collectivism Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Ricardo Mella, “Collectivism” (1891)

August 2, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

Collectivism Gone are the days when socialist sentimentality expected everything from the mother country and demanded everything of her. Gone are the days when the revolution was just a feeling, and declaimed comically against individualism face to face with the supreme power of the state or of society, its client. Gone are the days when socialism and revolution had no philosophy but that of the heart, no principle of right and justice but that of universal love. All these concepts, all these ideas are only among us as a remnant of what was never to be, as a residue pointing […]

Ricardo Mella, “Free Cooperation and Communities”

January 28, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

Things have been a little quiet on this front, while I finish the introduction to “Anarchies and Anarchisms: 1840-1920.” But part of the work on that project has allowed me to make some more progress on the Collectivism Reader for this project. I’ve been looking at collectivism in Spain, and the “anarchism without adjectives” current that emerged from the conflict between collectivist and communist anarchists, and have finally the chance to get better acquainted with the work of figures like Tarrida del Mármal and Ricardo Mella. I’ve just posted a translation of an essay by Ricardo Mella, “Free Cooperation and […]

Bakunin, Second Address to the Second Congress of Peace and Freedom (1868)

February 16, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Addresses to the Second Congress of Peace and Freedom Second Address (2ndsession)September 23, 1868 Gentlemen, I do not want to respond to all the pleasantries that have been hurled at me from the height of this rostrum. I would have too much to do if I wanted to unravel the truth through the mass of confused ideas and contradictory sentiments that have been raised against me. Several orators have employed, in order to combat me, some arguments so far from serious I would well have the right to put their good faith in doubt.–I would not do it, Gentlemen. I […]

César De Paepe, “To the Anti-Collectivists” (1868)

February 13, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

COLLECTIVIST POLEMIC [1] I. — TO THE ANTI-COLLECTIVISTS. [aka THE LEGITIMACY OF THE SOCIALIZATION OF PROPERTY] Thanks to a dialectics put in the service of a method more often metaphysical than scientific (which it is necessary to avoid confusing with the historical and objective method of Karl Marx), Proudhon has discovered in the social world some laws that observation confirms more from day to day; it is, however, incontestable that hypothesis still plays an infinitely more considerable role in the works of that thinker and that often he has concluded a priori or from insufficient observations: witness the conclusions […]

Adhémar Schwitzguébel, “Collectivism” (First Letter) (1872)

February 12, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] COLLECTIVISM[1] Adhémar Schwitzguébel First article. Socialism first presented itself to the laboring classes in the form of different systems, each having its more or less numerous adepts, and each presenting itself as the infallible Gospel which must save society. These different socialist systems, hatched in the offices of speculative thinkers, have been succeeded by a much more popular socialism, which has been embodied in the International Workingmen’s Association. When we study the different socialist authors, we perceive straightaway that fantasy plays a considerable role in their writings; while the […]

Summary of Social Economy – I

May 19, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here’s the first section of a text introducing the ideas of Jean-Guillaume-César-Alexandre-Hippolyte baron de Colins, the chief theorist of “rational socialism,” also known as “collectivism.” Although Colins and his school are now largely forgotten, they were an important influence in the period of the First International. Indeed, in the early debates between mutualism and collectivism, the influence of Colins’ collectivism was probably as significant as that of Marx. This first section is largely biographical. Summary of Social Economy According to the Ideas of Colins Agathon de Potter I composed, a long time ago, an extremely brief summary of the social […]