Blog - Page 198 of 286 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

The Mutualism.info Dilemma

July 6, 2012

I’ve hardly started, and there are already some criticisms and concerns about what is is and isn’t going to get covered here. My hope is to eventually cover a wide range of historical, theoretical and practical questions—and, where appropriate, to deal with elements of the traditions both historically (to get us on a firm footing) and critically. It’s useful, for example, to know how William B. Greene adapted Proudhon’s proposals, and the colonial land bank model, to the needs of his audience in 19th century New England. But most of my readers are probably, like me, not in a position […]

Mutualism.info blog

July 4, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

With the contemporary mutualist revival a complex, more or less divided work-in-progress, there are very few easy introductions to mutualism. And there are lots of folks asking to be introduced. It is certain that this blog has become very deep waters. So, with some fear and trepidation, I have begun condensing material from here into a substantially more manageable size and shape, and have begun to post them to a new blog: Mutualism.info.

The Golden Rule as a practical guide

July 4, 2012

I have been using the following paragraph on the Two-Gun Mutualism blog for some time now: Mutualism is not a specific social, political or economic system. Mutualism as such is simply the assertion that every meaningfully social relation will have the form, at base, of an anarchic encounter between unique individuals—free absolutes—no matter what layers of convention we pile on it. To the extent that our conventions, institutions and norms respect that basic premise, we can call them “mutualist.” To the extent that we commit ourselves to viewing our relations through this lens, and exert ourselves in the extension of […]

The Mutualist’s Dilemma

July 4, 2012 anarchisms_w4l2ii

Contr’un Revisited: This post originally appeared as the introduction to the Mutualism.info site. As the text suggests, that project was an attempt to focus on what could be said about mutualism in general, while other blogs pursued lines of inquiry that were different and generally more partisan. Two-Gun Mutualism and the Golden Rule, the blog that would become Contr’un, was the most important of those other blogs. There, I was in the midst of a very serious encounter with property theory and just beginning a more serious engagement with Proudhon’s work. The logic of spinning off an introductory blog, as […]

Society for the Mutual Education of Women, “Response to Satan on the Subject of Mr. Proudhon”

July 4, 2012

[When George Dairnvaell attacked Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1848, an anonymous member of the Society for the Mutual Education of Women, an organization founded by Jeanne Deroin and Désirée Gay Gay, came to his defense] [Note: In l’Opinion des Femmes, the author of this pamphlet is identified as Jeanne Deroin.] Society for the Mutual Education of Women. RESPONSE TO SATAN ON THE SUBJECT OF MR. PROUDHON BY THE ARCHANGEL SAINT-MICHEL How long, O Satan, do you hope to persecute with impunity the children of the true God? You have assumed every form in order to establish your empire on the earth; […]

Contr'un

Angels and Fallen Angels Quarrel over Proudhon

July 4, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve posted working translations of a pair of pamphlets published in 1848/9: “The History of Mr. Proudhon and His Principles,” by “Satan,” and “Response to Satan on the Subject of Mr. Proudhon,” by “The Archangel Saint Michael.” The author of the first was Georges Dairnvaell, and the second was published by the “Society for the Mutual Education of Women,” the organization, founded by Jeanne Deroin and Désirée Gay, which published Politique des femmes. The author of the second pamphlet does not appear in any of the sources I have been able to find, but the sentiments are certainly in line […]

“Archangel Saint Michael,” “Response to Satan”

July 4, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Note: In l’Opinion des Femmes, the author of this pamphlet is identified as Jeanne Deroin.) Society for the Mutual Education of Women. RESPONSE TO SATAN ON THE SUBJECT OF MR. PROUDHON BY THE ARCHANGEL SAINT-MICHEL How long, O Satan, do you hope to persecute with impunity the children of the true God? You have assumed every form in order to establish your empire on the earth; now you believe your power so solidly based that you dare to reveal yourself by your true name; for it is you who suggested, to a pamphleteer misled by your perfidious inspirations, the strange […]

“Satan,” “The History of Mr. Proudhon and His Doctrines” (1849)

July 4, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE HISTORY OF MR. PROUDHON AND HIS DOCTRINES BY SATAN [GEORGES DAIRNVAELL] I have been, for an entire month, delivered to the “jackals of the press and the owls of the gallery. Never has a man, neither in the past or in the present, been the object of as much execration as I have become, simply because I make war on the cannibals.” P. J. Proudhon No, citizen Proudhon, you will not persuade me that there are still cannibals among us in France. As for the owls of the gallery and the jackals of the press, they have attacked […]

Louise Michel, “The New Era” (1887)

July 2, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] THE NEW ERA Louise Michel I Like sap in April, the blood rises in a secular revival in the old human tree (the old tree of poverty ). Under the humus of the errors which fall and pile up like dead leaves, there are snowdrops and golden daffodils, and the old tree quivers in the vernal breezes. In the lovely woods the red flowers emerge bloody from the branches; the swollen buds burst. There are new leaves and flowers. It is a stage of nature. This will become the deep shrubbery […]

Joshua King Ingalls in “The Woman’s Tribune” (1888–1894)

June 28, 2012

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Joshua King Ingalls (1816 – 1898) [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] An Open Letter. Away out in Idaho a fellow-traveler asked the writer the meaning of her badge, and when told he replied: “Oh, I thought it meant that you belong to the party that want to put God in the Constitution.” This is but an illustration of a wide spread fear engendered by terms used by the W. C. T. U. at their conventions. And because this fear, or vague sentiment exaggerated and embodied by prejudice into a tangible danger, does exist, the Tribune […]