The Continuing Relevance of Proudhon%3F - Anarchist Studies Network

The Continuing Relevance of Proudhon?

Papers

Jesse Cohn, 'The Logic of Things': Meaning and Immanence in Proudhon's ''De la Justice''

Sophie Chambost 'The Value of Proudhon's Thought for Contemporary Debates about Democracy'

Alex Prichard, 'Proudhon's Political Theory'

Panel Description and Paper Abstracts

This panel stream will look at whether and how Proudhon's thought is still relevant to contemporary anarchist praxis in a number of different fields. Contributors to this panel stream expressed interest in this project in early 2007. The papers from these workshop session will be published to mark Proudhon's bi-centenary in 2009

Book outline and description:

Proudhon

Contents: Introduction: Proudhon’s Reception, Then and Now Alex Prichard

1. Proudhon and Property

Edward Castleton

2. Utilité de la Pensée de Proudhon pour les Débats Actuels sur la Démocratie

Anne-Sophie Chambost

3. Proudhon and the Nineteenth-Century Avant-Garde: Lessons for Today?

James Rubin

4. "The Logic of Things": Meaning and Immanence in Proudhon’s De la Justice

Jesse Cohn

5. Anarchism, Federalism, and Indigenous Autonomy

Richard JF Day

6. Proudhon’s Historical and Political Sociology

Alex Prichard

7. Proudhon’s influence on David Mitrany. Towards an anarchist approach to International Relations

Lucian M. Ashworth

8. Proudhon and European Anarchism

Robert Graham

9. Proudhon in Belgium (1858-1863): Nationalism and Culture

Erik Buelinckx

10. Ecology, Locality, and Anarchy in Post-WW2 America

Allan Antliff

11. The Secularization of European Socialism: Marx and Proudhon in the 1840s

K. Steven Vincent

12. P.-J. Proudhon : entre socialisme scientifique et libéralisme Utopique

Thierry Menuelle

Conclusion: A “Proudhon Beyond Proudhon”?

Jesse Cohn

Notes on the Contributors

Introduction: Proudhon’s Reception, Then and Now Alex Prichard

On the eve of Proudhon’s bi-centenary, this introduction will survey the historiography of the debates surrounding the legacy of Proudhon’s thought since his death. First, I will explore the absence of Proudhon from the rise of more sophisticated historiography of the canon of political thought. Explaining Proudhon’s absence here demands a more detailed examination of the historiography of his thought in general. In this second part, I will focus on three main areas: Proudhon’s anti-Semitism, anti-feminism and the philosophical origins of his moralism. Each has been used as a reason for marginalizing his thinking more broadly in various areas. I will use this space to correct the most glaring misinterpretations of his thinking in this area, while recognizing the undeniable existence of deplorable theories in Proudhon’s output. This discussion will open up a series of broader issues and questions about the marginalisation of Proudhon and anarchism within political and social theory; issues with which each of the chapters in this volume will engage. In the final part of the introduction I will introduce the various papers in the volume, outlining their approach and the various contributions they make to our understanding of the life, times and influence of the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

Chapter 1 Proudhon and Property Edward Castleton

This paper traces the evolution of Proudhon’s opinions on property from his earliest writings until his death. It examines the different stages of Proudhon’s intellectual development, leading from his initial statement, in 1840, that “property is theft” to his more nuanced understanding, published posthumously in 1865, of the institutional advantages of private property as a political counterweight to state power. The paper argues that Proudhon’s mature position is ambiguous, and that Proudhon was, in fact, never fully satisfied with it: indeed, because of the manner in which the manuscript version of his posthumous Théorie de la propriété was published, the meaning of Proudhon’s apparent re-evaluation of the relative merits of private property has been obscured. By the same token, the meaning of the initial epigrammatic identification of property as theft, traditionally understood as both a clarion call of early French socialism as well as a direct assault on the bourgeois apologists of the July Monarchy, has also been muddied by interpretations keen to categorize Proudhon a posteriori within a particular strand of post-Revolutionary French political and social thought. Consequently, scholars have typically not underscored the degree to which Proudhon was not only influenced by contemporary liberals but also engaging directly with them (and less with other socialists) in his early writings and articulating his ideas directly within the idiomatic and discursive framework of French liberalism. Furthermore, scholars have generally failed to locate the original intellectual inspiration for the early pamphlet, What is Property?, in Proudhon’s intense familiarity with contemporary philosophical discussions, preferring instead to highlight the author’s diverse readings in jurisprudence and political economy. Thus, the paper first explains how Proudhon moved from an early interest in the philosophy of language and philology to a moral critique of private property expressed largely in terms of law and economics via his own dissatisfactions with his contemporaries’ theoretical attempts to provide a philosophical, epistemological and post-Christian foundation for contemporary social relations. It then illuminates how this moral critique matured through Proudhon’s experience of the Second Republic and its collapse into the Second Empire. The paper concludes by highlighting how Proudhon’s final appreciation of private property, although seemingly not at odds with contemporary liberal beliefs, had its own origins in the particular illiberal development Proudhon’s thought took during the Second Empire as economic considerations were increasingly subsumed in his writings by political concerns and an almost providentialist emphasis on historical development and progress came to overdetermine his earlier moral claims. Finally, it suggests that Proudhon’s thought, despite its obvious mutations, notably as far as property is concerned, remained firmly grounded within the intellectual context of the July Monarchy that originally inspired it.

Chapter 2 Utilité de la pensée de Proudhon pour les débats actuels sur la démocratie Anne-Sophie Chambost

Notre époque est marquée par une nette érosion de la confiance dans les représentants, particulièrement visible lors des récentes échéances électorales en France (élections présidentielles de 2002, élections législatives de 2002 et 2007, toutes marquées par de forts taux d’abstention, en passant par les résultats du référendum sur le traité constitutionnel de 2005, absolument pas anticipés par le personnel politique ou par les médias). Néanmoins, si ces résultats signalent une baisse préoccupante de la fréquentation des urnes par les citoyens, cette défiance apparente pour l’activité électorale représentative ne signifie pas pour autant que les citoyens seraient devenus passifs (en attestent les manifestations dans les rues, les mobilisations et les forums de discussion politique sur internet) ; bien au contraire même, puisque le référendum sur le traité constitutionnel a pu être interprété comme une entrée en scène dans l’espace public de ceux qui n’étaient jusqu’alors que les récepteurs passifs du discours politique. Or cette entrée en scène s’est faite non seulement hors des supports médiatiques habituels, mais surtout sans le relais des partis politiques, qui semblent avoir perdu leur rôle historique de relais de communication entre le système politique et la société (rôle que le tissu associatif et syndical ne semble pas prêt à assumer, refusant de jouer les courroies de transmission).

Confrontés à cette défiance, certains politiques se sont emparés des thèmes de la démocratie participative et des jurys citoyens ; insistant sur la vigilance du peuple, leurs propositions (parfois taxées de populisme), suggèrent une évaluation de l’action des politiques, une action directe sur les prises de décisions, et un rapprochement du débat politique (avec en contrecoup, le risque que cette proximité se marque par un resserrement du discours sur des préoccupations concrètes, limitées et personnelles) .

Si l’on mesure bien les enjeux de cette critique de la représentation et des mécanismes classiques de nos démocraties représentatives modernes, on s’interroge en revanche sur les modalités de la mise en œuvre de ces projets de démocratie participative. Or dans cette double perspective, les analyses développées au milieu du 19ème siècle par Pierre-Joseph Proudhon peuvent servir de guide dans la réflexion actuelle sur le fonctionnement de la démocratie (sans préjuger des risques évidents d’anachronisme). Très critique envers la représentation (même élue au suffrage universel), critique aussi envers les partis (dont il n’a pourtant connu que les premiers balbutiements), Proudhon n’a en effet eu de cesse que de lui opposer des modalités alternatives de consultation du peuple, dont certaines trouvent un écho singulier dans les propositions qui sont faites actuellement. C’est donc aussi bien pour ses critiques que pour ses propositions positives, que l’œuvre politique de Proudhon mérite d’être réétudiée à l’aune des débats actuels (ne serait-ce que pour prendre la mesure exacte de l’idée selon laquelle Proudhon aurait écrit pour l’avenir).

Chapter 3 Proudhon and the Nineteenth-Century Avant-Garde: lessons for today? James Rubin

The role of art in utopian thought was a natural outgrowth of Romanticism. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artistic genius emerged as a powerful embodiment of individual freedom. Freedom, argued Winckelmann, had been an essential condition for the greatness of the Greeks. For Rousseau, freedom was the original state of humanity in nature; the lesson for artists was to heed their natural talent rather than conform to the artificial constraints taught at academies. Utopian social thinkers incorporated these lessons in their theories, with differing results. Saint-Simon developed the concept of a tri-partite vanguard, in which the artist’s special visionary gifts could be channeled into social and political leadership, along with that of scientists and industrialists. The artist’s role was to imagine and articulate for others the ideals of future society. Saint-Simon’s contemporary, Fourier, saw the artist less as a propagandist or ideological cheerleader. For him, the artist’s completely spontaneous activity—freed even from the duties placed on him by Saint-Simon—exemplified the ideal to which all humans might aspire by following their inclinations. A community made up of the mutually reinforcing sum of different talents would live as a harmonious social unit. One community’s success would inspire others and eventually lead to an entirely resolved society. To these ideas, Proudhon added two important ingredients—the materialist thinking of Hegel and his younger followers, some of whom had visited France, and the practicing example of a particular artist, Gustave Courbet. The latter is generally credited as the founder of the artistic avant-garde. Thanks to these resources, Proudhon’s theory of art seemed grounded in the realities of the time and gained greater credibility in the art world than the abstract outlines of his predecessors. In this part of the paper, I will have been summarizing work I already published in my Realism and Social Vision in Courbet and Proudhon (1981), with which only a limited proportion of the audience may be familiar. The rest of the paper will concentrate on the reception and ramifications of Proudhon’s ideas for the origins of modern avant-garde art in the nineteenth century. I will concentrate on two thinkers who were fundamental to these origins: Hippolyte Taine and Emile Zola—especially the latter’s critique of both Taine and Proudhon. It is generally believed that Zola’s riposte to Proudhon opened the door to formalism, which was dominant in post WWII art criticism. I may dispute that interpretation, do a quick critique of formalism, and suggest that some artists today are actually not that far from Proudhon’s notions. I hope to include as examples some work by a couple of contemporary artists.

Chapter 4 Meaning and Immanence in Proudhon’s De la Justice Jesse Cohn

Would Proudhon, champion of a “theory of immanence”, have blessed the asendancy, in the early decades of the twentieth century, of “immanent criticism” as the predominant method of reading within the academy? Or, on the contrary, would he have shared more with the varieties of historicist epistemology that held sway before or after the reign of the New Critics - monist and realist in the one case, pluralist and anti-realist in the other? An analysis of Proudhon’s master work, De la Justice dans la Révolution et dans l’Eglise, heretofore untranslated into English, will help to answer these questions, revealing not only what affinities Proudhon’s philosophy might be seen to have with rival theories of meaning from the dawn of modern literary studies to now, but also its novelty, its capacity to go beyond the antinomies of text/context, monism/pluralism, and realism/anti-realism to which we have become accustomed.

Chapter 5 Anarchism, Federalism, and Indigenous Autonomy Richard J. F. Day

The central question of this chapter is: To what extent can Proudhon's theory of federalism help to chart a way out of the impasse between indigenous and western modes of governance in the context of settler states in general, and the Canadian state in particular? The Principle of Federation will provide a basis for an exposition and critique of Proudhon's ideas on political federation. However, it could be argued that cultural and economic relationships must also be attended to in any workable form of postcolonial federation. In The Principle, Proudhon refers his readers elsewhere for his thoughts on the mode of economic organization that, at this point, he refers to as "agro-industrial federation," and which he has previously called "mutualism". I will therefore use some of his previous writings on mutualism, as well as those of his commentators, to clarify, to the greatest extent possible, Proudhon's ideas about economic federation. The question of culture is the most difficult to address, since, I will argue, Proudhon had a tendency to reproduce the liberal assumption of one nation, one state, one sovereign territory, and so did not think about the possibilities of what are now known as 'multi-nation' states. This is just one critique among several, though, that must be addressed if Proudhon's theory is going to be useful in constructing new modes of relation between settlers and autonomy-oriented indigenous peoples. I will also argue that Proudhon's theory: a) is explicitly and implicitly Eurocentric in its conception ; b) is teleological & essentialist ; c) is insufficiently developed in terms of delineating the characteristics of a non- or minimally-statist, specifically anarchist federalism ; d) is more individualistic than most indigenous economic models

Most of these critiques, I will argue, can be addressed without threatening the core insights of Proudhonian federalism. I will do this through an engagement with liberal multiculturalism as it relates to federalism & recognition (e.g. James Tully, Will Kymlicka), as well as indigenous (e.g. Taiaiake Alfred, Glen Coulthard), and feminist / anti-racist critiques (e.g. bell hooks, Sherene Razack). critiques of this theory. Through these discussions I will show that Proudhon's thoughts on federalism can and should be brought into current discussions around settler/indigenous relationships.

Chapter 7 Proudhon’s Historical and Sociological Political Philosophy Alex Prichard

A little known aspect of Proudhon’s thought within the English language literature is his sociological and historical approach to political philosophy. Drawing on a range of French sources, and employing a contextualist methodology, this chapter will illustrate the influence of Comte, Michelet, and Montesquieu on Proudhon’s thought. The chapter will illustrate the very particular statist direction French sociology took after Proudhon’s death and how the historiography of sociology has marginalised his contribution – particularly within the English language tradition. The paper will illustrate how widespread contemporary critiques of statism open up the possibility that a wholesale return to this aspect of Proudhon’s thought would be hugely rewarding. What the paper will show is that Proudhon’s sociological and historical approach to political philosophy gives us excellent tools for understanding contingency and continuity in modern society – not to mention ways of thinking beyond contemporary problems. The importance of Proudhon’s approach will be made clear by contrasting it with the teleological, ethnocentric and statist approaches that have dominated social theory right up to our time.

Chapter 8 Proudhon’s Influence on David Mitrany. Towards an anarchist approach to International Relations Lucian M. Ashworth

It might, on the face of it, seem strange to cast David Mitrany as an anarchist. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of European integration theory, and it is not uncommon to find his functional approach labeled as elitist or lacking a theory of government. In fact Mitrany was deeply influenced by Proudhon. While Mitrany was not an anarchist per se, Proudhon’s anarchism informed his brand of left-wing liberalism. Mitrany’s concern with a functional democracy, that bypassed more conventional forms of constitutional democracy, and his development of transnational government based around functions are products of his familiarity with anarchism. In fact the criticism of Mitrany for having no theory of government is a mistake brought on by Mitrany’s marginalisation of state-based government in favour of more function-based organisations.

While there are clear anarchist influences on Mitrany’s concepts of functional democracy and government, it is not here that the major influence of Proudhon can be seen. International relations experts tend to ignore Mitrany’s study of the peasant revolution in south east Europe. This is a pity, as it was from his analysis of the nature of peasant society that Mitrany developed many of the insights that went into his international theory.

This chapter will argue that the development of Mitrany’s ideas about peasant agriculture were heavily influenced by Proudhon. This is particularly true of his three major works on peasant agriculture, and indeed this literature can be seen as an application of Proudhon’s ideas to a particular twentieth century problem. Proudhon was also an influence on his study of the workings of war government in the first world war. Following on from this, I argue that Mitrany’s functional approach can best be understood as an outgrowth of his earlier ideas on the peasant social revolution and war government. Key aspects of his functional approach, particularly the reduction of the power of state government and the creation of functional organisations that are managed as a social utility by producers and consumers, come directly from his reading of Proudhon and his experience of peasant cooperatives. From this I argue that, despite the frequency that it is labeled as liberal, Mitrany’s functional approach lays the foundations of a Proudhonist international theory.

The final part of this chapter will re-examine Proudhon’s ideas on government and property in the light of Mitrany’s functional approach, arguing that by re-reading Proudhon through Mitrany it is possible to construct an approach to international organisation and global governance that avoids both neo-liberal property rights and its statist alternatives. Keeping with the spirit of Proudhon and Mitrany this will conclude with an analysis of the current conflict between peasant agriculture (now organised via the internet) and its two antagonists: World Bank policies on agriculture and state governments in the South.

Chapter 9 Proudhon and European Anarchism Robert Graham

Proudhon’s influence on European anarchism is undeniable. However, it must be put in context. At the time of Proudhon’s death there was no anarchist movement. Both he and his followers identified themselves as mutualists and federalists. Proudhon himself had never been a consistent (or dogmatic) anarchist, and had come to regard anarchy as a perpetual desideratum, a critical ideal but not a realistic possibility. His conservative views regarding women were not shared by other radical socialists, including those who would go on to become self-described anarchists, such as Bakunin, Louise Michel and Elisee Reclus. Nevertheless, European anarchists regarded Proudhon as an important forebear and republished his more anarchistic writings for distribution as part of their own propaganda. Proudhon was portrayed as above all an anarchist, but only as a result of the selective use of his oeuvre for the anarchists’ own purposes. Besides refashioning Proudhon in their own image, European anarchists built upon his legacy and extrapolated from his writings a more expansive conception of anarchism, but one which clearly had roots in Proudhon’s ideas regarding the exploitive nature of capitalism, the reactionary role of religion, the counter-revolutionary nature of Jacobinism, the authoritarian nature of the state, the substitution of functional organization for governmental institutions, non-authoritarian federalism, and the notion of immanent justice.

Chapter 10 Proudhon in Belgium (1858-1863): Nationalism and Culture Erik Buelinckx

Is Proudhon relevant for discussions, in Belgium and elsewhere, about nationalism and culture? A four year stay in Belgium (1858-1862) left of course an impression on Proudhon himself, but did he on the other hand left a lasting impression on the people and organisations he came in contact with? In 1830 Belgium came into existence, created by the surrounding powers who took advantage of a bourgeois revolution before it could become a proletarian one. The new constitution, fairly liberal by the standards of the day, attracted revolutionaries from all over Europe for the follwoing decades, to live and work in relative freedom, under the watching eyes of Belgian police. As did Proudhon. In 1848 Proudhon spent a week in the country, but he returned to Paris, and while French authorities believed him to be still in Belgium, he restarted writing articles in Le Peuple defending his socialist beliefs and attacking the authoritarian tendencies in the Assemblée. Neither this, or a shorter earlier stay did leave a lasting impression on Proudhon. His feeling about Belgium changed when he managed to publish in Belgium his Philosophie du Progrès because of the relative freedom of press. And when he had to flee France again, this time for publishing De la Justice dans la Révolution et dans l'Église, he exiled in Brussels from 1858 to 1863. The paper examines the impact of this latter period of exile on Proudhon and on Belgian nationalism.

Chapter 11 Ecology, Locality, and Anarchy in Post-WW2 America Allan Antliff

This essay explores Proudhon's enduring significance for the theory and practice of anarchism in post-WW2 America. Focusing on radical ecology and the politics of decentralism, it traces the development of Proudhon's impact into the 1970s. Important figures under consideration include public commentator and anarchist Paul Goodman, H.R. Shapiro, founder of New York-based organization, Citizens for a Local Democracy, Donald Judd, the preeminent sculptor of the "minimalist" movement, and social ecologist Murray Bookchin.

Chapter 12 The Secularization of European Socialism: Marx and Proudhon in the 1840s K. Steven Vincent

The early 1840s were significant years for European socialist and anarchist thought, not least because during this decade many of the most prominent members of the European Left moved from religious or pseudo-religious stances to aggressively anti-religious positions. Proudhon in France, Marx and Engels in Germany, Herzen and Bakunin in Russia, all underwent an intellectual transition to a secular position during the span of a few years. This rejection of the sacred can be viewed as part of the general decline of European romanticism, arguably the dominant intellectual tendency in Europe from 1795 to 1840. Romanticism had reinvested the world with the mysterious, the sacred, and the sublime; and its decline marked the counter-movement of a renewed de-sacralization of reality. The secularization of socialist and anarchist thought after 1840 can be seen as but one dimension (or one manifestation) of this general intellectual movement.

The decline of Romanticism, however, is an insufficiently precise theme within which to encapsulate the secularization of European socialism during the 1840s. It is necessary to account for the particularly aggressive manner in which religion was attacked, and it is important to indicate the variety of ways that secularization manifested itself. It was in 1844 that Marx referred in print to religion as the “opium” of the people; it was in 1846 that Proudhon polemically proclaimed that “true virtue is to fight against religion and against God.” Part of what my article will address is the general reaction against religion and religious institutions at this time. More centrally, however, I shall examine the contrasting manners in which this manifested itself in the thought of Marx and Proudhon. In spite of surface similarities, and in spite of the chronological convergence, I wish to argue that there was a fundamental difference in ways Marx and Proudhon secularized their thought. I plan to argue that a comparison of the thought of Marx and Proudhon on this issue will illuminate significant differences in social and intellectual orientation. To analyze these differences, I shall consider the different sociopolitical contexts (France and the Germanies) within which Marx and Proudhon grew up, and especially the different intellectual traditions from which they drew.

Chapter 13 P.-J. Proudhon : entre socialisme scientifique et libéralisme utopique Thierry Menuelle

Cette intervention pourrait souligner l’originalité de la démarche proudhonienne qui, en affirmant les plus grandes méfiances vis-à-vis de l’Etat., doit chercher à rendre compatibles les exigences socialistes, notamment en terme de Justice, et le fonctionnement du marché comme instance de régulation économique. Cela devrait nous conduire à analyser en quoi ce projet original, qui fait la singularité de Proudhon, a pu déclencher les adhésions et les oppositions de tous les camps. On pourra également réfléchir sur le fait que l’ampleur de cette ambition proudhonienne a peut-être dépassé la puissance analytique de notre auteur justifiant ainsi une partie des critiques dont il a pu faire l’objet. Cependant, cela ne doit pas occulter l’intérêt du travail, certes en friche, qu’il nous a légué et ce, notamment, par rapport à d’autres projets, beaucoup mieux étayés d’un point de vue analytique, mais qui, figés dans le dogmatisme sclérosé de leur système, finissent par ne présenter que peu de capacités évolutives et encore moins de valeur heuristique. Cela pourrait alors déboucher sur une présentation de l’économie proudhonienne concernant les théories de la valeur, de la redistribution (salaire, profit, rente) et la monnaie (intérêt et crédit gratuit) voire sur les conclusions pragmatiques que cela entraîne dans son projet fédéraliste.

Conclusion: A “Proudhon Beyond Proudhon” Jesse Cohn

This concluding chapter will investigate Proudhon as a resource for thinking and acting in the present. From his Célébration du dimanche (1839) to the Principe de l’art (1865), this body of work presents an unexhausted reservoir of possibilities. Drawing on the findings in all of the preceding chapters, as well as on recent scholarship by other neo-Proudhonians, such as Daniel Colson and Robert Damien, we can glimpse Proudhon’s potential – in spite of his personal and historical limitations – to contribute not only to contemporary social and political theory, but also to the social and political movements of the future.

Notes on the Contributors

Allan Antliff holds the Canada Research Chair in Modern Art at the University of Victoria, Canada. He is editor of Only a Beginning: An Anarchist Anthology (2004) and author of Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall (2007) and Anarchist Modernism: Art, Politics and the First American Avant-Garde (2001). He is art editor for the UK-based journal Anarchist Studies.

Lucian Ashworth is Head of the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick in Ireland. His main area of research interest is the history of International Relations theory, with a particular focus on the inter-war period. His publications on this subject include three books, of which the most recent, International Relations Theory and the Labour Party: Intellectuals and Policy Making 1918-1945, will be published by IB Tauris in 2008. He has also published articles on idealism in inter-war IR (it didn’t exist), the realist-idealist debate (it never happened) and eighteenth century international thought (it didn’t work). He is currently working on an intellectual biography of David Mitrany.

Erik Buelinckx is currently Scientific Assistant at the Department of Documentation of the Royal Institute of the Artistic Heritage of Belgium. He is currently completing his doctoral thesis titled “Anarchism and the Arts in Belgium from 1830 to 1940. Belgium in the European avant-garde, the Europe avant-garde in Belgium”. He has a Master's degree in Art History from the Free University Brussels (1981). Since 2000 he has been responsible for compiling digital databases and conducting research projects and photographic inventories of art objects for the Royal Institute of the Artistic Heritage, as well as publishing in related areas.

Edward Castleton presently holds a post-doctoral scholarship at the University of Franche-Comté, Besançon. He is in charge of transcribing and editing a number of Proudhon’s unpublished manuscripts due to appear in 2009. He is also co-writing, with Anne-Sophie Chambost, an intellectual biography of Proudhon due to appear in 2010. He received his doctorate from the University of Cambridge, King’s College.

Anne-Sophie Chambost is lecturer in the History of Law at the University of Paris, Descatres. Chambost has published widely on Proudhon’s philosphy of law. Her doctoral thesis won the Prix Montesquie, awarded by l’Association française des historiens des idées politiques in 2001. It has subsequently been published as Proudhon et la norme. Pensée juridique d’un anarchiste by Presses Universitaire de Rennes (2004).

Jesse Cohn is an Associate Professor of English at Purdue University North Central. His recent work includes "Interpretation and the Proudhonian Series" (forthcoming 2007), "Breaking the Frame: Anarchist Comics and Visual Culture" (in Belphégor: Littérature Populaire et Culture Médiatique, and the book Anarchism and the Crisis of Representation: Hermeneutics, Aesthetics, Politics (Susquehanna University Press, 2006). He lives in Valparaiso, Indiana with his wife, Darlene, and their daughter, Rosa, and is currently at work on a complete translation of Proudhon's De la Justice.

Richard J.F. Day is an anarchist activist and scholar based in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He is Associate Professor of Sociology at Queen's University. His current work focuses on relations between settlers and autonomy-seeking indigenous peoples in the Americas, with a particular interest in resonances between anarchism, indigenism, and feminism. He is the author of two books: Multiculturalism and the History of Canadian Diversity (University of Toronto Press, 2000); and Gramsci Is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements (Pluto Press, Between The Lines, University of Michigan Press, 2005) Italian, Greek, and Turkish translations of the latter are in process.

Robert Graham has taught human rights, the philosophy of law, philosophy and criminology and critical thinking at the College level in British Columbia. He is the author of the Introduction to the 1989 Pluto Press edition of Proudhon’s The General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century, “The Role of Contract in Anarchist Ideology,” in For Anarchism: History, Theory, and Practice, ed. David Goodway (1989), “The Anarchist Contract,” in Reinventing Anarchy, Again, ed. Howard Ehrlich (1996), “Broken Promises: The Politics of Social Ecology Revisited,” Social Anarchism, No. 29 (2000-2001), “Reinventing Hierarchy: The Political Theory of Social Ecology,” Anarchist Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2004), “Chomsky’s Anarchism,” Social Anarchism, No. 39 (2006), as well as numerous book reviews. He is also the editor of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 1: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939), published by Black Rose Books in 2005, and Volume 2: The Anarchist Current (1939-2007), forthcoming.

Thierry Menuelle has been Professeur Agrégé de Sciences Sociales since 1994. He has a degree in history from the E.H.E.S.S and in economics from the Sorbonne. He is an active member of the Société P.-J. Proudhon and has published numerous papers on Proudhon’s thought in both French and German. His publications include Marx, lecteur de Proudhon (1993) and Le Charivari contre Proudhon (2006). He is currently preparing the third index volume for Proudhon’s Complete Works.

Alex Prichard is a temporary teaching fellow in International Relations Theory at the University of Bath. His PhD thesis on Proudhon’s international political theory will be submitted to Loughborough University in February 2008. His first publication, ‘Justice, Order and Anarchy: The International Political Theory of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)’ was included in a special edition of Millennium: Journal of International Studies, titled ‘Theory of ‘the International’ Today’ in 2007. In 2005 he established the PSA Anarchist Studies Network with the intention bringing together a group of people concerned to help re-establish the importance of anarchism within American and European academia – and beyond.

James Rubin has been Professor of Art History at State University of New York, Stony Brook, since 1979, fifteen years of which he spent as Chair. He gained his PhD from Harvard University in 1972, and has since taught at Harvard, Boston University, Princeton and The Cooper Union. Rubin is an internationally renowned expert on the impressionist movement and has published nine books on aspects of the history of art including Realism and Social Vision in Courbet and Proudhon (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1981). His latest book is Impressionism and the Modern Landscape: Productivity Technology and Urbanization from Manet to Van Gogh (Berkeley, 2008).

K. Steven Vincent is Professor of History at North Carolina State University. He was awarded his PhD from the University of California, Berkley in 1981 and has since held numerous visiting Professorships there. His publications include Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism published by Oxford University Press in 1984 and Between Marxism and Anarchism: Benoît Malon and French Reformist Socialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). He has published widely on nineteenth-century French social and political history, with “Visions of Stateless Society” forthcoming in the Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Political Thought, edited by G. Stedman Jones and G. Claeys.

Anarchist Studies Network

A PSA Specialist Group for the Study of Anarchism.

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