Working Translations

Proudhon Library

Celebration of Sunday: Appendix

May 30, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
DE LA CÉLÉBRATION DU DIMANCHE PAGES RETROUVÉES Nous n’avions pas manqué, quand nous avons eu à préparer la réédition des premières œuvres de Proudhon, de rechercher s’il était encore possible de lire les manuscrits, les premières éditions, les lettres adressées aux Ministres, etc. Bibliothèque nationale, Bibliothèque de Besançon, Archives nationales, Archives du Ministère de la Justice ne nous avaient pas donné ce que nous espérions. Ainsi avions-nous été amené à dire que le manuscrit et la première édition, tirée à 200 exemplaires, du Discours sur le Dimanche n’avaient pas été conservés. C’était inexact. M. G. Gazier, conservateur de la Bibliothèque […]
Working Translations

Charles-Auguste Bontemps, “The Libertarian Spirit” (1945)

May 27, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
A libertarian, from whatever discipline he claims to be, defines himself as essentially individualist and non-conformist. The libertarian spirit, according to the views that I propose to lay out, manifests itself in a constant desire for clarity, realism, objectivity. However, the initial structure of human societies was, as we know, strictly communitarian. One cannot, consequently, study the behaviors that are appropriate to a libertarian spirit, without having previously situated the individual with the group.

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New Proudhon Library

Eighth Study — Conscience and Liberty — parallel English

May 26, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
[These draft translations are part of on ongoing effort to translate both editions of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church into English, together with some related works, as the first step toward establishing an edition of Proudhon’s works in English. They are very much a first step, as there are lots of decisions about how best to render the texts which can only be answered in the course of the translation process. It seems important to share the work as it is completed, even in rough form, but the drafts are not suitable for scholarly work or […]
New Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “What, Finally, is the Republic?”

May 3, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
Written sometime around 1858, since Proudhon cites the recent publication of 1848 : Historical revelations: inscribed to Lord Normanby, which appeared in that year, “Qu’est-ce que enfin que la République?” seems to have remained an unpublished manuscript until it was included in the posthumous collection Napoléon III, which is a bit of a hodgepodge, with some changes in formatting and some apparent errors in transcription. For this working page, I have tried to restore the majority of the text to the form present in the manuscript, but, for my own purposes, I have included both the uninterrupted program of La […]
New Proudhon Library

Fifth study—Education—Parallel English

April 17, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
[These draft translations are part of on ongoing effort to translate both editions of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church into English, together with some related works, as the first step toward establishing an edition of Proudhon’s works in English. They are very much a first step, as there are lots of decisions about how best to render the texts which can only be answered in the course of the translation process. It seems important to share the work as it is completed, even in rough form, but the drafts are not suitable for scholarly work or […]
Anarchist Beginnings

The Three Eras (May 22, 1848)

April 15, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
What does anarchy mean in the streets, if not the absence of informers and armed police? But if, without armed police, without informers, without gendarmes, order reigns in the streets; if no one is robbed there, if no one is murdered there, if no one is insulted there, will the population not have proven that it can do without this power called gendarmes, police and municipal guards? Will it not have proven that it knows how to guard, protect and govern itself?

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Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “Solution of the Social Problem”

March 25, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Republic is the organization by which, all opinions and all activities remaining free, the People, by the very divergence of opinions and will, think and act as a single man. In the Republic, every citizen, by doing what they want and nothing but what they want, participates directly in the legislation and in the government, as they participate in the production and circulation of wealth. There, every citizen is king; for he has the fullness of power; he reigns and governs. The Republic is a positive anarchy. It is neither liberty subjected to order, as in the constitutional monarchy, nor liberty imprisoned in order, as the Provisional Government intends. It is liberty delivered from all its shackles: superstition, prejudice, sophistry, stock-jobbing, authority. It is reciprocal liberty, and not the liberty which restricts; liberty, not the daughter of order, but the mother of order.

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New Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “The Miserere” (1845)

March 25, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
On ordinary Sundays, for about three-quarters of the year, the Miserere serves as the introit, or, as one might say, the entrance to the mass. The celebrant, before making the lustral sprinkling, a ceremony preserved from the pagan ritual (among the Jews the sprinkling was done with blood), intones the seventh verse, Asperges me; the choir finishes the antiphon, and all the people respond: Miserere. Neither of them know what they are saying: isn’t it time to teach them?

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New Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “The Right to Work and the Right of Property” (1848)

March 23, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
Le droit au travail et le droit de propriété PROLOGUE Il est deux points sur lesquels j’ai besoin d’édifier mes lecteurs, et qui motivent cette publication. 1° Je n’ai pas pris la parole sur le droit au travail, lors de la discussion du préambule de la Constitution, d’abord parce que le droit au travail, tel qu’il m’est donné de le comprendre, étant repoussé par tout le monde, par la gauche révolutionnaire comme par la droite conservatrice, je n’avais rien de mieux à faire que de garder le silence ; — en second lieu, parce que je voulais profiter de l’occasion […]
New Proudhon Library

Third Study—Goods—Parallel English

March 20, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
[These draft translations are part of on ongoing effort to translate both editions of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church into English, together with some related works, as the first step toward establishing an edition of Proudhon’s works in English. They are very much a first step, as there are lots of decisions about how best to render the texts which can only be answered in the course of the translation process. It seems important to share the work as it is completed, even in rough form, but the drafts are not suitable for scholarly work or […]