Month: June 2014

Contr'un

The Capitalist, the Prince, the Père de famille, and the alternative

June 23, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
It is common to debate whether anarchists attach too much importance to the struggle against capitalism vs. the struggle against statism, or to either or both of those vs. the struggle against patriarchy and other forms of oppression. But how much difference is there really between the various struggles? Without downplaying various real differences, I want to suggest that the oppressions involved at least share a dynamic familiar to students of Proudhon’s work, with the result that a commitment to some very basic aspects of Proudhon’s anarchism ought to simultaneously set us against capitalism, statism, and the patriarchy (to start […]
Proudhon Library

Catechism of Marriage

June 22, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
CATECHISM OF MARRIAGE [from Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, New Edition, Vol. IV] Question. — What is the conjugal couple? Answer. — Every power of nature, every faculty of life, every affection of the soul, every category of the intelligence, needs an organ, in order to manifest itself and act. The sentiment of Justice can be no exception to that law. But Justice, which rules all the other faculties and surpasses liberty itself, not being able to have its organ in the individual, would remain for man a notion without efficacy, and society would be impossible, if […]
Proudhon Library

The Extremes

June 18, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
Ms. 18255—Économie. [Gallica] The Extremes. Avoid the extremes, and seek the happy medium, says the Wisdom of the Nations. That aphorism, of course, is very true: but it must be well understood. It is up to philosophy to look into it and demonstrate it. I say that every extreme, in itself, is false and implies a contradiction; but by extreme I mean the element constitutive of every synthesis, an element to which it does not [ ], which constitutes it [i.e. synthesis] that much better as it is found employed more energetically. Thus, the proprietor is a constitutive element of […]
Proudhon Library

Moral Education

June 17, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
MORAL EDUCATION [Undated fragment from Ms. 2871, Ville de Besançon]   I always see the fathers of families, sufficiently enlightened regarding the value of religious fables, worry nonetheless about the Education to give their children, and ask on what the moral principles that they will be taught will rest. Morals and superstition have been so thoroughly mixed together that the majority of men do not manage to separate them, and, for them, to destroy the latter it is always a matter of compromising the former. I am an honest man, says a father, and I know where I stand on […]
Contr'un

Avengers who never assemble

June 13, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
Related text: “My Testament, or Society of Avengers” (FR/EN, partial translation) [click image] “By what sign shall we recognize that an individual who has been struck has been struck by the society of avengers? If the victim is notorious depraved, or corrupt, or criminal, or villainous; if they are an enemy of the people; if their political importance  corresponds to their criminality; if a sign is left on the corpse; if they are not stripped or robbed; if no author of the murder can be assumed from self-interest, rivalry, etc.” A notorious enemy of society is struck down and a […]
Contr'un

What if?

June 9, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] The Great Atercratic Revolution [tag feed] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] If we’re doing really radical history, it’s hard not to engage in some “What is”? Much of the attraction of knowing the details of the radical movements of the past is the possibility that we’ll find tools and lessons useful in the present and future. And we can’t very well limit ourselves to examining the successes of the past, since without a little of that “if at first you don’t succeed…” spirit, there wouldn’t seem to be much point in trying to be radical […]
Contr'un

May 31, 1874

June 5, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] The Great Atercratic Revolution [tag feed] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] A 16-year-old Jack Deames has just been introduced to Henri Rochefort, Paris Communard and escapee from New Caledonia. He shakes the famous hand, mumbles something and retreats. Although young, he has shown the sort of youthful enthusiasm and energy that sometimes gets you introduced as a representative of the next generation. Rochefort is both familiar and largely unknown. Jack’s world is full of stories about the Paris Commune and its protagonists. He has been aware of Rochefort’s escape and journey, and vaguely aware of […]
Proudhon Library

Dividing “Pologne”

June 2, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
It appears that even when writing about Poland, Proudhon ultimately tended toward division. While much of the work of the last few years of his life seems to have been connected to the work on Poland, of which The Theory of Property was an important element, when we look at the notes he left to his literary executors, we see that the manuscript of Pologne, as it has been passed down to us, was ultimately destined to be split into two works: The History of Poland and Political Geography and Nationality. Based on a table of contents included in the […]
Proudhon Library

Proudhon’s “Pologne” and the federative project of the 1860s

June 2, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
  “Ma Théorie fédérative est déjà un fragment enlevé à mon travail polonais; la Propriété sera le second…” “My Federative Theory is already a fragment lifted from my Polish work; the [Theory of] Property will be the second…” (Letter to Grandclément, Nov. 17, 1863) One of the nearly miraculous effects of the recent manuscript digitization projects at the International Institute of Social History and the Ville de Besançon has been a sudden and dramatic change in the kinds of questions we can wrestle with, with real hope of success, without international travel or expensive duplication of materials. For me, it […]
Contr'un

The Character and Scope of the Mutualist Market

June 2, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
A Short History of Mutualism: Mutualism (The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism) Scattered Reflections on Mutualism as “Market Anarchism:” Mutualism and “Market Anarchism” (2012) Encounters and Transactions (2013) The Character and Scope of the Mutualist Market (2014) Embracing the Antinomies (2017) Notes on Mutualism and the Problem(?) of Exchange (2019) Note on Mutualism and the Market-Form (2020) Collective Force: Notes on Contribution and Disposition (2020) Historical Mutualist Texts and Proposals: What Mutualism Was (project outline) One of the traditional elements of mutualism that seems to endure is the attraction of what we lovingly call “money crankery.” I’m not sure that there […]