Contr'un Archives - Page 33 of 56 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

P.-J. Proudhon, The Celebration of Sunday — II

January 15, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE CELEBRATION OF SUNDAY [continued from Part I] II What I have said of the civil effects of the Sabbath sufficiently explains the importance that the legislator attached to it, when he made the stability of the State depend on it. But that institution itself had need of safeguards: it demanded to be defended against the negligence of some, against the ill will of others, and against the ignorance and barbarity of all. Now, it is from the guarantees with which Moses surrounded it that we have seen born the influence of the Sabbath on family relations. For such is […]

Proudhonian consistency

January 14, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I was amused to find that Proudhon’s first published article in 1839 begins with the following: “Is a universal alphabet possible? “If it is possible, is it practicable in the study and common usage of language? “Yes, a universal alphabet is possible, and I believe that possibility is demonstrated by the work that I am about to analyze. “No, that universal alphabet is not practicable and never will be, outside of some phonological comparisons and some literal connections. As the last proposition is a sort of negation of the preceding one, I must engage in some clarifications on the subject, […]

More Molinari, etc.

January 11, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

Roderick Long has translated another pair of texts, both relating to Gustave de Molinari’s Soirées on the Rue Saint-Lazare: Charles Coquelin’s review of the work, and “Question of the Limits of State Action and Individual Action Discussed at the Society of Political Economy,” a summary of a related discussion, published in the Journal des Économistes. Roderick’s blog posts give useful context.

The Theory of Property, Chapter VIII

January 11, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

Of the chapters from Proudhon’s The Theory of Property which have not yet appeared in translation, the first is the Introduction compiled by Proudhon’s friends, which surveyed his previous works; the third, fourth and fifth chapters amount to a summing up of Proudhon’s scattered thoughts on the varieties of property, legal opinions on the subject, and the history of property. All of these contain interesting material, including the data on which the New Theory was constructed. But arguably the most interesting of the remaining chapters are the seventh, which explains in some detail the “equilibration” of property, and the eighth, […]

“Theory of Property” controversies

January 5, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

In the interest of covering as many of the bases as possible, relating to The Theory of Property, and Proudhon’s posthumous works in general, I’ve spent some time this week exploring the debates within Proudhon’s circle specifically concerning The Theory of Property. A key exchange appeared in La Presse, in November 1865, initially pitting J. A. Langlois and Georges Duchêne against Alfred Darimon, over the question of the style and extent of the editing in the posthumous works. Abraam Rolland and Gustave Chaudey expressed themselves in disagreement with Langlois and Duchêne on the most appropriate form for the posthumous works […]

The Posthumous Works of Proudhon

January 4, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

The previous post, “What is certain is that property is to be regenerated among us,” has spurred some further research on the relation of The Theory of Property to Proudhon’s works of the early 1860s. Check the comment thread for a number of of interesting items from Proudhon’s correspondence, and the Libertarian Library blog for the “Notice to the Reader” from The Principle of Art, the first of the Posthumous Works.

“What is certain is that property is to be regenerated among us”

January 2, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: [commentary coming soon] [/ezcol_1third][ezcol_2third_end] I was asked to clarify Proudhon’s position on property, by someone reading the AK Press anthology, Property is Theft! I had been under the impression that, although Iain McKay’s introductory material consistently claims that Proudhon did not “change his mind” about property, the concluding chapter of The Theory of Property was included—and there is nothing ambiguous about that material. Unfortunately, besides placing the material from The Theory of Property in an Appendix, and suggesting that Proudhon had considered it of less importance than The Political Capacity of the Working Classes, which he was […]

Mother Earth—raw bibliography

December 29, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve posted a listing of bibliographic data for articles in Mother Earth—in “raw” form, as complete as I have been able to make it, given the state of the card catalog data I was working with and the digital files I have been able to double-check that data against. As I mentioned when the data was all entered into the Libertarian Labyrinth wiki archive, this is a project which I would love to pursue—and not just with Mother Earth—assuming people see this sort of work as useful. I’ll update the listings as I can verify and complete them.

Varieties of “theft” and “property”

December 27, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0″] Contr’un Revisited: [commentary coming soon] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] It’s generally nice to avoid taking complex problems and making them even more complex—but not always. There may be some real advances in clarity to be gained from incorporating our new questions about “theft” into the larger puzzle regarding Proudhon and “property.” But we’re going to have to proceed cautiously. Let’s begin with a sort of catalog of the concepts that may or may not be in play, as we try to unpack Proudhon’s infamous phrase, “property is theft,” in the contents of his remarks […]

Two new translations from “l’Almanach de la Question Sociale” for 1895

December 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve been puttering away at translating some short items from one of the radical socialist almanacs available online. This evening, I’ve posted an article on “Worker Mortality,” by Paule Mink, and an obituary of Emile Digeon, the hero of the Narbonne Commune and theorist of “rational anarchism.” There are quite a number of other interesting items in the Almanach de la Question Sociale. I’m working on a letter about Louise Michel at the moment [now complete], and I’ll probably return to a couple of other items by Paule Mink and Louise Michel as time allows.