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Down with the Bosses!

March 8, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here’s a translation of an article from Le Libertaire, originally published as “L’autorité. — La Dictature,” April, 1859. I’ve also recently translated his poem, “To the Ci-Devant Dynastics.” I think the difficulties, and the resulting rough spots, in both translations will be fairly obvious. [Translation revised, and introductory quote added: January, 2012] Authority.—Dictatorship. aka “Down with the Bosses!” Le Libertaire, no. 12 (April 7, 1859) [revised translation] What assurance have I gained? What conclusion can I draw? … The knowledge that I have gained is that there is only one right in the world: it is the right of the […]

I hope this clears things up…

March 7, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Johnson’s (Revised) Universal Cyclopaedia (1886) contained the following explanation, by its creator, of the science of “universology:” Universol´ogy is the name given to a universal science covering the whole ground of philosophy, of the sciences in their general aspects—in which sense it is called “sciento-philosophy”—and of social polity, or the collective life of the human world. As a philosophy, in the more common and general or less precise use of that term, the system is called “integralism,” as that of Comte is called “positivism;” as a new science—in the exact sense […]

Tucker’s “Radical Review”

March 7, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

A complete collection of Benjamin R. Tucker’s “Radical Review” is now available on Google Books. The searchable text is incomplete, but the page prints are better than those that I used to put together my archive of the magazine. With two sets to work from, the process of getting a fully searchable text archive—already well underway—should be accelerated considerably.

Two-Gun Mutualism and the Golden Rule

February 28, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Related links: Pierre Leroux, “Individualism and Socialism“ “Scraping Some Rust off the ‘Two Guns’ of Mutualism” (January 28, 2014) “Avengers Who Never Assemble” (June 13, 2014) “The Capitalist, the Prince, the Père de famille, and the Alternative” (June 23, 2014) “In Search of the Justicier” (July 18, 2014) “TWO-GUN” MUTUALISM and the GOLDEN RULE Thus one remains in perplexity and uncertainty, equally attracted and repulsed by two opposite attractors. Yes, the sympathies of our era are equally lively, equally energetic, whether it is a question of liberty or equality, of individuality or association. The faith in society is complete, but […]

Contr'un

Paul Adam’s “Eulogy for Ravachol”

February 22, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

EULOGY FOR RAVACHOL Paul Adam In these times, miracles and saints seem set to disappear. We can easily believe that the souls of contemporaries lack the spirit of sacrifice. The martyrs of this century have always been obscure citizens, maddened by the din of political words, and then gunned down without mercy, in 1830, 1848, and 1871, for the benefit of certain parliamentary situations arranged by a few violent and shifty advocates. And it would even be imprudent to claim that no wish of individual interest committed these unfortunate combatants themselves to seek some electoral profit, arms in hand. The […]

William B. Greene, “Plutocracy” (1849)

February 21, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here’s one of William B. Greene’s letters to The Worcester Palladium which was not incorporated into either Equality or the 1850 Mutual Banking. Thanks again to Brady Campbell for the research assist on these. A number of my questions from two years ago remain, but I’m back at the work of transcribing and collating the mutual bank writings, so perhaps we can clear most of them up soon. [2010 note] Wm. B. Greene in “The Worcester Palladium” For the Palladium. Plutocracy. The term Plutocracy occurs in the Democratic State Address: it is derived from the words Plutus (the god of […]

Inheriting Proudhon

February 15, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

2010 is likely to be a good year for mutualism. Last I heard, Crispin Sartwell’s Josiah Warren collection was on its way to the publisher. Kevin Carson’s third book, The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto, is available in rough form. It looks like I’ll get to do the traveling necessary to put together a first edition of my own Descriptive Bibliography of Equitable Commerce (though several months later than originally planned), and, barring any catastrophic changes in my currently precarious economic situation, the first issue of The Mutualist (successor to LeftLiberty) ought to be available in time for […]

A funny thing happened on the way… (1)

February 14, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Nobody who knows me or my work will be surprised if I admit to working primarily on a large — and sometimes over-large — scale. There are obvious disadvantages to the approach: I have certainly not published as much as I might have, in any of the various fields where I’ve gained some expertise, and much of the writing I have done has been in the form of theoretical “feelers” and thought experiments scattered in a wide variety of forums. The more definitive statements that I have started have been slow to develop. The logistics of serious interdisciplinary study are […]

Pierre Leroux, “Individualism and Socialism” (1834)

February 4, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

At times, even the most resolute hearts, those most firmly fixed on the sacred belief of progress, come to lose courage and to feel full of disgust at the present. In the 16th century, when one murdered in our civil wars, it was in the name of God and with a crucifix in the hand; it was a question of the most sacred things, of things which, when once they have procured our conviction and our faith so legitimately dominate our nature that it has nothing to do but obey, and even its most beautiful appanage disappears thus voluntarily before the divine will. In the name of what principle does one today send off, by telegraph, pitiless orders, and transform proletarian soldiers into the executioners of their own class? Why has our epoch seen cruelties which recall St. Bartholemew? Why have men been fanaticized to the point of making them coldly slaughter the elderly, women, and children? Why has the Seine rolled with murders which recalls the arquebuscades of window of the Louvre? It is not in the name of God and eternal salvation that it is done. It is in the name of material interests.

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Fragments and Approximations – 2

January 23, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

[from the Forums of the Libertarian Left] Actually, there is no problem determining costs without prices — assuming that you don’t insist on having your costs represented as prices. Now, it is not clear that one can compare kinds of costliness against one another in a non-market economy with the same apparent ease as we do in a market economy — but, again, there are good reasons to suspect that those cost comparisons are far from bulletproof. Imagine a biocentric society, which emphasized interconnectedness over individuality, as well as interconnectedness with “the environment” — an ecological communitarianism. It has its […]