Year: 2005

Contr'un

Edward Kellogg, 1790-1858

October 26, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
Edward Kellogg’s Labor and Other Capital (1849) was one of the major sources, along with the works of Proudhon and William Beck’s Money and Banking (1839), from which William Batchelder Greene drew portions of his mutual bank theory. He differed from all of his sources in the measures he proposed, but, as was the case with his theological writings and the influence of Orestes Brownson, sometimes he appropriated large sections of the works he was reading, if only to turn them aside from their author’s trajectories. This was certainly the case with Kellogg, whose ideas about banking and interest were […]
Blazing Star Library

William B. Greene’s Articles on Transcendentalism

October 25, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
Bibliography: “Mr. Emerson and Transcendentalism.” American Whig Review (March 1845). “The Bhagvat Gheeta and the Doctrine of Immortality.” American Whig Review (September 1845). “Human Pantheism.” Spirit of the Age, I, 349. The first two essay were condensed into the 1849 pamphlet Transcendentalism, which was further condensed into “Human Pantheism,” and then revised into the 1871 Transcendentalism, which was reprinted in 1872 in The Blazing Star (probably from the same plates) with one additional, final paragraph added. A full bibliographic essay and content analysis is in preparation. MR. EMERSON AND TRANSCENDENTALISM. I. PERHAPS some of our readers are still ignorant of […]
Contr'un

Navigating the new library

October 22, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been pretty quiet here for awhile, mostly because the William B. Greene research has taken on a life of its own, not just because A Special Answer to a Special Prayer threatens to be about twice as long as I expected, or because the editing and republication of Greene’s works is at a particularly demanding stage (expect all of the versions of the work on transcendentalism, as well as a new bibliographical essay soon), but also because–to my great surprise–word of the nature of the work has prompted some new and very practical kinds of collaboration. Mutualism seems to […]
Blazing Star Library

1842: William B. Greene at 22 (“First Principles”)

October 5, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] William Batchelder Greene’s first major work was an essay titled “First Principles,” which appeared in the transcendentalist periodical The Dial, in January 1842. Greene was, at the time, just starting his exploration of theology. His martial poem, “Song of Espousal,” had been written only two years before, while he was serving in Florida during the Second Seminole War. Still only 22, Greene was going through some rapid changes in his life. His religious conversion was little more than a year before, and his introduction into transcendentalist circles, in part through the […]
Contr'un

1853: William B. Greene at 34

October 4, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
In 1853, William B. Greene had resigned from his position as pastor of a West Brookfield church, but had not yet settled himself in Paris, where he would stay until his return in 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War. Greene was 34 years old, was married to “the belle of Boston,” and had two children, one of them only a couple of years old. He was financially comfortable, but politically unsettled by the recent passage of the Fugitive Slave Law (to which some attribute his resignation and emigration). He was on the tail end of one of the […]
Contr'un

Homeland Security: now we see what we’re paying for

September 15, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Perhaps the hardest thing to take about the botched federal response to Katrina is that it was largely perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security. Since 9/11, we’ve been encouraged to believe that the erosion of privacy rights and civil liberties was part of a trade-off, and in return we would get greater security at home. Yet we see what appears to be a weakened FEMA and a national economy already strained by the “war on terror” abroad. We see no signs of an intelligent response to oil dependency, global warming or Gulf Coast wetlands degredation and land loss. […]
Contr'un

“Taking Responsibility”

September 15, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
These days, even Dubya may be guilty of a little strategic Bush-bashing, what with this strange admission of “responsibility” for delays in the Federal response to Katrina. And it is a strange admission: “And to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong,” Mr. Bush said.” Erm. Yeah. Well, he at least took responsibility for the actions of the federal government “to the extent” that they screwed up. That’s not exactly saying, “Hey, I know some things didn’t go well–and people died […]
anarchist mutualism

Alfred B. Westrup, mutual banking reformer

September 13, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
Alfred B. Westrup was one of the mutual banking reformers active in the circles surrounding Liberty after the death of William B. Greene. Bibliography The abolition of interest a simple problem: the pending crisis the death struggle of a moneyed aristocracy and the labor pains of a new birth to industry. New York : M. Hill, 1897. (18 pages) Address on a new system of money: given at the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Banking : held in the Northwestern University Building, May 23, 1916. [Chicago? : s.n.], 1916. Citizens’ money, a lecture on the “National banking system.” […]
Contr'un

A New Two-Front War?

September 4, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Now that Hurricane Katrina has probably killed thousands of Americans and threatened our oil supply, I suppose that we can expect the Bush administration to formally declare the War on Mother Nature. This unprecedented attack–for which there was, as in some other cases, some precedent and plenty of warning–should simplify things considerably for the administration. Assaults on the environment need no longer be justified. Right-thinking citizens will, in fact, demand that the government take action to subdue this newly-revealed enemy. There are precedents now, and we need to show that, once again, these colors don’t run–even when very, very […]
Anarchism

The FAQs! What is Anarchism?

September 4, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
OK. I’ve been meaning for some time to tackle some basic sorts of questions folks ask me about anarchism, so here goes. I’ll be breaking up the deep historical stuff with some very present-oriented, opinionated bits, which you can think of as gradually answering parts of the “why bother?” question – which is what people usually ask me about my historical work. I’m going to be uncharacteristically breezy here. If you want the footnotes, someone else can supply them for a change. I suggest the Anarchist FAQ and the Mutualist FAQ for more serious study. I was sitting outside a […]