Month: July 2007

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Burke + Warren, 1850

July 12, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
In an article on “Anarchism in England Fifty Years Ago,” reprinted in the February 1906 issue of Liberty, Max Nettlau discussed two very early anarchist publications printed in England. One of these was an edition of Edmund Burke’s Vindication of Natural Society, published By Holyoake and Co., in 1850, under the title The Inherent Evils of all State Governments Demonstrated. The particular interest in this edition of Burke’s work comes from the Appendix which followed it, probably the work of Ambrose C. Cuddon, in which Josiah Warren’s “system” (he hated the word but…) of equitable commerce is presented as an […]
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Reading around / Dyer D. Lum’s Alarm

July 9, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been reading pretty broadly lately, pulling together articles related to the Liberty archive project and Utopia, OH, the Josiah Warren anthology. That’s taken me into the pages of The Egoist, where Benjamin Tucker, Bolton Hall, and Stephen Byington shared pages with the likes of Ezra Pound, and fairly familiar debates about the nature of egoism and anarchism appeared alongside early reviews of Italian Futurism. It’s also taken me into the pages of Max Nettlau’s 1897 Bibliographie de l’Anarchie, which I had never tackled before, and which has been full of pleasant surprises. A steady regimen of Proudhon translation has […]
postanarchism

Cohn and Wilbur, What’s Wrong with Postanarchism

July 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
What’s Wrong With Postanarchism? http://www.anarchist-studies.org/article/articleview/26/1/1/ by Jesse Cohn and Shawn Wilbur What is now being called “postanarchism” by some thinkers, including Saul Newman, can take on many forms, but the term generally refers to an attempt to marry the best aspects of poststructuralist philosophy and the anarchist tradition. One way to read the word, thus, is as a composite: poststructuralism and anarchism. However, the term also suggests that the post- prefix applies to its new object as well—implying that anarchism, at least as heretofore thought and practiced, is somehow obsolete. Together, these two senses of the word form a narrative: […]
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Independence Days

July 4, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Happy 4th of July! May we celebrate independence in all its best senses. All these days seem to get overrun by commercial and governmental concerns, which obscures what is radical and oppositional about the events they celebrate, what, for example, was really revolutionary about the American Revolution and the Declaration. Perhaps this is the time to think about a lost tradition of radical celebrations, the celebration of Tom Paine’s birthday, January 29. The Thomas Paine Institute has a birthday celebration page. It’s not too early to start planning an event!