Month: March 2018

From the Archives

Henry Seymour, “The Whereabouts of Communist Logic” (1895)

March 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third] Debate on Proudhon and property: [/one_third][two_third_last] THE WHEREABOUTS OF COMMUNIST LOGIC. To the Editor of Liberty. Failing a superfluity of copy, I send you a line or two in conclusion upon L. S. B.’s extraordinary effusion in the June number, such as I have gathered the patience to pen, for I am in no mood to follow her unprofitable pastime of splitting hairs. I defined the word “right” for the purpose of this discussion, as an individual limitation to appropriation, such limitation being set by an equality of opportunity. I furthermore held that this constituted the sole case for […]
From the Archives

L. S. Bevington, “The Whereabouts of Property Ethics” (1895)

March 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third] Debate on Proudhon and property: [/one_third][two_third_last] THE WHEREABOUTS OF PROPERTY ETHICS By L. S. BEVINGTON. In Mr. Seymour’s useful rejoinder (see April No.) to my recent survey of his position, he charges me with “sophistry.” Which may pass: readers will judge. The present article concludes my share in this particular controversy, and before saying farewell to my courteous opponent, it may be well to draw our mutual readers’ attention to the valuable verbal concessions we free communists have obtained from him. The preliminary questions have been answered precisely in the fashion that was to be foreseen. They were awkward […]
poetry

P. E. Tanner, “The Rules” (1914)

March 14, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] THE RULES (With apologies to Edgar Allan Poe) I. Life is now beset with rules— Irksome rules That are framed by different bureaucratic legislative schools. How they mind us and they bind us In this regulative age, How they irritate and grind us Till it’s possible to find us In an unrestricted rage; And we curse, curse, curse, As our wrath grows worse and worse, At the fiendish machinations of the regulative fools, With their rules, rules, rules, rules, Rules, rules, rules— With their overtaxing, unrelaxing rules!   II. Then those “god old-fashioned rules,” Golden rules! How successfully they’ve […]
progress reports

Saverio Merlino, “Dangerous Fallacies” (1896)

March 14, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Dangerous Fallacies. Anarchists, whether individualistic or communistic, and even some Social Democrats, are fond of speaking of the “absolute sovereignty of the individual,” and they claim for each individual “free access to the means of production.” “Let everybody do whatever he likes,” they say, and the implication is that society will then be organized to perfection, or rather that it will do without organization, individuals will agree or disagree, groups will cooperate spontaneously, without any coercive power, without any settled plan, and without any permanent individual initiative. Every man will go to his work, will choose his own accord […]
fiction

Henry Seymour, “The Monomaniacs” (1895)

March 13, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] THE MONOMANIACS: A FABLE IN FINANCE. Once upon a time there lived in the moon a race of people who subsisted principally by eating one another. In course of time their numbers became so diminished that they viewed with alarm the approaching extinction of their species. But the first law of nature sufficiently asserted itself to induce them to relinquish cannibalism except as a luxury, and by degrees they went to fishing, to pasturage and husbandry, ultimately developing a rude system of commodity production. By and by they found hand-labor to be excessively tiresome, and although they worked from […]
Anarchist Beginnings

W. C. Owen, “Anarchism” (1895)

March 13, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] ANARCHISM. 1.—Do Anarchist-Communists believe in the common ownership of land and capital? I myself do not; that is to say, I certainly do not believe in making such ownership compulsory. Whether common, or private ownership shall prevail under Anarchism, is merely a question of detail. The principle is individual freedom; equal liberty to every man, woman, and child to develop all that is in him or her, and to have access to the life-opportunities necessary for such development; i. e. freedom of production, and of distribution or exchange, which is, of course, only the final process of production. This—freedom […]
From the Archives

Bevington and Seymour, “The Prejudice against Property” (1895)

March 13, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third] Debate on Proudhon and property: [/one_third][two_third_last] The Prejudice against Property. To the Editor of Liberty. The main objections to the property idea which stand out clearly in L. S. Bevington’s contribution in the last issue, are two. One is that “there exists no individual producer”; the other, that the ownership of the product of one’s labour is essentially “an instrument of rulership and power over the opportunities of others.” (1) It is patent to everyone that the “individual producer” of a commodity merely puts the finishing touch, so to speak, to a mass of labor performed by other hands. […]
progress reports

Gérard de Lacaze-Duthiers, “The True Revolutionaries” (1922)

March 10, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
The true revolutionaries have always been, in all times and all countries, those whose minds have been broad enough to grasp the most conflicting formulas, to extract from each of them the portion of truth that they contain and to attempt to reconcile them in a higher harmony. The “revolutionaries” are not always those whom we designate by that name: instead, these often deserve the epithet of “reactionaries,” as their acts entirely justify.

[…]

Proudhon Library

Proudhon, Justice: Eighth Study

March 10, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] PROUDHON LIBRARY home page Justice in the Revolution and in the Church (in progress):: Popular Philosophy: Program [draft] First Study: Position of the Problem of Justice Second Study: Persons Third Study: Goods Fourth Study: The State [excerpts] Fifth Study: Education Sixth Study: Labor Seventh Study: Ideas Eighth Study: Conscience and Freedom [excerpts] Ninth Study: Progress and Decadence Tenth Study: Love and Marriage Eleventh Study: Love and Marriage (continued) Twelfth Study: Moral Sanction [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] CHAPTER V Nature and function of liberty. XXXI. Let us finish first with the ambiguity which, on this […]
anarchist individualism

E. Armand, “Qu’est-ce qu’un Anarchiste?” (1908)

March 9, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
E. ARMAND Qu’est-ce qu’un Anarchiste ? Theses et Opinions. J’expose, je propose, je n’impose point. E. A. La société actuelle. — Les réformateurs de la société. — L’anarchiste et la société. — L’anarchiste et les réformateurs de la société. — Les chrétiens et les anarchistes. — L’anarchiste envisagé comme réagissant contre la société. — Volonté de vivre et volonté de se reproduire. — L’effort et la joie de vivre. — L’anarchiste envisagé comme réfractaire sur le terrain économique. — De la vie comme expérience. — Les anarchistes considérés comme espèce et la camaraderie. — Les inconséquences des anarchistes. — De la […]