Carnival of Anarchy #2

The historical material in LeftLiberty #1 will be drawn primarily from the individualism/socialism debate of the mid-19th century, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that, if we take our cues from any much later iteration of the debate, we find ourselves faced with the sort of simple opposition of entrenched positions that I suspect many of us would like to get past. However, in the interest of completeness, I offer what is perhaps the exemplary “exchange” of the Talking Past One Another Era: Ernest Belfort Bax, sometime collaborator of William Morris, vs. Henry Wilson, of the […]

Bits of progress on LeftLiberty, including tweaks to the logo, the beginnings of a website and some responses to my call for contributions. I’ve been working to get the wiki archive working smoothly, with prettier urls and interwiki linking with the Distributive Passions site. The material for the “classics” section looks like it will include works by Proudhon, Leroux, Bastiat, Molinari, Tucker, and several others. In the early works, there is a lot of belligerent agreement that a simple opposition between “individualism” and “socialism” doesn’t quite get the work done. Here’s a bit of a letter from Proudhon: Paris, January […]

THAT the drift of evolution is toward socialism few thinkers doubt. It appears in education, religion, industry, government, everything. All over the world free schools, free libraries, free reading rooms, etc., reveal a profound conviction that knowledge is a human birthright. In religion there is a rapidly accelerating tendency to waive dogma, leave creed to conscience, & concentrate on humanitarian work. Proposals to rub out sectarian lines & minimize sects are heard every day, and as a matter of almost unconscious fact such unity is every day being attained. Practically only some half-a-dozen sects remain, & these faded.