The Libertarian Labyrinth

C. L. James & Henry Cohen, “Anarchy’s Apostles” (1891–92)

October 14, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

An archive of this sort is necessarily full of marginal views and unusual perspectives on anarchism, so I assume that most readers will treat the accounts with appropriate caution. Under most circumstance, no specific disclaimer seems to be required. But C. L. James essays on “Anarchy’s Apostles” strike me as something of a special case, given James’ reputation within the movement during his lifetime as a serious scholar and given the number of truly idiosyncratic views expressed in them. I provide them here as fodder for historical research, but with the explicit caveat that there seems to be more that is wrong about James’ account than is right. […]

Escheat and Anarchy

October 8, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

One of the difficulties in explaining the anarchist critique—and of distinguishing anarchist tendencies from those that propose only partial breaks with authority—has been the fact that the two fundamental critiques associated with anarchist thought—anti-capitalism and anti-governmentalism—have been difficult to unite, despite indications that they emerged together as part of a single critique in the work of Proudhon. […]