Year: 2012

Anarchist Beginnings

Not just for pear-growers anymore

May 27, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
The anarcho-Fourierist renaissance continues. In “The Lesson of the Pear Growers’ Series,” I had suggested that there might still be some lessons to be learned from Charles Fourier’s approach to questions of individual passion, competition, etc. Unfortunately, “Note A,” which contains the most concise explanation of Fourier’s associative model, is not available (yet) in a public-domain translation online—and it is a bit of a stretch, at times, to make the analogies between growing pears (and apples, and quinces) and other sorts of labor we might actually be planning on engaging in. Fortunately, one of Fourier’s disciples wrote a work illustrating […]
Contr'un

Molinari’s “Soirées” in translation

May 27, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
Good translation news, with a tip of the hat to Roderick Long: the Liberty Fund will be publishing an English translation of Gustave de Molinari’s 1849 work, Les Soirées de la rue Saint-Lazare: entretiens sur les lois économiques et défense de la propriété (Evenings on Saint Lazarus Street: Discussions on Economic Laws and the Defence of Property), and a draft is already online. I think mutualists will find plenty here to disagree with, but it will be very useful to have a translation of the work available. So far, it seems very well done, and rather massively footnoted.
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier on Free Will — I

May 26, 2012
[ezcol_2third] FREE WILL ____ NOTICE ON THE TREATISE ON FREE WILL. ____ The Treatise on Free Will does not appear in the first edition of the Treatise on Universal Unity. It is the first of Fourier’s manuscripts delivered for publication since the death of the author. The notebooks left by Fourier are in general only preliminary sketches that he condensed and published when he published then. Quite a number of these manuscripts date from the period prior to the appearance of the first edition of the Treatise on Universal Unity (1822). The Treatise on Free Will is of this number. […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier on the Antienne, or first repast

May 26, 2012 anarchisms_w4l2ii
Charles Fourier and Charles A. Dana (translator), “An Unpublished Fragment of Fourier,” The Harbinger 3, no. 10 (August 15, 1846): 150-151. Charles Fourier [main page] AN UNPUBLISHED FRAGMENT OF FOURIER. Translated [by Charles A. Dana] from La Democratie Pacifique. Each repast of the day has a special character, a tone which prevails generally at the three classes of tables. I will confine myself to the description of the Antienne, or first repast, which takes place in the morning before leaving the palace. The Antienne cannot be made perfectly regular; — a beautiful disorder will distinguish it. As the hour of […]
Contr'un

The Splendors of the Combined Order

May 25, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve finally made a start at a blog-archive of material related to Charles Fourier, passional economy, attractive labor, etc. There is a real wealth of such material tucked away in the pages of various 19th century radical periodicals, and my own work is beginning to draw more directly on parts of the tradition, so it will be nice to have the relevant texts available for readers. It will be an on again, off again affair, but I think many of you will enjoy The Splendors of the Combined Order.
Contr'un

The Lesson of the Pear Growers’ Series

May 25, 2012
The Lesson of the Pear Growers’ Series (Commentary) Given the reputation of “classical” anarchists these days, it might be too much to ask anarchists to consider the lessons of those “utopian” socialists who came before. But I want to do just that. It is generally acknowledged that Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was influenced by Charles Fourier, whose Le Nouveau Monde Industriel et Sociétaire Proudhon helped to print in 1829. Fourier’s Theory of Four Movements found an echo in the theory of “four movements” which ends Proudhon’s De la création de l’ordre dans l’humanité, and less specialized versions of Fourier’s analysis of series […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier on the Papillon, or Butterfly Passion

May 25, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[A bit from Charles Fourier’s Passions of the Human Soul, dealing with dinner parties and the passion for variation, the papillon. Some of Fourier’s influence no doubt comes through in Stephen Pearl Andrews analogy of the dinner party.] According to the property common to the three distributives, the papillon is of two species, distinguished into contrasted and identical. 1st. The contrasted papillon arises from transitions from one extreme to another. For example: a company of sybarites, accustomed to sumptuous banquets, will eat with great pleasure in a cottage, rustic fare,—milk and fruit served up in earthern vessels; they will find […]
Utopian and Scientific

Gabriel-Desire Laverdant, “Of Property” (1846)

May 25, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
  FROM THE FRENCH OF “LA PHALANGE.” Translated for the Harbinger.   OF PROPERTY, AND THE VARIOUS LEGITIMATE MODES OF ACQUIRING IT. ——————- Attractions are proportional to Destinies. The Series distribute the Harmonies. ——————- FIRST SECTION. ATTRACTIONS. I. Unity, the Fundamental Principle. The theory of Association is true simply because it is true that Attractions are proportional to Destinies. It is upon Attractions that the great Social Architect has framed the edifice of our terrestrial destiny. In other words, the Phalanstery is made in the image of Man. What constitutes the supreme science of Fourier, is the thorough knowledge of […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier on the Pear-Grower’s Series

May 25, 2012 anarchisms_w4l2ii
This illustration of Fourier’s theory of the play of passional attractions and progressive series is something I have referred to in the past, in “The Lesson of the Pear-Growers’ Series.” Ian Patterson has done a lovely, complete translation of it for the Cambridge edition of The Theory of the Four Movements, but I’ve wanted for some time to spend enough time with the French to work up a usable translation of my own, since I expect to have recourse to the example again in forthcoming work. Working through Fourier’s prose is at once maddening and delightful, since there is frequently […]
Contr'un

Séverine — The Anarchists of Chicago

May 23, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE ANARCHISTS OF CHICAGO They have taken these four men full of life and health, cast over their shoulders the shrouds that shall, some few minutes later, wrap their twisted limbs, and hide their contorted faces—eyes bulging out of their orbits to punish them for having seen too far and too high into the future of humanity; tongues bulging from mouths, gags of purple flesh sealing forever these lips guilty of speaking of justice and truth! Their gait was unsteady, for their ankles were cut by the cords which hobbled their feet, as the legs of beasts are tied before […]