Welcome to the Proudhon Library

Historical translations:

A NEW PROUDHON LIBRARY (Draft translations)

Application for the Suard Pension (1837) (text — last revised July, 2017)

Psychology (unpublished manuscript, 1838) (text — last revised November 2022)

Review: Essay on the Physical Analysis of Languages, or Methodical Alphabet (1839) (pdf — last revised March 27, 2024)

The Celebration of Sunday (1839) [revision pending] (pdf — last revised November 2023)

What is Property? (1840)

Warning to the Proprietors (1841) [text — last revised March, 2023]

Explanations Presented to the Public Prosecutor Regarding the Right of Property (1842) (pdf — revised and expanded January 9, 2024)

The Creation of Order in Humanity (1843) [translation in progress]

The Miserere (1845) (text — last revised March 25, 2023)

Of the Competition between the Railways and Waterways (1845) (pdf — last revised February 2024)

Revolutionary Ideas (1848) (selected articles)

The Right to Work and the Right of Property (1848) (text — last revised April 2023)

Solution of the Social Problem (1848) (text — last revised March, 2023)

  • The Revolution in 1848
  • Democracy

The Organization of Credit and Circulation

  • Program

Bank of Exchange (1848) (translation in progress)

  • What is Property? (text — last revised March, 2023)

Articles from “Le Peuple” (1849)

Acts of the Revolution (1849) — and articles from La Voix du Peuple

  • What is Government? What is God? [unrevised translation]
  • Resistance to the Revolution
  • Georges Duchêne, “Government” — (pdf — last revised February 1, 2024)
  • C.-F. Chevé, “Socialist Catechism” — (pdf)

The Confessions of a Revolutionary (1849) (pdf — draft, last revised March 10, 2024)

  • Chapters 1-3 (pdf — last revised February 27, 2024)
  • Chapters 4-9 (pdf — last revised February 29, 2024)
  • Conclusion and Post-Scriptum (pdf — last revised March 1, 2024)

The Present Utility and Future Possibility of the State (1849-1850)

  • Sixth Article (text — last revised December 2014)

Economy (1850-1855)

  • The Extremes [draft]
  • Principles of the Philosophy of Progress (pdf — last revised December 10, 2023)
  • New Propositions Demonstrated in the Practice of Revolutions (pdf — last revised December 10, 2023)
  • Cahier (18255 at BnF) — selections (in progress)
  • Ms. 2863 — selections (in progress)
  • Ms 2866 — selections (in progress)
  • Ms. 2867 — (in progress)

Philosophy of Progress: Program (1853) [revision in progress] (pdf — last revised December 10, 2023)

Society of the Perpetual Exhibition: Proposal (1855) (pdf — last revised April 18, 2024)

“Proudhon Explained by Himself” (Letter to Villaumé, composed 1856; published 1866) (text — last revised July 24, 2023)

The Justice Pursued by the Church (1858) (pdf — first draft, last revised March 26, 2024)

“What, Finally, is the Republic” (manuscript, c. 1858) (text — last revised May 2.2023)

How Business is Going in France and Why Will Have War, If We Have It (1859) (pdf— draft; last revised April 11,2024)

Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, Revised Edition (1860)

  • Popular Philosophy: Program (revised September 1, 2023)
  • Preliminary Address (revised September 1, 2023)
  • First Study: Position of the Problem of Justice (revised September 1, 2023)
  • Second Study: Persons (revised September 1, 2023)
  • Third Study: Goods (revised September 1, 2023)
  • Fourth Study: The State (revised November 1, 2023)
  • Fifth Study: Education (revised November 1, 2023)
  • Sixth Study: Labor (revised November 1, 2023)
  • Seventh Study: Ideas [draft complete; revision pending]
  • Eighth Study: Conscience and Liberty [draft complete; revision pending]
  • Ninth Study: Progress and Decadence [draft complete; revision pending]
  • Tenth Study: Love and Marriage [draft complete; revision pending]
  • Eleventh Study: Love and Marriage (continued) [draft complete; revision pending]
  • Twelfth Study: Of Moral Sanction [draft complete; revision pending]
  • News of the Revolution: Of the Pornocracy in Modern Times [draft complete; revision pending]

Theory of Taxation [translation in progress]

The Literary Majorats (1862) (pdf — last revised June 10, 2024)

Federation and Unity in Italy (1862) — [draft complete; last revised June 18, 2024]

The Sworn Democrats and the Refractories (1863) (pdf — last revised May 4, 2023)

New Observations on Italian Unity (1865) (pdf — last revised March 5, 2024)

Political Geography and Nationality [translation in progress]

Guarantism: Theory of Property [revision in progress]

The Federative Principle (pdf — last revised May 19, 2024)

If the Treaties of 1815 Have Ceased to Exist [draft complete; revision in process]

The Political Capacity of the Working Classes [translation in progress]

France and Rhine [translation in progress] (pdf — partial translation)

Political Contradictions — (pdf — last revised June 26, 2024)


Supplementary texts:

  • P.-J. Proudhon, Correspondence related to the Studies in Popular Philosophy (1859-1860)
  • Eugène de Mirecourt, The Contemporaries: Proudhon [draft — revision in progress]
  • Eugène de Mirecourt, Lettres de Monsieur P.-J. Proudhon
  • Jenny P. d’Héricourt, Woman Emancipated [draft complete (Vol. 1, Vol. 2); revision pending]
  • Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “Philosophical Letters on Tolerance and the Critique of Hypotheses” (1863-64)
  • André Léo, Woman and Mores [draft complete; revision pending]
  • Juliette Lambert, Anti-Proudhonian Ideas (2nd Edition) [draft — last revised March 2024]
  • Léon Walras, L’Économie politique et la justice
  • Pierre Leroux, Equality (1848, New Edition)(drafts: Part One, Part Three; last revised July 2, 2024)
  • Auguste Beauchery, “Solution of the Problem of Certainty” (1867) [draft; excerpt from Économie sociale de P. J. Proudhon]
  • Philibert Audebrand, P.-J. Proudhon and the Horsewoman of the Hippodrome (1868) (pdf — last revised June 11, 2024)
  • Joseph Perrot, Transformation of the Republican Government and the Parliamentary Power by the Federative Principle: Coming of the People to Property (1886) [draft — last revised May 2024]
About Shawn P. Wilbur 2703 Articles
Independent scholar, translator and archivist.