Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

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 […]
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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, it’s been quite an adventure. The essay, “Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: Self-Government and the Citizen-State,” has been accepted for publication in German, in Nomos’s Staatsverständnisse series. I’ve assembled a pamphlet, containing the English version of the essay, my notes from the blog, and some translations from Proudhon, which is now available in the Labyrinth archive. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: Self-Government and the Citizen-State [1] Shawn P. Wilbur [The State] […]
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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 times have I heard addressed this compliment that the jealous critic would undertake, for the honor of the century, to withdraw, if he comprehended its scope: You are an admirable destroyer, but you do not build anything. You throw people in the road, and you do not offer them the least assistance. What do you put in the place of religion? What do you put […]
Proudhon Library

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.” There are certainly key elements of the theory there, and more in The Theory of Property, but the clearest explanation appears to be tucked away in Proudhon’s book on taxation. These are the relevant passages, and it is truly striking stuff: from The Theory of Taxation (1861) Relation of the State and Liberty, according to modern right. Modern right, by introducing itself in the place […]
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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; government is civil war”) or the phrase “Anarchy is order without power,” cited as appearing in the Confessions of a Revolutionary. That latter phrase does not seem to appear in that book (and I’ve searched pretty carefully) and it doesn’t really sound all that much like Proudhon. There are a number of places where he talked about the relationship between anarchy and order, and lots […]
Proudhon Library

From Proudhon’s study on the State (“Justice,” 1858)

January 27, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
[These passages are taken from the Fourth Study, on “The State,” in Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church.] [From CHAPTER I.] V. — I will not make my readers wait for the solution. As you have just seen, I reduce all of political science to a single question, that of Stability. Why is it that from ancient times until the present, the constitution of the states has been so fragile, that all the publicists, without exception, have declared them essentially instable? How are we to bestow stability and duration on them? It is from this specific side […]
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Proudhon’s Theory of the State

January 20, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve posted some notes on Proudhon’s theory of “the state” at the Two-Gun Mutualism blog [Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3]. Like his analysis of “property,” his treatment of “the state” and “the governmental principle” developed in ways that might look like he engaged in a fairly complete reversal. But as was the case with “property,” the changes are mostly terminological—and I’m arguing that they were probably a very good thing, from the perspective of the overall development of Proudhon’s social theory, however much our present sensibilities might be offended by the vocabulary of the argument. Whether or […]
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Notes on Proudhon’s changing notion of the state (3 of 3)

January 20, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
[part 1][part2] The Republic is the organization by which, all opinions and all activities remaining free, the People, by the very divergence of opinions and will, think and act as a single man. In the Republic, every citizen, by doing what they want and nothing but what they want, participates directly in the legislation and in the government, as they participate in the production and circulation of wealth. There, every citizen is king; for he has the fullness of power; he reigns and governs. The Republic is a positive anarchy. It is neither liberty subjected to order, as in the […]
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Notes on Proudhon’s changing notion of the state (2 of 3)

January 19, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
[These notes are connected to a book chapter I am writing on Proudhon’s theory of the state, some parts of which will undoubtedly end up in TGM: Rearmed. They wander somewhat far afield from that specific question, as I trace out some similarities between various aspects of Proudhon’s thought. And because that wandering became a little more extensive than I had anticipated, I am stretching the series out to three posts.—Shawn.] [part 1][part 3]  ___________ I’m aware that readers who have followed the argument this far are likely to be resistant to the interpretation I’m presenting, and for a number […]