Month: November 2015

Contr'un

To “property” via “mutual extrication”

November 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been taking part in a C4SS-sponsored discussion of occupancy-and-use property norms, “Occupancy and Use: Potential Applications and Possible Shortcomings,” which is now appearing on the Center’s website. The exchange opened with a piece by Kevin Carson, “Are We All Mutualists?,” which suggests that perhaps the answer is “yes.” A series of responses will be posted every other day, with my “Neo-Proudhonian Remarks” already posted under the title “Limiting Conditions and Local Desires.” For me, this first response was an opportunity to talk again about the development of Proudhon’s thoughts on property, but also to return to the question of […]
Proudhon Library

Proudhon on “the American question”

November 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[from a letter to Gustave Chaudey, September 1, 1862.] On the American question, I can only tell you that my opinion changes every day; I have no faith in the philanthropy of the North; I do not accept that the federal Constitution prevents the separation; on both these connections, the English public is entirely turned around. Then there is the fact that the armies of the North experience failure upon failure; England, Belgium and France, devoured by pauperism, are clamoring for cotton; and if the imperial government, joining with a certain felicity the two questions of Mexico and the Confederates, […]