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Fundamental Principles of Socialism (1849)

May 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here’s another translation from the work of Proudhon’s associate, C.-F Chevé, the statement of principles from Le Socialiste : journal de l’égal-échange [The Socialist: Journal of Equal-Exchange], which he co-edited. This is taken from the first issue, July 1849. Some differences with Proudhon’s position will be immediately obvious, not the least of which is his tendency to use “anarchy” in the sense of disorder (although, to be fair, Proudhon and nearly all the anarchists of his generation also did this from time to time.) This “general account” is actually fairly lengthy, and was serialized over multiple issues. I’ve provided this […]

Contr'un

Proudhon, What is Government? What is God?

May 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

Proudhon’s essay “What is Government? What is God?” appeared first in the Voix du Peuple, November 5, 1849, then as the preface to The Confessions of a Revolutionary, as well as in the Melanges volumes of the Lacroix collected works. It was the occasion for one of the more important responses by Pierre Leroux—a response which seems to have influenced William Batchelder Greene.

Maxime Leroy, Stirner vs. Proudhon (1905)

May 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve posted a working translation of Maxime Leroy’s essay, “Stirner vs. Proudhon,” which originally appeared in 1905 in La Renaissance latine. The essay is really not much about Proudhon, and is perhaps ambivalent in its approach to Stirner, but it is certainly interesting enough to have been worth the work.

Working Translations

Octave Mirbeau, Preface to Moribund Society and Anarchy

May 25, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] Voltairine de Cleyre translated Jean Grave’s Moribund Society and Anarchy (1899; first published in French in 1893 as La Société mourante et l’Anarchie), though she admitted she was not in complete agreement with it. “As to the principal object of the work,” she said in her Preface, “that of furnishing an inclusive criticism of the institutions of our moribund society and the necessity of its speedy dissolution, I think any fair-minded reader will be convinced that it has been pretty thoroughly done. As to the “What next?” it is far less certain. With this, however, Jean Grave,—sturdy, patient, indomitable […]

The Manifesto of the Sixteen (1916)

May 25, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

From various sides, voices are raised to demand immediate peace. There has been enough bloodshed, they say, enough destruction, and it is time to finish things, one way or another. More than anyone, and for a long time, we and our journals have been against every war of aggression between peoples, and against militarism, no matter what uniform, imperial or republican, it dons. So we would be delighted to see the conditions of peace discussed—if that was possible—by the European workers, gathered in an international congress. Especially since the German people let itself be deceived in August 1914, and if they really believed that they mobilized for the defense of their territory, they have since had time to realize that they were wrong to embark on a war of conquest.

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From “L’Opinion des Femmes,” August 1848

May 16, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

These two short articles by Désirée Gay (Jeanne Desirée Véret Gay, 1810-1891) appeared in the August 1848 issue of L’Opinion des Femmes, which seems to have been a kind of testing of the waters before the launch of the official “First Year” of the paper. That issue had been preceded by a 4-page “Prospectus,” written by Jeanne Deroin, and the paper was essentially a continuation of La Politique des Femmes, but there was still a certain amount of work to do setting the tone for the project, and Gay seems to have taken on much of that work in the […]

Contr'un

L’Opinion des Femmes, 1848-1849

May 16, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

The letter from Jeanne Deroin to Proudhon that I just posted appeared in French in L’Opinion de Femmes, a radical feminist journal edited by Deroin and Désirée Gay. The entire run of the paper can be found at Gallica, tucked away in one of the volumes of Les Révolutions du XIXe Siècle. L’Opinion des Femmes is great stuff, with material by Deroin, Gay, Jean Macé, C. F. Chevé, and “Jeanne Marie” (probably Jeanne-Marie-Fabienne Poinsard, aka Jenny d’Héricourt.) The beginnings of the feud between Deroin and Proudhon is documented. Expect to see a lot of translations from this paper over the […]

Jeanne Deroin to Proudhon, January 1849

May 16, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Jeanne Deroin. “Lettre a M. Proudhon.” L’Opinion des Femmes. No. 1, Year 1. January 28, 1849.] Letter to Proudhon. Monsieur, I know that, preoccupied most especially with questions of political economy, you have not accepted all the consequences of the principles on which our social future rests. You are one of the most formidable adversaries of the principle of equality—a principle which does not allow unjust exclusion and privileges of sex. I know that you do not wish to recognize the right of women to civil and political equality. This right, which contain in it the abolition of all social […]

Mutual aid opportunity

May 6, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

You’ll find a new ChipIn widget in the sidebar of the blog (or on ChipIn), to support Laughing Horse Books, one of Portland, Oregon’s few remaining independent bookstores, and a radical, collective-run bookstore/music venue/meeting space for 25 years now. All the little things that tend to snowball when a business gets behind have done so lately—and then some—and it seems very likely that the doors will be closing early this summer. Nothing is written in stone. The collective is in the midst of the hardest sorts of deliberations. But things are to the point where it’s not clear if all […]

Two Chapters from “The Last Word of Socialism”

May 2, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve transcribed the two chapters translated from Charles-François Chevé’s Le Dernier Mot du Socialisme, par un catholique (1848), and published in The Spirit of the Age. They are “Capital and Interest” and “The Landlord and His Tenants: A Dialogue.” Chevé was an associate of Proudhon, and the author of the “Socialist Catechism” that I recently translated.