have been reduced to industrial functions, and that social order arises from nothing but transactions and exchanges". This work also saw Proudhon call his economic system an "agro-industrial federation", arguing that it would provide "specific federal arrangements [...] to protect the citizens of the federated states from capitalist and financial feudalism, both within them and from the outside" and so stop the re-introduction of "wage labour". This was because "political right requires to be buttressed by economic right". In the posthumously published "Theory of Property", Proudhon argued 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. There is the constant possibility of abuse, exploitation, which spells theft. At the same time property is a spontaneous creation of society and a bulwark against the ever-encroaching power of the State."


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Daniel Guérin criticized Proudhon's later life by stating that "many of these masters were not anarchists throughout their lives and their complete works include passages which have nothing to do with anarchism. To take an example: in the second part of his career Proudhon's thinking took a conservative turn. His verbose and monumental "De la Justice dans la Revolution et dans l'Eglise" (1858) was mainly concerned with the problem of religion and its conclusion was far from libertarian."


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: In "What Is Property?", Proudhon moved on from the rejection of communism and private property in a dialectical manner, looking for a "third form of society. [...] This third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property, we will call liberty." In his "System of Economic Contradiction", Proudhon described mutuality as "the synthesis of the notions of private property and collective ownership."


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon's rejection of compulsory communism and privileged property led him towards a synthesis of libertarian communism and possession, just as the apparent contradiction between his theories of property represents an antithesis which still needs synthesizing. Proudhon stated that in presenting the "property is liberty" theory, he is not changing his mind about the earlier "property is theft" definition. Proudhon did not only rely on "synthesis", but also emphasized "balance" between approaches such as communism and property that apparently cannot be fully reconciled. American mutualist William Batchelder Greene took a similar approach in his 1849–1850 works.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: For Proudhon, mutualism involved free association by creating industrial democracy, a system where workplaces would be "handed over to democratically organised workers' associations. [...] We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies woven into the common cloth of the democratic social Republic." Under mutualism, workers would no longer sell their labour to a capitalist but rather work for themselves in co-operatives. Proudhon urged "workers to form themselves into democratic societies, with equal conditions for all members, on pain of a relapse into feudalism". This would result in "[c]apitalistic and proprietary exploitation, stopped everywhere, the wage system abolished, equal and just exchange guaranteed".


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: As Robert Graham notes, "Proudhon's market socialism is indissolubly linked to his notions of industrial democracy and workers' self-management". K. Steven Vincent notes in his in-depth analysis of this aspect of Proudhon's ideas that "Proudhon consistently advanced a program of industrial democracy which would return control and direction of the economy to the workers". For Proudhon, "strong workers' associations [...] would enable the workers to determine jointly by election how the enterprise was to be directed and operated on a day-to-day basis".


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon adopted the term "mutualism" for his brand of anarchism and socialism which involved control of the means of production by the workers. In his vision, self-employed artisans, peasants and cooperatives would trade their products on the market. For Proudhon, factories and other large workplaces would be run by "labor associations" operating on directly democratic principles. The state would be abolished and instead society would be organized by a federation of "free communes" (a commune is a local municipality in French). In 1863, Proudhon wrote: "All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization".


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon called this use-ownership possession ("possession") and this economic system mutualism ("mutualisme"), having many arguments against entitlement to land and capital, including reasons based on morality, economics, politics and individual liberty. One such argument was that it enabled profit which in turn led to social instability and war by creating cycles of debt that eventually overcame the capacity of labor to pay them off. Another was that it produced despotism and turned workers into wage workers subject to the authority of a boss. In "What Is Property?", Proudhon described the liberty he pursued as "the synthesis of communism and property", further writing:


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon continued to oppose both capitalist and state property. In "Theory of Property", Proudhon maintained that "[n]ow in 1840, I categorically rejected the notion of property for both the group and the individual", but then he also states his new theory of property that "property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists, with an unequaled capacity for setting itself against authority" and the "principal function of private property within the political system will be to act as a counterweight to the power of the State, and by so doing to insure the liberty of the individual". However, the authors of "An Anarchist FAQ" write that "this is a common anarchist position. Anarchists are well aware that possession is a source of independence within capitalism and so should be supported". At the same time, Proudhon continued to oppose concentrations of wealth and property, arguing for small-scale property ownership associated with peasants and artisans. Proudhon also still opposed private property in land, writing: "What I cannot accept, regarding land, is that the work put in gives a right to ownership of what has been worked on." In addition, Proudhon still believed that property should be more equally distributed and limited in size to that actually used by individuals, families and workers associations. Proudhon supported the right of inheritance and defended "as one of the foundations of the family and society", but he refused to extend this beyond personal possessions, arguing that "[u]nder the law of association, transmission of wealth does not apply to the instruments of labour".


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: As a consequence of his opposition to profit, wage labour, worker exploitation, ownership of land and capital as well as to state property, Proudhon rejected both capitalism and state socialism, including authoritarian socialism and other authoritarian and compulsory forms of communism which advocated state property. The authors of "An Anarchist FAQ" argue that his opposition to "communism" was because "libertarian communism", while having some forerunners such as François-Noël Babeuf, would not be as widespread until after his death and so, like Max Stirner, "he was directing his critique against the various forms of state communism which did [exist]". While opposed to the charging of interest and rent, Proudhon did not seek to abolish them by law, writing: "I protest that when I criticized the complex of institutions of which property is the foundation stone, I never meant to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree, ground rent and interest on capital. I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity which I propose."


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon opposed dictatorship, militarism, nationalism and war, arguing that the "end of militarism is the mission of the nineteenth century, under pain of indefinite decadence" and that the "workers alone are capable of putting an end to war by creating economic equilibrium. This presupposes a radical revolution in ideas and morals." As Robert L. Hoffman notes, "War and Peace" "ends by condemning war without reservation" and its "conclusion [is] that war is obsolete". Marxist philosopher John Ehrenberg summarized Proudhon's position that "[i]f injustice was the cause of war, it followed that conflict could not be eliminated until society was reorganised along egalitarian lines. Proudhon had wanted to prove that the reign of political economy would be the reign of peace, finding it difficult to believe that people really thought he was defending militarism."


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon argued that under mutualism "[t]here will no longer be nationality, no longer fatherland, in the political sense of the words: they will mean only places of birth. Man, of whatever race or colour he may be, is an inhabitant of the universe; citizenship is everywhere an acquired right." Proudhon also rejected dictatorship, stating in the 1860s that "what I will always be [...] a republican, a democrat even, and a socialist into the bargain". Henri-Marie de Lubac argued that in terms of Proudhon's critique of democracy "we must not allow all this to hoodwink us. His invectives against democracy were not those of a counter-revolutionary. They were aimed at what he himself called 'the false democracy'. [...] They attacked an apparently liberal 'pseudo-democracy' which 'was not economic and social', [...] 'a Jacobinical democracy.'" Proudhon "did not want to destroy, but complete, the work of 1789" and while "he had a grudge against the 'old democracy', the democracy of Robespierre and Marat", he repeatedly contrasted it "with a 'young democracy', which was a 'social democracy.'"


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: According to historian of anarchism George Woodcock, some positions Proudhon took "sorted oddly with his avowed anarchism". Woodcock cited as an example Proudhon's proposition that each citizen perform one or two years militia service. The proposal appeared in the "Programme Revolutionaire", an electoral manifesto issued by Proudhon after he was asked to run for a position in the provisional government. The text reads: "7° 'L'armée. – Abolition immédiate de la conscription et des remplacements; obligation pour tout citoyen de faire, pendant un ou deux ans, le service militaire; application de l'armée aux services administratifs et travaux d'utilité publique" ("Military service by all citizens is proposed as an alternative to conscription and the practice of 'replacement', by which those who could avoided such service"). In the same document, Proudhon also described the "form of government" he was proposing as "a centralization analogous with that of the State, but in which no one obeys, no one is dependent, and everyone is free and sovereign".


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon saw the privileged property as a form of government and that it was necessarily backed by and interlinked with the state, writing that "[t]he private property of privilege called forth and commanded the State" and arguing that "since the first related to the landowner and capitalist whose ownership derived from conquest or exploitation and was only maintained through the state, its property laws, police and army". Hence, Proudhon distinguished between personal property and possessions ("possession") and private property ("propriété"), i.e. productive property while the former having direct use-value to the individual possessing it. Unlike capitalist property supporters, Proudhon stressed equality and thought that all workers should own property and have access to capital, stressing that in every cooperative "every worker employed in the association [must have] an undivided share in the property of the company". In his later works, Proudhon used "property" to mean possession. This resulted in some individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker calling possession as "property" or "private property", causing confusion within the anarchist movement and among other socialists.


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: In his earliest works, Proudhon analyzed the nature and problems of the capitalist economy. While deeply critical of capitalism, Proudhon also objected to those contemporary in the socialist movement who advocated centralized hierarchical forms of association or state control of the economy. In a sequence of commentaries from "What Is Property?" (1840), posthumously published in the "Théorie de la propriété" ("Theory of Property", 1863–1864), Proudhon declared in turn that "property is theft", "property is impossible", "property is despotism" and "property is freedom". When saying that "property is theft", Proudhon was referring to the landowner or capitalist who he believed "stole" the profits from laborers. For Proudhon, as he wrote in the sixth study of his "General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century", the capitalist's employee was "subordinated, exploited: his permanent condition is one of obedience". In "What Is Property?", Proudhon also wrote:


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Property is impossible, because, with a given capital, production is proportional to labor, not to property.<br>


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon believed that illegitimate property was based on dominion (i.e. entitlement) and that this was backed by force. While this force can take the form of police in the employ of a state, it is the fact of its enforcement, not its form, that makes it what it is. Proudhon rejected entitlement regardless of the source and accepted possession based on occupancy. According to Proudhon, "[t]here are different kinds of property: 1. Property pure and simple, the dominant and seigniorial power over a thing; or, as they term it, naked property. 2. Possession. 'Possession,' says Duranton, 'is a matter of fact, not of right.' Toullier: 'Property is a right, a legal power; possession is a fact.' The tenant, the farmer, the commandité, the usufructuary, are possessors; the owner who lets and lends for use, the heir who is to come into possession on the death of a usufructuary, are proprietors."


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: In asserting that property is freedom, Proudhon was referring not only to the product of an individual's labor, but also to the peasant or artisan's home and tools of his trade and the income he received by selling his goods. For Proudhon, the only legitimate source of property is labor. What one produces is one's property and anything beyond that is not. Proudhon advocated workers' self-management and was opposed to the private ownership of the means of production. In 1848, Proudhon wrote:


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: Proudhon also warned that a society with private property would lead to statist relations between people, arguing:


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, 'This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.' Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these multiply, and soon the people [...] will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their birth-right; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, 'So perish idlers and vagrants.'


title: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

text: According to Proudhon, "[t]he proprietor, the robber, the hero, the sovereign—for all these titles are synonymous—imposes his will as law, and suffers neither contradiction nor control; that is, he pretends to be the legislative and the executive power at once [...] [and so] property engenders despotism. [...] That is so clearly the essence of property that, to be convinced of it, one need but remember what it is, and observe what happens around him. Property is the right to use and abuse. [...] [I]f goods are property, why should not the proprietors be kings, and despotic kings—kings in proportion to their "facultes bonitaires"? And if each proprietor is sovereign lord within the sphere of his property, absolute king throughout his own domain, how could a government of proprietors be any thing but chaos and confusion?"