Blog - Page 221 of 287 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Elements of appropriation

January 6, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

I broke down various meanings and aspects of property awhile back. Since some of what I wrote in the last post depends on an understanding of appropriation that I haven’t made explicit in some time, maybe a sort of summary is in order. In order to have an adequate theory of appropriation—in traditional, more-or-less Lockean terms—we need—one way or another—to provide ourselves with at least: An understanding of the subject of appropriation (“individual,” “collective,” irreducibly individual-collective, etc.; A theory of the nature of that subject’s relation to itself as “self-ownership,” “self-enjoyment,” etc.; A theory of nature (active or passive? productive? […]

Thoughts on mutualist land theory

January 6, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] There’s a call at the Center for a Stateless Society for responses to a document on “Land Tenure and Anarchic Common Law,” which “which synthesizes remarks by Kevin Carson, Brad Spangler, and Gary Chartier.” The basic argument is that “occupancy and use” and “Lockean” (non-proviso neo-lockean) theories differ primarily over the question of abandonment of “justly acquired” property. The assumption is that the theories are in something like agreement on “just acquisition” because both employ a homesteading mechanism. It’s the sort of thing that first makes me want to say: “Property is theft!” I’ve been […]

Turning a new page…

January 2, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

Contr’un Revisited: If we were being precise, the “Contr’un Revisited” phase would start here, with the name change at the beginning of 2011. But, just as some posts are being imported that were not originally posted on this blog and some posts that were posted here are now migrating to other collections, all of the theoretical writing from the earlier period is explicitly becoming what it, in fact, eventually became: part of the Contr’un project. This blog has gone through two previous phases, under two other names: The first was exploratory, a series of rambles “In the Libertarian Labyrinth,” with […]

Contr'un

An update and a call

December 27, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’m taking the next month or so to write (The Mutualist #2, and “The Anarchism of Approximations”), and to consolidate the lessons of the last year into some kind of routine, both for Corvus Editions and for my scholarly work. Over the next week, much of the Corvus shop will come down, to be replaced with improved content, reflective of the new print catalog I’m currently assembling. It looks like 2011 will start for me, with a new (part-time, unpaid) job, as curator and bookkeeper for a small cooperative retail space in Portland, within which Corvus and a number of […]

Joseph Déjacque – The Humanisphere (Preface)

December 26, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Humanisphere: Anarchic Utopia Joseph Déjacque UTOPIA: “A dream not realized, but not unrealizable.” ANARCHY: “Absence of government.” Revolutions are conservations. (P. J. PROUDHON)The only true revolutions are the revolutions of ideas. (JOUFFROY) Let us make customs, and no longer make laws. (EMILE DE GIRARDIN) So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty…. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers […]

Jeanne Deroin, “Letter to the Associations on the Organization of Credit” (1851)

December 15, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] The radical literature that any of us are actually familiar with always seems to be just a drop in the bucket. There are masses of largely ephemeral publications in every language, and all of the advances in digital archiving have only really begun to make any sort of dent in the work to be done. We can’t ignore all that ephemera, unless we’re content with a sort of abstract, top-down understanding of our traditions. After all, for every Proudhon, there were a dozen Greenes and Langlois, and for every one of them there were dozens of Junquas and Blackers, […]

Working Translations

Emile Pouget, “Sabotage” (from the Almanach du Père Peinard, 1898)

November 29, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

This short essay on sabotage covers some of the same ground as Pouget’s famous book, but where that work is in some ways rather scholarly, this piece, from the 1898 Almanach du Père Peinard, is written in the language of the street. It’s profane in places, sometimes rather gratuitously so, and that poses some translation problems. Mitch Abidor has previously translated the piece for the Marxists.org archive, and in a few places I have followed his translation more or less word-for-word. In others, our translations diverge significantly. And then there are a whole series of stylistic differences. Enjoy! LE SABOTTAGE […]

Contr'un

M. Corbeau’s Corvine Call – the Corvus Editions blog

November 27, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Last weekend, I took Corvus Editions out to my first juried arts and crafts bazaar, and yesterday deposited a handful of books in a brand new boutique space for goods made from recycled and repurposed materials. Today, I launched M. Corbeau’s Corvine Call, a blog dedicated to Corvus Editions, book arts, sustainable craft production, micro-enterprise and related topics. After a lot of experimentation of the sort that leaves your fingers too glue-covered to blog much, it’s time to get back to the account I started in the “Taking Wing” posts, and start to talk more specifically about the logistics of […]

Corvus Editions: The Mission

November 27, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Corvus Editions is in the throes of yet another reinvention — something the current book trade makes necessary on a remarkably frequent basis — and this page will soon be updated to cover the movement of the project into the realm of print-on-demand publishing. But, for now, this last reimagining of the project will do nicely as an introduction to its goals and philosophy. Corvus Editions publishes memorable, if often forgotten, works of literature, history and philosophy, in attractive, sturdy, affordable hand-bound editions, made from recycled and reused materials. It is a micro-publishing enterprise, committed to supporting other microenterprises—particularly those […]

Contr'un

Sustainable counter-media — Radix Media on Kickstarter

November 14, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Radix Media, a Portland-based radical offset printing and design operation, has launched a modest $5000 Kickstarter campaign, to upgrade their presses and invest in booklet-making equipment. They describe the project as representing the difference between continuing the project, and making it sustainable. Sustainable operation is the goal that so few radical projects reach—and the failure to properly plan, capitalize and equip projects carries a hefty cost in failed projects, badly-used resources and harried radicals, beaten down by the constant difficulties associated with just getting by. When you’re working on a shoe-string, a wing and a prayer, every set-back is a […]