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To the Point! To Action!! (2 of 4)

May 8, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Part 1] VII The representatives to the National Assembly were elected, let us not forget, to create a democratic constitution, to simplify the administration to allow a reduction in tax and respect for the individual; they were elected to set up the country. What have they done, however? Instead of setting up the country, they have been busy setting themselves up in government; they have deduced the consequence before establishing the principles; then, and without being able to escape the disastrous precedent they have just established, they have only been concerned, as they could only be concerned, with the health […]

To the Point! To Action!! (1 of 4)

May 8, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

To the Point! To Action!! AN INTERPRETATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA[Part 2] – [Part 3] – [Part 4] Anselme Bellegarrigue I am told that that I am governed for my own good. Now, since I pay my money to be governed, it follows that it is for my own good that I pay that money. This is possible, but it nevertheless deserves verification. Moreover, it is a fact that no one could be more familiar than me with the means of making myself happy. I still find it strange, incomprehensible, anti-natural, and extra-human, to devote oneself to the happiness of […]

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Waste…not! (2)

May 4, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Not every batch of paper is a victory. If I get two good sheets out of this morning’s batch, I’ll consider myself lucky. But every attempt is a step towards competence in a new set of skills—and a commitment to a different way of thinking about the resources around me. Both are of some importance in the current situation. I left corporate bookselling at the point when the shift in culture transformed the job into something that I—a 25+ year veteran in the field—felt I was not competent to do—and could not see any point in becoming skilled at. There […]

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Might Makes Right (a bad book is good to find…)

May 3, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Ragnar Redbeard’s infamous work, “Might is Right,” aka “The Survival of the Fittest, or the Philosophy of Power” (1896), has shown up at Archive.org. Those inclined to hate egoism should cherish this work, which has few—arguably none—of the pesky redeeming features so common in works by Stirner, Badcock, Walker, etc.

Waste…not!

May 3, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

I made a trip to the homebrewing store to pick up some calcium carbonate the other day, and over the weekend I made my first batches of paper with fiber entirely derived from junk mail, dryer lint, and whatever I could scrape off the countertop from the last couple of batches. The result was a simple, but rather pretty paper, with quite a bit of “confetti” effect from bits that didn’t blend down as smooth as the rest. The sheets are acid-free and take ink without smudging. As it turns out, I was even able to feed a sheet through […]

Corvine Call #5: Devils, Details, Come-Outers and Non-Resistants

May 3, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

May is “Organize and Update Month” at Corvus Editions, in preparation for the summer book and paper fairs. There are four new pamphlets from the Non-Resistance and Come-Outer movement available now from Corvus Editions. Over the last few months, I have prepared a lot more material than I have uploaded and offered for sale, mostly because there has been a lot of behind-the-scenes organizing that needed to be done before operations could become anything like routine. I’ve resourced all my paper, in order to emphasize tree-free and post-consumer materials. I’ve added a couple of new formats—and have a couple more […]

From “The Distributive Passions”

May 2, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Distributive Passions, my fiction project, will return in The Mutualist #2 — “Owning Up,” but, for now, I’m going to leave KAli to fend for herself in the far future, and get back to Gabriel Solly and more contemporary concerns. Gabe’s world is my idea-workshop, the place I go when I need to work out the practical implications of theoretical concerns. It’s a world where lots of little things went differently than they have in our own—and many things worked out in very much the same ways. Fourier ended up with the prominence of Marx—and vice versa. Agassiz was […]

Mutual aid updates

April 29, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

A new project, Books for Anarchists Outside the West, has just been launched, in order to help provide materials to comrades with less ready access to such things. And the project with Kate Sharpley Library has succeeded well enough that I now have a copy of Dyer Lum’s Utah and its People in mid-digitization. Thanks, folks! You can contribute towards the next acquisition at the Corvus Shop.

Proudhon Seminar for 2010?

April 28, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve been thinking, off and on, about running the What is Property? seminar again this summer — and continuing it on past the First Memoir to some of the material that has been translated since the first seminar. The notion has become increasingly appealing in recent days, as I have found a number of places where it seems to me Tucker’s translations could be significantly improved upon. So I’m curious — is there interest in wading into — or back into — Proudhon’s property writings, in a semi-formal setting? with a “textbook” edition of the writings, highlighting some of the […]

Individualities and Collectivities – Rights and Strengths

April 25, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] In War and Peace, Proudhon defined “rights” in this way: RIGHT, in general, is the recognition of human dignity in all its faculties, attributes and prerogatives. There are thus as many special rights as humans can raise different claims, owing to the diversity of their faculties and of their exercise. As a consequence, the genealogy of human rights will follow that of the human faculties and their manifestations. The right of force is the simplest of all and the most basic: it is the homage rendered to man for his strength. […]