May 2006 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

3 new William B. Greene texts online

May 31, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’m nearing the finish line in my work archiving Greene’s Socialistic, Communistic, Mutualistic and Financial Fragments. The most recent additions include the Letter To The Rev. H. Foote, Minister Of King’s Chapel, which addresses the status of poor working women in the Boston area, and probably reflects the Greenes’ involvement with local labor activism and philanthropic activity. (William and Anna, as well as their daughter Elizabeth, were active in various ways addressing “the social problem” in Boston.) Appendices to this essay include Greene’s translation of St. Simon’s “Parable,” which appeared in slightly-altered form in his early currency writings, and as […]

Joshua King Ingalls, “Economic Equities” (1887)

May 30, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

The holiday weekend was hot as blazes here, so I hid inside quite a bit, and got a lot of work done. The first fruits of that is a pdf of Joshua King Ingalls‘ Economic Equities (1887). Ingall’s major publications were (according to OCLC data): Periodical business crises. New York : Liberator (Co-operative) Print. and Pub. Co., 1878. 12 pages. Work and wealth. Reprinted from “The Radical Review”. New York, the Author, 1878(?). 13 pages. —. Boston, B.R. Tucker, 1881. 13 pages. Work and wealth : an essay on the economics of socialism. London : International Pub. Co., 1881. 12 […]

John A. Lant, Radical Printer and Journalist

May 25, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’m always interested to find radicals from the NW Ohio area. There are no shortage of interesting connections here: Lysander Spooner was involved in land speculation in what became Grand Rapids, OH, just down the road a few miles. Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones was Toledo’s “anarchist mayor” (and Pingree, the progressive mayor of Detroit during the 1890’s depression, had been a member of William B. Greene’s Civil War regiment.) There have been important free thought, free religionist (The Index, to which Greene and Benjamin Tucker contributed) and socialist (W. F. Ries) publications based in Toledo. Henry Demarest Lloyd wrote about […]

Calvin Blanchard, “My Undertaking and Its Auspices” (1861)

May 22, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

In 1854, Comte’s Positive Philosophy and Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity fell under my observation. Many years before I had read Fourier. His system, by itself, however, seemed to me to lack foundation. But Comte furnished that foundation, and Feuerbach’s demonstration of the naturalness of “supernaturalism” precluded the possibility of my coming to any other conclusion in the premises than that the religious idea was the index to, and nature’s guaranty for, that Heaven on earth, of which Fourier was the prophet, but which he, unfortunately, attempted to minutely describe at too great a distance, and thus fell into vagaries, with respect to particulars, which did much to obscure, and bring into contempt, his most profound and transcendently brilliant discoveries.

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Henry Edger, a Positivist Priest at Modern Times

May 21, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Although the community of Modern Times was organized on Josiah Warren’s principles of “equitable commerce” and “individual sovereignty,” it was not by any means a community of anarchists. The experimental community drew a wide range of participants, some of whom differed significantly from the project’s main propagandists in their ideas about various issues. Among the more interesting and articulate of the dissident participants was Henry Edger, perhaps the first “priest” of Positivism in the US. He published a number of works from Modern Times, and also contributed an essay to Benjamin Tuckers Radical Review. Modern Times, the Labor Question, and […]

Samuel Hartlib on William Potter’s Land Bank

May 19, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

In the post Land-Banks as a substitute for Alchemy?! I mentioned a text by Samuel Hartlib, on William Potter’s land bank proposal, The Key of Wealth. The 1653 essay, An essay upon Master W. Potters designe, concerning a bank of lands to be erected throughout this common-wealth: whereby lands may be improved in a new way to become the ground for increase of trading, and of publique and private revenues, and accomodations, represented thus briefly, by a person of singular zeal and integrity to all publike interest, appeared originally as an appendix to: A discoverie for division or setting out […]

Proudhon’s “The Malthusians” (Benjamin Tucker translation)

May 19, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Proudhon published Les Malthusiens in Le Représentant du Peuple (August 10, 1848). It was published separately the following year. We know William B. Greene was reading in it Massachusetts in 1849-50; the section on “Usury” in the 1850 Mutual Banking is full of references. Benjamin Tucker translated the essay for the May 31, 1884 issue of Liberty. The Research on Anarchism site lists an 1886 London publication, “reprinted from The Anarchist.” The text here is taken from Libertarian Microfiche Project reprint (PP 957) of the 1938 Ishill Freeman Press edition. The Malthusians P.-J. Proudhon Dr. Malthus, an economist, an Englishman, […]

Google Books for mutualists

May 17, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

The difficulties associated with using Google Books haven’t changed much, but the depth of the “full view” library certainly has. I had posted a few titles to the mutualists list recently, but when I looked again, several of Andrews’ phonographic texts had been added. Here’s a partial list of titles that might be of interest to mutualists and students of the radical traditions: Andrews, Stephen Pearl: Basic Outline of Universology (1872) Complete Phonographic Class-Book (1845) Complete Phonographic Class-Book (1846) Complete Phonographic Class-Book (1851) Phonographic Reader (1846) Phonographic Word Book Number One (1849) Phonographic Word Book Number Two (1849) Primary Phonotypic […]

Ohio Natural Gas Wars, Conclusion

May 17, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here are two final chapters from Henry Demarest Lloyd’s Wealth Against CommonwealthXXII and chapters XXIII-XXIV. A pdf file of all five chapters is available in the Libertarian Labyrinth. For a bit more of Northwest Ohio’s struggle against Standard Oil, see this first post on George H. Phelps and his The New Columbia, or the Re-United States. (1894), dealing with the struggles of Toledo against the natural-gas and oil trusts. Previous posts contains chapter Wealth Against Commonwealth Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847-1903) CHAPTER XXVA SUNDAY IN JUNE IN the midst of the anxious discussion by the citizens of Toledo as to the […]

Ohio Natural Gas Wars, pt. 2

May 16, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here are two more chapter froms Henry Demarest Lloyd’s Wealth Against Commonwealth (1894), dealing with the struggles of Toledo against the natural-gas and oil trusts. I’ll post the last two chapters from this section tomorrow. Wealth Against Commonwealth Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847-1903) CHAPTER XXIIITHE FREEDOM OF THE CITY Towns, like men, stamp themselves with marked traits. Toledo had an individuality which showed itself from the start. Its leading men clubbed together and borrowed money as early as 1832 to build one of the first railroads constructed west of the Alleghenies—the Erie and Kalamazoo, to connect Toledo and Adrian. When, in […]

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Month: May 2006