Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Contr'un

Pruning the Rhizome (review of “Disruptive Elements”)

April 8, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
  Disruptive Elements: The Extremes of French Anarchism Ardent Press, 2014 available from Little Black Cart —— a review —— “Tant pis pour ceux qui souffrent et n’osent pas prêcher l’extermination et l’incendie!” Most history worth bothering with shakes things up. This is particularly true of radical history, and of that branch of radical history that involves rediscovering and re-presenting primary works from various radical currents. Sometimes, the shake-ups are comparatively pleasant, and we find, unexpectedly, that we have inherited marvelous gems, glimpses into the personalities and practices of those who came before us. Sometimes, they seem more like attacks, […]
Contr'un

Proudhon on the Criterion of Certainty (1841-1858)

April 2, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve pulled together some rough translations from Proudhon’s The Creation of Order in Humanity with existing translations from the Second Memoir on Property and Justice in the Revolution and in the Church. Together with The Philosophy of Progress, the collected texts cover some of the major stages in Proudhon’s treatment of the question of “the criterion of certainty.” I remember really being puzzled, the first time I read the book on Progress, about the extent to which this summary of Proudhon’s thought was focused on the question of certainty, and it has taken a long time, even after discovering his […]
Bakunin Library

Bakunin, “To the Brothers of the Alliance in Spain” (1872)

March 17, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
Marx, as a thinker, is on the right track. He has established as a principle that all the political, religious and legal evolutions in history are not causes, but effects of the economic evolutions. It is a great and productive thought, that he has not absolutely invented: it has been glimpsed, expressed in part, by many others than him; but finally, to him belongs the honor of having solidly established it and having posited it as the basis of his whole economic system. On the other hand, Proudhon understand and felt liberty beaucoup much better than him—Proudhon, when he did not engage in doctrine and metaphysics, had the true instinct of the revolutionary—he adored Satan and he proclaimed an-archy. It is quite possible that Marx could raise himself theoretically to an even more rational system of liberty than Proudhon—but he lacks Proudhon’s instinct.

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Proudhon Library

The criterion of certainty in 1841

March 9, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
Related texts: A funny thing happened on the way to “property is theft!” In the Second Memoir on property (1841), Proudhon explained the course of study that led him, somewhat indirectly, to his work on property: By taste as well as by discretion and lack of confidence in my powers, I was slowly pursuing some commonplace studies in philology, mingled with a little metaphysics, when I suddenly fell upon the greatest problem that ever has occupied philosophical minds: I mean the criterion of certainty. Those of my readers who are unacquainted with the philosophical terminology will be glad to be […]
Bakunin Library

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 often thought of you. You are not one of those that one forgets. I don’t know how to express to you the feeling of joy that I felt when I saw you, after the fatal days of June, mount to the podium to defend the interests and rights of those noble and unfortunate workers of Paris, whom all, all except you, had abandoned. The address […]
Bakunin Library

“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 dear friend, since the letter that I have written from Cologne, which I do not know if you have received, I have no longer written a single word. Many things have changed since then, but not our friendship, not the confidence that we have in one another. The thoughts that are essential to us, the aspirations that are essential to us non plus. I am […]
Contr'un

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 next step towards organizing the Proudhon book. There have been a few moments when I’ve kicked myself for not going back and looking at sections, and more than a few where passages I read through in 2008-9 look very different to me now. There are two studies which I’ve never even begun to really do justice, but, so far, the most interesting surprise has come […]
Proudhon Library

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 the problem is still unresolved. While the Church invokes divine right, the mandate received by it to cure souls, and, if necessary, to execute the bodies of those who disdain the law, the so-called rationalists allege, some legitimate defense, others the talion or vengeance, these the necessity of the example, those, who we could call semi-theologians, the mental hygiene and good of the culprits. Mr. […]
Proudhon Library

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 sanction of the law, understood both as the guarantee of its authority (a notion we obviously have to use carefully in this context) and as the rewards or punishments associated with compliance or non-compliance. JUSTICE IN THE REVOLUTION AND IN THE CHURCH TWELFTH STUDY ON MORAL SANCTION ____ FRAGMENTS Monsignor, I have come here to the end of this long labor. Accused as it has […]
Proudhon Library

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 of those keywords without that kind of survey, but the work has also unearthed some important explanations and summaries in unexpected places. The section of the State in The Theory of Taxation is certainly one of the most interesting, but in searching for the surprisingly scarce references to anarchy, I ran across some very interesting material in Napoleon III, a collection of manuscript writings published […]