César de Paepe Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

The Present Institutions of the International from the Point of View of the Future (1869)

March 20, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

In the Archives Bakounine, this text is attributed to César de Paepe. Les institutions actuelles de l’Internationale au point de vue de l’avenir. L’Association internationale des Travailleurs porte dans ses flancs la régénération sociale. Il en est beaucoup qui conviennent que si l’Association vient à réaliser son programme, elle aura effectivement instauré le règne de la justice, mais qui croient que certaines institutions actuelles de l’Internationale ne sont que temporaires, et destinées à disparaître. Nous voulons montrer que l’Internationale offre déjà le type de la société à venir, et que ses diverses institutions, avec les modifications voulues, formeront l’ordre social […]

César de Paepe, “Anarchy” (1863)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

The two texts that follow are both translations of an excerpt from the speech published as “Discours du citoyen César de Paepe prononcé á Patignies (Namur) en 1863” in 1898. The first, an edited translation, first appeared under the title “Anarchy” in The Commonweal 7 no. 287 (October 31, 1891): 137-139. The second is my own complete translation of the same passage, which includes some remarks on the transition to anarchy not included in the 19th century translation. The ideal of the democracy can only be Anarchy; not Anarchy in the sense of disorder, confusion, but Anarchy in the sense, […]

César De Paepe, “To the Anti-Collectivists” (1868)

February 13, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

COLLECTIVIST POLEMIC [1] I. — TO THE ANTI-COLLECTIVISTS. [aka THE LEGITIMACY OF THE SOCIALIZATION OF PROPERTY] Thanks to a dialectics put in the service of a method more often metaphysical than scientific (which it is necessary to avoid confusing with the historical and objective method of Karl Marx), Proudhon has discovered in the social world some laws that observation confirms more from day to day; it is, however, incontestable that hypothesis still plays an infinitely more considerable role in the works of that thinker and that often he has concluded a priori or from insufficient observations: witness the conclusions […]