mutualism Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Emile de Girardin, “Mutualisme / Mutualism” (1852)

January 18, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

Solidarity is to liberty what immobility is to movement, what darkness is to light, what community is to reciprocity, what the old formula, association, is to the new formula, assurance. Solidarity, raised to its highest power, is Communism. Liberty, reduced to its simplest expression, is Mutualism.

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Reading Proudhon Today

November 16, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

There is a lot of interesting material in Proudhon’s unpublished manuscripts, not all of which is vital to understanding his project, but there are two sets of texts in particular that any serious student should at least be aware of—if only to know what we don’t know.

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A Schematic Anarchism: Notes on Application

November 9, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

It’s no very great leap from the position I had already taken in “A Schematic Anarchism” to the one I’ve been exploring in Proudhon’s manuscripts. In general, I have been proposing that we shift our approach from endless, more or less interminable arguments about whether or not a given ideology or practice is anarchism or not to analyses of proposed anarchisms that ask: “If we treat X as an instance of anarchism, in what sense is that claim true and how does it compare to other instances?” The answers to that question ought to demonstrate that some of the proposed anarchisms only qualify in the most trivial senses, on the basis of the most implausible explanations, while others can be plausibly situated among the ranks of anarchisms on the basis of a variety of plausible narratives.

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Notes on Mutualism and the Problem(?) of Exchange

January 18, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

There is a criticism that mutualists frequently hear from communists—and we might say it dates back to the 1850s and Joseph Déjacque—that mutualism makes no fundamental break with capitalism because, among the various economic arrangements open to mutualists, we find some that involve some kind of exchange. In a social media discussion this week, the accusation took the form of a claim that “still inherently capitalist.” When it became clear that the would-be critic didn’t know much about any of the varieties of mutualism, the further claim was made that there was, in fact, no need to know anything about […]

William B. Greene’s 1870 “Mutual Banking”

July 6, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Since this post was written, most of Greene’s works on mutual credit have become available in various digital archives. Here are some links: Equality (1849) Mutual Banking (1850) The Radical Deficiency Of The Existing Circulating Medium, And The Advantages Of A Mutual Currency (1857) Mutual Banking, Showing The Radical Deficiencies Of The Existing Circulating Medium, And The Advantages Of A Free Currency (1870) I’ve been spending more time scanning and proofing than posting lately. The most important result of that is that William Batchelder Greene’s 1870 Mutual Banking, Showing The Radical Deficiencies Of The Existing Circulating Medium, And The Advantages […]

Alfred B. Westrup, mutual banking reformer

September 13, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

Alfred B. Westrup was one of the mutual banking reformers active in the circles surrounding Liberty after the death of William B. Greene. Bibliography The abolition of interest a simple problem: the pending crisis the death struggle of a moneyed aristocracy and the labor pains of a new birth to industry. New York : M. Hill, 1897. (18 pages) Address on a new system of money: given at the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Banking : held in the Northwestern University Building, May 23, 1916. [Chicago? : s.n.], 1916. Citizens’ money, a lecture on the “National banking system.” […]

Varieties of Mutualist History

June 30, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: Looking at this material in the context of more recent work, it’s hard to miss the extent to which a process of extrication is already central to the project. A decade ago, there was nothing particularly controversial about treating mutualism as something that might need to be pulled apart before we really understood what it was. Even the folks who objected more-or-less loudly to talk about splitting mutualism into rival camps were engaged in some splitting of their own. Now, when it is a question of pulling apart anarchism, well, a large number of anarchists seem firmly […]

The Historical Character of Mutualism

June 24, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: I asked some of the same questions you’ll find here in the chapter on mutualism that I just completed for the Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. I’ve finally decided that the right answers are the ones that are useful in the present situation, provided they’re backed up by a solid understanding of the history. The “mutualist tradition” has really been the battle over “mutualism,” and that’s a battle that a truly surprising number of individuals and tendencies have felt the urge to fight. As it result, it’s hard for any new analysis to be anything but yet another […]

Confessions of a latter day mutualist

June 22, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contrun Revisited: This is still one of my favorite bits of personal position-taking and much of it still rings true for me, even if I am much less eclectic in my associations these days and much more focused on that anarchy that “accepts no adjectives.” Indeed, the notion of a Babel-in-reverse in the workers’ movements is probably a pretty good summary of much of what I think has gone wrong over time among anarchists. As for the prediction of wild swoops, well, I think it has been fulfilled. [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] What is this Mutualism of which you speak? I […]