Year: 2019

drama

Sylvain Maréchal, “The Last Judgment of Kings” (1793)

April 5, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

No, no, no! we want no more prayers from a priest: the God of the sans-culottes is liberty, it is equality, it is fraternity! You do not know and you have never known those gods. Go instead and exorcise the volcano which must soon punish you and avenge us. Crowned monsters! You should each have died a thousand deaths on the scaffold: but where could we have found the executions who would consent to soil their hands with your vile, corrupted blood? We abandon you to your remorse, or rather to your helpless rage. […]

equitable commerce

A Counsellor (Josiah Warren), “Modern Government and its True Mission” (1862)

April 4, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

The “United States” are no longer united —“The union” is broken — The great “American experiment” is checked and we have silently drifted under military despotism! and, instead of being a “self governing” people, every one’s person and property are at the mercy or discretion of five or six military commanders—no two of whom can reasonably be expected to have the same settled policy or any policy founded on any principle or generally understood and accepted basis; and “security of person and property” (the professed object of all governments) is annihilated, and confusion and violence already reign supreme in the land proclaimed to be the lead of the political world! […]

Nettlau Project

Roads to Anarchism: Introduction

March 30, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Max Nettlau’s work as a theorist of anarchist development, based in his extensive work as a historian of the movement, found expression in a long series of short articles (some of which are being assembled in a collection called New Fields, forthcoming from PM Press.) But he also produced three longer works addressing the question of anarchism’s progress, or lack thereof, and future prospects: […]

From the Archives

“King Killing” (1795)

March 22, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] KING KILLING. —– Shall Kings alone claim an exemption from Law, an impunity of Wickedness? Shall our idolatrous and servile spirit set up for worship a […]

Utopian and Scientific

Mathieu Briancourt, “The Organization of Labor & Association” (1846)

March 22, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Many good minds have long been persuaded that on the present generation must devolve the task of solving the formidable problem of the organization of labor, under penalty of being visited by a social revolution, the terrible consequences of which are incalculable. This belief gains ground every moment, and already this question of life and death for civilization is placed among the orders of the day by the most valuable organs of publication. […]