Contr'un

Anselme Bellegarrigue’s Revolution

Anselme Bellegarrigue published two issues of Anarchy: A Journal of Order. The first issue, the “Manifesto,” is relatively well-known, thanks to a partial translation in Benjamin R. Tucker’s Liberty and a more recent full translation by Paul Sharkey, which was published by the Kate Sharpley Library. Those familiar with that work will not be surprised by the relentless anti-governmentalism in the second issue, “The Revolution,” but they may be somewhat taken aback by his identification of “The Revolution” with the flux of interests, and his claim that “the Revolution is purely and simply a matter of business.” I started working […]
Contr'un

Anselme Bellegarrigue on “The Revolution”

Bellegarrigue’s Anarchy: A Journal of Order only lasted for two issues, although he had projected several more. The first issue contained his “Manifesto”  — translated and published in part by Benjamin Tucker in Liberty, and in full by the Kate Sharpley Library — and the second was dedicated to “The Revolution.” Like Proudhon, Bellegarrigue was a strong critic of the direction that the 1848 revolution had taken: “In theory, the Revolution is the development of well-being. In practice, it has only been the extension of malaise.” And, like Proudhon, he pointed to certain essential contradictions which prevented that “development of […]