International Alliance

Bakunin Library

Counter-Proposal on Resistance Funds (1869)

March 20, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
[“Reaction to a report of the Central Section of Geneva of the I.W.A., adopted in a session of the Alliance on August 14, [1869].”] Counter-Proposal 1) There must be created in each section, corporation or society in the International Association a resistant fund [caisse de résistance]. 2) In order to form that fund, each corporative section or society, by a decision taken in the general assembly, modifiable by later assemblies, of the section or corporative society will impose [a contribution] on all its members, always conforming to the rate of their wages. 3) No shareholder, except in very serious cases […]
Bakunin Library

Bakunin, “To the Brothers of the Alliance in Spain” (1872)

March 17, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
Marx, as a thinker, is on the right track. He has established as a principle that all the political, religious and legal evolutions in history are not causes, but effects of the economic evolutions. It is a great and productive thought, that he has not absolutely invented: it has been glimpsed, expressed in part, by many others than him; but finally, to him belongs the honor of having solidly established it and having posited it as the basis of his whole economic system. On the other hand, Proudhon understand and felt liberty beaucoup much better than him—Proudhon, when he did not engage in doctrine and metaphysics, had the true instinct of the revolutionary—he adored Satan and he proclaimed an-archy. It is quite possible that Marx could raise himself theoretically to an even more rational system of liberty than Proudhon—but he lacks Proudhon’s instinct.

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