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César De Paepe, “To the Anti-Collectivists” (1868)

February 13, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

COLLECTIVIST POLEMIC [1] I. — TO THE ANTI-COLLECTIVISTS. [aka THE LEGITIMACY OF THE SOCIALIZATION OF PROPERTY] Thanks to a dialectics put in the service of a method more often metaphysical than scientific (which it is necessary to avoid confusing with the historical and objective method of Karl Marx), Proudhon has discovered in the social world some laws that observation confirms more from day to day; it is, however, incontestable that hypothesis still plays an infinitely more considerable role in the works of that thinker and that often he has concluded a priori or from insufficient observations: witness the conclusions […]

Charles Keller, “A Memory of the ‘Marmite’” (1913)

February 13, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

A Memory of the “Marmite” ___ My dear Guillaume, You asked me for a few lines about Eugène Varlin, for the Vie Ouvrière. No one is my ready to honor the memory of that noble champion of the International; but in order to speak of him in a way that will interest the readers, I would have had to know him as a close friend. That was not the case with me. My friend Aristide Rey introduced me to him, toward the end of 1869, as a member of the Marmite, the cooperative restaurant that Varlin had just […]

Adhémar Schwitzguébel, “Collectivism” (First Letter) (1872)

February 12, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] COLLECTIVISM[1] Adhémar Schwitzguébel First article. Socialism first presented itself to the laboring classes in the form of different systems, each having its more or less numerous adepts, and each presenting itself as the infallible Gospel which must save society. These different socialist systems, hatched in the offices of speculative thinkers, have been succeeded by a much more popular socialism, which has been embodied in the International Workingmen’s Association. When we study the different socialist authors, we perceive straightaway that fantasy plays a considerable role in their writings; while the […]

From Proudhon’s “Political Capacity of the Working Classes”

February 12, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Political Capacity of the Working Classes was the last work prepared for publication by Proudhon prior to his death. It was written in large part as a response to the workers responsible for the “Manifesto of the Sixty,” and contains one of the most programmatic of his treatments of mutualism, as well as his last treatment of the question of electoral change. I’m working on a translation of the work, and here are two sections from that work, both by Gustave Chaudey, one of the group of friends who prepared Proudhon’s manuscripts for posthumous publication. The Preface explains the […]

A Million Words (Day 73)

February 11, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

My 365 days are 20% gone, and last night I passed the 200,000-word mark. So far, so good. Here are a few updates on the project: Recently, along with finishing up Charles Malato’s New Caledonian stories, I’ve posted an 1848 work by Claude Pelletier, Solution of the Problem of Poverty, and, “The Young Girl and the Bird,” a short story by Victoire Léodile Béra (aka André Léo) written under the name Victor Léo for Pierre Leroux’s journal La Revue Sociale. I’ve also finished a rough translation of Flora Tristan’s The Emancipation of Woman and am nearly through revising it. Work […]

Proudhon’s thought as a potentially transformative force within contemporary anarchism

February 11, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’m through the first couple of days, and I expect the bulk of the action, in a marathon week-long “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit’s DebateAnarchism forum. So far, it has been a surprisingly civil and instructive experience, and certainly an interesting way of testing out my rapprochement with the “mutualist” label. Many of the questions haven’t strayed far from the common questions of coexistence—”can theory X be compatible with theory Y“—or those concerning the basic concepts and vocabulary that dominate the usual capitalist vs. anti-capitalist debates, but, as I had hoped, there have been a few opportunities to break […]

André Léo, “The Young Girl and the Bird” (1850)

February 8, 2014 anarchisms_w4l2ii

It’s certainly no surprise to find work by André Léo in Pierre Leroux’s journal La Revue Sociale. The prolific writer, whose real name was Victoire Léodile Béra, was married to the editor, Grégoire Champseix. But much of her literary output was later, after Champseix’s death, and despite all the very interesting material that I have pulled from La Revue Sociale, I’ll admit that I have never been able to steal the time to give the journal all the attention I’m sure it deserves. So it was nice to find that members of L’Association André Léo have identified a number of […]

Letter from Bakunin to Albert Richard, March 12, 1870

February 2, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Parts of this letter have appeared in a variety of places, including James Guillaume’s history of the International, and a comrade was curious to see the rest of the text. Bakunin’s use of the term “anarchy” towards the end is very interesting.] Letter from Bakunin to Albert Richard, March 12, 1870 March 12, 1870, Geneva Dear friend and brother, Circumstances beyond my control prevent me from coming to take part in your great Assembly of March 13. But I would not want to let it pass without expressing my thoughts and wishes to my brothers in France. If I could […]

Working Translations

Charles Malato’s Tales of New Caledonia

February 2, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] At the age of seventeen, Charles Malato, the son of Paris communards, was exiled to New Caledonia with his parents. That’s perhaps a natural start for a life that would be largely dedicated to anarchism. Malato was an activist and a prolific writer, producing journalism, autobiography, anarchist theory, drama and fiction for both adults and children. It’s probably no surprise that New Caledonia features in a number of his writings, or that those writings bear the mark of a youth in the region. I’ve started to collect and translate some of Malato’s writings on New Caledonia, beginning with an […]

Charles Malato, “New Caledonian Tales” (1897)

February 1, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

New Caledonian Tales TALAMO [CHARLES MALATO] —— CHAPTER I A MYSTERIOUS CAPTAIN Old Martinot was a fine old man, and when he walked the streets of Saint-Ouen, straight as an “I” and smiling in his white beard, the housewives greeted him with deference and the gamins ran after him, shouting: “Hi, Captain Martinot! How are you, captain?” From whence came this nickname of “captain,” by which they had all come to call him? The good man had none of the slightly rigid appearance of old soldiers: he never wore a top hat, nor a straight collar clasped by a […]