Month: February 2013

Bakunin Library

James Guillaume, “Proudhon: Communist” (1911)

February 26, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
This essay by James Guillaume is probably more historically significant than it is convincing, focusing as it does on one very early bit of Proudhon’s writing, but it is certainly an interesting interpretation. Proudhon: Communist At the basis of Proudhon’s economic theory we find two essential ideas, that of value and that of exchange. These two ideas are only of interest in the regime of individual property. in a communist society, in fact, one does not produce in order to sell, but to consume; the question of the exchange value of objects for consumption is thus no longer posed, as […]
Proudhon Library

Proudhon on the State in 1861

February 18, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
You might expect that Proudhon’s theory of the state would be most succinctly expressed in one of his essays on the subject of the state, like “Resistance to the Revolution” of the “Small Political Catechism.” There are certainly key elements of the theory there, and more in The Theory of Property, but the clearest explanation appears to be tucked away in Proudhon’s book on taxation. These are the relevant passages, and it is truly striking stuff: from The Theory of Taxation (1861) Relation of the State and Liberty, according to modern right. Modern right, by introducing itself in the place […]
Contr'un

If I had to guess…

February 13, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
…what was the single most important reason for “statism” becoming as prominent an anarchist keyword as it became in the early 20th century, I would have to go with Marxism. The term emerged as part of Bakunin’s account of the struggles within the First International, and seems to have finally gained prominence in in anarchist circles the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution. In the informal searching I’ve done in various digital archives the sudden increases in the use of the term line up very closely with the events.
Contr'un

Statism: It’s not just for dentists anymore…

February 12, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
The story of anarchist anti-statism turns out to have an unexpected wrinkle, in which that tale crosses another story of anarchists and terminology that is rather bizarre. In attempting to clarify Proudhon’s treatment of “government” and “the state,” it has been necessary to follow those terms through a rather large number of texts and context, which add up to a rather dizzying number of uses, in order to draw some general conclusions about the shift in Proudhon’s thought from what we might now think of as an anti-statist position to an analysis in which we find room for an anarchist state, but none for any governmental principle. Part of the difficulty has, of course, been the close association of anarchism with anti-statism in the present, which leads us to believe that Proudhon should have been an anti-statist, and leads us to take his strong critiques of the state, in texts like “Resistance to the Revolution,” as evidence that he was a foe of statism at first, and then changed his mind.

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Contr'un

A Notice and an Invitation

February 10, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m finishing up my layman’s introduction to Proudhon’s theory of the state, for a book to be published in German, and it has been very interesting, demanding work. It has reconfirmed for me the fascinating depths of Proudhon’s work, and the extent to which I’ve still really only begun to sound the most profound of them. It’s a pleasant sort of hard work, but I admit I won’t be sorry when I can put this part of it away. I suspect I will feel much the same about rest of the work for the Two-Gun Mutualism: Rearmed book. It will […]
Contr'un

Collective force and the problem of authority

February 4, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
God, philosophy says finally, is, from the ontological point of view, a conception of the human mind, the reality of which it is impossible to deny or affirm authentically;—from the point of view of humanity, a fantastic representation of the human soul raised to the infinite. — Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church In Proudhon’s writings we encounter the notion that what lies behind the most durable examples of authority—chief among them the famous pair, God and the State—is, in fact, collective force. It is our own force, the force of society or humanity, to which we […]
Bakunin Library

Michael Bakunin: A Biographical Sketch (London, 1862)

February 2, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
MICHAEL BAKUNIN. (A Biographical Sketch.) Bakunin is in London! Bakunin, buried in dungeons, lost in Eastern Siberia, re-appears in the midst of us, full of life and energy. Redivivus et ultor, we might say, with Pougatscheff, were not Bakunin and ourselves, too much occupied to waste time in thoughts of vengeance. Bakunin returns more hopeful than ever, with redoubled love for the Russian people. He is invigorated by the sharp, but healthy, air of Siberia. Is it that spring approaches? Old friends return to us from beyond the Pacific Ocean. How many images, how many shadows, rise from the dead […]
Bakunin Library

“The Working Man” of London greets Bakunin (1862)

February 2, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
MICHAEL BAKUNIN THE Committee of the “Working Man,” on Tuesday, the 7th of January, having been informed that Michael Bakunin had arrived in London, a deputation was appointed to go and present to this martyr of human progress an address of welcome. On Friday, the 10th, accordingly the deputation waited upon Alexander Herzen, the celebrated Russian exile and “publiciste,” who introduced them to Bakunin, surrounded by a goodly staff of Russians, Poles, &c, all friends of progress, united by the brotherly love for one common mother—Liberty. The following address was then read:— The Committee of the “Working Man” to the […]
Bakunin Library

M. Jourdain, “Mikhail Bakunin” (1920)

February 2, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN. BY M. JOURDAIN. “It is only by tracing things to their origin,” writes Paine in his Essay on Agrarian Justice, “that we can gain rightful ideas of them,” and the deepest foundations of the Russian Revolution owe much to the violence and perfervid genius of Bakunin, a name less frequently in the mouths of men than that of his adversary, Karl Marx. Marx, who recognized in himself a pioneer, comes within well-known categories, and his doctrines can be clearly tabulated, but Bakunin is more elusive. He was not, in any respect, leader of a party, nor founder of […]