Proudhon Library

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E. E. Fribourg, “The International Workingman’s Association” (1871)

April 8, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

The history of the International Workingman’s Association is obviously contested territory, with Marxist and anarchist accounts competing for attention with works, like Timothy Messer-Kruse’s very interesting account of The Yankee International, which emphasize other factions and other dynamics within the International. Of the existing histories, I am probably most partial to Robert Graham’s We Do Not Fear Anarchy, We Invoke It: The First International and the Origins of the Anarchist Movement, which strikes me as a balanced account. But I’ll admit a fascination with a number of clearly partisan accounts that manage to cover comparatively unfamiliar ground. […]

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Text and Notes: Justice in the Revolution and in the Church: First Study

September 10, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

In the First Study, Proudhon attempts to establish the foundation for his study, presenting some basic definitions and axioms, much as he did at the beginning of The Creation of Order in Humanity. The first chapter, where that foundation-building is most elementary, was subject to very light revision in the revised and expanded edition, and I have, for the most part, simply provided the text from 1860. Subsequent chapters were subject to both considerable revision and considerable expansion — and the differences are instructive enough that I’ll focus on them a bit more than in most studies. […]

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Text and Notes: Justice in the Revolution and in the Church: Prologue / Preliminary Address

September 5, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

As a way to focus my efforts on the fine revision and annotation of my translation of Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, I’m going to post a series of annotated sections documenting the major changes in the work between the two editions, with preliminary notes for the New Proudhon Library Glossary and some thoughts about some of the major interpretive issues. […]

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P.-J. Proudhon, Proposal for a Society of the Perpetual Exhibition (1855)

April 18, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

The newest draft translation added to the New Proudhon Library project is the proposal for a Society of the Perpetual Exhibition, in answer to a call by Emperor Napoleon III for uses for the Palais de l’Industrie built in Paris for the 1855 World Fair. The project resembles Proudhon’s mutual credit proposals, as well as the various schemes for association proposed by Bellegarrigue in the 1850s. […]

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Georges Duchêne, “Government” (1849-50)

January 31, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

Six thousand years of government have proven abundantly that power is, by its nature, spendthrift, prodigal, unproductive, invasive, despotic. Experience does not seem decisive for certain intelligences; and we are in the necessity, — if we do not want to attempt a new dictatorship, — of combatting the idea of authority, not by its historical antecedents, but in its very principle. […]