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Around the blogosphere

April 28, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

Check out Exploring American Anarchism and Herzschlag, for good anarchist material from some folks I know “in real life.” And shout-outs as well to agorists Royce Christian, of The Guerrilla Capitalist, and Niccolo Adami, of The Kingdom of God is Within You. Last but certainly not least, “Anarcho” finally has a blog.

Unfinished business of Liberty

April 24, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

Benjamin Tucker, like a lot of us, took on a lot of projects, not all of which came to fruition. His “Proudhon Library” and the pamphlet version of Bellegarrigue’s “Anarchy: Journal of Order” are among those announced, but never completed. In some other cases, what Tucker translated from his wide reading of libertarian literature was just the tip of the iceberg, where fascinating material was concerned. It will take some time before anything like the “Proudhon Library” is possible, but one of the reasons for pursuing the updated Libertarian Labyrinth is precisely to pursue those kinds of projects. And some […]

“Les Révolutions du XIXe siècle”

April 15, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

A lot of my work right now is sifting through archives, trying to gather together links to the works of various key socialist writers: Proudhon, Leroux, Colins, Considerant, Fourier, Briancourt, Ott, etc., etc. Some of the sifting is easy: all 47(!) volumes of the Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin are available at Gallica. In other cases, it’s a matter of sorting through the rubble at Google Books. Of course, the difficulties involved mean that my searches have been a bit more inclusive than they might otherwise be, and that has paid some handsome dividends. For example: Les Révolutions du XIXe […]

LeftLiberty: Proudhon on individualism and socialism

April 9, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

Bits of progress on LeftLiberty, including tweaks to the logo, the beginnings of a website and some responses to my call for contributions. I’ve been working to get the wiki archive working smoothly, with prettier urls and interwiki linking with the Distributive Passions site. The material for the “classics” section looks like it will include works by Proudhon, Leroux, Bastiat, Molinari, Tucker, and several others. In the early works, there is a lot of belligerent agreement that a simple opposition between “individualism” and “socialism” doesn’t quite get the work done. Here’s a bit of a letter from Proudhon: Paris, January […]

LeftLiberty 1-2: Individualism, Socialism, and Solidarity

April 4, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

Starting in July, I’ll be producing a new journal/zine, called “LeftLiberty,” and dedicated to “the left-libertarian conversation in all its phases and ages.” It’s connected to the project of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left, and focuses on clarifying what is really at stake in some of the messier debates in the broad anarchist movement. Issues will be arranged around key concepts with the first two issues addressing “Individualism, Socialism, and Solidarity.” I’m finishing up a translation of Pierre Leroux’s 1834 “Individualism and Socialism” for the first issue, which will also include a “miscellany” of early anarchist texts on individualism […]

Announcing “LeftLiberty”

April 4, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

OK, folks. It’s time for me to start really working on the first issue of “LeftLiberty,” which I’m announcing for July 4 (about 5 weeks after I move). I’ve roughed out a logo and regular columns. You can check them out. This is the project that has grown out of the somewhat stillborn earlier discussion of an ALL zine. The plan is to “shake the debate from both ends,” by presenting original material from early 19th-century sources, much of it newly translated, along with contemporary responses to the same issues, from a range of anarchist and libertarian positions. I’ll be […]

“I’ve been down to Washington, That cit-y of renown…”

February 24, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

“. . . I was there the morning that Cox-ey struck the town. It was fun to see the plu-to-crats and hear the gold-bugs squeal, As they march’d along three hundred strong the Coxey Commonweal.” I’ve posted an 1898 pamphlet from the Coxey Good Roads and Non-Interest Bond Library. The “library,” despite appearances, may not have had more than an issue or two, or perhaps Coxey’s publications, of which there seem to have been many, have been particularly ephemeral. This appears to be the most common issue, and it is a nice introduction to Coxey’s economic proposals.

J. K. Ingalls, “Social Wealth”

February 19, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

At long last, Joshua King Ingalls’ Social Wealth, is available online, in a (largely) searchable pdf edition. (The text will follow soon.) At 320 pages, the file is a little over 16 megs, but well worth the time to download and read through. Let me know if you have any problems with the file. I’m still experimenting with adding searchable texts to files, while maintaining broad compatibility. I’m slowly, but surely working my way through the Liberty archive, making those files as searchable as the rough image scans will allow. (For now, check out the issues from volumes 12 and […]

Not just for pear-growers anymore

February 18, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] [Commentary coming soon.] [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] The anarcho-Fourierist renaissance continues. In “The Lesson of the Pear Growers’ Series,” I had suggested that there might still be some lessons to be learned from Charles Fourier’s approach to questions of individual passion, competition, etc. Unfortunately, “Note A,” which contains the most concise explanation of Fourier’s associative model, is not available (yet) in a public-domain translation online—and it is a bit of a stretch, at times, to make the analogies between growing pears (and apples, and quinces) and other sorts of labor we might actually be planning on engaging in. Fortunately, one of […]

Pierre Leroux “De l’égalité” (1838)

January 22, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Contr’un Revisited: [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Pierre Leroux’s book De l’égalité is one of those sources of the mutualist tradition seldom read by anyone these days, despite the fact that it was one of the primary inspirations and sources for William Batchelder Greene’s own Equality, as well as his Mutual Banking. The first three “Omega” articles in the Worcester Palladium took their title from Leroux’s work, and began with a fragmentary translation of part of it. One reason for its neglect has been its untranslated status, another, its scarcity. It will take some time […]