Year: 2008

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Proudhon’s “last word”

July 3, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve engaged in what I hope is a helpful reversal here—the reversal of a reversal, actually. In Chapter One of What Is Property? Proudhon wrote, “I think best to place the last thought of my book first,” and declared himself within his rights. I, on the other hand, have gone to some trouble to push that “last thought” back a bit. My reasons are simple: the phrase “property is robbery” is the one thing we all “know” about the work, and it is something of a distraction, particularly as there are some difficulties in knowing what it means in the […]
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Proudhon seminar: Onward!

July 2, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Links to the main discussion list and project page are now in the sidebar. Please join the list if you want to take advantage of the discussion. -shawn] Plan of Attack As I said, I would like to start my discussion of the material with Chapter 5, Part II, Section 3. I intend to deal with that final section in two posts, taking them in reverse order: 1) Proudhon’s ten point program (below)2) The nature of “liberty” I’ll follow that with some discussion of Chapter One, Proudhon’s discussion of method, probably on Thursday. By that time, I hope to have […]
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Proudhon seminar: Initial thoughts

July 2, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Proudhon’s What Is Property? poses a variety of interpretive problems, not the least of which is that its careful series of examinations of the various justifications for simple, individual property are frequently overshadowed by the slogan, “Property is robbery!” That phrase remained important to Proudhon, even after he came to his own terms with property. “I do not come to retract,” he said in May, 1848, “heaven forbid! I persist in regarding this provocative definition as the greatest truth of the century.” However, in the same “Toast to the Revolution,” he clarified the nature of the statement: “When I say, […]
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Un commerce équitable est-il possible ?

July 1, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
The new issue of the French-language Offensive bears the title “Un commerce sans capitalisme.” It asks the question: “Et si le commerce et l’échange étaient indissociables de la création de véritables espaces de résistance ?” / “And if commerce and exchange were inseparable from the creation of real spaces of resistance?” This one looks well worth tracking down. (Hat tip to the Research on Anarchism list.)
Proudhon Library

J.-A. Langlois, “P.-J. Proudhon: His Life and His Works” (1875)

July 1, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Tucker translation of What Is Property? is prefaced by a translation of J. A. Langlois’ “P. J. Proudhon: His Life and Work,” the biographical introduction to Proudhon’s collected Correspondence. Tucker includes a disclaimer regarding Langlois’ account: In the French edition of Proudhon’s works, the above sketch of his life is prefixed to the first volume of his correspondence, but the translator prefers to insert it here as the best method of introducing the author to the American public. He would, however, caution readers against accepting the biographer’s interpretation of the author’s views as in any sense authoritative; advising them, […]
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What Is Property? seminar

July 1, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
As announced, I’ll be doing a close reading of Proudhon’s first memoir from What Is Property? during the month of July, and I am inviting one and all to read along. I have set up a discussion list and wiki page on the anarchylist.org site. Please subscribe to the list if you are interested in participating in the main discussion. If you’re not up to that kind of commitment, I will be posting material on this blog, and compiling a running list of seminar-related material on the wiki page. My ambitions for the reading are fairly simple: I would like […]
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Infoshop / bookstore economics

June 24, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Let me put on one of my other hats for a second: Well, it didn’t take long for me to get involved with a bookstore in Portland. I seem to be well on my way to joining the collective at Laughing Horse Books, a radical bookstore with an ideologically diverse inventory and staff. Like pretty much all independent bookstores, Laughing Horse is trying to figure out how to adapt to present conditions, keep the wolves at bay, be useful in a perplexing political climate, etc. After visiting my first collective meeting, I found myself right back in the mode I […]
individualism

LeftLiberty extra: Individualism vs. Socialism, c. 1900

June 17, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
The historical material in LeftLiberty #1 will be drawn primarily from the individualism/socialism debate of the mid-19th century, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that, if we take our cues from any much later iteration of the debate, we find ourselves faced with the sort of simple opposition of entrenched positions that I suspect many of us would like to get past. However, in the interest of completeness, I offer what is perhaps the exemplary “exchange” of the Talking Past One Another Era: Ernest Belfort Bax, sometime collaborator of William Morris, vs. Henry Wilson, of the […]
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Mutualschool Open Classroom Event #1

June 8, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Mark your calendars: July 1-14, mutualschool.org will be hosting its first educational event, a close look at the first memoir of Proudhon’s What Is Property? I’m preparing an annotated wiki version of the texts, a series of notes and “lectures” on various aspects of the text, and some short translations from related works. Proudhon’s first work on property was not his final word on the matter, and it was written at a time when he was still developing his understanding of the issues involved. There are, I think, some pretty serious problems with the text. It is, nonetheless, and deservedly […]
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Countdown to Relaunch!

June 6, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Well, I reached the Pacific Northwest yesterday, patched things up with the cats (who flew out five days ago) and am waiting for my library and computers to arrive. I had a chance to putter away at some translation of Bellegarigue’s second issue of Anarchy: A Journal of Order on the train. I dragged the paper files for LeftLiberty with me in an old salesman’s specimen case that serves as a mobile file cabinet, so I can get back to work on that today. I’ve been rearranging a lot of projects, trimming some obsolete stuff, incorporating old efforts into new […]