manuscript writings Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Proudhon, “Economy” (Ms. 18255, BnF, excerpts)

December 12, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

These writings come from a manuscript held by the French national library, with the title “Economy.” Like the other manuscripts with that title, it appears to be from the early 1850s. This particular set of writings are not presented in that wonderfully readable script that Proudhon used when finishing manuscripts. Quite the contrary, much of the material here is written in a baffling scrawl, which takes multiple examinations to decipher. So there are almost certainly small errors, as well as the obvious gaps. Use with care. [18r] Literature. What the scribblers have called grandeur and decadence in literature, and in […]

P.-J. Proudhon, “What, Finally, is the Republic?”

May 3, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

Written sometime around 1858, since Proudhon cites the recent publication of 1848 : Historical revelations: inscribed to Lord Normanby, which appeared in that year, “Qu’est-ce que enfin que la République?” seems to have remained an unpublished manuscript until it was included in the posthumous collection Napoléon III, which is a bit of a hodgepodge, with some changes in formatting and some apparent errors in transcription. For this working page, I have tried to restore the majority of the text to the form present in the manuscript, but, for my own purposes, I have included both the uninterrupted program of La […]

P.-J. Proudhon, Economy (Ms. 2863) — selected translations

October 2, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

It is this lack of definitions that establishes, as we will see, that Economy has been unable thus far to posit axioms, to demonstrate a method, to indicate its limits, and make known its object, that is to say to respond to that question, without which it cannot rank among the sciences: What is your name? Who are you?

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P.-J. Proudhon, “Property is Theft” (manuscript)

August 27, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

The theory of indefinites explains how this proposition is an absolute truth, and how nevertheless [property] is an organic and social necessity.

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Emma Goldman, “Walt Whitman” (incomplete manuscript)

August 18, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] WALT WHITMAN Last summer I listened to the reading of a very fine paper on Walt Whitman, at the Public Library of the city. I was struck by what seem[ed] to me a futile attempt on the part of some of the men who participated in the discussion to contrast Walt Whitman with some European poets. Not that Whitman was the greatest of all times or all nations. I even think some of his biographers have rendered the poet of Leaves of Grass scant services when they proclaimed him greater than Homer and Socrates. The […]

Charles Fourier, “Cosmogony”

May 28, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] COSMOGONY. FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF FOURIER. Translated for the Harbinger. —— PREAMBLE. Having reached this twenty-first section, I feel the same temptation which Montesquieu did at his twenty-first book. He wanted to address an invocation to the Muses; I read it in a journal which seemed astonished, and with reason, at this weakness. Montesquieu, amongst other complaints, said to the virgins of Pindus: “I have run a long career, and I am overburdened with cares.” Nevertheless he had, to support his labors and distract him from his cares, an income of […]