Month: March 2007

Anarchism

Fragments of Proudhon on Property and Liberty

March 12, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Some Proudhonian fragments, recently translated:The phrase “la propriété, c’est la liberté” appears in the Memoirs of a Revolutionist (1867, Lacroix, p.128) and in the posthumous Théorie de la propriété, (1867, Lacroix, p. 183) where Proudhon writes as if he had said that in 1846, in the System of Economic Contradictions. What he says in the 1846 is actually this, as far as I can tell: “Property, with regard to facts and to rights, is essentially contradictory, and it is for this reason that it is anything at all. Indeed, Property is the right of occupation, and at the same time […]
Anarchism

One mystery of mutualism solved—probably…

March 11, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Originally posted in discussion on Wikipedia.] Swartz’ reference to John Gray in What Is Mutualism? is puzzling. He says mutualism “seems to have been first used by John Gray, an English writer, in 1832,” but does not name the work. The only book or pamphlet from 1832 is Production the cause of demand being a brief analysis of a work entitled “The social system, a treatise on the principle of exchange, by John Gray : with a short illustration of the principles of equitable labour exchange,” which probably isn’t by Gray at all, although it relies on long passages from […]
mutualism

Joshua King Ingalls, “Property and Its Rights”

March 11, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here’s the third installment in J. K. Ingalls’ series on property and rights, from The Spirit of the Age. Notice that Ingalls had by this time already encountered Edward Kellogg’s work. He had, in fact, written a two-part review of Labor and Other Capital in the Univercoelum (which I’ll be travelling to track down in the next week or so). In his Reminiscences, Ingalls talks about arguing face to face with Kellogg about the latter’s belief that the power of increase through interest was an essential feature of money. This is obviously germane to the issue here, and Ingalls, like […]
mutualism

Joshua King Ingalls, “Man and His Rights”

March 10, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
This is the second installment of J. K. Ingalls’ series on the “natural rights of man.” In it, we find the general plan that unites the majority of Ingalls’ contributions to The Spirit of the Age. “When the subject of property, its rights, and the relation it sustains naturally to man, have been discussed, there may be an outline given of a translatory association, the aim of which shall be to unite the efforts of all friends of the race, who look with hope to the future, all friends of industrial reform, all oppressed producers, who feel the injustice of […]
mutualism

J. K. Ingalls—Man and Property, 1849

March 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Spirit of the Age is a really remarkable paper. I’ve been aware of it for some time, as the place where William B. Greene’s “Human Pantheism” appeared, and as one of the projects of William Henry Channing, who, like Greene and Orestes Brownson, was enthusiastic about the work of Proudhon’s rival, Pierre Leroux. Charles A. Dana’s work on Proudhon was published there as well, in the revised form that was eventually published separately. As I’ve turned so much of my attention to Joshua King Ingalls—for reasons which I trust are plain enough—The Spirit of the Age has assumed a […]
Anarchism

Joshua King Ingalls, Grave of the Landless

March 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here’s another item from The Spirit of the Age, a poem by J. K. Ingalls. THE GRAVE OF THE LANDLESS On a lovely “green isle,” where the billows of oceanRoll on in their might, where the loud tempests rave,The victim lies still, for not toll or devotionCould in life rear a home or in death buy a grave.The flowers may bloom, and the harvests mature,He heeds them no more as they taunt the oppressed;He has suffered the last which the wronged may endure;He sleeps, and no landlord disturbs his last rest. Oh England, say where are the sons of the […]
Anarchism

Joshua King Ingalls’ 1849 “Creed”

March 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m working my way through the radical transcendentalist / associationist / spiritualist journal The Spirit of the Age, which lasted for two volumes in 1849-50, edited by William Henry Channing. Joshua King Ingalls, the libertarian land reformer who is occupying much of my scholarly time right now, contributed ten articles and a poem to the periodical. I’ve already posted “Books—Their Sphere and Influence,” which is in many ways a very nice companion piece to the “Creed” I’m posting today. Ingalls was no doubt still dealing with his break with the Unitarians, which occured early in 1848. In the Evangelical Magazine […]
Anarchism

J. K. Ingalls—What Is Economic Rent?

March 6, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[J. K. Ingalls, “What Is Economic Rent?” Twentieth Century, December 29, 1892, 6-8.—The Twentieth Century was host to several overlapping debates on the questions of rent and interest, with mutualists, single-taxers, advocates of the Topolobampo community, and others mixing it up. There are plenty of names likely to be familiar to readers of Benjamin Tucker’s Liberty, or of this blog: Hugo Bilgram, C. L. James, Victor Yarros, Joshua King Ingalls, Michael Flurscheim, W. H. Van Ornum, and Wm. Bradford DuBois all contributed. Ingalls’ part in the debate complements his contributions to Liberty, where he was one of the most interesting […]
Anarchism

Co-operation – Alfred B. Westrup

March 6, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Alfred B. Westrup, “Co-operation,” Twentieth Century, November 3, 1892, 8-9.—This is a very interesting short piece by Westrup, showing a slightly different side of his individualist anarchism than in many of his writings, where the Mutual Bank Propaganda was his primary concern.] CO-OPERATION. BY ALFRED B. WESTRUP. Much has been written on this subject, and many are the efforts put forward to establish “cooperation” of one kind or another, but so far as there is any hope of settling the economic question, none of the experiments now being carried on can possibly accomplish it. The one essential principle upon which […]
Uncategorized

Another reminiscence of Joshua King Ingalls

March 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Woman’s Tribune, XI, 23 (May 12, 1894), 91. GLENORA, N. Y.—My dear Mrs. Colby: The recent convention in this State over the right of woman to vote for School Commissioners, revives occurrences of which I was a personal witness some three score and ten years ago. My mother was left, on the death of my father, with the sole care of six children, the oldest of which was less than 16 years of age. We lived in a secluded school district in Bristol County, Massachusetts. Our district schools were then of a primitive character compared with the present graded State […]