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Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Conclusion

June 4, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here is the final section of Proudhon’s study on property, from the Contradictions. The other sections I posted recently will appear, in full or part, in the forthcoming AK Press anthology, but this section didn’t make the cut for various reasons, not the least of which was its difficulty. The translation is still considerably rougher than the others in a few places, but I think most of it is clear and very interesting. As of today, I have officially begun a revision and annotation of Benjamin R. Tucker’s translations of the first two memoirs on property. Since the translations are generally […]
Anarchism

Responding to the Deepwater Horizon disaster

June 2, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Kevin Carson has a new piece up at the Center for a Stateless Society, In a Truly Free Market, BP Would Be Toast, which argues that without federal regulation limiting liability BP would not only be facing liabilities that “stack up pretty tall against BP’s total equity,” but also that in a genuinely free market the demands of insurers would force companies like BP to take adequate precautions. Kevin is absolutely right in saying that the Gulf spill is not the product of an “unregulated market.” It’s one of the great wonders of the modern world that, with news of […]
Contr'un

A freethought gem from Multatuli

May 30, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Though personally I am (notoriously, in some circles) a radical neo-christian, a “regular thoroughgoing heretic” much on the same model as William B. Greene, I’m a equal-opportunity historian and translator, and certainly enjoy a well-written freethought piece. After all, the institutions of Christendom seem to have trouble keeping their own basic doctrines straight, and pretty much beg for a good rebuttal. This short piece by Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker, 1820-1887) is a translation of a French translation of a posthumously published letter, but I think the sense comes through loud and clear. THE PRAYER OF AN IGNORAMUS MULTATULI. I don’t […]
Working Translations

Joseph Leroux, “Your Nationalities” (1892)

May 30, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] [Here is one of three essays from a pamphlet on nationalism, by Pierre Leroux’s son, Joseph.] DOCTRINE OF HUMANITY YOUR NATIONALITIES   Extract from a letter published in the the arbitrator, a journal of the friends of peace, appearing in London under the direction of W[illiam] R[andall] Cremer, chevalier of the Legion of Honor, member of the English Parliament.   My dear Cremer, It is always with the most lively interest that I follow the efforts made to give a solution to the problem of peace. I see that at Rome, at the Inter-Parliamentary Congress, one has thrown at […]
Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 5

May 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY [continued from Part 4] Thus property, which should consummate the holy union of man and nature, leads only to an odious prostitution. The sultan uses and abuses his slave: the earth is for him an instrument of luxury… I find here more than a metaphor; I discover a profound analogy. What is it that, in the relations of the sexes, distinguishes marriage from concubinage? Everyone senses the difference between these two things; few people would be in a state to render an account of it, so obscure has the question become […]
Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 4

May 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY [continued from Part 3]   Of all the forms of property, the most detestable is that which has talent for a pretext. Prove to an artist, by the comparison of times and men, that the inequality of works of art, in the different centuries, above all stems from the oscillating movements of society, from the changing of beliefs and of the state of minds; that whatever a society is worth, so much is the worth of the artist; that between the artist and his contemporaries there exists a community of needs […]
Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 3

May 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY   [continued from Part 2] § III. — How property is corrupted. By means of property, society has realized a thought that is useful, laudable, and even inevitable: I am going to prove that by obeying an invincible necessity, it has cast itself into an impossible hypothesis. I believe that I have not forgotten or diminished any of the motives which have presided over the establishment of property; I even dare say that I have given these motives a unity and an obviousness unknown until this moment. Let the reader fill […]
Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 2

May 19, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY [continued from Part 1] I The organization of common sense presupposes the solution of another problem, the problem of certainty, which divides into two correlative species, certainty of subject and certainty of object. In other words, before searching for the laws of thought, one must assure oneself of the reality of the being that thinks as well as that of the being that is thought, without which one runs the risk of researching the laws of nothing. The first moment of that great polemic is thus that in which the self […]
collectivism

Summary of Social Economy – I

May 19, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here’s the first section of a text introducing the ideas of Jean-Guillaume-César-Alexandre-Hippolyte baron de Colins, the chief theorist of “rational socialism,” also known as “collectivism.” Although Colins and his school are now largely forgotten, they were an important influence in the period of the First International. Indeed, in the early debates between mutualism and collectivism, the influence of Colins’ collectivism was probably as significant as that of Marx. This first section is largely biographical. Summary of Social Economy According to the Ideas of Colins  Agathon de Potter I composed, a long time ago, an extremely brief summary of the social […]