Month: August 2008

equitable commerce

The Ethics of the Homestead Strike

August 30, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
In his Liberty review of William Bailie’s The First American Anarchist, Clarence L. Swartz noted that, “Sidney H. Morse, the sculptor, was, during the last two years of Warren’s life, his most active propagandist. Furthermore, Morse’s efforts were so great that they did not fail of appreciation by Warren, and the latter showed his full recognition of their value by making Morse his literary executor.” Morse is one of those major figures who never seems to get quite the attention he deserves. He was the editor of The Radical, a contributor to The Radical Review, as well as to Liberty, […]
Contr'un

Constitutions and Organic Bases

August 19, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
Tomorrow night’s discussion at Laughing Horse Books will be on “Panarchy and Pantarchy, with a brief look at Proudhon’s theory of the state.” As I told the collective yesterday, “It will be breezier than it sounds.” I had initially meant to pair Paul Émile de Puydt’s 1860 “Panarchy,” which proposes a free market in governments, just with some documents relating to Stephen Pearl Andrews’ Pantarchy, which was an anarchistic outlier, from roughly the same year, strongly influenced by August Comte and heavy on voluntary hierarchy, with Andrews expecting to find himself, voluntarily, pretty much at the top of the heap. […]
Uncategorized

Missing pieces

August 18, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been working on a collection of short biographies of radical figures, sort of an introductory miscellany, and had been translating Elisée Reclus’ “John Brown” to include there. Gallica has a rough, but readable scan of what appears to be a pamphlet version of the text. Now that I’ve translated it, it also appears to be an incomplete version. Some text, probably at least a few lines, is pretty clearly missing. Brown’s capture, trial and death seem to have disappeared between one line and the next. This looks like an “original” error, rather than a recent scanning error. It’s still […]
Anarchism

Radical History night at Laughing Horse

August 9, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur
A new weekly event, at Laughing Horse Books! R@dical History SeriesMAJOR MOMENTS, MINOR MOVEMENTS, LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS, CONTROVERSIES, AND CHARACTERS. EACH WEEK: A SHORT, INFORMAL PRESENTATION, FOLLOWED BY COFFEE-DRINKING AND DISCUSSION. AUGUST TOPICS: 8/12: P.-J. Proudhon and “Property is theft!” (Theme and Variations) A survey of the uses to which Proudhon put his famous phrase. 8/19: Panarchy and Pantarchy: Hierarchy in a free society P. E. Depuydt and Stephen Pearl Andrews push the envelope of anarchy. 8/26: Anarchists as Inventors: From desk-top publishing 1830-style to the Lysander Spooner’s “elastic bottom.” With Shawn P. Wilbur (Laughing Horse Collective, Alliance of the Libertarian […]