Year: 2012

Contr'un

Bolton Hall, “Separate From Sinners” (1899)

September 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I said: “I will separate myself from the world, O Lord. My soul is white, and I am weary of the sins of men.”  God said: “Your hands are red. How came your soul so white?”  I answered: “Lord, it is a bloody world; and generations of men have suffered from their sins. I have profited by their errors. Have I not seen how evil spots the soul? I have kept mine white.”  “Are all your brethren’s souls now white? ” said God.  I hung my head.  “Go back to your work”; said God. “you have learned in their pains, […]
Contr'un

Varieties of Proprietors: Lovers, Husbands, and Mother Hens

September 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
SIDEBAR Le propriétaire qui épargne empêche les autres de jouir sans jouir lui-même ; pour lui, ni possession ni propriété. Comme l’avare, il couve son trésor il n’en use pas. Qu’il en repaisse ses yeux, qu’il le couche avec lui, qu’il s’endorme en l’embrassant : il aura beau faire, les écus n’engendrent pas les écus. Point de propriété entière sans jouissance, point de jouissance sans consommation, point de consommation sans perte de la propriété : telle est l’inflexible nécessité dans laquelle le jugement de Dieu a placé le propriétaire. Malédiction sur la propriété! Back in April 2010, in a post […]
Contr'un

From the neo-Proudhonian blogosphere

September 23, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
Over at Mutualism and Solutions to the Social Problem, Derek has posted a new essay: “A Letter to Communists and Capitalists of the Libertarian Form.” And David at Blazing Truth has posted a “New Mutualist Manifesto.” Both are ambitious attempts to pull together diverse elements from the mutualist tradition and contemporary theory. Give them a look.
Contr'un

Jean Grave, The Adventures of Nono — Chapter V

September 23, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE ADVENTURES OF NONO by JEAN GRAVE [continued from Chapter IV]   V GLUTTONY PUNISHED The castle that the children headed towards stood on a broad, well-sanded esplanade, cut through large lawns, some of which were planted with trees. Under these trees those not at work harvesting fruit, or milking cows, had set some large, square tables, which, this evening, in honor of the new arrival, on been arrange end to end, but were ordinary set up apart from one another, covered with fine tablecloths, bearing plates and dishes embellished with simple designs in raw tones. Chairs indicated the place […]
fiction

Paschal Grousset, “The Dream of an Irreconcilable” (1869)

September 21, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] I’ve posted a working translation of Paschal Grousset’s 1869 The Dream of an Irreconcilable, an odd little political “utopia” of sorts, which begins with the narrator falling asleep over his newspaper, as he reads the new revisions to the French constitution, explores in a novel fashion some of the details of a rather Paris Commune-like post-revolutionary future, and then ends with one last jab at the current regime. Translation is, in this case, simply the first step in making the work intelligible, since it is full to overflowing with topical […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, Cardinal and the Principal Movements in the Harmony of the Universe

September 16, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FOURIER. I am aware that it is very humiliating for an age in possession of so much physical and mathematical science, to be branded with ignorance concerning other branches of knowledge; to be openly accused of entertaining false notions on many subjects, and of not being initiated even in the most elementary details of several very important sciences; such, for instance, as the four following:— Industrial Association. Passional Attraction. Aromal Mechanism. Universal Analogy. If the pride of modern learning feel offended at this sweeping declaration, let it reflect upon the following table of distinctions in the branches of universal unity; […]
Contr'un

Proudhon, women, and the “organ of justice”

September 15, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
  Back in March, 2010, at the end of the essay “Two-Gun Mutualism and the Golden Rule,” I promised to delve deeper into the question of Proudhon’s writing on women and the family—a promise I’m in the midst of fulfilling in a series of essays destined for the second issue of The Mutualist—and in July of this year I posted a working translation of Proudhon’s “Catechism of Marriage”—a provocative act which apparently provoked nobody, judging from the resounding near-silence. (One friend did say “worse than I expected.”) There’s no question that, in many ways, the “Catechism” is pretty awful, in […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, Framework for the Integral Study of Nature

September 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FOURIER ON THE UNITY OF SYSTEM IN UNIVERSAL NATURE. Modern sophists, particularly in France, have generally aimed at explaining the unity of system which is remarkable in universal nature, and yet the philosophical world never was farther removed from the right line of study on this subject than at present. There is hardly a correct idea abroad concerning the fundamental basis of universalism or general unity, which may be thus resumed:— Unity of man with man, Unity of man with God, Unity of man with the universe. In this book it will be demonstrated that philosophers have either purposely or […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, The Critical State of Civilization (2 of 2)

September 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FOURIER, ON THE CRITICAL STATE OF CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE. There never was a greater want of useful discoveries in the civilized world than at present. Society is now afflicted with four disastrous elements of a comparatively modern date, which aggravate the primithve causes of human suffering. These modern elements of social misery are, 1. The new pestilence and its complications.[1] 2. The insalubrious effects of injudicious culture and the destruction of Forests. 3. The permanency of revolutionary ferment4. The alarming increase of public debts and stock-jobbing speculation. This quadruple plague proves that civilization and refinement are progressing like the lobster, […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, The Critical State of Civilization (1 of 2)

September 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[This section from The Treatise on Domestic-Agricultural Association immediately follows the material already posted from The Morning Star. It appeared in the November 25, 1840 issue (No. 6) of that paper.] FOURIER ON THE CRITICAL STATE OF CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE. ELEMENTS OF DECLINE IN THE POLITICAL WORLD.. The most recent and the most remarkable elements of decline in the political organization of society in Europe, are, national debts and revolutions, which generate each other. Our political doctors have hitherto failed in devising remedies for these social evils. As a check on the prodigality of national expenditure and the increase of […]