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Kevin Carson on Corvus, and an update

September 15, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

Kevin Carson’s latest post talks about my micropublishing project, Corvus Editions, as an example of “household and informal microenterprise.” It includes some details about operating costs and such, taken from a mailing list exchange, which will be new to readers of this blog. I’ll be producing a report on the first three months of operations, in the first issue of M. Corbeau’s Blackbird, sometime around October 1. I expect to have about 100 titles in the catalog at that point, including a third issue of LeftLiberty, a collection of mutualist, proto-mutualist, and near-mutualist texts from the Owenite “high tide” of […]

Instead of a Translation – Proudhon on the clubs

September 13, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

Some 19th century “translations” end up being little more than summaries, and some summaries end up being haphazard translations of bits and pieces. A number of the pieces that introduced Americans to Proudhon and Leroux fit one of these two categories. A series of summaries of chapters from Proudhon’s Confessions appeared in The Spirit of the Age in 1849-50. This is certainly a work that needs full translation, but the summaries are interesting, both for the information they contain and as an example of how many Americans first encountered Proudhon. THE CONFESSIONS OF A REVOLUTIONIST. BY P. J. PROUDHON. CHAPTER […]

Mutualism is Approximate (from LeftLiberty 2)

September 11, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

Mutualism: The Anarchism of Approximations[continued from Part II]__________ Mutualism is approximate. Mutualism values justice, in the form of reciprocity. Mutualism is dialectical. (Or “trialectical.” Or serial.) Mutualism is individualism and socialism—or it is neither. Mutualism recognizes positive power. Mutualism is progressive and conservative. Mutualism is market anarchism. __________ Philosophical Observations (continued) Mutualism is approximate. It rejects absolutism, fundamentalism, and the promotion of supposedly foolproof blueprints for society. What it seeks to approximate, however, is the fullest sort of human freedom. In The Theory of Property, Proudhon claimed that “humanity proceeds by approximation,” and proceeded to list seven “approximations” that he […]

Uncategorized

LeftLiberty 2 – The Gift Economy of Property

August 17, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

The second issue of LeftLiberty, “The Gift Economy of Property,” is now available. It’s 100 pages of mutualism, new and old, fiction and non-fiction. It feels to me like a considerable step forward from the first issue. I hope others will find it useful, or at least provocative. download pdf booklet download 2-up pdf purchase pamphlet

Anarchism

I would say “mark your calendars”…

August 13, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

…but some critical details are lacking. The Canadian Magazine, in 1902, included a short item on the origins of anarchism, which included these details: “The professional anarchist is a loafer and an idler, a gambler and a lover of dark living. Once a year a great anarchist gathering is held on Long Island, New York. The leading sport at the latest gathering there was shooting with rifles at targets made to represent the crowned heads of Europe.”

Corvus Distribution

Corvine Call #4 – LeftLiberty #2

August 8, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

I spent our week of record heat digging around in various archives, when I would much rather have been concentrating on writing, as well as getting a few things ready for my weekend of tabling. And then I’ve spent the last week playing catch-up on the writing and attempting to process the lessons of the weekend. In the end, it’s made for a very productive few days, as all of that came together. Even after splitting the issue, LeftLiberty #2 will be at least twenty pages longer than the first issue, and it should also be far superior in almost […]

August 6, 1945

August 6, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

Guinea-Pig Fleet: Hiroshima Tattoo Originally posted Sunday, January 07, 2007.

LeftLiberty – Best-laid plans, hopefully improved

August 3, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

Just a heads-up for those waiting for LeftLiberty 2. With the launch of Corvus, some unexpected breakthroughs in the “new approximation” writing, and the little shifts in my emphases and affiliations, the issue started to balloon well beyond the capacity of my zine stapler, so it has now officially split into two issues: 2 – “The Gift Economy of Property,” which will pull together and revise the blog and forum posts that have been the basis for the “new approximation,” and 3 – “A Doctrine of Life and Humanity,” which can expand a little to address some new material from […]

A little practical application

August 3, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

I spent the last three days, reunited with my friends at Laughing Horse Books, tabling the Western States Center’s “Community Strategic Training Initiative” conference, an event that brings together broadly “progressive” community organizers from all over the western US for workshops and networking. It’s always an odd weekend for me. It takes place at Reed College, site of my first, disastrous year of college (but a really beautiful site for that sort of thing), and the crowd is generally involved in a different set of struggles than I am. But it’s a wonderfully diverse, and genuinely nice crowd, with lots […]

Orestes Brownson and Pierre Leroux

July 25, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

Pierre Leroux was the other half, along with P.-J. Proudhon, of the mutualist mix, as formulated by William B. Greene. Greene was introduced to Leroux’s work by Orestes A. Brownson, and adopted a number of Brownson’s criticisms of Leroux’s works. Greene’s first major writings were, in fact, attempts to come to terms with the thought of Leroux and Brownson. From this perspective, Brownson’s most important works were a review of Leroux’s Humanity and “The Mediatorial Life of Jesus,” both from 1842 – and they’re both available now in Corvus Editions. If you want to understand Greene’s mutualism, or want another […]