Month: October 2006

Kevin Carson has posted a first draft chapter from his new work on “an anarchist theory of organizational development.” In it, he’s concerned with the question of “economies of scale” and the limits beyond which bigger is perhaps not better. His examples of the defense of the alternative, bigger is always better, approach are drawn mostly from state socialist and capitalist sources, but there are also examples that might be taken out of histories much closer to mutualism. In the period around 1900, it was fairly common to see the large corporation, or even the monopolitistic trust as a “labor-saving […]

My research travels, partially in support of the Distributive Passions project, have taken me back into the 20th century–or rather forward from the centuries that usually occupying my time. I’m working on a quick survey of utopian novels and proposals from the early decades of last century. (Don’t worry. I’m also reading the 2-volume Library of America Debate on the Constitution set, which is marvelous relief from sappy romantic sub-plots.) These are waters I’ve travelled quite a bit before, but not in any systematic way. A novel that I have owned for years, but had not read until this week, […]

Rufus Wilmot Griswold, aside from having a remarkable name, produced a large number of rather lovely books on literature. In The Prose Writers of America. With a survey of the history, condition, and prospects of American literature (1847), he surveys the writers of the day, catching plenty of folks who don’t make more recent texts. His treatment of Ralph Waldo Emerson is interesting, and it includes a brief comment on William B. Greene. RALPH WALDO EMERSON [Born 1803.] THE development of the transcendental philosophy in New England is deserving of more consideration than can here be bestowed upon it. I […]

When I posted William B. Greene’s response to Jesse H. Jones in The Word, I promised some material on Jones himself. Jones is a figure of interest in our developing genealogy of mutualisms. Although he disagreed in various regards with Greene, he was another advocate of a mutualism based in Christian principles. In his didactic novel, Joshua Davidson, Christian (and I hardly needed to mention its didacticism, with a title like that, I suppose), he writes, From this [Public Spirit] there unfolds a form of society, which may be called Mutualism, in which there is a mutual bearing of burdens, […]

The Lancet is publishing a new study, which suggests that excess mortality in Iraq resulting from the US invasion and subsequent conflicts tops 650,000. The number is based on a survey. Iraq Body Count is currently showing a minimum figure of 43,850, based on incidents reported in major media. Check out the Wikipedia page on the earlier Lancet study for background and criticism. There is also a page there about Iraq Body Count.

There is a partial archive of Samuel Milton Jones’ Letters of Love and Labor at the Ohio Memory site. The site is extensive, and includes a large number of radical and civil rights items. Another piece of potential interest is this circular from Thomas Low and Mary Gove Nichols’ Memnonia Institute.

“T)EAR SIR—Tn reply to the queries eoutaiiied tn YOur note of the 26th nIt..” at The Very Idea!

Some time ago, I noted the presence of some work by Charles V. Kraitsir in the Google Books archive. Here is a more complete bibliography and listing of online texts. Kraitsir was one of those eccentric geniuses championed by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. William B. Greene was, of course, another, and the three of them all taught, according to at least some reports, at Kraitsir’s school in Boston. Kraisir, Charles. The Poles in the United States of America, preceded by the earliest history of the Slavonians, and by the history of Poland. Philadelphia: Kiderlen and Stollmeyer, 1837. —. Significance of the […]

[This is a very nice account of how one of the children of the Valley Forge Owenite community eventually joined the Shakers. It’s one of a number of documents relating to the “high tide” of Owenite community experiments about 1826 that I’ve been collecting.] HOW I CAME TO BE A SHAKER.____ George M. Wickersham._______ While attending the memorial service of Elder Giles B. Avery, Jan. 4, 1891, I felt impressed to ask myself this question,—How came I to be a Shaker? Why I was so impressed I cannot tell; I hope it will do no harm. In the year 1824, […]

I’m updating my bibliographies for William B. Greene. The last time I did a major update, there were lots of question marks. Now, there are fewer questions about the major, book- and article-length works, but a whole lot of new questions about letters to periodicals, sermons and such. That’s progress. The contributions to radical papers, including some fairly important interventions in debates in The Word and The Index, have only really be mentioned in the literature of anarchism. The contributions to religious periodicals have been unknown or ignored. I think I’ve now tracked down at least most of the material […]