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Proudhon, The Theory of Property — Chapter III (part 1 of 2)

June 16, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Here is a particular rough working translation of a particularly interesting section of The Theory of Property. Because it never underwent the careful final editing that Proudhon gave his published works, the text poses a few extra problems for the translator. I think the handful of places where a little more work will be needed to clarify things will be fairly obvious to most readers.] THE THEORY OF PROPERTY CHAPTER III Different ways of possessing the land: in community, under the feudal system, sovereignty or property. — Examination of the first two modes: rebuttal. The earth can be possessed in […]
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Joseph Déjacque, The Humanisphere — I

June 16, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[I posted some of this about a year and a half ago, but set it down again, not feeling comfortable enough with some of the contexts to be sure I was getting the details right. With the work that I’ve been doing recently translating Charles Fourier, Pierre Leroux, and some other works by Joseph Déjacque, I’m feeling much more certain that I’m catching nuances, so I’m going to start posting sections again, beginning with a considerably enlarged first helping.] The Humanisphere Anarchic Utopia Utopia: “A dream not realized, but not unrealizable.” Anarchy: “Absence of government.” Revolutions are conservations. (P. J. […]
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Disagreement on the Posthumous Works of Proudhon – First Letter

June 13, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
The complete translation can be downloaded in pdf form. The publication of Proudhon’s posthumous works occasioned a controversy among his literary executors, with some of the debate occurring in the pages of La Presse in November, 1865. The debate involved four of the six executors—J. A. Langlois, Georges Duchêne, A. A. Rolland, and Gustave Chaudey—and Proudhon’s old collaborator Alfred Darimon, which whom Proudhon had parted ways politically, plus a number of other allies and adversaries. The debate was important enough for Auguste Beauchery to include the two main letters from La Presse in his 1867 Economie Sociale de P.-J. Proudhon, […]
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Jules Leroux, What is the Republic?

June 13, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
Over on the Libertarian Library site, I’ve posted a working translation of Jules Leroux’s 1848 pamphlet, What is the Republic? Jules was Pierre Leroux’s brother, and an important radical, with a career which took him from France all the way to the final Icarian community in northern California.
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Proudhon, The various meanings of the word property

June 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Here’s the first section of Proudhon’s The Theory of Property, in rough English translation.] THEORY OF PROPERTY CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION § I. — The various meanings of the word property. In 1840, I promised to give a solution of the problem of property, and I renewed my promise in 1846. Today I keep my word. It is my turn to defend property, not against the phalansterians, the communists and the agrarians, who are no more, but against those who saved it in June 1848, in June 1849, in May 1830, in December 1851, and who have since brought it low. […]
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The Bakunin Library: Request for Feedback

June 3, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m in that messy, lonely stage, with the Collected Works of Bakunin project, of laying out possible volumes and trying to anticipate potential permissions problems. And, so far, I haven’t received much feedback from potential readers and buyers about whether or not the general strategy and set of priorities I outlined over on the Bakunin Library blog seems likely to meet the needs and/or desires of the intended audience. It is always nice to tackle big projects with at least a little bit of sense that you’re going to be meeting people’s needs. And I’m sure my publisher would be […]
Black and Red Feminism

Jenny d’Héricourt’s “Appeal to Women” and “Profession of Faith”

May 31, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been working on an anthology of Jenny P. d’Héricourt’s works, combining her two-volume Woman Affranchised with an assortment of other works of feminist philosophy. d’Héricourt was, of course, one of Proudhon’s opponents on the question of women’s rights, and her response to him makes up an important part of the first volume of Woman Affranchised, but the second volume (about two-thirds of which was not included in the existing English translation) shows her as an accomplished social thinker and activist. I’ve been revising and completing the translation of the first volume of that work, and hope to have at […]
Black and Red Feminism

Adrien Ranvier — Jeanne Deroin, A Feminist of 1848 — I

May 30, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
A FEMINIST OF 1848: Jeanne DEROIN This study of Jeanne Deroin is the work left by Adrien Ranvier, who died September 18, 1905, at Asniéres (Seine). Adrien Ranvier, born in 1807, son of Gabriel Ramier, member of the Commune, was raised, from 1871, by Madames Vincent and Mauriceau. Her father, Gabriel Ranvier, imprisoned after October 31 1870, was elected mayor of the XXth arrondissement and member of the Commune, March 26, 1871; was one of the last combatants of the Commune and only escaped from prison thanks to the shelter than he found in Asniéres, with the Girard and Mauriceau […]
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William Henry Channing, “Letters to Associationists”

May 29, 2012
LETTERS TO ASSOCIATIONISTS. Number One. As Corresponding Secretary of the “American Union of Associationists,” allow me thus publicly to present a view of our duties in the Social Movement. Judge, each reader, of the truth of what is said! Freely challenge and correct errors! Let us commune together! Thus will the latent spirit be prepared for outward manifestation. Your thoughts are invited to consider I. Our Position. 1. In Actual Life, we take the ground of mediating between Revolutionary and Conservative tendencies. We propose a detailed scheme of practical reconciliation, whereby Capital and Labor may combine in a work of […]