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Anarchy 101

A Return to the Question of the “Polity-Form”

March 2, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

The polity-form, then, in its simplest sense, is the form given to social collectivities when they are accounted for, explained, “realized” (in the language used by Louis Blanc in 1849-50), etc. by a transformation into political units. In this process, individuals — participants in the social relations that give rise to these social collectivities — are reimagined as citizens, subjects, members of the political unit, with rights, duties, privileges, etc. granted or imposed as a result. This governmental relation seems inescapably hierarchical — although in certain instances of extensive, stable consensus that hierarchy might be considered more or less “voluntary” (if only because there is no occasion for enforcement.) […]

Anarchy 101

Anarchy 101: Thinking about Authority and Hierarchy

February 24, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

It is common, when discussing anarchist critiques of “hierarchy” and “authority,” to encounter conflicts between those who consider anarchism a critique of all hierarchy and every form of authority and those who, for one reason or another, object that it is only certain forms of hierarchy and authority that anarchists oppose — or should oppose. We are reminded of “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” Bakunin’s “authority of the bootmaker,” etc. For our purposes here, I want to present a general framework that draw sharp distinctions between anarchy and these other elements of social organization. […]

Anarchy 101

Anarchy 101: Thinking about “Crime”

February 11, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

This is the first in a series of documents attempting to frame the discussion of key concepts in anarchist theory. The goal is to address a series of frequently asked questions, not necessarily by giving definitive answers to them — as that may often be impossible — but at least by summarizing the particular considerations imposed by a fairly consistently anarchistic approach to the analysis. That means attempting to examine the questions in a context where there is no question of “legitimate” authority, “justified” hierarchy or any of the various sorts of “good government,” “anarchist legal systems,” etc. The guiding assumption here is that the simplest conception of anarchy is one that can be clearly distinguished from every form of archy. If self-proclaimed anarchists might perhaps choose to embrace approaches that are, in practice, more complex or equivocal, there is presumably still value for them in the presentation of more starkly drawn alternatives. For some of us, of course, there simply is no question of any compromise between anarchy and archy. […]

Contr'un

Encounters with Anarchist Individualism

January 1, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

The “anarchic encounter” was always really a metaphor, on which I hoped to eventually hang a more thorough analysis of anarchistic social relations. The elaboration has been slow, but the metaphor has remained surprisingly serviceable — and saw a real revival over the course of the “Constructing Anarchisms” project. The metaphor has its source in a pair of passages from Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church — a work that I have translated over the past couple of years and will continue to revise and annotate in 2025 — which summarize in just a few lines a rudimentary anarchist social system. There is a little more to work with than a bon mot or some etymological cues, but not a great deal more. Again, it is a question of a focus for elaborations that it would probably not be accurate to say all follow directly from the original source. But you have to start somewhere — or start again somewhere, as many times as it is necessary to start again — and the encounter is a somewhere that has served me well for some time now. I’m hoping others will have a similar experience. […]

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E. Armand, “Noel! Noel! Noel!” (1900-1935)

December 25, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

The anarchist Christmas story is, perhaps, a somewhat unexpected genre, although the opportunities for propaganda are not hard to see. Certainly, it has made sense for anarchist newspapers to mark the holiday season in their own particular way. The result has been tales with names like “Jesus and Bonnot” (linked at the end of this post) — and, come to think of it, perhaps the real surprise is that there doesn’t seem to be a Ravachol Christmas story out there… […]

Anarchist Beginnings

Benjamin Colin (1818-1884)

October 21, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

There are a handful of very early anarchist or at least anarchistic writings identified by Max Nettlau that have remained elusive in my searches. One in particular — “Plus de gouvernement!” by Benjamin Colin — has nagged at me a bit, since I have known that the paper it was published in, L’Homme, journal de la démocratie universelle, was accessible in various forms and included some other anarchism-related content. But I have never got around the making the extra effort or financial outlay necessary to get my hands on it. […]

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Text and Notes: Justice in the Revolution and in the Church: First Study

September 10, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

In the First Study, Proudhon attempts to establish the foundation for his study, presenting some basic definitions and axioms, much as he did at the beginning of The Creation of Order in Humanity. The first chapter, where that foundation-building is most elementary, was subject to very light revision in the revised and expanded edition, and I have, for the most part, simply provided the text from 1860. Subsequent chapters were subject to both considerable revision and considerable expansion — and the differences are instructive enough that I’ll focus on them a bit more than in most studies. […]