January 2019 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Max Nettlau, “Geschichte der Anarchie I. – Der Vorfrühling der Anarchie ” (I)

January 29, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[These are work pages, containing (for now) the German text of Max Nettlau’s Geschichte der Anarchie I. – Der Vorfrühling der Anarchie, together with a machine translation (in gray text) and links to related texts.] [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Max Nettlau Geschichte der Anarchie I. – Der Vorfrühling der Anarchie Ihre Entwicklung von den Anfängen bis 1864 I. Zur Urgeschichte von Freiheit und Autorität II. Zeno, die Stoiker und das Naturrecht III. Von Karpokrates zu den Brüdern des freien Geistes IV. Rabelais und die Utopisten V. Von La Boétie zu Diderot VI. Sylvain Maréchal VII. Von Winstanley bis zu […]

Calvin Blanchard, “Religio-Political Physics” (1861)

January 27, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] RELIGIO-POLITICAL PHYSICS: OR, THE SCIENCE AND ART OF MAN’S DELIVERANCE FROM IGNORANCE-ENGENDERED MYSTICISM, AND ITS RESULTING THEO-MORAL QUACKERY AND GOVERNMENTAL BRIGANDAGE. BY CALVIN BLANCHARD. “Nature is all-sufficient; man’s fancied “supernatural” longing is her index to the perfection to which development, including science and art, irrepressibly tend. All evil is consequent on ignorance, skepticism and despair, with respect to the power of the substantial, through spontaneity and practical organization, and combination, to complete the all-important half of its undertaking; to create supply, adequate to demand; to inaugurate Heaven on Earth.” — […]

Calvin Blanchard, “The Essence of Science” (1859)

January 25, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] THE ESSENCE OF SCIENCE OR, THE CATECHISM OF POSITIVE SOCIOLOGY AND PHYSICAL MENTALITY BY A Student of Auguste Comte. 1859 PRELIMINARY. We must accept the whole of Science, or we may as well refuse it altogether. Piecemeal, it can have no living existence; and, therefore, can yield us no benefits. Its rightful domain extends through all, from lowest to highest. To exclude science from Sociology—Government—Religion; from the highest of which we are capable of conceiving, is to deprive it of its head; and man, of all which can render life worth […]

Calvin Blanchard, “The Religion of Science” (1860)

January 22, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE; OR THE ART OF ACTUALIZING LIBERTY, AND OF PERFECTING AND SUFFICIENTLY PROLONGING HAPPINESS: BEING A PRACTICAL ANSWER TO THE GREAT QUESTION,— “If you take away my Religion, what will you give me in its stead?” NEW YORK: CALVIN BLANCHARD, 16 NASSAU STREET, 1860. PROPOSITIONAL. I. The Religion of Science alone, can be the antidote to the Religion of Mystery, and to the arbitrary rule, unjust law, impracticable morality, and suicidal virtue founded thereon. Religion to be true, to be Religion, must be a present, living, dynamical, […]

Calvin Blanchard, “A Message to the ‘Sovereign People’ of the United States” (1860)

January 21, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] A MESSAGE “THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE” OF THE UNITED STATES; EXHIBITING TO THEIR MAJESTIES THE INFERNAL TREACHERY OR WORSE INABILITY OF THEIR RELIGIOUS COUNSELLORS AND OF THEIR POLITICAL “SERVANTS,” PROVING THE IDENTITY OF THE THEOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL DELUSIONS. EXPOSING THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE HOAX AND REVEALING A NEW, AND SELF-EVIDENTLY EFFICIENT REMEDY FOR SUPERSTITION, DESPOTISM, AND EVIL. BY CALVIN BLANCHARD. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY CALVIN BLANCHARD, 76 NASSAU STREET. 1860. A MESSAGE TO “THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE” OF THE UNITED STATES. May it please your Majesties: I am going to disenchant the […]

Notes on Mutualism and the Problem(?) of Exchange

January 18, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

There is a criticism that mutualists frequently hear from communists—and we might say it dates back to the 1850s and Joseph Déjacque—that mutualism makes no fundamental break with capitalism because, among the various economic arrangements open to mutualists, we find some that involve some kind of exchange. In a social media discussion this week, the accusation took the form of a claim that “still inherently capitalist.” When it became clear that the would-be critic didn’t know much about any of the varieties of mutualism, the further claim was made that there was, in fact, no need to know anything about […]

King C. Gillette, “The Human Drift” (1895)

January 16, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] The recent Gillette ad is little more than “woke” capitalism—the familiar process of “turning rebellion into money”—but there are certainly worse messages out there. And it offers an opportunity to recall the more radical politics of King Camp Gillette, who believed that “business principles” led pretty directly to a form of utopian socialism. Gillette’s first book, The Human Drift, is largely forgotten now, but it caused quite a stir among those radicals who had been attracted to Bellamy’s Looking Backward, Gronlunds’ Cooperative Commonwealth, etc. Twentieth Century—which by that time was nothing like an anarchist paper, […]

Charles Fourier in the “Phalange” (2nd series, 1836–1837)

January 14, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[IN-PROGRESS] Translations: Remedies for Various Slaveries (pdf) SCIENCE SOCIALE. Remède de divers Esclavages. (Article de M. Fourier.) Au moment où l’Angleterre fait un folle dépense de cinq cents millions pour affranchir ses esclaves coloniaux, qu’elle pourrait libérer sans aucun frais et sans risque de déclin de l’industrie aux Antilles ; Au moment où le France, dans un accès d’Anglomania, veut faire chorus de duperie et projette un nouvel impôt ou emprunt de trois cents millions pour affranchir ses nègres coloniaux, qu’elle peut libérer sans qu’il en coûte rien ; N’est-ce pas le cas d’examiner la méthode qui affranchirait GRATIS tous les […]

Dictionary of Phalansterian Sociology — A

January 13, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

ABANDON. — L’abandon des faibles, des enfants el des vieillards est un des caractères de la civilisation empruntés à la sauvagerie. N. 109, 407, 424. — L’ordre civilisé ne pouvant produire que le mal et l’hypocrisie, est impuissant à assurer la protection efficace des faibles; l’assistance de l’enfance y dégénère rapidement en exploitation, sous le masque de la charité, et celle des infirmes et des vieillards en abus. ABANDONMENT. — The abandonment of the weak, of children and of the elderly is one of the characteristics that civilization has borrowed from savagery. New Industrial World.109, 407, 424.—The civilized order can […]

Lilian Freeman Clarke, “The Story of an Invisible Institution” (1906)