1858 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Joseph Déjacque, “The Humanisphere” (1858)

December 13, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] [This is an in-progress, working translation. A revised edition is being prepared for publication.] Joseph Déjacque Archive [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Joseph Déjacque, “The Humanisphere” The Humanisphere Anarchic Utopia ———— Utopia: “A dream not realized, but not unrealizable.” Anarchy: “Absence of government.” Revolutions are conservations. — (P. J. Proudhon) The only true revolutions are the revolutions of ideas. — (Jouffroy) Let us make customs, and no longer make laws. — (Emile de Girardin) So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty…. Stand fast therefore in […]

Joseph Déjacque, “Scandal” (1858)

September 4, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

I have this nagging fear that perhaps readers of the blog have not been reading the translations by Joseph Déjacque. It’s hard for me to imagine any other reason for the failure of at least a minor Déjacque cult emerging. His work strikes me as an exciting amalgamation of revolutionary fervor and socialist social science, with literary qualities which range from the heights to the depths in entirely entertaining ways. This essay is from Le Libertaire No. 4 (August 2, 1858), and is a sort of explanation for his approach to anarchist propaganda. Along the way it includes one of […]

Joseph Déjacque, “The Universal Circulus” (1858)

September 4, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[This remarkable bit of libertarian philosophy by Joseph Déjacque poses all sorts of difficulties for the modern reader, not the least of which is it borrowings from, and reworkings of, the works of Charles Fourier and Pierre Leroux. And there are places where it ha been necessary to translate things rather literally, since terms are used suggestively, according to the established uses of none of the writers or schools that they were drawn from. There are also a couple of times when Déjacque’s enthusiasm clearly ran away with the syntax: where catalogs of conditionals come to abrupt stops, without ever […]

Joseph Déjacque, “The Universal Circulus” (revised translation)(1858)

May 9, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

[This remarkable bit of libertarian philosophy by Joseph Déjacque poses all sorts of difficulties for the modern reader, not the least of which is it borrowings from, and reworkings of, the works of Charles Fourier and Pierre Leroux. And there are places where it ha been necessary to translate things rather literally, since terms are used suggestively, according to the established uses of none of the writers or schools that they were drawn from. There are also a couple of times when Déjacque’s enthusiasm clearly ran away with the syntax: where catalogs of conditionals come to abrupt stops, without ever […]

Joseph Déjacque, on “Exchange” (1858)

December 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] EXCHANGE Joseph Déjacque (from Le Libertaire, No. 6, September 21, 1858) “Be then frankly an entire anarchist and not a quarter anarchist, an eighth anarchist, or one-sixteenth anarchist, as one is a one-fourth, one-eighth or one-sixteenth partner in trade. Go beyond the abolition of contract to the abolition not only of the sword and of capital, but also of property and of authority in all its forms. Then you will have arrived at the anarchist community; that is to say, the social state where each one is free to produce or […]