Year: 2023

New Proudhon Library

Proudhon, “Economy” (Ms. 18255, BnF, excerpts)

December 12, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
These writings come from a manuscript held by the French national library, with the title “Economy.” Like the other manuscripts with that title, it appears to be from the early 1850s. This particular set of writings are not presented in that wonderfully readable script that Proudhon used when finishing manuscripts. Quite the contrary, much of the material here is written in a baffling scrawl, which takes multiple examinations to decipher. So there are almost certainly small errors, as well as the obvious gaps. Use with care. [18r] Literature. What the scribblers have called grandeur and decadence in literature, and in […]
Featured articles

Proudhon, “The Philosophy of Progress” (revised and expanded translation)

December 10, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
Proudhon’s Philosophy of Progress is one of those books that has simply become part of my basic intellectual toolkit, but in ways that I often forget — at least until I read it again and re-encounter all the delightful ideas and turns of phrase it contains. Returning to it over the last week has been a pleasure, but I’ve also felt a bit pressured to wrap up the preliminaries and get on to the notes on Justice in the Revolution and in the Church.

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Featured articles

Proudhon, “The Celebration of Sunday” (revised and expanded translation)

December 3, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m a few days behind schedule getting the first notes on Justice together. Among other things, I’ve been trying to make the most of a narrow fall window to get our yard a little bit better adapted to changing conditions. But work is progressing. I should have test prints of the “text” editions of the first two volumes within a week, at which point I’ll make ordering copies an option for others, and I’ve been trying to shoehorn in the time to put together a companion volume collecting some pre-1858 texts that provide useful context.

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Featured articles

Readings in Popular and Practical Philosophy

November 23, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
With the translation of Proudhon’s Of Justice in the Revolution and in the Church now halfway through its first major revision, the time appears ripe for a more active sort of sharing of the text, in the form of a group reading. That is, however, no small task, given the length and complexity of the work — and the fact that I’m still wrestling the other half into shape, along with a variety of other related texts. So I’m going to try to take my cues from what work during the Constructing Anarchisms project, set myself a task that ought to facilitate the readings of others, establish some forums in which discussion is encouraged and then extend a general invitation to others to play along to whatever extend suits them.

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Contr'un

Notes on Anarchy and Hegemony in the Realm of Definitions

November 16, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
The notes that follow are preliminary, as I try to bring together a number of considerations regarding vocabulary, definition, theoretical clarity and such. They begin with some questions raised about the translation of Proudhon’s work, pass through a discussion of Proudhon’s own approach to the definition of key terms — which I hope will be useful as we begin reading and discussion of Justice in the Revolution and in the Church — and end with some general thoughts about anarchists’ engagement with the question of definition in the present.

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Featured articles

Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume Two: Translator’s Notes

November 1, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
I have now uploaded the second volume of my working translation of Proudhon’s Of Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, which includes the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Studies, the second part of the essay “Bourgeoisie and Plebs” and two passages from the 1858 edition not included in the revised edition. These are revised drafts, with most of the problem passages resolved, but, as with the first volume, some notes will probably help to orient readers.

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encyclopedia entries

Dictionary of Phalansterian Sociology — X-Z

October 24, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
X Emploi de la lettre x dans la théorie de la distribution sériaire. — La lettre X a été adoptée par Fourier pour désigner dans la distribution sériaire les groupes de pivot et de contre-pivot. X couché, le groupe de pivot de série. [><] X droit, indique le groupe de contre-pivot. N. 63 — Voir : signe, néologie. Use of the letter x in the theory of serial distribution. — The letter X has been adopted by Fourier to designate the pivotal and counter-pivotal groups in the serial distribution. X on its side, the pivotal group of the series. [><] […]
Contr'un

Practical explorations of mutual currency and credit

October 24, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
It’s always been a bit of a struggle striking a balance between elaborating general theory — which in the case of anarchist mutualism has often meant tracking down and/or translating the relevant works before commentary could even begin — and exploring the historical applications — which are more widely known, but often rather historical. As I’ve been working again a bit on the Contr’un collections, I’ve been reliving periods where there was a great deal more interest in the details of the various mutual banking schemes or the various applications of equitable commerce. At the same time, I have found […]
Bakunin Library

Sacher-Masoch, “Bakunin” (1888)

September 28, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
The only one who impressed me, among the agitators and leaders of the Slavs, at the pan-Slavist congress in Prague, was Mikhail Bakunin. Like all notable Russians of that time, he was from a good family, a gentleman, an officer, very educated, rich, and therefore absolutely independent, as were Pushkin, Lermontoff, Tourguéneff. He was not bothered by any material question and was not obliged to reckon with anyone. He could be the enthusiastic idealist he remained until the end of his days.

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New Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, Correspondence related to the Studies in Popular Philosophy

September 6, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
Under the general title of Popular Philosophy, I begin an indefinite series of publications on all sorts of subjects, history, literature, political economy, morals, biography, etc., men and things. All this judged, appreciated, explained, interpreted with the aid of the new philosophical principle, the highest and most fruitful, at once objective and subjective, idea and sentiment, law of man and law of nature, justice. Give me five years of this popularization, and I dare say that the public, today tired, disgusted, skeptical, will again take courage and conceive what a philosophical system is, a kind of encyclopedia, whose principle, law, method, end, means, is right.

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