Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Proudhon Library

The Theory of Property (revision in progress)

May 22, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
This is the beginnings of a revision of the draft translation of Proudhon’s Théorie de la propriété that I originally posted back in 2014. The full draft translation is linked below. Work on the revision has stalled a bit, with other projects taking precedence, but I will have occasion to return to the work on Proudhon’s Pologne manuscripts, including Theory of Property, later this year. THEORY OF PROPERTY BY P.-J. PROUDHON   [i] NOTICE THE READER In the preface placed at the beginning of the book on Art, we have undertaken to tell the public the state of the manuscripts […]
Proudhon Library

Theory of Property (Ms. 2846) page 1

May 21, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_1half] [1] Dedicace. Personnes, Propriete. On travaille à éluder la question économique. C’est à ce point de vue que je juge la politique contemporaine. On croit satisfaire aux nécessités de la situation avec du libre échange, des caisses de retraite, des cités ouvrières, de l’agiotage, de la pisciculture, du jockey-club ! — On se trompe… On excite la haine des populations contre les vieilles dynasties ; on espère par ce sacrifice, sauver les aristocraties. Les Romanow, les Habsbourg, les Hohenzollern, les Bourbon, etc., voila ce qu’on offre en pâture à l’hydre. Mais on travaille à sauver les vieilles noblesses, à reconstituer les […]
Proudhon Library

The Reunification of “Pologne”

May 18, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
I needed a break from some other ongoing projects, and decided to take some time to transcribe more of the “Pologne” (Poland) manuscripts. The work turned out to be interesting enough—and the break from other tasks pleasant enough—that I have actually finished transcribing the bulk of the manuscript that would have made up the (announced, but never published) posthumous volume Géographie politique et nationalité (Political Geography and Nationality.) I have one long and not terribly legible footnote to work through, and then lots of miscellaneous manuscript pages to examine, but majority of the text—just under 60,000 words—is ready for proofreading, […]
Proudhon Library

Poland: Principles, 1.2

April 22, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
[1.1] [ezcol_1half] §2.— L’histoire conçue comme une instruction judiciaire. Pour juger une pareille cause, il faut les principes. Par malheur, depuis tout de siècles qu’elle enregistre les faits et gestes des nations, l’histoire n’est point encore parvienne à déterminer des lois générales, lois qui ne sont autres évidemment que celles [4] de la formation et de l’évolution des états. En deux mots, la philosophie de l’histoire est encore dans l’enfance : tant le progrès de la raison générale est lent, tant en matière du politique et d’histoire, il faut de générations pour asseoir une expérience, recueillir une observation, se formuler un […]
Proudhon Library

Poland: Principles, 1.1

April 20, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_1half] Première partie. Les principes. — Chapitre premier. Histoire et nationalité. Question polonais.—L’histoire conçue comme une instruction judiciaire : nécessité pour écrire l’histoire et juger un nation de poser quelques principes.—Doctrine d’immanence : que l’organisme politique est le produit de la spontanéité sociale, et que là où cette dernière fait défaut, l’état devenant impuissant et impossible, la nationalité demeure nulle.—Épuisement de le spontanéité dans les nations : Juifs, Grecs, Romains et Italiens.—Divisions de l’histoire de Pologne : conclusion défavorable à la revendication des Polonais. §1.— Question polonaise. Les Polonais se plaignent qu’un crime a été commis contre leur nationalité vers la fin du 18e […]
Proudhon Library

Proudhon, “LVIII. — System of public reason, or social system” (Justice)

November 28, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
LVIII. — Système de la raison publique, ou système social. Que de fois ne me suis-je pas entendu adresser ce compliment que la critique jalouse se hâterait, pour l’honneur du siècle, de retirer, si elle en comprenait la portée : Vous êtes un admirable destructeur; mais vous ne construisez rien. Vous jetez les gens à la rue, et vous ne leur offrez pas le moindre abri. Que mettez-vous à la place de la religion? Que mettez-vous à la place du gouvernement? Que mettez-vous à la place de la propriété? On me dit à présent: Que mettez-vous à la place de […]
Anarchist Beginnings

P.-J. Proudhon, “The Third Form of Society” (1840)

September 2, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[From Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property?] 3. Determination of the third social form. Conclusion Therefore, no government, no public economy, no administration is possible with property for a basis. Community seeks equality and law. Property, born of the autonomy of reason and the feeling of individual worth, wants, above all things, independence and proportionality. But community, taking uniformity for law, and leveling for equality, becomes tyrannical and unjust. Property, through its despotism and its invasions, soon shows itself oppressive and unsociable. What property and community seek is good; what both produce is bad. And why? Because both are exclusive, and […]
A Good Word

Anarchy, Understood in All its Senses—II

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Anarchy, understood in all its senses—I (Proudhon, introduction) Anarchy, understood in all its senses—II (Proudhon, 1839-1841) Joseph Déjacque and the First Emergence of “Anarchism” Libertarian socialist historiography (Gaston Leval, René Berthier) Eliphalet Kimball, “Law, Commerce and Religion” (1862) William J. Gorsuch, “Tags” (1891) Gaston Leval, “Libertarian Socialist! Why?” (1956) “Whatever the carpers may say, the word Anarchy is rapidly vindicating itself. No other word could have given such an impetus to the gospel of Liberty in so short a time.” — Benj. R. Tucker “Anarchy is a good word. It means, ‘without a head.’” — Eliphalet Kimball [Contr’un, December 17, […]
A Good Word

Anarchy, Understood in All its Senses

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
A Good Word: Anarchy in All its Senses (outline) Anarchy, understood in all its senses—I (Proudhon, introduction) Anarchy, understood in all its senses—II (Proudhon, 1839-1841) Joseph Déjacque and the First Emergence of “Anarchism” Libertarian socialist historiography (Gaston Leval, René Berthier) Eliphalet Kimball, “Law, Commerce and Religion” (1862) William J. Gorsuch, “Tags” (1891) Gaston Leval, “Libertarian Socialist! Why?” (1956) [From Contr’un, June 30, 2013] “The first term of the series being thus Absolutism,  the final, fateful term is Anarchy, understood in all the senses.”–Proudhon, The General Idea of the Revolution In order to start to address the question posed in the […]
Proudhon Library

Proudhon and the coup d’état of 1851

July 13, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
One of the things that ought to be clear from recent developments here is that sometimes the most interesting, and also the most unexpected, insights into Proudhon’s work come from double-checking those things that “everyone knows” about his work. It was, after all, in the context of tracking down how close he came to saying “anarchy is order” that I ran across the dubious translations in The General Idea of the Revolution, and that has led to a general scouring of his work for discussions of “anarchy” and “anarchism,” which keeps raising interesting points about the early uses of that […]