Year: 2023

Anarchist Beginnings

The Three Eras (May 22, 1848)

April 15, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
What does anarchy mean in the streets, if not the absence of informers and armed police? But if, without armed police, without informers, without gendarmes, order reigns in the streets; if no one is robbed there, if no one is murdered there, if no one is insulted there, will the population not have proven that it can do without this power called gendarmes, police and municipal guards? Will it not have proven that it knows how to guard, protect and govern itself?

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Contr'un

Justice—and “Justice”—as the Center of Proudhon’s Work

April 9, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
Work on the translation of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and the Church continues steadily and is now well ahead of the schedule I had set myself, despite a bout of the still-lurking plague complicating matters in March. Today, I started translating the Fifth Study, on education and the draft files for the project contain roughly 411,000 words (1280 double-spaced pages) of new or previously unshared translation.

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French texts

Fifth study—L’Education—Parallel French

April 8, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
CINQUIÈME ÉTUDE DE L’ÉDUCATION À Son Éminence Mgr Matthieu, Cardinal-Archevêque de Besançon. I Monseigneur, Napoléon Ier dit dans ses mémoires : « Mon enfance n’eut rien de remarquable ; je n’étais qu’un enfant curieux et obstiné. » C’est justement ce que l’on peut dire de la plupart des enfants du peuple. Je m’étais toujours flatté, sous ce rapport, d’être au niveau de la multitude et du grand homme, et ne m’attendais pas que, sous l’inspiration de mon archevêque, un entrepreneur de biographies viendrait chercher dans l’insignifiance de mes premières années les symptômes de ce que, trente ans plus tard, en suivant obstinément le sillon […]
French texts

Fourth study—L’Etat—Parallel French

March 29, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
QUATRIÈME ÉTUDE L’ÉTAT   CHAPITRE PREMIER. Phénomène de l’instabilité des gouvernements. Antipathie de la conscience humaine pour le pouvoir. — Position du problème politique.   I ESSAIS D’UNE PHILOSOPHIE POPULAIRE. — N° 4. DE LA JUSTICE DANS LA RÉVOLUTION ET DANS L’ÉGLISE. —— QUATRIÈME ÉTUDE. L’ÉTAT. CHAPITRE PREMIER. Phénomène de l’instabilité des états. — Antipathie de la conscience humaine pour le gouvernement. — Origine du droit divin et de son équivalent, la souveraineté du peuple. — Exemple de la nation française. — Position du problème politique. Monseigneur, L’homme qui possède la foi est vraiment heureux : il ne doute de rien ; […]
Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “Solution of the Social Problem”

March 25, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Republic is the organization by which, all opinions and all activities remaining free, the People, by the very divergence of opinions and will, think and act as a single man. In the Republic, every citizen, by doing what they want and nothing but what they want, participates directly in the legislation and in the government, as they participate in the production and circulation of wealth. There, every citizen is king; for he has the fullness of power; he reigns and governs. The Republic is a positive anarchy. It is neither liberty subjected to order, as in the constitutional monarchy, nor liberty imprisoned in order, as the Provisional Government intends. It is liberty delivered from all its shackles: superstition, prejudice, sophistry, stock-jobbing, authority. It is reciprocal liberty, and not the liberty which restricts; liberty, not the daughter of order, but the mother of order.

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New Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “The Miserere” (1845)

March 25, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
On ordinary Sundays, for about three-quarters of the year, the Miserere serves as the introit, or, as one might say, the entrance to the mass. The celebrant, before making the lustral sprinkling, a ceremony preserved from the pagan ritual (among the Jews the sprinkling was done with blood), intones the seventh verse, Asperges me; the choir finishes the antiphon, and all the people respond: Miserere. Neither of them know what they are saying: isn’t it time to teach them?

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New Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “The Right to Work and the Right of Property” (1848)

March 23, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
Le droit au travail et le droit de propriété PROLOGUE Il est deux points sur lesquels j’ai besoin d’édifier mes lecteurs, et qui motivent cette publication. 1° Je n’ai pas pris la parole sur le droit au travail, lors de la discussion du préambule de la Constitution, d’abord parce que le droit au travail, tel qu’il m’est donné de le comprendre, étant repoussé par tout le monde, par la gauche révolutionnaire comme par la droite conservatrice, je n’avais rien de mieux à faire que de garder le silence ; — en second lieu, parce que je voulais profiter de l’occasion […]
New Proudhon Library

Third Study—Goods—Parallel English

March 20, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
[These draft translations are part of on ongoing effort to translate both editions of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church into English, together with some related works, as the first step toward establishing an edition of Proudhon’s works in English. They are very much a first step, as there are lots of decisions about how best to render the texts which can only be answered in the course of the translation process. It seems important to share the work as it is completed, even in rough form, but the drafts are not suitable for scholarly work or […]
New Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “Revolutionary Ideas” (1849)

March 17, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
These draft translations are part of on ongoing effort to establish an edition of Proudhon’s works in English. They are very much a first step, as there are lots of decisions about how best to render the texts which can only be answered in the course of the translation process. It seems important to share the work as it is completed, even in rough form, but the drafts are not necessarily suitable for scholarly work, particularly without consultation of the original French sources, and are not for publication elsewhere in their present state. A collection of draft translations of all […]
French texts

Third study—Biens—Parallel French

March 1, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
— Formatting in Progress — TROISIÈME ÉTUDE LES BIENS CHAPITRE PREMIER. Position du problème de la répartition des biens, ou problème économique.   I   DE LA JUSTICE DANS LA RÉVOLUTION ET DANS L’ÉGLISE. TROISIÈME ÉTUDE. LES BIENS. CHAPITRE PREMIER. Position du problème de la répartition des biens, oa problème économique. Monseigneur, Je suis vraiment désolé d’avoir à vous parler encore de M. de Mirecourt. Mais, je vous l’ai dit, M. de Mirecourt est un signe de l’époque : c’est tant pis pour l’époque. M. de Mirecourt reçoit les communications de l’épiscopat : tant pis pour l’épiscopat, Mon biographe débute en ces termes : « Pierre-Joseph… » — […]