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Anarchist-communism, work, and the virtue of selfishness

December 1, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Contr’un Revisited: Obviously, it’s a big moment when Joseph Déjacque enters the mix, but there’s a lot going on here that would bear fruit later. Adding Déjacque to my list of early anarchist obsessions moved me closer to the recognition of an Era of Anarchy, and discovering the influence of both Fourier and Pierre Leroux in his work would sharpen my interest in the “utopian” roots of anarchism, but the first really dividend from my work on Déjacque was a sense that I had been underestimating the place of egoism among the early anarchists. At […]

An excellent resource on Proudhon

November 30, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: Ten years later, I finally have a copy of my own! [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] I’ve found very little in the literature on anarchism that does much justice to Proudhon’s work. His economic ideas—which were complex, based in a principle of “antinomies,” and expressed at different times in significantly different language—are generally treated without much attention to detail. (The anarchist literature is substantially better in this regard than the Marxist literature, which nearly always simply repeats the judgments of Marx.) One very fine exception to the general rule is Rob Knowles’ Political Economy from Below: Economic Thought in Communitarian […]

Mutualism: the Anarchism of Approximations — II

November 29, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Contr’un Revisited: Sometimes it’s the little things in these old posts that reminds me just how far I’ve traveled, even if I’ve ended up somewhere relatively close to where I started. For example, I had a vague memory that “The Lesson of the Pear-Growers’ Series” had not originally appeared on this blog, but had completely forgotten about On ALLiance, the short-lived blog dedicated specifically to exploring theory suitable for the multi-tendency Alliance of the Libertarian Left. In hindsight, I guess that the handful of posts that appeared there were an early attempt at what I’ve been calling a “shareable narrative” […]

Godek Gardwell (Edward Kellogg) to the Merchants’ Magazine

November 24, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Godek Gardwell, “Labor and Other Capital” The Merchants’ Magazine and Commercial Review, 18, 1 (January 1848), 65. Art. VIII.—LABOR AND OTHER CAPITAL:THE RIGHTS OF EACH SECURED, AND THE WRONGS TO BOTH ERADICATED. Freeman Hunt, Esq.—Dear Sir: Although it is universally admitted that nearly all wealth is the product of labor, yet the laboring classes of all civilized nations have been, and are, as a body, poor. If the natural product of labor be wealth, the natural result of toil would be competence or wealth to those who performed the labor, unless something intervened to deprive them of their natural rights. […]

The Lesson of the Pear Growers’ Series

November 21, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: At the time, I had only the vaguest notion of how important the influence of Fourier would be on my own thinking, although this is one in a series of instances where we have to make a note that there is much more work to be done. I still think it is fair to characterize Proudhon’s understanding of social forces as “relentlessly positive,” although my appreciation of the role that “universal antagonism” plays in his thought has grown enormously. There is clearly a side to Proudhon that is relentlessly critical, sometimes earning him the reputation he has […]

Josiah Warren on “Communism”

November 19, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve finally posted all ten installments of Josiah Warren’s “The Motives for Communism: How It Worked and What It Led To” on the Libertarian Library blog. The series appeared in Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly in 1872. I think it’s worth mentioning again that what Warren is most concerned about with regard to “communism” is not a system of economics or property, but the assumption of a community of interests prior to the individual investigation of individual interests. You can compare Warren’s account to that of Paul Brown, another New Harmony dissident. Speaking of Brown, I’ve been slowly transcribing his Gray […]

Plans and Prospects

November 19, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

As many of you know, I’ll be relocating from Ohio to Oregon sometime in the late spring/early summer of 2008. Teaching work has dried up out here, so it seems like time to move. I’ll be close to my parents and to a number of friends from Ohio who moved out there. Even if I stay poor, there will be mountains in the background, which is a big consolation for a guy who’s been living on an ancient lake bed for eighteen years. All of this has, of course, meant a little shuffling of priorities. I have access to resources […]

The Honor of the Name, and the Confusion it Breeds

November 19, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Walking back into the debates at Infoshop.org has affected me in two primary ways. First, and foremost, it’s nice that a piece on mutualism was considered appropriate to the site. It’s a great site. If the other half of my reaction is heavy on annoyance, I’ll admit that I’ve had much less welcoming experiences over there. Nobody called me a “nazi” this time. And so many of the divisions are still largely semantic. I look forward to a day when we can all really argue over substantive stuff. That day might not be so far off, with all of the […]

Responses to some objections

November 19, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: Honestly, some of this post has a real Twilight Zone feel to it for me. Consider it evidence of my brief Carsonian period. For me, it also marks an important tension in my own work. Obviously, there was a time when I was content speaking a political language that was very Tuckerite. I get a lot of guff these days for slighting poor old Benjamin R. Tucker, usually from people who have no idea how many hours I spent putting together the first online pdf set of Liberty. And I’ll grant that the various, seemingly endless struggles […]

Josiah Warren, “The Motives for Communism” (1872-73)

November 19, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

How often have I said to myself, “Oh, for a paper of world-wide circulation, through which we could pour into the public lap the most important results of our lives’ experience! That others who come after us may avoid the thorny paths that have lacerated our feet—may profit by our errors and successes. I hope and believe that your is, or will be, such a paper: and in it I propose to furnish a series of articles, showing the practical workings of Communism and other reform experiments running through the forty-six years devoted to peaceful social revolution; and it will be seen that some facts are more strange than fiction, more philosophical than philosophy, more romantic than romance and more conservative than conservatism.

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