Contr'un Archives - Page 51 of 56 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Anarchist-communism, work, and the virtue of selfishness

December 1, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Contr’un Revisited: Obviously, it’s a big moment when Joseph Déjacque enters the mix, but there’s a lot going on here that would bear fruit later. Adding Déjacque to my list of early anarchist obsessions moved me closer to the recognition of an Era of Anarchy, and discovering the influence of both Fourier and Pierre Leroux in his work would sharpen my interest in the “utopian” roots of anarchism, but the first really dividend from my work on Déjacque was a sense that I had been underestimating the place of egoism among the early anarchists. At […]

An excellent resource on Proudhon

November 30, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: Ten years later, I finally have a copy of my own! [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] I’ve found very little in the literature on anarchism that does much justice to Proudhon’s work. His economic ideas—which were complex, based in a principle of “antinomies,” and expressed at different times in significantly different language—are generally treated without much attention to detail. (The anarchist literature is substantially better in this regard than the Marxist literature, which nearly always simply repeats the judgments of Marx.) One very fine exception to the general rule is Rob Knowles’ Political Economy from Below: Economic Thought in Communitarian […]

Mutualism: the Anarchism of Approximations — II

November 29, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Contr’un Revisited: Sometimes it’s the little things in these old posts that reminds me just how far I’ve traveled, even if I’ve ended up somewhere relatively close to where I started. For example, I had a vague memory that “The Lesson of the Pear-Growers’ Series” had not originally appeared on this blog, but had completely forgotten about On ALLiance, the short-lived blog dedicated specifically to exploring theory suitable for the multi-tendency Alliance of the Libertarian Left. In hindsight, I guess that the handful of posts that appeared there were an early attempt at what I’ve been calling a “shareable narrative” […]

The Lesson of the Pear Growers’ Series

November 21, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: At the time, I had only the vaguest notion of how important the influence of Fourier would be on my own thinking, although this is one in a series of instances where we have to make a note that there is much more work to be done. I still think it is fair to characterize Proudhon’s understanding of social forces as “relentlessly positive,” although my appreciation of the role that “universal antagonism” plays in his thought has grown enormously. There is clearly a side to Proudhon that is relentlessly critical, sometimes earning him the reputation he has […]

Responses to some objections

November 19, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: Honestly, some of this post has a real Twilight Zone feel to it for me. Consider it evidence of my brief Carsonian period. For me, it also marks an important tension in my own work. Obviously, there was a time when I was content speaking a political language that was very Tuckerite. I get a lot of guff these days for slighting poor old Benjamin R. Tucker, usually from people who have no idea how many hours I spent putting together the first online pdf set of Liberty. And I’ll grant that the various, seemingly endless struggles […]

Mutualism, the Anarchism of Approximations, I

November 14, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

What is Mutualism? It is a question that even self-proclaimed mutualists may hesitate to answer. Since 1826, when the term mutualist first appeared in print, there have, in fact, been only a handful of attempts to present mutualism in systematic form. The most important of these, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s De la capacité politique des classes ouvrières (1865), has yet to be translated into English. The most accessible, Clarence L. Swartz’ What Is Mutualism? (1927), dates from a period when mutualism had, by most accounts, waned almost to insignificance as a political force.

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“The Spirit of the Age” at Google Books!

September 13, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

It’s a very, very good day for those interested in the earliest manifestations of mutualism in the United States. William Henry Channing’s The Spirit of the Age (1849-1850) is now available, in its entirety, with minimal scanning defects, from Google Books. I had previously had the chance to read through an original bound volume, and transcribe some contributions. Now I can finally sit down to read through the entire run. 150 or so pages in, my sense of the importance of this early journal just keeps increasing. Go check it out!

An embarrassment of riches, redux

February 2, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

This the sort of problem we should have—so much new, interesting anarchist material coming out of the archives that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of it all. I’ve been trying to work through roughly a roll of microfilmed periodicals each day this past couple of weeks, and I can’t think when I have been so pleasantly overwhelmed. Specifically, with regard to the J. K. Ingalls volume, I’m running a little behind, largely because of some difficulties with interlibrary loan, but I will be able to add a series on “Women’s Industrial Subjection,” from the Woman’s Tribune and a debate […]

An embarassment of riches, or, Auguste Ott tips the scales

July 17, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

It was probably about the third time I looked at the list of books donated by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody to the Boston Athenaeum that I noticed the third William B. Greene-related item. Ott, Auguste (1814-1903). Manuel d’Histoire Universelle … Tome Premier. Première Partie. Histoire Ancienne. Paris: Paulin, 1840. iii, 588 pages. Half leather, marbled paper boards. Inscribed in ink on front paste-down endpaper: “W.B. Greene / Brookfield.” Marginal markings and notes in pencil throughout. There’s a kind of obsessive visiting and revisiting of the minor details that’s a part of a work like the William B. Greene project, where nearly […]

Benjamin Tucker enters the fray

July 10, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] On January 5, 1873, 18-year-old Benjamin R. Tucker sent a letter to Francis Abbot, the editor of The Index, the journal of the Free Religious Association. In it, he took Abbot to task for the following remarks: “Usury laws, in especial, which sometimes work great detriment to the business interests of whole communities, are in fact based upon the Bible conception that it is a crime to take interest for money loaned; although the common sense of mankind reject the notion in fact.” The free religionists were engaged in one of a series of attempts to reconstruct religion on […]