mutualism.info

Contr'un

Notes on the origins of the term “mutualism” (1822-1850)

July 6, 2012
I contributed most of the following to Wikipedia, so we can just make use of it here to get started on a bit of basic mutualist history: Mutualism, as a term, has seen a variety of related uses. Charles Fourier first used the French term “mutualisme” in 1822, although the reference was not to an economic system. The first use of the noun “mutualist” was in the New-Harmony Gazette by an American Owenite in 1826. In the early 1830s, a labor organization in Lyons, France, called themselves the “Mutuellists.” Pierre Joseph Proudhon was involved with the Lyons mutualists and later […]
Contr'un

The Mutualism.info Dilemma

July 6, 2012
I’ve hardly started, and there are already some criticisms and concerns about what is is and isn’t going to get covered here. My hope is to eventually cover a wide range of historical, theoretical and practical questions—and, where appropriate, to deal with elements of the traditions both historically (to get us on a firm footing) and critically. It’s useful, for example, to know how William B. Greene adapted Proudhon’s proposals, and the colonial land bank model, to the needs of his audience in 19th century New England. But most of my readers are probably, like me, not in a position […]
Contr'un

The Golden Rule as a practical guide

July 4, 2012
I have been using the following paragraph on the Two-Gun Mutualism blog for some time now: Mutualism is not a specific social, political or economic system. Mutualism as such is simply the assertion that every meaningfully social relation will have the form, at base, of an anarchic encounter between unique individuals—free absolutes—no matter what layers of convention we pile on it. To the extent that our conventions, institutions and norms respect that basic premise, we can call them “mutualist.” To the extent that we commit ourselves to viewing our relations through this lens, and exert ourselves in the extension of […]
anarchist mutualism

The Mutualist’s Dilemma

July 4, 2012 anarchisms_w4l2ii
Contr’un Revisited: This post originally appeared as the introduction to the Mutualism.info site. As the text suggests, that project was an attempt to focus on what could be said about mutualism in general, while other blogs pursued lines of inquiry that were different and generally more partisan. Two-Gun Mutualism and the Golden Rule, the blog that would become Contr’un, was the most important of those other blogs. There, I was in the midst of a very serious encounter with property theory and just beginning a more serious engagement with Proudhon’s work. The logic of spinning off an introductory blog, as […]