Market Anarchist Blogs

2008 was a transitional year for my various projects, and some, like the English-language archiving, suffered a bit from my relocation and the various transitions that surrounded it. I hope that an equivalent service to the movement has been rendered by the translation that has taken up so much of my time. The progress seems glacial in comparison to the years where I was able to add thousands of pages of material, but, as ought to be apparent, developing the skills to dig back into the early French texts has had some very important effects on my overall thinking about anarchism, and allowed me to pull together a number of threads from my various careers and avocations. I'm having a lot of fun getting to know Proudhon, Bellegarrigue, etc. And I feel like the work of 2008 has put me in a position to focus my labors a bit more in 2009, and finish up some half-finished (or, as in some cases, 9/10-finished) and long-promised works.

I'll talk more about those as they come back into more active play, but virtually all of them will involve a continued push through Proudhon's work, and my central goal for 2009, with regard to the translating and archiving work, is to get through the first four volumes of Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, 1501 pages in the Collected Works edition, along with whatever else I can manage from the two volumes of notes, and some of the responses and criticisms, particularly from the Colinsean camp. That's a healthy chunk of work all by itself, although I have hundreds of pages in various states of preparation, and have access to some equally provisional translations from Jesse Cohn. I make no promises to complete it, as other things may well take precedent, as has happened before, and certainly might happen again in the uncertain times we're facing. But the plan is to make Proudhon's masterwork available in an English translation of sufficient quality that it can be studied, discussed and used.

So here, without further ado, begins:

§ I. — The coming of the people to philosophy.

At the beginning of a new work, we must explain our title and our design.

Ever since humanity entered the period of civilization, for as long as anyone remembers, the people, said Paul Louis Courier, have prayed and paid.

They pray for their princes, for their magistrates, for their exploiters and parasites;

They pray, like Jesus Christ, for their executioners;

They pray for the very ones who should by rights pray for them.

Then they pay those for whom they pray;

They pay the government, the courts, the police, the church, the nobility, the crown, the revenue, the proprietor and the garnisaire, I meant the soldier;

They pay for every move they make, pay to come and to go, to buy and to sell, to eat, drink and breathe, to warm themselves in the sun, to be born and to die;

They even pay for the permission to work;

And they pray to heaven to give them enough, by blessing their labor, to always pay more.

The people have never done anything but pray and pay: we believe that the time has come to make them philosophize.

The people cannot live in skepticism, after the example of the gentlemen of the Institute et des beautiful souls of the city and the court. Indifference is unhealthy for them; they reject libertinage; they hasten to flee from that corruption which invades from on high. Besides, what they ask for themselves, they want for everyone, and make no exception for anyone. They have never claimed, for example, that the bourgeoisie must have a religion, that religion is necessary for the regulars at the Bourse, for the bohemians of the magazines and the theaters, or for that innumerable multitude living from prostitution and intrigue; but that, as for them, their robust consciences have no need of God. The people want neither to dupe nor to be duped any longer: what they call for today is a positive law, based in reason and justice, which imposes itself on all, and which nobody is allowed to mock.

Would a reform of the old religion be enough to respond to this wish of the people? No. The people have realized that religion had not been legal tender for a long time among the upper classes, while they continued to believe in it; that, even in the temples, it had lost all credit and all prestige; that it counts for absolutely nothing in politics and business; finally, that the separation of faith and law has become an axiom of government everywhere. The tolerance of the State now covers religion, which is precisely the opposite of what had taken place in the past. Thus the people have followed the movement inaugurated by their leaders; it is wary of the spiritual, and it no longer wants a religion which has been made an instrument of servitude by clerical and anticlerical Machiavellianism. Whose fault is that?

But are the people capable of philosophy?

Without hesitation we answer: Yes, as well as reading, writing and arithmetic; as well as understanding the catechism and practicing a craft. We even go as far as to think philosophy can be found in its entirety in that essential part of public education, the trade: a matter of attention and habit. Primary instruction requires three years, apprenticeship three more, for a total of six years: when philosophy, the popularization of which has become a necessity of the first order in our times, must be taken by the plebeian, in addition to the six years of primary and professional instruction to which he is condemned, an hour per week for six more years, would that be a reason to deny the philosophical capacity of the people?

The people are philosophical, because they are as weary of praying as of paying. They have had enough of the pharisee and the publican; and all it desires, and the point we have reached, is to know how to direct its ideas, and to free itself from this world of tolls and paternosters. It is to this end that we have resolved, with some friends, to consecrate our forces, certain as we are that, if sometimes this philosophy of the people spreads a bit too much from our pen, the truth, once known, will not lack abbreviators.

Janine James, née Lindemulder, is an adult film star better known to fans simply as “Janine” and famed largely for her performances in all-girl scenes such as those in Vivid Video’s Where the Boys Aren’t series.

Janine’s going to federal prison for six months for tax evasion.

From The News-Review, Roseburg, Oregon:

An adult film actress [...] was sentenced Monday to six months in federal prison for tax evasion.

U.S. Magistrate Thomas Coffin also ordered Janine M. James, 40, to live in a residential community corrections center for up to six months after her release from prison and to serve one year of supervised release.

[...]

Known in the adult film world as Janine Lindemulder, James pleaded guilty last summer to intentionally failing to pay her income taxes. During her sentencing in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Cardani said James currently owes $294,000 in back taxes.

James, who first appeared in Penthouse magazine as the Pet of the Month in 1987 and later appeared in more than 50 adult films, was given until March 10 to report to prison.

I feel safer already.

Many people oppose pornography, saying that it’s degrading to women. In some cases, that’s very well-founded. In many others, it’s either untrue or irrelevant, reflecting the speaker’s own tastes rather than anything the rest of us need concern ourselves with.

As for degrading, though, what could be more degrading than writing this, as Janine did in her letter to the court?

“At this low point in my life, I tried to create the lifestyle I thought was taken from Sunny when her father left me for Sandra Bullock. That was a big mistake,” she wrote. “I was hurt and confused and made bad decisions about how I spent my money, ignoring my back taxes. I was threatened and intimidated by Jesse’s wealth, afraid I might lose my daughter to that wealth someday, and tried to ‘keep up.’”

Sunny is Janine’s almost-five-year-old daughter by one Jesse James, some other celebrity type, and will be placed in the custody of James and Bullock while Janine serves her time in the State’s cage.

Certainly, crimes have been committed here. But not the fantasy crime that was prosecuted — failing to timely bend over for your master — and that Janine will suffer for by being locked in cages away from her daughter for six months of her life and being forced into a State brainwashing program in the guise of a “halfway house”. The real crimes here are those of people like U.S. Magistrate Thomas Coffin, the IRS agents and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Cardani, quoted in the article:

“While [Wesley] Snipes failed to report far more income than defendant James, her tax defiant conduct is similarly offensive. She has demonstrated an attitude of greed and privilege, and has taken advantage of her status as a high profile figure, while at the same time wantonly ignoring her obligation to pay taxes,” Cardani wrote in a pre-sentencing memo. “A meaningful sentence is necessary to get the message to her and others that no one is beyond the law and they must pay their taxes just like everyone else.”

You smug prick, Cardani. You want an image of “greed and privilege”? Take a good look in the mirror. You fucking tool. People have an “obligation” to pay taxes in the same way they have an “obligation” to hand over 100% of everything when a mugger sticks a gun in their face and says: “Give me all your money!” — that is, no obligation whatsoever.

For further degradation, head on over to the Luke is Back blog (warning: barely safe for work), where Luke reports on this story back in August when Janine pled guilty as part of an extortionate plea agreement. Commentary on the posting includes such illuminating gems as:

What in the world possesses people to refuse to pay their taxes? All these people volunteer to join the military and die for the nations cause and pieces of white filthy trash like Janine selfishly try to circumvent the system that pays for it.

and

Dumb, antisocial whore.

Way to blame and degrade the victim while feeding your own statist, sexist delusions, guys.

Free Janine! And all political prisoners!

Bookmark and Share:

Warning: Off-topic chatter about the process of translation.

Jean Guillaume Cesar Alexandre Hippolyte, baron de Colins was the chief theorist of Rational Socialism, and a frequent critic and intellectual rival of Proudhon. Indeed, Colins' crew were pitting the two figures against each other long after both had died. I'm planning on finishing up a translation of Adolphe Hugentobler's Dialogue of Dead Men sometime in 2009. Colins wrote a three-volume work, Justice in Science, apart from the Revolution and the Church, which begins with a 600-page attempted refutation of most of Proudhon's main theses in Justice in the Revolution and the Church. I think he's largely missing the point, but it's interesting stuff. Unfortunately, Colins had some peculiar habits in the realm of punctuation which make translation at least a little peculiar. Here's a taste of his prose:

— What is meant by absolute?

— Absolute means: independant.

— What is it that is independant?

— That which is eternal. If, the creator God exists; God alone is eternal; God alone is absolute. If, the creator God does not exist; the matter, the force, which modifies our sensibility, is eternal; is absolute. If the sensibility is a modification of matter; each sensibility is not eternal, is not absolute; but, it is: relative; temporal: dependent on modifications of matter. If, each sensibility is eternal; each sensibility is absolute. Then, there would be divisible absolute, matter; and, indivisible absolutes, the sensibilities; the immaterialities.

Obviously, some of this is difficult in precisely the same ways that Proudhon's own work is, or that any bit of specialized writing can be. But, there are also: the colons; the extra semi-colons; which, tend to make reading the stuff a little: odd. Proudhon was prone to sentences with 413 dependent clauses, which often makes clear translation a chore, but Colins raises all sorts of other problems. Ultimately, I expect I will just be leaving out two-thirds of his punctuation.

I visited the embassy today in response to the call I received yesterday. I was given a Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States (DS-4083), for which I signed a receipt.

I also received my US passport back, surprisingly. It has been canceled by punching four holes through all the pages. A notation is made on the last page saying, “Bearer expatriated self on Dec. 8, 2008 under provisions of INA 349(a)(5).”

The staffers suggested that the canceled passport may be of use to me in proving my identity to the Slovak authorities until and in the process of obtaining my stateless person’s identity documents. Works for me, another tool in the bag.

So, it’s really real. I’m a stateless person.

Enjoy the images. Click through for full-sized scans (2-2.5MB each).

Bookmark and Share:

It turns out that Proudhon's answer to the musical question is rather interesting, and challenging. His two-volume War and Peace represents an further exploration of some of the ideas he had developed in Justice in the Revolution and in the Church. The turning point in Proudhon's philosophy came in the 1850s, between the Philosophy of Progress and Justice, when he realized that, as he later put it, "the antinomy does not resolve itself." The immediate consequence of this realization was a move from the emphasis on synthesis, which had dominated his work from the last sections of What is Property? through the System of Economic Contradictions and beyond, to a much more complex treatment of the role of ultimately irresolvable conflict in social evolution. One consequence of this change in his dialectical approach was that the historical accounts that made up such an important part of Proudhon's work had to be revisited, in order to determine if and how this other dynamic revealed itself. Another, linked, consequence, was that the philosophy of progress and the theory of collective force and collective beings had to take what we might now consider an "anti-foundationalist" turn.

For the later Proudhon, the series (taking this term with all its Fourierist implications) of approximations of Justice, the successive balancings of more-or-less free forces, was Progress (big-P), even the Revolution, and there was something relentless about its upward climb. The theory of collective persons, what contemporaries like Pierre Leroux and William B. Greene addressed (with some variations) as a "doctrine of life" and theory of Humanity, made possible the theory of "immanent justice," which posited at least the constant possibility of advance, in the form of improved approximation. But that same theory meant that there were lots of actors on the social-historical stage, lots of kinds of actors, to which individual persons had a variety of kinds of connections and in which they had various investments. Add to that the additional wrinkle that each "stage," each element in the historical series, lingers. Nothing is magically "realized and suppressed" by synthesis, and each approximation ends up resting on other approximations -- all the way down, really.

For Proudhon, Justice, despite its key-word status, is never in-itself anything more than that balance of free forces. "An eye for an eye" is justice, as is The Golden Rule: they simply occupy difference places in the Justice-series. Obviously, "higher" approximations of justice have their advantages, both for individuals and for collective beings like Humanity or a given society. But the existence of "higher" approximations does not necessarily invalidate the "lower," particularly if, in the historical series, later, higher approximations are founded on those earlier and lower.

Proudhon's War and Peace is one of those texts routinely cited as a forerunner to "fascism" (a term that requires scare-quoting, not because there is any question that fascism has existed, but because the critics tend to lump a lot of "stuff we don't approve of" into the mix.) The literature on proto-fascism is a complex one, frequently involving the defense of certain models of rationality and science, as well as the particularly political and ideological forms we associate with the term. So Bergson can be blackened with Sorel's various political indiscretions, presumably because his treatment of "intuition" is "anti-science" and "anti-rational," rather than part of a debate about what science and rationality will be. Proudhon, already an undesirable for that "property is theft" stuff, gets the "insufficient degree of separation from Sorel" treatment, and his anti-semitic notebook entries are mentioned, and who would dare argue that his War and Peace was not an irrationalist glorification of war, even if its final line is "HUMANITY WANTS NO MORE WAR." Hey, he was "a man of paradox." Right?

No. But thanks, I guess, for playing...

Proudhon does, in fact, talk about war as having an important moral function. He talks about the extent to which it has been war which has driven human beings to acts of bravery, self-sacrifice and ingenuity. If he doesn't quite get to Marinetti's "war is the world's only hygiene," he does point out that we have relied pretty heavily on war to maintain what balance of forces we have achieved. It may not be nice to say so, but it doesn't appear to be incorrect. And the critics of war don't seem to deny the basic right of force, when push comes to shove, or to class war, or General Strike, etc. What Proudhon attempts to do, in a work which is not always a comfortable read (as if we required comfort from political philosophy or history), is to demonstrate the ways in which the right of force (not a right to force, about which more a little later) has functioned in the service of Justice, has contributed to the subsequent approximations of Justice, and continues to play a narrowly delimited role in the defense of Justice.

If you want to get a taste of how Proudhon argues in War and Peace, I've translated 17 pages from the first volume, where Proudhon is explaining the "right of force." Here are Chapter XI and the Conclusion of Book Two of Volume One.

A couple of things to remember, or to consider if you haven't read my other discussions of Proudhon:

1) He uses the French word droit, which can mean either "law" or "right" in a way that is most accurately translated, as far as I can see, as "right," but which does not, or does not necessarily refer to the sort of natural or political rights we are accustomed to talking about. Every group, ensemble, being, etc., has its own "law" (loi) of organization, which determines what is "right" (appropriate, proper, logical, natural, etc) for it to do. Likewise, it participates in larger ensembles with their own laws, which condition those of the individuals. Droit remains something of a mix of what we might call natural law and/or right, as well as covering more strictly descriptive (rather than normative) grand. Just don't necessarily assume that Proudhon is trying to anything more than describe the normal functioning of presently-existing "bodies" of one sort or another.

2) This is part of an explicitly historical, progressive account. The basic argument of the book is that all of our "higher-level" rights, and really all of our more peaceful institutions, as well as all those which we have yet to create, are part of a historical series which begins with relations mediated by raw force. Peace would be the end of that series, presumably, but war would always be its origin. Peace is, in a strong sense, the end product of the process of war. And, Proudhon says, we have got ourselves into some real trouble by denying this historical fact.

3) Proudhon speaks of "right of force" and "right of war," but these, he argues, are like all true rights, equal and reciprocal. If there are, or have been, certain circumstances in which the right of the strongest has been or can be our model for justice, justice is still a restless demand for balance, and ultimately justice cannot be fulfilled at any acceptable level by silencing or excluding the weak. It is not clear that there is a "right to war," but instead a sort of protocol for dealing with the wars that occur, and which can only justly occur in circumstances of social or political imbalance or injustice. Proudhon talks about the "right of labor" to its product, and contrasts that with the "right to work."

The translation is very rough and literal. I wanted to get through enough of this to clarify for myself how it fit with the things I'm working on more seriously. I'll try to clean it up sometime, but probably not for a few months.

Note: Parts of this post were lifted directly from a discussion at the Forums of the Libertarian Left which includes more discussion and context.

The truth about Israel’s “defensive” war.

Most of us Americans are living in Plato’s cave, chained to the ground, mistaking reality for a bunch of shadows being projected onto the walls before us. Nothing is what it seems. Everything that our puppet masters tell us is either a half-truth or an outright lie.

They told us they were taking away our civil liberties for our own protection. They told us that they needed to invade Iraq to keep the world safe. They told us that they would never—not them, not ever—torture prisoners of war. And now they’re telling us that the Israeli government is morally justified in its current war against the Palestinians.

Mass murder, of course, is never justified, and that’s exactly what’s happening in the Middle East right now, as Israel F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters continue devastating the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of men, women, and children.

While most world leaders have urged Israel to stop its campaign, the Bush administration has rushed to its side, calling the IDF’s actions defensive. Yes, only in Bizarro World, as Justin Raimondo calls it, could murdering civilians be considered defensive.

In supporting this outrageous claim, Israel apologists have pointed to recent rocket attacks from Gaza, noting that last Wednesday alone militants fired 80 rockets into southern Israel. Though no Israeli was killed, these attacks forced the Israeli government to finally say that enough was enough and decide it needed to protect its people. Or so the argument goes.

But it needs to be pointed out that, just as Israel claims it’s responding to Hamas aggression, so too did Hamas, when it was firing those rockets last week, claim that it was responding to Israeli aggression. For over a year, let’s remember, Israel has been imposing a merciless blockade on the Gaza Strip. An Amnesty International report back in August claimed that 80% of Gazans “now depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli army allows in,” compared to 10% a decade earlier. The reported continued:

Even patients in dire need of medical treatment not available in Gaza are often prevented from leaving and scores of them have died. Students who have scholarships in universities abroad are likewise trapped in Gaza, denied the opportunity to build a future…

Israel has banned exports from Gaza altogether and has reduced entry of fuel and goods to a trickle—mostly humanitarian aid, foodstuff and medical supplies. Basic necessities are in short supply or not available at all in Gaza. The shortages have pushed up food prices at a time when people can least afford to pay more. A growing number of Gazans have been pushed into extreme poverty and suffer from
malnutrition…

Gaza’s fragile economy, already battered by years of restrictions and destruction, has collapsed. Unable to import raw materials and to export produce and without fuel to operate machinery and electricity generators, some 90 per cent of industry has shut down…

The above conditions, it should be noted, existed in the middle of a six-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a time in which the Israel government had, believe it or not, slightly eased the blockade.

The ceasefire, which was supposed to last until December 19, came to an end on November 4 when IDF forces entered Gaza, purportedly to destroy a tunnel, and ended up killing a Hamas gunman. From that point forward, intermittent fighting between the two sides resumed and Israel’s stranglehold on the Gazans tightened. Earlier this month, the Israeli government even prevented a delegation from Qatar from bringing $2 million in cancer medication into Gaza.

Now I’m not trying to oversimplify the matter. I’m not saying that Israel is completely evil and Hamas completely good. My point is to simply illustrate the absurdity of the Israeli/American narrative.

It’s wrong for Hamas to fire rockets into Israel. But it’s equally wrong for Israel to murder innocent Gazans—be it in the form of a military attack or economic blockade. The majority of Gazans, just like the majority of Israelis, are not terrorists and murderers, but innocent people who want nothing more than to live in peace. To brutalize these people in an attempt to avenge or deter Hamas is just another form of terrorism.

Got a call yesterday (29 December 2008) from the US Embassy that my Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States has been received here in Bratislava.

The staffer offered me the choice of picking it up in person or having it mailed to me, with signature-on-delivery confirmation. I opted to pick it up in person.

If I don’t make it down there during their opening hours, it’ll have to wait until after the new year.

As far as I know, the issuance of this document means that I became a stateless person on 8 December 2008, that having been the day I swore the Oath of Renunciation and surrendered my US passport.

For more exciting bureaucracy, stay tuned to this channel!

Bookmark and Share: