Blog - Page 143 of 286 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Ravachol, “My Principles” (1892)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Gentlemen, I am in the habit of engaging in propaganda wherever I find myself. Do you know what Anarchy is? We answered ‘No’ to this question. “That doesn’t surprise me,” he responded. The working class, which as you know is obliged to work to obtain its bread, doesn’t have the time to indulge itself in reading the pamphlets that are made available to it; it is the same for you. Anarchy is the annihilation of property. Presently there exist many useless things, many occupations which also useless, such as accounting, for example. With anarchy, there is no more need for […]

Benjamin R. Tucker, “Why I Am an Anarchist” (1890)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Why am I an Anarchist? That is the question which the editor of the Twentieth Century has requested me to answer for his readers. I comply; but, to be frank, I find it a difficult task. If the editor or one of his contributors had only suggested a reason why I should be anything other than an Anarchist, I am sure I should have no difficulty in disputing the argument. And does not this very fact, after all, furnish in itself the best of all reasons why I should be an Anarchist – namely, the impossibility of discovering any good […]

Louisa Sarah Bevington, “Wanted: Order” (1893)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Yes! order. That is what we Anarchists are struggling to get in the place of the shameful “chaos and disorder” that we see around us. The disorder in the World and the Misery of the Workers is caused by the system of Monopoly and Capitalism, and by the brutal working of the laws, made by Monopolists and Profitmongers to protect themselves and their dishonest gains. It is to the interest of Monopolists and Capitalists to make you believe that Anarchists are “enemies of society”. They tell you that Anarchists want to turn the world “upside down.” Workers! “The world is […]

Emile Henry, “Letter to the Director of the Conciergerie” (1894)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

During the visit you made to my cell Sunday, the 18th of this month, we had a quite friendly discussion of anarchist ideas. You said you were very surprised to learn our theories in a different light, and you asked me to summarize our conversation in writing, in order to better know what the anarchists want. You can easily understand, monsieur, that in just a few pages one can’t expound upon a theory which analyses our current social life in all of its manifestations; that studies these manifestations the way a doctor examines a sick body, and which then condemns […]

Ross Winn, “The Archic (A Fairy Tale)” (1903)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Once upon a time, in a kingdom situated between two seas, the people kept a certain great monster, called an archic. This archic was a most ferocious beast with great iron claws and a mouth large enough to swallow a dozen men at a gulp. The people held this frightful monster in great esteem, altho it was a great burden to them, for it had to be fed constantly upon the fat of the land, and demanded human flesh and blood, as well as the choice fruits of the soil, and was always hungry. This savage beast had to be […]

J. A. Andrews, “A Handbook of Anarchy” (1894)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Anarchy is freedom. The literal meaning of the word “free” is to love or like; thus when we say that a man is free we imply that he is “to like,” that is, he has only to like in order to decide what he will do, or try to do. Among the things which people in general like, is to avoid hurting others, and as sometimes to do a particular thing which one would like would come in conflict with this, it becomes a matter for consideration which course one likes the best. From this people have roughly set out […]

Henry Seymour, “The Two Anarchisms” (1894)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] Anarchists are divided into MUTUALISTS, who hope to bring about their economic results by Banks of Exchange and a free currency; and COMMUNISTS, whose motto is: “From every man according to his capacity, to every man according to his needs.” Hazell’s Annual Encyclopaedia, 1886 There are two Anarchisms. That is to say, there are two schools of Anarchism. One is communistic, the other mutualistic. One is emotional, the other is philosophic. One is utopian, the other practical. One is dogmatic, the other rational. One is destructive, the other constructive. One is revolutionary, the other evolutionary. One relies on the […]

Ross Winn, “A Vision of Anarchy” (1895)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Anarchy: A social theory which regards the union of order with the absence of all direct government of man by man as the political ideal; absolute individual liberty. – Century Dictionary Every man, they say, has a religion; my religion is Anarchism. In contemplating the future I see it radiant with the sunlight of universal liberty. I catch a vision of the days to come—the curtain rises upon a grand scene; I see before me a glorious panorama. The hideous nightmare of government—the subjection of man to man—is gone, and I hear the happy sound of many voices of men […]

Brother, “What Anarchism Is” (1895)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

WHAT ANARCHISM IS Chicago, Ill. Editor Railway Conductor: A correspondent writing from Fort Dodge, Iowa, finds much comfort in your editorial expression of the sentiment (certainly not peculiar to yourself) that: “He is no true friend of labor who argues that inasmuch as wrong has been done, wrong in return is justifiable.” He is. nevertheless, much cast down in spirit by an outcropping of anarchism he seems to have discovered in some fraternal correspondence criticising the methods of politicians and corporations of capital working together, manipulating the functions of what your correspondent emphatically styles “our government.” He says: The influx […]

Henry Addis, “Why I am an Anarchist” (1896)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

We find ourselves in a world of conflicting ideas, and every person who has individuality enough developed to be more, in human life, than a domestic animal or lifeless machine, must align himself with others who hold the same opinions, whether he will or not, and then he is in the view of others, and perhaps in his own view, labeled with the name of the idea he holds. So we find that nearly every person is labeled, and some persons have a number of labels. Finding that we must be something—must hold to certain ideas and work for certain […]