Anarchist Beginnings

Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, The Critical State of Civilization (1 of 2)

September 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[This section from The Treatise on Domestic-Agricultural Association immediately follows the material already posted from The Morning Star. It appeared in the November 25, 1840 issue (No. 6) of that paper.] FOURIER ON THE CRITICAL STATE OF CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE. ELEMENTS OF DECLINE IN THE POLITICAL WORLD.. The most recent and the most remarkable elements of decline in the political organization of society in Europe, are, national debts and revolutions, which generate each other. Our political doctors have hitherto failed in devising remedies for these social evils. As a check on the prodigality of national expenditure and the increase of […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Fourier’s response to the Gazette de France — II

July 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
SECOND PART OF FOURIER’S REFUTATION OF THE GAZETTE OF FRANCE. [Part One] For some time past the secret influence of the philosophic Pandemonium had enjoined the discipline of general science in the press, concerning the science of “attractive industry,” but the indiscreet Gazette has disobeyed the word. It is proverbially noted for its gossiping propensity, and notwithstand the tactics of obscurism, one of its scribes, inspired with a new idea, has aimed a fatal blow of calumny against my principle, by charging them with insult to our Saviour, Jesus Christ. The cause of this attack was a speech made by […]
Anarchist Beginnings

From “The Morning Star” (October 21, 1840)

June 15, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] [In October, 1840, Hugh Doherty launched The Morning Star, or Phalansterian Gazette as the organ of the associationist movement in England. It lasted twelve issues, and was succeeded by The London Phalanx. The first issue announced an intention of providing weekly translation from Fourier’s work, and while that plan was ultimately not accomplished, there were a number of translations included in the paper. This first selection, from that first issue (October 21, 1840), is drawn from the “Foreword” of The Treatise on Domestic-Agricultural Association.] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] TRANSLATION OF THE MOST POPULAR PARTS […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Not just for pear-growers anymore

May 27, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
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 Fourier’s disciples wrote a work illustrating […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier on the Papillon, or Butterfly Passion

May 25, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[A bit from Charles Fourier’s Passions of the Human Soul, dealing with dinner parties and the passion for variation, the papillon. Some of Fourier’s influence no doubt comes through in Stephen Pearl Andrews analogy of the dinner party.] According to the property common to the three distributives, the papillon is of two species, distinguished into contrasted and identical. 1st. The contrasted papillon arises from transitions from one extreme to another. For example: a company of sybarites, accustomed to sumptuous banquets, will eat with great pleasure in a cottage, rustic fare,—milk and fruit served up in earthern vessels; they will find […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Joseph Déjacque, “The Universal Circulus” (revised translation)(1858)

May 9, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[This remarkable bit of libertarian philosophy by Joseph Déjacque poses all sorts of difficulties for the modern reader, not the least of which is it borrowings from, and reworkings of, the works of Charles Fourier and Pierre Leroux. And there are places where it ha been necessary to translate things rather literally, since terms are used suggestively, according to the established uses of none of the writers or schools that they were drawn from. There are also a couple of times when Déjacque’s enthusiasm clearly ran away with the syntax: where catalogs of conditionals come to abrupt stops, without ever […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Joseph Déjacque, on “Exchange” (1858)

December 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] EXCHANGE Joseph Déjacque (from Le Libertaire, No. 6, September 21, 1858) “Be then frankly an entire anarchist and not a quarter anarchist, an eighth anarchist, or one-sixteenth anarchist, as one is a one-fourth, one-eighth or one-sixteenth partner in trade. Go beyond the abolition of contract to the abolition not only of the sword and of capital, but also of property and of authority in all its forms. Then you will have arrived at the anarchist community; that is to say, the social state where each one is free to produce or […]