Contr’un

Black and Red Feminism

Jenny d’Hericourt vs. the Double Standard

July 28, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Proudhon took a beating when he challenged her. What chance would a mere abstract inconsistency have against the power of Jenny P. d’Hericourt? This is enough fun to merit a full cross-post from Black and Red Feminist History. And d’Hericourt continues to rise in my list of sharp and entertaining radical writers.] MORALITY ACCORDING TO THE SEXES BY JENNY P. D’HERICOURT Dear reader, let us for a moment listen to a conversation between wife and husband: Wife—“Men continue to be absurd, and to affirm the contrary of facts. The New York Nation writes thus:” (She reads.) Society refuses to treat […]
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Meanwhile, elsewhere in the blogosphere…

July 28, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
Things have been a little quiet on this blog, due in part to offline concerns, but I’ve been puttering away, and regular readers here may find material of interest among the newish posts to some of my other blogs. I’m particularly happy to have completed the translation of An Account of a Voyage from the Arctic to the Antarctic Pole by way of the Center of the Earth, a 1721 French “imaginary voyage” involving a passage through the center of the earth. At Black and Red Feminist History: Jenny d’Hericourt, “Woman’s Rights in France” (1869)  La Femme, “Madame Jenny P. […]
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Notes on “the disposition of intellectual products”

July 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m always surprised by the lasting (and often false) impression that this bit of off-the-cuff theorizing has left in certain circles. But I’m also generally pleasantly surprised, when I am reminded of its existence that, despite being the product of a very different place in my theoretical development than I occupy at present, it’s fairly solid stuff. It was very specifically part of a series of attempts to determine just how far, and in what directions, fairly conventional property theory would stretch when applied in anarchistic contexts. So it has to be read as a series of speculations, aimed at […]
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Terrence, “A Short Introduction to the Works of Charles Fourier” (1848)

July 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
A SHORT INTRODUCTION  TO THE  WORKS OF CHARLES FOURIER. BY TERENCE   ————————————————- “In Nature and in State, it is easier to change many things than one.” BACON.—Essay on Health. “Entertain variety of delights rather than surfeit of them.—Idem. “ And let the main portion of the lands employed to gardens or to corn be to a common stock, and to be laid in, and stored up, and then delivered out in proportion.” BACON.—On Plantations. “Fourierism, which is diametrically opposed to Communism.”—Morning Chronicle, March, 1848. ————————————————- LONDON: PUBLISHED BY THE PHALANSTERIAN ASSOCIATION AND TO BE HAD OF P. ROLANOI, 20, […]
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Han Ryner, “The Secret of Don Juan” (1915)

July 20, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[I’m working my way through the translation of six shorts stories by Han Ryner, published in French in The Smart Set between July 1913 and January 1920. These initial translation are definitely rough, “working” versions, as I get better acquainted with the peculiarities of Ryner’s style. But I think even the rough renditions give a good indication of what is interesting about the works. For those unfamiliar with the Don Juan story, or who need a refresher, this will probably help.] THE SECRET OF DON JUAN By Han Ryner All of the accounts of the interview of Don Juanand the […]
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Notes on Occupancy & Use (The Infamous Summer House Thread)

July 15, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third][/one_third][two_third_last] The question of occupancy and use is one which seems particularly difficult to address in a way which escapes a constant return to the same questions. There are certainly logical reasons for that: There are arguably two different models for this sort of land tenure in Proudhon, one based on simple possession and the other on simple property. Questions of “use” quickly lead into questions about “rent,” and we are not always particularly careful to distinguish between “economic rent,” “rent” as a form of “increase,” and “rent” as payment for services directly rendered. As long as we stick close […]
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A couple of notes on “The Molyneux Problem”

July 8, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
Just so that it is not necessary to reconstruct this every time the question of the adequacy of Universally Preferable Behavior arises, I’ll just place these comments (originally from Reddit) here for the benefit of posterity: [To see the problems with the book] you might look at the beginning of the section “UPB: Five Proofs,” where he lays out the supposed logical proof from UPB. When he lays it out as a syllogism, the key proposition is that: “Arguing against the validity of universally preferable behaviour demonstrates universally preferable behaviour.” Now, that’s not the clearest of sentences, but here’s the […]
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The “FAQs”

July 7, 2012
One of the basic assumptions driving this blog is that we’re not really in a position for definitive answers to a lot of the most important, and most frequently asked questions about mutualism. We can say a lot of true things about a lot of mutualist tendencies, but MUTUALISM as such, has only had, or will have, the sort of unity that allows us to simply explain or define it at a few moments in the past and perhaps in some more orderly future—provided we can do the work now of getting a handle on the current, rather far-flung debate. […]
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Mutualism at the Owenite High Tide

July 6, 2012
For a look at the concerns of the Owenite current at the moment, in the 1820s, when some members were trying on the label “mutualist” and Josiah Warren was taking the steps that would lead him to individualist anarchism, I’ve assembled a collection of texts in the first volume of a Documentary History of Mutualism: Mutualism at the Owenite High Tide. In it: The letters of the “1826 Mutualist” are followed by Josiah Warren’s “The Motives for Communism,”—an account of his involvement with the Owenite movement,—a speech given at New Harmony by communist Paul Brown,—author of Twelve Months in New […]
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Notes on the origins of the term “mutualism” (1822-1850)

July 6, 2012
I contributed most of the following to Wikipedia, so we can just make use of it here to get started on a bit of basic mutualist history: Mutualism, as a term, has seen a variety of related uses. Charles Fourier first used the French term “mutualisme” in 1822, although the reference was not to an economic system. The first use of the noun “mutualist” was in the New-Harmony Gazette by an American Owenite in 1826. In the early 1830s, a labor organization in Lyons, France, called themselves the “Mutuellists.” Pierre Joseph Proudhon was involved with the Lyons mutualists and later […]