Year: 2011

fiction

Han Ryner, The Revolt of the Machines (1896)

June 3, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Revolt of the Machines Han Ryner (Published in The Social Art No. 3 September 1896) Signed Henri Ner, 1896 In that time, Durdonc, Grand Engineer of Europe, thought that he had found the principle which would soon remove any human labor. But his first experiment caused his death before the secret was known. Durdonc had said: — The primitive forms of progress involved the invention of tools that allowed the hand to no longer be scraped and scratched and lose its nails in the work that must be done. The second form of progress was the organization of machines […]
Contr'un

Proudhon’s critics

June 1, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Contr’un Revisited: [commentary coming soon] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] As I’ve mentioned, I’m working on assembling—and in some cases, translating—responses to Proudhon’s work, with particular emphasis on those responses that really help to contextualize and illuminate that work. In some cases that means tackling head-on some of the thorniest problems posed by Proudhon’s method, the sheer bulk of his output, and, of course, his various failures as a consistent libertarian. The trajectories of my various Proudhon-related projects seem fairly obvious—to me at least. The thing I started with “The Gift Economy of Property” isn’t […]
Contr'un

Corvus Editions/research polls

May 31, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
If you look at the side-bar of the blog, you’ll find a poll, asking for input on what sorts of materials I should be giving priority in the Corvus Editions project. I’ve been running a similar poll on Facebook, but would like input from a broader audience. So far, translations seem to be the priority for my FB readers, and my own sense is that translations will continue to be a central focus of the project, so I’ve added another poll, directly below the first, about translation priorities.
Contr'un

Fundamental Principles of Socialism (1849)

May 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here’s another translation from the work of Proudhon’s associate, C.-F Chevé, the statement of principles from Le Socialiste : journal de l’égal-échange [The Socialist: Journal of Equal-Exchange], which he co-edited. This is taken from the first issue, July 1849. Some differences with Proudhon’s position will be immediately obvious, not the least of which is his tendency to use “anarchy” in the sense of disorder (although, to be fair, Proudhon and nearly all the anarchists of his generation also did this from time to time.) This “general account” is actually fairly lengthy, and was serialized over multiple issues. I’ve provided this […]
Contr'un

Proudhon, What is Government? What is God?

May 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
Proudhon’s essay “What is Government? What is God?” appeared first in the Voix du Peuple, November 5, 1849, then as the preface to The Confessions of a Revolutionary, as well as in the Melanges volumes of the Lacroix collected works. It was the occasion for one of the more important responses by Pierre Leroux—a response which seems to have influenced William Batchelder Greene.
Contr'un

Maxime Leroy, Stirner vs. Proudhon (1905)

May 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve posted a working translation of Maxime Leroy’s essay,  “Stirner vs. Proudhon,” which originally appeared in 1905 in La Renaissance latine. The essay is really not much about Proudhon, and is perhaps ambivalent in its approach to Stirner, but it is certainly interesting enough to have been worth the work.
Working Translations

Octave Mirbeau, Preface to Moribund Society and Anarchy

May 25, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Voltairine de Cleyre translated Jean Grave’s Moribund Society and Anarchy (1899; first published in French in 1893 as La Société mourante et l’Anarchie), though she admitted she was not in complete agreement with it. “As to the principal object of the work,” she said in her Preface, “that of furnishing an inclusive criticism of the institutions of our moribund society and the necessity of its speedy dissolution, I think any fair-minded reader will be convinced that it has been pretty thoroughly done. As to the “What next?” it is far less certain. With this, however, Jean Grave,—sturdy, patient, indomitable […]
manifestos

The Manifesto of the Sixteen (1916)

May 25, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
From various sides, voices are raised to demand immediate peace. There has been enough bloodshed, they say, enough destruction, and it is time to finish things, one way or another. More than anyone, and for a long time, we and our journals have been against every war of aggression between peoples, and against militarism, no matter what uniform, imperial or republican, it dons. So we would be delighted to see the conditions of peace discussed—if that was possible—by the European workers, gathered in an international congress. Especially since the German people let itself be deceived in August 1914, and if they really believed that they mobilized for the defense of their territory, they have since had time to realize that they were wrong to embark on a war of conquest.

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Black and Red Feminism

From “L’Opinion des Femmes,” August 1848

May 16, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
These two short articles by Désirée Gay (Jeanne Desirée Véret Gay, 1810-1891) appeared in the August 1848 issue of L’Opinion des Femmes, which seems to have been a kind of testing of the waters before the launch of the official “First Year” of the paper. That issue had been preceded by a 4-page “Prospectus,” written by Jeanne Deroin, and the paper was essentially a continuation of La Politique des Femmes, but there was still a certain amount of work to do setting the tone for the project, and Gay seems to have taken on much of that work in the […]
Contr'un

L’Opinion des Femmes, 1848-1849

May 16, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
The letter from Jeanne Deroin to Proudhon that I just posted appeared in French in L’Opinion de Femmes, a radical feminist journal edited by Deroin and Désirée Gay. The entire run of the paper can be found at Gallica, tucked away in one of the volumes of Les Révolutions du XIXe Siècle. L’Opinion des Femmes is great stuff, with material by Deroin, Gay, Jean Macé, C. F. Chevé, and “Jeanne Marie” (probably Jeanne-Marie-Fabienne Poinsard, aka Jenny d’Héricourt.) The beginnings of the feud between Deroin and Proudhon is documented. Expect to see a lot of translations from this paper over the […]