Year: 2015

Panarchy

Paul Emile De Puydt, Panarchy (1860)

May 5, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
This translation of “Panarchy” appears courtesy of John Zube, whose note on the translation reads (in part): “This is the April 1998 version of the English translation (with corrections based on the original French text: November 2001—March 2004 and April 2005, GPdB—May 2006, MB). At first my wife and I produced a rough translation. Then Adrian Falk and, perhaps, his sister, put it into a better shape. It was then first reproduced in Peace Plans 4, with some comments by me and a draft of individual rights. Later, it was reproduced in Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought, Fall 1966 and […]
anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, La Lutte contre l’Etat (1908)

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] La Lutte contre l’Etat [Les Temps Nouveaux, 13 no. 51 (18 avril 1908) : 3-4.] ———– Ce qui suit n’est pas une traduction, mais un résumé libre et en partie amplifié d’un article écrit par moi pour la revue Mother Earth de New-York (décembre 1907, pp. 433-444), et comme j’ai été amené à faire des digressions nouvelles, la responsabilité littéraire des camarades qui publient cette revue est complètement dégagée du présent écrit.   I Je m’étais souvent demandé pourquoi les idées anarchistes qui nous paraissent si claires et qui ajoutent tant à la joie de vivre de ceux qui […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Max Nettlau, Authority and Freedom (1929)

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
SIDEBAR Authority and Freedom in Their Ages-Old and World-Wide Struggle. [minimally edited; most spelling, punctuation, etc. is Nettlau’s] Many of us who know and feel the beauty of the anarchist ideal, are struck and at times disheartened when they see what a small place anarchism seems to hold in modern life and thought. It is indeed strange to see the disproportion of the numbers of those whom our always strenuous propaganda reaches directly and the many hundreds of million[s] on this globe who are under the sway of immensely developed means of determined, mostly forcible propaganda, by press, pulpit, politics […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Max Nettlau, On the Divide (1932)

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] On the Divide: The Outgoing Authoritarian and the Incipient Libertarian Age [This is a transcription of an uncorrected, handwritten manuscript. It has been lightly edited to fix obvious, distracting spelling errors, but many grammatical errors remain and idiosyncrasies remain. An edited version is in progress.] The present troubled economic and political situation in all countries universalizes waves of discontent and often of despair, but exercises a differentiating influence upon populations of various countries, as their past history and the happenings since 1914 and 1918 have placed each of them in a different position, exposed them to differing influences and […]
anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, Fragment (1902)

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] All my arguments are based on the fact that men are different from one another, so that the same thing cannot be known to the same degree by everyone. If we accept in theory that all the possibilities of development exist in a rudimentary state or develop in all of us, the practical life shows that these possibilities develop in a different manner for each of us. We do think nor wish to render men uniform — just as we do not think of leveling the mountains and the plains. We […]
anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, “Panarchy, a Forgotten Idea of 1860” (1909)

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
  For a long time I have been fascinated by the thought how wonderful it would be if at last, in public opinion on the succession of political and social institutions, the fateful term “one after another” would be replaced through the very simple and self-evident “simultaneously.” “Down with the State!” and “Only upon the ruins of the State…” express emotions and wishes of many but it seems that only the cool “Opt out of the State” (No. 2 of “The Socialist”) can help them towards their realization. When a new scientific insight appears, then those convinced of it do […]
anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, “Are there New Fields for Anarchist Activity?” (1907)

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Are there New Fields for Anarchist Activity? I have often wondered why, with millions of people taking part in progressive and labor movements of all kinds, comparatively few accept Anarchism fully as we do. What is better known than the exploitation of labor by capital, the oppression of the individual by the State, to the student the least interested in social matters and to the practical observer of everyday life? Again, if Anarchist propaganda has not yet touched every remote place in all countries, there are numerous localities where it has been carried on for a generation and more, […]
anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, Responsibility and Solidarity in the Labor Struggle (1899)

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] The following remarks, based on an article published by me in Freedom, November 1897, must not be understood as wishing to replace direct Anarchist propaganda by a “remedy or a “hobby,” they simply raise a general subject which has been, as far as I know and am told, neglected up till now: the possibility of some new form and combination in the labor struggle; and I am anxious for Anarchist criticism, which, apart from the general possibility has to examine whether the means suggested are on the road to freedom or the contrary; consequently, whether they merit the support […]
anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, Adjectives and the Possibility of Panarchy

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Originally posted at Responsibility, Solidarity, Strategy] I’m setting up this new corner of the Libertarian Labyrinth archive in order to gather material for some forthcoming volumes of work by Max Nettlau, but also to explore more fully his persistent “heresy,” the possibility of “mutual tolerance” between anarchist and non-anarchist currents as a key to advancing the anarchist project. Nettlau drew from the current of “anarchism without adjectives” among Spanish collectivists in his day, but also found inspiration in Paul-Émile de Puydt‘s 1860 proposal for “panarchy,” a sort of “free market in governmental systems.” More than anything, however, he seems to […]
Bakunin Library

Benjamin R. Tucker on Bakunin (1881)

April 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
Michael Bakounine.   As announced in our last number, we present on this page, for the first time in America, a faithful portrait of the founder of Nihilism,— the physical lineaments of an heroic reformer, of whom we are willing to hazard the judgment that coming history will yet place him in the very front ranks of the world’s great social saviours. The grand head and face speak for themselves regarding the immense energy, lofty character, and innate nobility of the man. We should have esteemed it among the chief honors of our life to have known him personally, and […]