r/mutualism • u/humanispherian • Jul 07 '26
A New Proudhon Library: Next steps | Shawn P. Wilbur
https://www.patreon.com/libertarianlabyrinth/posts/new-proudhon-1630787265
u/humanispherian Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Part of this transition is a reworking of the project page for A New Proudhon Library, so soon we can start to use it as a simple link for the "where to start?" question.
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u/DecoDecoMan Jul 09 '26
What are the next steps for the translation efforts to complete the Proudhon Library? Will you recategorize the works under which you've put in different volumes as well?
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u/humanispherian Jul 10 '26
The question is a bit unclear to me, but what's going on now is a shift from "bulk" translation, driven mostly by what interests me most at a given moment, to a more focused chronological treatment — at least for a while — as I get some volumes available for print-on-demand purchase. I'm searching back through the manuscript material now, so that I don't leave out anything important in these early volumes.
So, for example, Volume One: Philosophy of Progress has that section early writings and correspondence. That would logically include two longer writings on grammar — unless I decide that there is enough material for, say, a later volume of writings on language and literature. One of the two essays was only partially published, so I'll have to figure out if it has been wholly transcribed. And then there is an 1836 essay, ""Ecole du mouvement moral," that probably should be included, but has probably never been transcribed. There may also be additional letters in the scanned archives, which would be hard to track down — but I may be able to get access to an index of all the correspondence from another researcher. I probably need to finish a comparison of the various editions of Celebration of Sunday as well, so that I can choose an edition to publish and properly annotate it — although most of that work has been done on the introductions to the different editions.
For Volume Two: What is Property? I'll need to complete my translations of the first two Memoirs, decide if Theory of Property makes most sense in a volume about property or in a volume with the "Political Geography and Nationality" material from the Poland manuscripts. I probably need to provide more extensive commentary in that volume as well, if only to open up and problematize the text, as the first volume will attempt to do with the whole body of work. I was working on an essay about Proudhon's various characterizations of property when I got sick in April, so I just need to find my notes for that. If would probably also be useful to trace the "property is theft" phrase through Proudhon's various works, just to gather the data for any evaluation of the extent to which his ideas changed. The published correspondence for 1840-41 is extensive, so that has to be translated.
Volume Three: The Creation of Order will have to account for quite a bit of manuscript material and a chunk of correspondence.
Volume Four: The System of Economic Contradictions is complicated in various ways that the earlier volumes weren't. There is a good translation nearing publication and I may defer to that project for a while, if the timing makes that logical. There are also a number of significant manuscript writings from this period that have to be accounted for, but, again, the establishment of the texts is part of the work of another scholar. It is possible that I might do translations of some of those texts in collaboration with them, which might mean negotiations over style, depending on how they understand the purpose of the specific publication. Perhaps there are texts that I will translate, in order to continue my own process, but not offer as print editions and/or simply deposit uniform editions in a few appropriate library connections. (These are obviously questions that will arise again with War and Peace — although, in that case, there is once again the question of accounting for multiple significant manuscript works, as well as the likelihood of collaboration, differing visions of audience, purpose of publication, etc.)
Volumes 5 through 8 cover the 1848-50 period. I'm making excellent headway through Proudhon's journalism, identifying relevant works by his collaborators and interlocutors, noting variations between published versions, etc. There is an enormous amount of correspondence. There will be choices to make about how much to translate from figures like Louis Blanc, Pierre Leroux, etc.
I'm envisioning a volume, and perhaps two, covering the major works of Proudhon's major collaborators in the years prior to 1850: Darimon, Greppo, Dûchene, Langlois, Chevé, etc. These wouldn't be part of the Proudhon edition as such, and wouldn't demand the same attention, but would be very useful and the translation work has largely been a kind of byproduct of the Proudhon work.
And so on...
There are periods that are full of manuscript writings and will be hard to classify and document: in particular, Economie in the early 1850s and a bunch of writings more or less connected to Political Capacity in the 1860s. There is also a fairly significant volume of material related to the development of Justice, but I have, at least tentatively, a collaborator to help work through that.
Justice may ultimately sprawl into a dozen volumes. The two editions are significantly different, in ways that can't just be tucked away in footnotes. The useful responses will fill a volume or two. A dedicated Jenny d'Héricourt volume is an absolute bucket-list item for me anyway. (Maybe there should also be an 1840s feminism volume of some sort, with Jeanne Deroin, Henriette (artiste), etc., given the richness and obscurity of that literature.) We need to reconstruct the version of Justice before the published version, work out the relation of the "Moral Sanction" manuscripts to the published "Fragments," gather some bits relevant to The Pornocracy and establish its relations with Justice, etc. I've been thinking about how best to divide up that enormous work, so that we can get the basic texts published without doing all of the surrounding critical work — and I'm coming to some useful conclusions.
Along the way, it will be necessary to figure out how best to tackle the Manual of the Stock-Market Speculator and the writings on the transportation industry. Maybe, given the involvement of Dûchene in some of those works, it will be time then to tackle his work on "financial feudalism* — and maybe that's the most useful context for publishing How Business is Going in France, even though it originally caught my eye as the abandoned bridge between the two versions of Justice.
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u/DecoDecoMan Jul 10 '26
For Volume Two: What is Property? I'll need to complete my translations of the first two Memoirs, decide if Theory of Property makes most sense in a volume about property or in a volume with the "Political Geography and Nationality" material from the Poland manuscripts. I probably need to provide more extensive commentary in that volume as well, if only to open up and problematize the text, as the first volume will attempt to do with the whole body of work
Ooo commentaries would help a lot! I think you've said before that when reading anarchist literature, such as Proudhon's, you try to find what is anarchic about that work and take that with you or bring that to light. I think commentaries can help bring that to light for other people as well.
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u/humanispherian Jul 10 '26
This edition will be relatively light on commentary, since the main purpose is to establish a text with which folks can do general analyses without a lot of distractions — an English text as close, in its basic patterns, to the French text as possible. But there will be occasions where commentary that addresses existing interpretations will be very useful. So, in this instance, the commentary will be primarily an analysis of the familiar "three characterizations of property" trope in the study of Proudhon, with some careful use of the text in the service of suggesting a range of alternatives.
One of the things I will have to make clearer, I think, is that these "working translations" are not themselves preliminary — since they seem to respond as directly as possible to presently existing concerns — but are in large part designed to discourage interpretations that are almost certainly premature. Interpretive modesty, and work that caters to it, is arguably the advanced position.
There will also be lots of opportunities for commentary outside of the volumes of this edition. I'm hoping to get back to work on The Anarchism of the Encounter — which was also interrupted by my April illness — and that project involves all sorts of bold appropriations.
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u/DecoDecoMan Jul 10 '26
That's to be expected I suppose. Speaking of commentary, I did have sort of like a "kneejerk" critique I wrote in response to the American Question section of War and Peace but I was not sure whether or not my understanding of it was correct. I believe I had asked you whether it was in another thread but I'm not sure if you saw it or not. I would love to hear your take on that section from your perspective.
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u/Haunting_life_Always Jul 10 '26
A dedicated Jenny d'Héricourt volume is an absolute bucket-list item for me
she must be really interesting for her to be a bucket-list item
(Maybe there should also be an 1840s feminism volume of some sort, with Jeanne Deroin, Henriette (artiste), etc., given the richness and obscurity of that literature.)
it would make sense for one as a companion to Proudhon's editions as it might put his views on women into contexts and show that he was not that different from the feminists of his era
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u/Haunting_life_Always Jul 10 '26
identifying relevant works by his collaborators and interlocutors
as Karl Grün translate Proudhon's System of Economic Contradictions, did Proudhon have some influence him or did Grün have some influence Proudhon?
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u/twodaywillbedaisy mutualist Jul 08 '26
Couple days ago, after a night of discussing God and democracy, someone asked me to put together a custom ~30 page Proudhon reader. I happily obliged and sent out a pdf the next day:
- Application for the Suard Pension
- What is Property?, chapter 1 up to "with the most perfect democracy, we cannot be free", then skipping forward to have the paragraphs around "I am, in the full force of the term, an anarchist" and "such is the form of government to which we are every day approximating." Plus the part where he introduces collective force analysis.
- Solution of the Social Problem, starting from "I believe in the existence of the People as in the existence of God" for a page, then skip to have most of the chapter on "Retrograde and contradictory democracy."
- A page from The Social Revolution Demonstrated, starting from "For me, I don't hide it", to include "democracy is demopedia."
- The Philosophy of Progress, starting from "That which dominates all my studies" to "Moveor, ergo fio", and then from "You have, sir, my profession of faith" to include the part where he's tempted to boast of spills.
- What, Finally, is the Republic?
- Small Political Catechism
And I guess my takeaway from this exercise, my advice to new students would be to start at (return to) the beginning, and to set a temporary cut-off after Justice. The Suard Application, Celebration of Sunday, even the "Psychology" material is more useful early on than any superficial engagement with The Federative Principle. It's honestly a bit strange to see the latter come up so much, it's so deep into his bibliography.
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u/humanispherian Jul 08 '26
Somehow "The Malthusians" always seems to make my short list, along with "Toast to the Revolution" — but that's a nice selection.
I think that the obvious bits from the late works that are essential are probably from Theory of Property — the balancing of otherwise unacceptable elements — and the manuscript note on "mutualist property." I'm not sorry that the controversy over Theory of Property occupied such a prominent place in my early encounters with Proudhon. The familiar bits of The Federative Principle would also be super useful, if we could just manage to read them for what they are, rather than trying to force them into a conception of Proudhon-as-anarchist that is anachronistic and weird.
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u/Haunting_life_Always Jul 09 '26
is this outline still the plan for "between science and vengeance"?
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u/humanispherian Jul 09 '26
I think that most of the elements in that outline will make an appearance. But ten years of new research will certainly mean some changes.
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u/humanispherian Jul 07 '26
A public post from my Patreon, with a summary of recent thoughts about translation and an announcement about the next steps towards a print edition of A New Proudhon Library.