Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Anarchism

Mutualism is Approximate (from LeftLiberty 2)

September 11, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
Mutualism: The Anarchism of Approximations[continued from Part II]__________ Mutualism is approximate. Mutualism values justice, in the form of reciprocity. Mutualism is dialectical. (Or “trialectical.” Or serial.) Mutualism is individualism and socialism—or it is neither. Mutualism recognizes positive power. Mutualism is progressive and conservative. Mutualism is market anarchism. __________ Philosophical Observations (continued) Mutualism is approximate. It rejects absolutism, fundamentalism, and the promotion of supposedly foolproof blueprints for society. What it seeks to approximate, however, is the fullest sort of human freedom. In The Theory of Property, Proudhon claimed that “humanity proceeds by approximation,” and proceeded to list seven “approximations” that he […]
Uncategorized

Orestes Brownson and Pierre Leroux

July 25, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
Pierre Leroux was the other half, along with P.-J. Proudhon, of the mutualist mix, as formulated by William B. Greene. Greene was introduced to Leroux’s work by Orestes A. Brownson, and adopted a number of Brownson’s criticisms of Leroux’s works. Greene’s first major writings were, in fact, attempts to come to terms with the thought of Leroux and Brownson. From this perspective, Brownson’s most important works were a review of Leroux’s Humanity and “The Mediatorial Life of Jesus,” both from 1842 – and they’re both available now in Corvus Editions. If you want to understand Greene’s mutualism, or want another […]
Anarchism

JUSTICE: Program – Conclusion

July 19, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section XIII. § XIII. — CONCLUSION The papacy having been broken, Catholicism is brought low: there is no more religion in the civilized world. The Protestant churches, a sort of middle term between religious thought and philosophical thought, that remained in opposition to the Roman Church, perish in their turn, obliged as they will be either to decisively adopt philosophy, and consequently to consummate their abjuration, or to undergo a restoration of unity, and consequently to contradict themselves. Eclecticism itself no longer has any raison d’être; of […]
Anarchism

JUSTICE: A word about the situation

July 19, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section XII. § XII. — A word about the situation. It is by their principles, religious or philosophical, that societies live. Before 89, France was Christian: its monarchy was of divine right, its economic constitution established on feudality. Christian, monarchical and feudal, the French nation could be said to be as well disciplined in its thought as it was in its government. She had principles, doctrines, a tradition, a morals; she had rights. Under Louis XIV it arrived, using its principles, at the highest degree of power […]
mutualism

JUSTICE: Law of Progress

July 13, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section XI. § XI. — Law of progress: Social destination. An objection is posed.—If the center or pivot of philosophy, namely Justice, is, like that of being, invariable and fixed, the system of things, which, in fact and in right, rests on that center, must also be defined in itself, and consequently fixed in its ensemble and tending to immutability. Leibnitz regarded this world as the best possible; he should have said, in virtue of the law of equilibrium that presides over it, that it is the […]
mutualism

JUSTICE: Conditions for a philosophical propaganda

July 13, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section X. § X. — Conditions for a philosophical propaganda. It is when religions pass away, when monarchies fail, when the politics of exploitation is reduced, in order to preserve itself, to proscribing the worker and the idea, and when the republic, everywhere on the agenda, seeks its formula; at the hour when the old convictions are dilapidated, when consciences are routed, when opinion is abandoned, when the multitude of egoisms shouts Every man for himself! that the moment arrives for an attempt at social restoration by […]
mutualism

JUSTICE – Supremacy of Justice

July 11, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section IX. § IX. — Supremacy of Justice. Philosophy defined; Its dualism established; Its levelling spirit and its democratic tendency demonstrated; The formation of ideas, perceptions and concepts explained; The criterium having been found, the goal indicated, the synthetic formula given, man’s purpose determined; One can say, in a sense, that philosophy is finished. It is finished, since it can present itself before the multitude and say to it: I am JUSTICE, Ego sum qui sum; it is I who shall draw you forth from misery and […]
mutualism

The Return of JUSTICE: The universal reason of things

July 11, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Volume I, “Program,” section VIII. § VIII. — Justice, the universal reason of things. — Science and conscience. The people, in their laborious existence, even more than the philosophers in their speculations, have need of a guide: they need, we have said, a guide for their reason, a rule for their conscience, a superior point of view from which they may embrace their knowledge and their destiny. All this they found in religion. God, the eternal Word, had created man from clay and had animated him with his breath; God […]
anarchist mutualism

French mutualism beyond Proudhon

May 8, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 10px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 10px 0 10px”] There’s been an interesting, if not terribly productive, discussion on Wikipedia, regarding the scope of the entry on Individualist Anarchism. It has been charged, with some justice, that the article overemphasizes Anglophone market anarchism, and virtually ignores a number of other currents that might be included with equal reason and justice. That’s one way of thinking about the problem. I’m inclined to beat my usual drum, and suggest that this is another of those cases where Wikipedia simply has no way to resolve what should be in article when essentially all […]
mutualism

Introducing, at long last! LeftLiberty and the New Proudhon Library!

April 2, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur
I took versions of LeftLiberty 1 and the new translation of The Philosophy of Progress to the San Francisco Bay Area Bookfair, but there wasn’t time to put together covers and do the web support for distribution. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be updating the leftliberty.org site, launching Corvus Distribution, revising all of my current pamphlets, and making sure things are listed at Invisible Molotov. But sufficient unto the day its little list of milestones, and today I’m very pleased to announce that, at long last, both LeftLiberty and the New Proudhon Library are realities, with first entries […]