Contr'un Archives - Page 44 of 56 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Property is impossible?

July 4, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third] Contr’un Revisited: [commentary coming soon] [/one_third][two_third_last] We’re getting closer to the river’s edge, but we’re not quite prepared to “take our draught” yet. It has always seemed to me that libertarian property theory is prone to leaping straight to property’s defense—the occasions for legitimate use of force—without lingering overlong on just what it is defending. The broader the discussion—and terms like “left-libertarian” and “market anarchist” attempt to cover pretty broad swathes of ideological territory—the more pronounced the problem. The left-libertarian theory of a “spectrum” of abandonment theories seems to me pretty sound, and useful, but I have my doubts […]

Responses on Locke’s proviso

June 30, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

In my initial thoughts on Locke’s proviso, I wasn’t doing much more than testing the waters, so to speak, or getting some new cards on the table. I had been wrestling, semi-unsuccessfully, with a follow-up post to my recent piece on markets, government and the environment, and decided it would make as much sense to tackle some key property issues head-on, as to wade any deeper, right now, into a debate that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere very useful. The responses so far suggest that maybe this stuff isn’t going anywhere either — at least without some real […]

Some thoughts on Locke’s proviso

June 25, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself: for he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. No body could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water […]

Newly translated commentary on Stirner

June 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Check out the Vagabond Theorist blog for a translation of the “Introduction” to the 2001 edition of the Italian version of Max Stirner’s Der Einzige und sein Eigentum. The translation is obviously approximate in a couple of places, but Massimo Passamani’s provocative reading of Stirner is sufficiently clear. Thanks to the Vagabond Theorist himself for making this available.

Markets, Government and the Environment

June 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

I stand by my previous observation that without some practical acknowledgment of ecological realities, no institution can properly address a problem like the Gulf oil spill. It seems clear that the freedom-to-function of a market is a separate issue from the various forces, ideologies and knowledge-sets that shape the activity and perceived interests of the economic actors involved. That means, of course, that a “market” can freely function towards quite a number of specific ends, depending on how the economic actors understand their interests. It may also complicate the sorts of simple oppositions between free market function and governmental intervention […]

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Conclusion

June 4, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here is the final section of Proudhon’s study on property, from the Contradictions. The other sections I posted recently will appear, in full or part, in the forthcoming AK Press anthology, but this section didn’t make the cut for various reasons, not the least of which was its difficulty. The translation is still considerably rougher than the others in a few places, but I think most of it is clear and very interesting. As of today, I have officially begun a revision and annotation of Benjamin R. Tucker’s translations of the first two memoirs on property. Since the translations are generally […]

Responding to the Deepwater Horizon disaster

June 2, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Kevin Carson has a new piece up at the Center for a Stateless Society, In a Truly Free Market, BP Would Be Toast, which argues that without federal regulation limiting liability BP would not only be facing liabilities that “stack up pretty tall against BP’s total equity,” but also that in a genuinely free market the demands of insurers would force companies like BP to take adequate precautions. Kevin is absolutely right in saying that the Gulf spill is not the product of an “unregulated market.” It’s one of the great wonders of the modern world that, with news of […]

Contr'un

A freethought gem from Multatuli

May 30, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Though personally I am (notoriously, in some circles) a radical neo-christian, a “regular thoroughgoing heretic” much on the same model as William B. Greene, I’m a equal-opportunity historian and translator, and certainly enjoy a well-written freethought piece. After all, the institutions of Christendom seem to have trouble keeping their own basic doctrines straight, and pretty much beg for a good rebuttal. This short piece by Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker, 1820-1887) is a translation of a French translation of a posthumously published letter, but I think the sense comes through loud and clear. THE PRAYER OF AN IGNORAMUS MULTATULI. I don’t […]

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 5

May 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY [continued from Part 4] Thus property, which should consummate the holy union of man and nature, leads only to an odious prostitution. The sultan uses and abuses his slave: the earth is for him an instrument of luxury… I find here more than a metaphor; I discover a profound analogy. What is it that, in the relations of the sexes, distinguishes marriage from concubinage? Everyone senses the difference between these two things; few people would be in a state to render an account of it, so obscure has the question become […]

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 4

May 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY [continued from Part 3] Of all the forms of property, the most detestable is that which has talent for a pretext. Prove to an artist, by the comparison of times and men, that the inequality of works of art, in the different centuries, above all stems from the oscillating movements of society, from the changing of beliefs and of the state of minds; that whatever a society is worth, so much is the worth of the artist; that between the artist and his contemporaries there exists a community of needs […]