Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Archives - Page 17 of 31

Bakunin, Letter to Proudhon (1848)

February 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Letter to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon ___ Köthen, December 12, 1848 Citizen, I do not know if you will remember me; as for me, in my long peregrinations across Germany and in the Slavic countries, I have […]

“I believe neither in constitutions, nor in laws” (1848)

February 18, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Max Nettlau pointed to this letter as the first evidence of anarchist leanings in Bakunin’s writings.] [Early August, 1848] To Citizen George Herwegh. Paris. [Rue St. Augustins] 40 9 [r. sur Cirque]# To George My […]

Proudhon on “libertarians” in 1858

November 2, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve been working my way through those sections of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church which I didn’t have to consult carefully while writing the chapter on the State, as the […]

Proudhon on the “right to punish”

October 3, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Here is another section from the study on moral sanction, the concluding section of Justice in the Revolution and in the Church.] II. — Does society have the right to punish? The philosophers struggle, and […]

Proudhon, Justice: Twelfth Study

October 2, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

The final study in Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church deals with the question of “moral sanction.” This section explains the identity, within Proudhon’s thought of the law, the legislator, and the […]

A Proudhonian summary from the manuscript writings

July 14, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

The project of working through Proudhon’s works, keyword by keyword, has been rewarding for a variety of reasons. It’s been nearly impossible to get a clear sense of the larger patterns in Proudhon’s use […]

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: Self-Government and the Citizen-State

June 5, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve spent much of the last six months on a journey down the rabbit hole in search of Proudhon’s theory of the State, and as I suspect my notes on the study have made clear, […]

Proudhon on method, and the “system” of society

May 18, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

[The bolded section is a great bit of clarification by Proudhon.] Justice in the Revolution and in the Church from the Study on Ideas LVIII. — System of public reason, or social system. How many […]

Proudhon on the State in 1861

February 18, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

You might expect that Proudhon’s theory of the state would be most succinctly expressed in one of his essays on the subject of the state, like “Resistance to the Revolution” of the “Small Political Catechism.” […]

Anarchy is order! (Wait! What?)

January 28, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

I have often seen the phrase “anarchy is order” attributed to Proudhon—and to Bakunin, and Bellarrigue, and Elisee Reclus, and a French singer-songwriter named Leo Ferre. Often the phrase is actually Bellegarrigue’s (“Anarchy is order; […]

The Libertarian Labyrinth

Encounters with the Anarchist Idea / Tools for an Anarchist Entente

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon