Year: 2007

communism

Josiah Warren, The Motives for Communism—II

June 20, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Josiah Warren, “The Motives for Communism—How It Worked and What It Led To—Article II,” Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, IV, 15 (February 24, 1872), ?. THE MOTIVES FOR COMMUNISM—HOW IT WORKED AND WHAT IT LED TO. ARTICLE II. Some facts are more strange than fiction, more philosophical than philosophy, more romantic than romance and more conservative than conservatism. In my previous article I spoke of some of the motives for communism; and, certainly, no higher or more holy motive can possibly actuate human beings. We now come to the way it worked. We had assembled with a view of organizing a […]
communism

Josiah Warren, The Motives for Communism—I

June 20, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Josiah Warren, “The Motives for Communism—How It Worked and What It Led To,” Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, IV, 14 (February 17, 1872), 5. COMMUNISM Mesdames Editors: How often have I said to myself, “Oh, for a paper of world-wide circulation, through which we could pour into the public lap the most important results of our lives’ experience! That others who come after us may avoid the thorny paths that have lacerated our feet—may profit by our errors and successes. I hope and believe that your is, or will be, such a paper: and in it I propose to furnish a […]
equitable commerce

Clarence L. Swartz on Warren and Bailie

June 17, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
  Josiah Warren and His Work. Josiah Warren, as Liberty’s readers know, was the original founder and teacher of Philosophical Anarchism in America. A scion of the Massachusetts puritan house of Warren, which numbers among its many distinguished members the revolutionary hero of Bunker Hill, Gen. Joseph Warren, Josiah, who was born in Boston toward the close of the eighteenth century, became one of the most noted social reformers of his time. As the exponent of the doctrine of Individual Sovereignty and Cost the Limit of Price, he blazed the path which Liberty, for twenty-five years, has followed as its […]
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More Lucifer, plus some Liberty

June 17, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Thanks to Jesse Walker at Reason Hit & Run and the folks at boing boing for making my rather off-hand announcement of the budding Lucifer the Light-Bearer archive something of a hit in the blogosphere. Apparently the interest is out there, so I’ve been adding to the archived issues as time allows: 52 down, and only 1057 issues to go! I’ve also begun an archive of Benjamin R. Tucker’s Liberty in pdf form, scanning from John Zube’s microfilm edition. Again, the quality is not perfect, and in some cases is not even particularly good, but hopefully I can put something […]
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on ALLiance

June 17, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
This stuff gets messy, pretty much right out of the gate. As if we expected anything else. There are plenty of sincere comrades of various persuasions, not to mention our share of out-and-out trolls, ready to point out the dangers, difficulties and obvious follies of an Alliance of the Libertarian Left. Any common language or agreement on more than very basic principles, upon which some more practical form of alliance might be solidly grounded, is strictly something to come. We’ve bet on a shared intuition that the obviousness of our folly is somewhat illusory. The leap of faith represented by […]
equitable commerce

John Pickering on “Equitable Commerce” (1847)

June 14, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
John Pickering, The working man’s political economy: founded upon the principle of immutable justice and the inalienable rights of man; designed for the promotor of national reform. Cincinnati : Stereotyped in Warren’s new patent method by Thomas Varney, 1847. CHAPTER XIX. “EQUITABLE COMMERCE.” A work bearing the above title, published by Josiah Warren, New Harmony, Indiana, has lately appeared before the public. The work professes to be, “A new development of principles for the harmonious adjustment and regulation of the pecuniary, intellectual and moral intercourse of mankind, proposed as elements of new society.” The author of this work, and myself, […]
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Left-Libertarian Library Proposal

June 9, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m in the midst of putting together a first-stage proposal for a digital library of left-libertarian and related material, a more “walkable” version of my Libertarian Labyrinth. I would be interested in input at this stage from folks who see themselves using, or perhaps contributing to, such an archive. For those unfamiliar with my general archiving project, I’ve been amassing public domain anarchist texts, with a heavy emphasis on William B. Greene and the mutualist tradition, in the Labyrinth archive and at the From the Libertarian Library blog. My collection strategy has been to ignore questions of ideological purity and […]
equitable commerce

on the “Boston House of Equity,” 3/26/1856

June 9, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
“To Correspondents,” Boston Investigator, 25, 48 (March 26, 1856), 3. “J. N.”—The “Boston House of Equity” (established for the sale of provisions and groceries at about wholesale prices or a small advance upon cost,) and the “People’s Paper,” (pledged to advocate the enterprise,) have both failed or suspended operations.—The principle, however, upon which the movement was founded was a very good one, and deserved to succeed; but in a city where rent and labor are high, such an experiment is doubtful, even if well managed, and this probably was not. It undertook to do more than it had means to […]
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Peaceful Revolutionist: contents

June 9, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Peaceful Revolutionist: Contents [Monthly; Vol. 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1833)-v. 1, no. 4 (Apr. 5, 1833); v. 2, no. 1 (May 1848).] Volume 1 No. 1: January, 1833 Volume 1 No. 2: February 5, 1833 5. Surrounding Circumstances 6 (?): Of Our State Difficulties (J.W.) 6: Principles and Progress of an Experiment of Rational Social Intercourse Continued 7: Written on Hearing Unwelcome News (poem: J.W.) Progress of Equal Exchange in England 8: Society as it Is: The Causes of Its Evils, and the Practical Applications of the Proposed Remedies “Themistocles said…” A General Convention of the States “The two […]