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On human emancipation (1850)

January 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

P.-J. Proudhon, Carnets, Vol. 4, Carnet No. 8, P. 43-44. __________ The history of the human race has only been one long effort of the working classes to free themselves from tyranny and theft.– All government is tyrannical. All property is theft. All religion is mystification. [177] It seems that tyranny, theft and illusion are eternal in the human race. As for me I would dare to affirm otherwise! In any case, this is what takes place. That effort of emancipation is the very life of our species. – The economic order is beneath all that; and itself, steeped in […]

On the necessity of following the revolution

January 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[From Proudhon’s Carnets] Necessity of renouncing every utopia, every system, and of following the revolution. If not, nothing. There are Communists who still say every day: I am a communist first, a revolutionary after. — I have not, after February, proposed the abolition of property, although I have posited and confirmed on several occasions that proposition: Property is theft. Neither have I proposed to the equality of wages, of consumption, and of all goods: although I have constantly repeated that absolute equality is the law of society, because it is its tendency. That is because we do not make revolution […]

REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE.—Propositions (1851)

January 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Carnet 8, 322 REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE.—Propositions: Every revolution is caused by the displacement of interests; the oscillation of ideas; the exhaustion of an ideal. These three causes do not form a triad: the first two are correlatives of one another; — the 3rd is an addition of the mind: (the first two are objective; the 3rd subjective). The Ideal is the infinite in thought. It demands a real and intelligible basis. It strays from it endlessly. There is a tendency of the mind to give the ideal an ontological value apart from its basis; to affirm as reality what had at […]

Notes on the Malheur refuge occupation

January 7, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

I don’t do a lot of current events commentary here, but there are occasions where it seems both useful and necessary. What follows is notes drawn from my responses to the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, outside Burns, OR. They range from quips to more extended analysis and draw on my family connections to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, including a stint living on refuges much like Malheur in my extreme youth. I have tried not to rely on information that is not available elsewhere online. I’m posting the material because it has garnered interest on social […]

2015-16

January 1, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ll admit a fairly deep ambivalence about 2015. On the one hand, it was supposed to be the year when I cleared my desk of a stack of book projects, while, in the end, only one of those projects got wrapped up. On the other hand, that project turned into something much more interesting than I had originally envisioned, and all the other delays really come from the same source—me getting my ideas in order and growing into my role as a historian and anthologist. I set myself a challenge last year, that none of the works would go to […]

Anarchism, Plain and Simple

December 22, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ll do a proper year-end round-up sometime soon and talk about a number of changes coming to the Libertarian Labyrinth, but I’ll start with some updates on publishing and translating projects. If things have been fairly quiet on the blog, it’s because virtually all my time and energy has been invested in attempting to finish up the manuscript of Anarchist Beginnings: Declarations and Professions of Faith, 1840-1920 (the book previously known as Anarchies and Anarchisms.) And that project has been a learning (and unlearning, and relearning) experience on a scale that I couldn’t have imagined when I started it, […]

Notes on An-archy (Carnet No. 9)

December 21, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

[from Carnet No. 9] [19] Revolutionary practice. — The great principles of society are principles of DIRECTION, rather than of application. So obviously we must act in politics as if we were pursuing the complete destruction of all government, not as if, presently, every governmental force must cease. Similarly [in the case of], property is theft… Similarly [in the case of], God is the Devil… Similarly [in the case of], Association, the salariat, etc., etc. No authority either of government over man; it is the law of direction! — Thus, simplification, repeal of the laws, abrogation of authority, greater and […]

Association.—PENALTY, death penalty (Carnet No. 4, 1847)

December 12, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

P.-J. Proudhon, Carnets, Vol. 2, Carnet No. 4, P. 25-26. Association.—Penalty, death penalty. Its legitimacy. Identity of justice and vengeance (talion, expiation, penitence, excommunication, etc.); Hatred, natural passion, legitimate and holy! Zelus domus tuæ comedit me! said Elijah. It is the hatred of the miscreant. To hate is to desire the death of someone, their retrenchment, they’re a long month. To hate is to wish the death of someone, their removal in some way. Man naturally, legally and honestly hates everything that harms him or does him ill: injustice, rudeness, ingratitude, discord, guile, perfidy, coarseness, dirtiness, cruelty, despotism, folly, mockery […]

Proudhon on Land Value Taxation

December 2, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

[This was written for the C4SS mutual exchange on occupancy-and-use land tenure and refers to the recently posted “General Summary” from The Theory of Taxation.] NOTE ON PROUDHON AND LAND VALUE TAXATION Those who have read all the contributions to this conversation so far might well marvel at how many different Proudhons had been invoked in its course. I think all of us are still in the blind man and the elephant stage with Proudhon, to some extent at least. His writings pose remarkable difficulties, beginning with the difficulty of even knowing what genre of writing we are dealing with […]

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 […]