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Notes on “Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism”

August 20, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
These are notes from a Reddit debate on “lifestylism.” They are by no means an exhaustive critique of Bookchin’s most divisive text, but perhaps they give some reasons to believe that more is not necessarily needed. Looking at Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm, these problems jump out immediately: Part 1: Bookchin makes his sweeping statements about the two tendencies in the anarchist tradition, focusing on what he thinks of as “[a]narchism’s failure to resolve this tension, to articulate the relationship of the individual to the collective, and to enunciate the historical circumstances that would make possible a stateless […]
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Note on Mutualism and the Market-Form

July 1, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Related Links: “Toward a General Theory of Archy“ “Escheat and Anarchy“ “Archy vs. Anarchy“ There is no doubt in my mind that mutualism has as much to offer in the ongoing conversation about establishing meaningfully anarchistic economic relations as any anarchist tendency, whether it is based in the plumbline anti-monopolism of Benjamin R. Tucker or the anti-absolutist social science of Proudhon. The part of our project that does indeed involve a kind of “market anarchism” seems bound to continue to play an important role among those not absolutely wedded to market abolitionism, if only because it is informed by a […]
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Anarchy: Action in the Face of Uncertainty

June 15, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
“A distinct, anarchy-centered anarchism is not just possible, but necessary, if we are to confront the systemic challenges facing us, and that anarchism seems likely, if seriously pursued, to be adequate to the task.” Related links: “Positive Anarchy, Profusion, Uncertainty and the Uses of History“ “Legal order“ P.-J. Proudhon, The Philosophy of Progress (1853) Defining Anarchy: These preliminary, exploratory writings are always half pleasure, half drudgery for me. You can have the right elements in hand and still require a lot of experimenting before they are anything like an elegant ensemble. With this series on “Defining Anarchy,” I’m conscious, not […]
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Anarchy, Harmony and the Maelstrom of Desire

June 12, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
“A distinct, anarchy-centered anarchism is not just possible, but necessary, if we are to confront the systemic challenges facing us, and that anarchism seems likely, if seriously pursued, to be adequate to the task.” “The ideal republic is an organization that leaves all opinions and all activities free. In this republic, every citizen, by doing what he wishes and only what he wishes, participates directly in legislation and in government, as he participates in the production and the circulation of wealth. Here, every citizen is king; for he has plenitude of power, he reigns and governs. The ideal republic is […]
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Anarchy: Lawless and Unprincipled

May 25, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
“A distinct, anarchy-centered anarchism is not just possible, but necessary, if we are to confront the systemic challenges facing us, and that anarchism seems likely, if seriously pursued, to be adequate to the task.” Related links: P.-J Proudhon, The Philosophy of Progress [pdf] “Anarchy: Historical, Abstract and Resultant“ “Authority, Liberty and the Federative Principle“ “Notes on Liberty and neo-Proudhonian Anarchism“ Defining Anarchy: The ideal republic is an organization that leaves all opinions and all activities free. In this republic, every citizen, by doing what he wishes and only what he wishes, participates directly in legislation and in government, as he […]
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Positive Anarchy and Collective Force

May 11, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Related links: Our Lost Continent and the Journey Back [main page] “Anarchism: Plain and Neo-Proudhonian“ “Legal Order“ “Archy vs. Anarchy“ “Authority and Authority-effects“ Theories of Anarchist Development Anarchy as a Beacon and as a Focus for Synthesis Defining Anarchy: A distinct, anarchy-centered anarchism is not just possible, but necessary, if we are to confront the systemic challenges facing us, and that anarchism seems likely, if seriously pursued, to be adequate to the task. We’re off to a good start, having defined anarchy in terms of a complete break with legal and governmental order. Any anarchism taking this concept of anarchy […]
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Anarchy: Into the Maelstrom

May 9, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Related links: Our Lost Continent and the Journey Back [main page] “1840: Proudhon’s Barbaric Yawp“ “Anarchism: Plain and neo-Proudhonian” (April 22, 2020) Defining Anarchy:   First, we scuttle the ship of state, with all hands, if need be—ourselves included—if, for the moment, only in the realm of the imagination… After all the preliminaries, all the hesitations, it is time to take the plunge, to do our best to define anarchy in such a way that it can serve us as a guide and instrument in the exploration we have undertaken. And we have told ourselves that the anarchist conception of […]
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Notes on Liberty and neo-Proudhonian Anarchism

April 21, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
If we step entirely away from legal/governmental conceptions of liberty, where it is a question of permissions and prohibitions, then one of the options is to address liberty in terms similar to those used by Proudhon. He spoke about quantities of liberty within beings and social collectivities, determined by the complexity and intensity of their internal relations.

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Authority, Liberty and the Federative Principle

February 19, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Related links: Initial Thoughts Proudhon’s Du principe fédératif et de la nécessité de reconstituer le parti de la révolution occupies an interesting place among his works. It has been, prior to my translation of Théorie de la propriété, the only extended portion of Proudhon’s final major project, the study of Poland, available in English. And my sense is that it has been considered one of the “good” late works, like De la capacité politique des classes ouvrières, rather than one of the potentially “bad” works, like the work on property—while also being, of course, the work most often cited in […]
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On the Anarchist Culture Wars

February 17, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
When it comes right down to it, the only people I have much faith in when it comes to a lasting commitment to anarchist thought and practice are those who are both serious about ideas (although I recognize a lot of ways this seriousness might manifest itself) — and specifically serious about anarchist ideas and anarchistic ways of thinking — and ready to acknowledge that the particular ideas that separate anarchism from the rest of the political or social philosophies out there, anarchy chief among them, are not “safe.”

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