Month: April 2008

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Around the blogosphere

April 28, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Check out Exploring American Anarchism and Herzschlag, for good anarchist material from some folks I know “in real life.” And shout-outs as well to agorists Royce Christian, of The Guerrilla Capitalist, and Niccolo Adami, of The Kingdom of God is Within You. Last but certainly not least, “Anarcho” finally has a blog.
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Unfinished business of Liberty

April 24, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Benjamin Tucker, like a lot of us, took on a lot of projects, not all of which came to fruition. His “Proudhon Library” and the pamphlet version of Bellegarrigue’s “Anarchy: Journal of Order” are among those announced, but never completed. In some other cases, what Tucker translated from his wide reading of libertarian literature was just the tip of the iceberg, where fascinating material was concerned. It will take some time before anything like the “Proudhon Library” is possible, but one of the reasons for pursuing the updated Libertarian Labyrinth is precisely to pursue those kinds of projects. And some […]
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“Les Révolutions du XIXe siècle”

April 15, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
A lot of my work right now is sifting through archives, trying to gather together links to the works of various key socialist writers: Proudhon, Leroux, Colins, Considerant, Fourier, Briancourt, Ott, etc., etc. Some of the sifting is easy: all 47(!) volumes of the Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin are available at Gallica. In other cases, it’s a matter of sorting through the rubble at Google Books. Of course, the difficulties involved mean that my searches have been a bit more inclusive than they might otherwise be, and that has paid some handsome dividends. For example: Les Révolutions du XIXe […]
individualism

LeftLiberty: Proudhon on individualism and socialism

April 9, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Bits of progress on LeftLiberty, including tweaks to the logo, the beginnings of a website and some responses to my call for contributions. I’ve been working to get the wiki archive working smoothly, with prettier urls and interwiki linking with the Distributive Passions site. The material for the “classics” section looks like it will include works by Proudhon, Leroux, Bastiat, Molinari, Tucker, and several others. In the early works, there is a lot of belligerent agreement that a simple opposition between “individualism” and “socialism” doesn’t quite get the work done. Here’s a bit of a letter from Proudhon: Paris, January […]
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LeftLiberty 1-2: Individualism, Socialism, and Solidarity

April 4, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Starting in July, I’ll be producing a new journal/zine, called “LeftLiberty,” and dedicated to “the left-libertarian conversation in all its phases and ages.” It’s connected to the project of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left, and focuses on clarifying what is really at stake in some of the messier debates in the broad anarchist movement. Issues will be arranged around key concepts with the first two issues addressing “Individualism, Socialism, and Solidarity.” I’m finishing up a translation of Pierre Leroux’s 1834 “Individualism and Socialism” for the first issue, which will also include a “miscellany” of early anarchist texts on individualism […]
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Announcing “LeftLiberty”

April 4, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
OK, folks. It’s time for me to start really working on the first issue of “LeftLiberty,” which I’m announcing for July 4 (about 5 weeks after I move). I’ve roughed out a logo and regular columns. You can check them out. This is the project that has grown out of the somewhat stillborn earlier discussion of an ALL zine. The plan is to “shake the debate from both ends,” by presenting original material from early 19th-century sources, much of it newly translated, along with contemporary responses to the same issues, from a range of anarchist and libertarian positions. I’ll be […]