Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

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Proudhon, What is Government? What is God?

May 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
Proudhon’s essay “What is Government? What is God?” appeared first in the Voix du Peuple, November 5, 1849, then as the preface to The Confessions of a Revolutionary, as well as in the Melanges volumes of the Lacroix collected works. It was the occasion for one of the more important responses by Pierre Leroux—a response which seems to have influenced William Batchelder Greene.
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Maxime Leroy, Stirner vs. Proudhon (1905)

May 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve posted a working translation of Maxime Leroy’s essay,  “Stirner vs. Proudhon,” which originally appeared in 1905 in La Renaissance latine. The essay is really not much about Proudhon, and is perhaps ambivalent in its approach to Stirner, but it is certainly interesting enough to have been worth the work.
Black and Red Feminism

From “L’Opinion des Femmes,” August 1848

May 16, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
These two short articles by Désirée Gay (Jeanne Desirée Véret Gay, 1810-1891) appeared in the August 1848 issue of L’Opinion des Femmes, which seems to have been a kind of testing of the waters before the launch of the official “First Year” of the paper. That issue had been preceded by a 4-page “Prospectus,” written by Jeanne Deroin, and the paper was essentially a continuation of La Politique des Femmes, but there was still a certain amount of work to do setting the tone for the project, and Gay seems to have taken on much of that work in the […]
Black and Red Feminism

Jeanne Deroin to Proudhon, January 1849

May 16, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Jeanne Deroin. “Lettre a M. Proudhon.” L’Opinion des Femmes. No. 1, Year 1. January 28, 1849.] Letter to Proudhon. Monsieur, I know that, preoccupied most especially with questions of political economy, you have not accepted all the consequences of the principles on which our social future rests. You are one of the most formidable adversaries of the principle of equality—a principle which does not allow unjust exclusion and privileges of sex. I know that you do not wish to recognize the right of women to civil and political equality. This right, which contain in it the abolition of all social […]
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Bakunin on Proudhon and Marx

April 24, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
James Guillaume, in the “Biographical Notice” in his French edition of Bakunin’s Works, includes part of an 1870 manuscript written by Bakunin on the subject of Proudhon and Marx: Proudhon, despite all his efforts to shake off the traditions of classical idealism, nonetheless remained all his life an incorrigible idealist, inspired, as I told him two months before his death, sometimes by the Bible, sometimes by Roman law, and always a metaphysician to the fingertips. His great misfortune is that he never studied the natural sciences, and he never adopted its methods. He had some instincts of genius that made […]
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Proudhon to Jeanne Deroin

April 20, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[A letter, apparently not included in the Correspondence, from Proudhon to Jeanne Deroin. The date is uncertain. Working translation; all the usual cautions apply.] Paris, August 4 [1848?]. Madame. You have understood me perfectly: what I pursue under the name of the abolition of usury and of property, is the restoration of the family, it is the advent of the man-king, and of the woman-queen. Until this great reform is accomplished, men and women will not love one another: cupidity will infect their union, and behind cupidity comes brutality of the senses. Libertinism replaces love, and murder, finally, takes its […]
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“Property is Theft!” book launch in London

April 15, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[From Iain McKay] Freedom Bookshop is hosting the book launch of“Property is Theft! A Pierre-Joseph ProudhonAnthology”. This is the new comprehensive anthology of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s writings published by AK Press. Proudhon was the first person to call themselves an anarchist and his ideas on property, state, exploitation, workers self-management, federalism and anarchy defined anarchism as a socio-economic theory. Join Iain McKay, the editor of “Property is Theft!”and author of “An Anarchist FAQ”, to discuss Proudhon’s ideas and why they are still importanttoday. “Property is Theft!” book launch: Saturday, 2pm to 4pm,21st May 2011 Freedom Bookshophttp://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/bookshop/ Angel Alley84b Whitechapel High StreetLondon […]
From the Archives

Joseph Déjacque, “The Human Being” (1857)

April 4, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been working to track down the various feminist critiques of Proudhon by his contemporaries, and translate those which have not been translated. I was actually about half-way through a translation of Déjacque’s “On the Human Being, Male and Female,” when I stumbled across this translation that appeared in Lucifer the Lightbearer. I’ll try to post my own translation later , but Jonathan Mayo Crane rendering of the French certainly captures the spirit of Déjacque’s assault. Mayo’s translation appeared in two sections, and I’m posting them separately. THE HUMAN BEING. (Letter written to P. J. Proudhon by Joseph Déjacque in […]
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Two Socialist Catechisms

March 28, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] I’ve been reading around Proudhon quite a bit lately, trying to establish contexts as a step towards further clarifying his ideas. And I have been in search of 19th century English translations of the French socialists, as a step towards establishing the contexts for people like William B. Greene and William Henry Channing. There are large chunks of the writings of Charles Fourier, Victor Considerant, and a number of the important French socialist-feminists tucked away in the pages of American papers. The translations are often partial, and occasionally untrustworthy, but I’ve been setting aside time each week for searching, […]
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Proudhon, “Man is Free”

March 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] The short article by Proudhon, “God is Evil,” which I posted awhile back, was essentially the introduction to a longer piece, “Man is Free,” which followed it. I now have both articles translated and posted to the Libertarian Labyrinth archive. [/ezcol_2third] [ezcol_1third_end] [/ezcol_1third_end]