Agathon de Potter Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

“Rational Socialists” vs. the Anarchists

May 31, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

In 2010, I posted a partial translation of Summary of Social Economy, According to the Ideas of Colins, by Agathon de Potter, one of the most active of Colins’ followers. It took fifteen years to come back and finish the job, but — one thing having led to another — the completed translation is one of three newly translated texts by de Potter that I’m sharing today.

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Summary of Social Economy – I

May 19, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here’s the first section of a text introducing the ideas of Jean-Guillaume-César-Alexandre-Hippolyte baron de Colins, the chief theorist of “rational socialism,” also known as “collectivism.” Although Colins and his school are now largely forgotten, they were an important influence in the period of the First International. Indeed, in the early debates between mutualism and collectivism, the influence of Colins’ collectivism was probably as significant as that of Marx. This first section is largely biographical. Summary of Social Economy According to the Ideas of Colins Agathon de Potter I composed, a long time ago, an extremely brief summary of the social […]