Proudhon seminar Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

More Proudhon on the origin of property

October 27, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third][/one_third][two_third_last] Here’s another little bit from “Justice,” which immediately follows the last passages linked. In it, Proudhon explains how, in the very early phases of the “shock of ideas,” property emerged as a social convention precisely because human beings had not yet learned to question their own absolutism. Elsewhere, however, he makes it clear that our “absolutism” is not simply something we need to “get over” or grow out of, but an important enabling component in ethical evolution. This is part of the revision of the material Rafael posted, once Proudhon had decided that the antinomies did not resolve themselves. […]

What Is Property? Chapter 2, part 3 notes

July 24, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

Just a bit more on Destutt-Tracy: on page 61-2, there is one of the clearest expressions of Proudhon’s argument that a significant amount of property theory rests on a semantic slide, and it comes in the context of one of Proudhon’s few direct encounters with the concept of self-ownership. Here’s Proudhon: “Shameful equivocation, not justified by the necessity for generalization! The word property has two meanings: 1. It designates the quality which makes a thing what it is; the attribute which is peculiar to it, and especially distinguishes it. We use it in this sense when we say the properties […]

What Is Property? Chapter 2, part 2 notes

July 24, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

I had some unexpected delays of a better sort yesterday, including two rather random encounters with one of my best friends from high school (in California, not Oregon, where I am now), who I haven’t seen in about 20 years. A familiar voice in a coffee shop turned out to be just who it sounded like. And then the voice again, from a parking lot I was walking by, hours later, on my way home from the bookstore. Good stuff. Anyway, we left off at page 54, at the start of section 2, on “Occupation, as the Title to Property.” […]

What Is Property? Ch. 2 notes, part 1

July 15, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

These are notes from the ongoing Proudhon seminar. Page numbers refer to the Benjamin R. Tucker translation of What Is Property? Chapter II covers “PROPERTY CONSIDERED AS A NATURAL RIGHT.—OCCUPATION AND CIVIL LAW AS EFFICIENT BASES OF PROPERTY. DEFINITIONS.” Proudhon announced in the first chapter that: “The first of these chapters [Ch. 2] will prove that the right of occupation OBSTRUCTS property; the second [Ch. 3] that the right of labor DESTROYS it.” So we know pretty much what to expect. p. 42: Property is defined as “the right to use and abuse one’s own within the limits of the […]

What Is Property? Chapter One notes

July 13, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

I don’t think there is anything in the first chapter that is terribly difficult, but there’s a lot that is interesting. p. 12: Proudhon claims that property is “an effect without a cause:” none of the justifications given for it hold up. He imagines the objection being aimed at his contradiction of widely-held received wisdom on the subject, and at his *uniting of contraries*. p.13: “The work of our race is to build the temple of science,” “truth reveals itself to all,” and “you will find here a series of experiments upon justice and right.” Proudhon’s social science is fairly […]

“What Is Property?” vs “Theory of Property”?

July 4, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

From the Proudhon-seminar list: I took a trip into Portland today, to check in at the radical bookstore where I’m volunteering and to look over some untranslated material in a fresh setting. It always seems to clear my head even just to get out on the light-rail and work a bit. And I can be sure of having a cat-free lap, which is not the case in my office at home. As I mentioned, I’ve been working on the “Summary of my earlier works on property,” from Proudhon’s posthumously-published “The Theory of Property.” In that chapter, Proudhon makes some criticisms […]

Proudhon’s “last word”

July 3, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve engaged in what I hope is a helpful reversal here—the reversal of a reversal, actually. In Chapter One of What Is Property? Proudhon wrote, “I think best to place the last thought of my book first,” and declared himself within his rights. I, on the other hand, have gone to some trouble to push that “last thought” back a bit. My reasons are simple: the phrase “property is robbery” is the one thing we all “know” about the work, and it is something of a distraction, particularly as there are some difficulties in knowing what it means in the […]

Proudhon seminar: Onward!

July 2, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Links to the main discussion list and project page are now in the sidebar. Please join the list if you want to take advantage of the discussion. -shawn] Plan of Attack As I said, I would like to start my discussion of the material with Chapter 5, Part II, Section 3. I intend to deal with that final section in two posts, taking them in reverse order: 1) Proudhon’s ten point program (below)2) The nature of “liberty” I’ll follow that with some discussion of Chapter One, Proudhon’s discussion of method, probably on Thursday. By that time, I hope to have […]

Proudhon seminar: Initial thoughts

July 2, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

Proudhon’s What Is Property? poses a variety of interpretive problems, not the least of which is that its careful series of examinations of the various justifications for simple, individual property are frequently overshadowed by the slogan, “Property is robbery!” That phrase remained important to Proudhon, even after he came to his own terms with property. “I do not come to retract,” he said in May, 1848, “heaven forbid! I persist in regarding this provocative definition as the greatest truth of the century.” However, in the same “Toast to the Revolution,” he clarified the nature of the statement: “When I say, […]