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Joseph Lane, “An Anti-Statist Communist Manifesto” (1887)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

“In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with its abuse. The thing – the thing itself is the abuse !” – Burke GENERAL PRINCIPLES Human society can only be organized upon the basis of one or the other of the two principles of authority or of liberty. From these two principles are derived two political systems, equally broad and far reaching, though diametrically opposite in their effects, that of the one being the happiness, and of the other the misery of mankind. Beyond these two there is no political system capable […]

Anarchist Beginnings

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

With the anthology, Anarchist Beginnings: Declarations and Professions of Faith, 1840-1920, well on its way to completion and the connected study, A Good Word: Anarchy in All its Senses, starting to take a more definite shape, it seems like a good time to collect the various related texts and get back to the project of building the larger library of introductory texts around which the ANARCHISMS pamphlet series was originally based. Anarchist Beginnings is the newest collection in the Libertarian Labyrinth archive, and you should find lots of interesting texts there relating to the most fundamental questions regarding anarchy and […]

David Andrade, “Anarchy” (1889)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Anarchy! There is no word which conjures up such feelings of terror to so many who hear it; nor is there one which so raises the hopes of those who ever see so little to hope for. It makes their eyes glisten, their blood course a little faster than usual, and they once more clutch at that almost forlorn hope of a “good time coming.” Never in modern times has an idea, of such revolutionary nature and such weighty import, so seized upon the mind of man, as that which the great French philosopher first promulgated less than a half […]

Hugh O. Pentecost, “Anarchy” (1889)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Delivered on June 30, 1889 to the Unity Congregation at Newark, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. Published in Twentieth Century on July 4, 1889 — The Editor] Good people who hold opinions not commonly understood generally have a bad name. The world is ready to believe almost anything of a man except that he is a genuinely good man. If his life is stainless but unconventional, the world suspects some hidden shame or base motive. So far are most people from understanding or desiring what is true and right that the highest truth is often believed to be the lowest lie, and […]

Robert Harding, “The A B C of Anarchism” (1889)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE A B C OF ANARCHISM. (No. 1) BY ROBERT HARDING. The Itinerant Street Lecturer. [NOTE.—No connection with a gentleman named R. Harding, who lectures on behalf of the Social Democratic Federation. This is mentioned from no disrespect either to that gentleman or to the Federation, but to guard against the confusion of two divergent sets of doctrines.] Q. What is Anarchism? A. Anarchism (theory) is the doctrine which denies the expediency, morality and justice of compelling men to do even that which it is right they should do. Anarchism (practice) is (a) the renunciation of the desire to compel […]

Joseph Labadie, “Anarchism: What It Is and What It Is Not” (1890s)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

So you want me to tell you what Anarchism is, do you? I can do no less than make the attempt, and in my own simple way try to make you understand at least that it is not what the uninformed and the capitalistic newspapers, liars, fools and villains generally say it is. In the first place, let me urge upon all who desire to learn the truth about Anarchism not to go to its enemies for information, but to talk with Anarchists and read anarchistic literature. And it is not always safe to take what one, two or even […]

Louise Michel, “Why we are Anarchists” (1891)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

We are Anarchists because it is absolutely impossible to obtain justice for all in any other way than by destroying institutions founded on force and privilege. We cannot believe that improvement is possible, if we still keep up the same institutions, now more rotten than in the past, or if we merely replace those whose iniquities are known by new men. These latter become in their turn what the others were, or else become barren. After the gradual changes of past centuries the hour has come when evolution cannot be separated from revolution, as in all birth they must be […]

Louise Michel, “Why I Am an Anarchist” (1896)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

I am an Anarchist because Anarchy alone, by means of liberty and justice based on equal rights, will make humanity happy, and because Anarchy is the sublimest idea conceivable by man. It is, today, the summit of human wisdom, awaiting discoveries of undreamt of progress on new horizons, as ages roll on and succeed each other in an ever widening circle. Man will only be conscious when he is free. Anarchy will therefore be the complete separation between the human flocks, composed of slaves and tyrants, as they exist to day, and the free humanity of tomorrow. As soon as […]

Errico Malatesta, “Anarchy” (1891)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Anarchy is a word that comes from the Greek, and signifies, strictly speaking, “without government”: the state of a people without any constituted authority. Before such an organization had begun to be considered possible and desirable by a whole class of thinkers, so as to be taken as the aim of a movement (which has now become one of the most important factors in modern social warfare), the word “anarchy” was used universally in the sense of disorder and confusion, and it is still adopted in that sense by the ignorant and by adversaries interested in distorting the truth. We […]

Johann Most, “Why I Am a Communist” (1892)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

One of the principal features of the development of modern industrial production is the ever-increasing organization of the laboring force and of the means of production. The result is that with less “hands” a continually growing amount of commodities is being produced. From this last is might be concluded that man should be thus enabled to satisfy all his intellectual and physical wants with a decreasing exertion of his physical powers. Yet, no such result is apparent. On the contrary, all progress in the direction of facilitating the process of production has the effect of reducing the number of laborers […]