Year: 2014

Bakunin Library

Bakunin’s recollections of youth

May 29, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
Max Nettlau Contributions to the biography of Mikhail Bakunin La Société nouvelle, 1896 INTRODUCTORY REMARK It is only in these last two or three years that a mass of previously unknown documents, published for the first time, have begun to shed light on the lesser-known parts of Bakunin’s life, and even for the portions of that life that we believed sufficiently well known, an abundance of new and surprising facts present themselves. We cite, save the publications of theoretical writings after some manuscripts or rare publications, only the study of his relations with Byelinsky (by Milioukoff), the great correspondence with […]
French texts

Léon Abensour, “Proudhon et la Pologne” (1920)

May 23, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m in the midst of a line-by-line comparison of the manuscript of The Theory of Property with the published version, as a step towards revising my draft translation and starting to get the work into publishable shape. Because The Theory of Property was initially intended to be part of a larger work, Pologne (Poland) I’ve been spending some time looking at the larger work in order to establish the context. (See my post on Proudhon’s “Pologne” and the federative project of the 1860s.) Much of that work involves working my way through Proudhon’s handwritten manuscripts, but a short section of […]
Glossary

Contr’un

May 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
Links: A Contr’un Glossary Basically, the Contr’un is the star of the show here, the Whitmanesque subject who contains multitudes and is not contained between hat and boots, who spills out over all the property lines we might draw, at the same time drawing the world in without attempting to claim exclusive domain. It is the subject understood in its general economy. It is an individual characterized by an antinomic relationship with its own individuality, a counter-self, the one against the (absolutist) One. It is frustrating, messy (at least in the context of our attempts to draw clean boundaries, improper […]
Contr'un

Who is the Contr’un?

May 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Basically, the Contr’un is the star of the show here, the Whitmanesque subject who contains multitudes and is not contained between hat and boots, who spills out over all the property lines we might draw, at the same time drawing the world in without attempting to claim exclusive domain. It is the subject understood in its general economy. It is an individual characterized by an antinomic relationship with its own individuality, a counter-self, the one against the (absolutist) One. It is frustrating, messy (at least in the context of our attempts […]
Contr'un

Meta-ethics of reciprocity

May 18, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
Since the discussion about mutualism began to shift from economics to ethics and sociology, there have been lots of questions, and a few accusations, about the specific ethical framework involved. Let me cut to the chase: I’m not particularly concerned about whether anarchists are driven by deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, etc. Personally, I’m a ethical pragmatist, and I think Proudhon, with whom I’ve obviously found plenty of common ground, was as well. I think a thoroughly anarchistic account of the good and the right is likely to pretty closely resemble Proudhon’s account of the true. And maybe someday I’ll take […]
Proudhon Library

New tools at the Proudhon Library wiki

May 10, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
With all of the new material available online recently, it has been necessary to update some of my bibliographical resources. I’ve added a Chronological Bibliography page to the wiki, with links to most of Proudhon’s major works, and most of the major manuscripts, that are available online. I’ve also update the Responses to Proudhon page, which is a sort of catch-all of critical responses, biographies and commentaries, focused on material from Proudhon’s own lifetime. Expect regular updates on both pages, as long as new material keeps appearing online.
Contr'un

Moving forward with “The Theory of Property”

May 10, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: [commentary coming soon] [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] I’ve been spending some quality time with the manuscript of Proudhon’s The Theory of Property, now that it is available through the Ville de Besançon site, and it’s been a fascinating experience. Having spent a lot of time with the published version over the last few years, there were a lot of moments when I could look at a page and, once I had deciphered the handwriting, could immediately place the manuscript material in the published work. On my first pass through, the page where Proudhon proclaims that “Humanity proceeds by approximation” […]
Uncategorized

Rebuilding the Labyrinth

May 7, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
Over the almost twenty years (!) since the first version of the Libertarian Labyrinth archive went online, the various elements of my decentralized archive have become truly labyrinthine, with bits and pieces spread over blogs and wikis, as well as the newish Omeka library. There was always a sort of exploratory method to my madness. I’ve never been entirely convinced that people surfing the web really pay that much attention to central portals and front pages, and I’ve also been curious to separate out certain elements of my work to see how they fared on their own. I have always […]
Proudhon Library

Property? It’s just a phase… (Proudhon to the Academy of Besançon, 1840)

May 3, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
This response by Proudhon to the Academy of Besançon fills in a bit of the story told in the introduction to What is Property? I’ve been tracking down some of these bits and pieces in order to establish more of the context for that work, as we get ready to do a group reading of the text. This letter has at least one unintentionally funny bit, when Proudhon explains that this property stuff is just a passing interest. Besançon, August 3, 1840 TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMY OF BESANÇON Gentlemen, I have learned through the confidences of some of […]
biography

Amilcare Cipriani, “A Woman” (1902)

April 27, 2014
A WOMAN Nature had been kind in bestowing her gifts on her; beauty, goodness, strength, will and energy, she possessed all these in the highest degree. She might have been happy, she chose instead to embrace and devote herself, to the “cause” which spreads fear amongst cowards and governments. Life had just commenced to smile on her, when the Italian war of Independence broke out. Three of her brothers took up arms to deliver their enslaved motherland. She had already been asked in marriage, but refused. “I cannot think of marriage,” said she, “while my brothers are risking their lives […]