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The hunt begins again

January 17, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] Well, I started out the new semester with a bad case of something flu-like—just one of several slightly inauspicious signs for 2008. But the tea leaves are thus far pleasantly mixed. Having batted 0 for 2 (or 3) on teaching this semester, I am, under the circumstances, pleasantly ensconced as an unfunded Visiting Faculty Fellow of the Center for Popular Culture Studies, here at BGSU. It’s a chance to keep at my scholarly work, end in connection with one of the programs that brought me here in the first place, 18 years ago, and do a last little bit […]

Lessons from the Worcester Palladium

January 3, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

I finally sat down to collate some of the “Omega” articles (which William B. Greene wrote for the Worcester Palladium in 1949) against Equality and the 1850 Mutual Banking. In his scan through the paper Brady Campbell identified six articles under the “Omega” pen name. Equality – – No.1 by OMEGA. – Wednesday 18 July 1849 – Deals with Moses, and equality among Christian brotherhood Equality – – No.2 by OMEGA. – Wednesday 25 July 1849 – Deals with the banking system Equality – – No.3 by OMEGA. – Wednesday 1 August 1849 – Deals the repeal of usury laws […]

William B. Greene’s “A Priori Autobiography”

December 18, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] 1849 was a busy year for William Batchelder Greene. In that year, he published at least six articles, under the pseudonym “Omega,” in The Worcester Palladium, then collected some of that material and some new work in Equality, the first of his major mutual banking works. He published the first pamphlet edition of his Transcendentalism, which had previously appeared as two articles in The American Review, and he also published Remarks on the Science of History, followed by an A priori Autobiography, a work integrating his apparently wide reading in European philosophies of history with […]

Josiah Warren, Letter to Mechanics’ Free Press

December 10, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

(c) A LETTER FROM JOSIAH WARREN Mechanics’ Free Press, May 10, 1828, p. 2, col. 2. Cincinnati, April 20, 1828. Dear S- The perusal of your letter which I received about three weeks since, gave me great satisfaction. It affords me pleasure to find that you still feel such interest in the subject to which I am devoted. You inquire what progress has been made since you left here; to this I could reply more than the limits of a letter will permit, but I will endeavour to enable you to form some idea. I think you left before the […]

Josiah Warren, Plan of the Cincinnati Labour for Labour Store

December 10, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

3. CO-OPERATION (a) THE PLAN OF THE CINCINNATI LABOUR FOR LABOUR STORE Mechanics’ Free Press, Aug. 9, 1828, p. I, col. I, 2. EXPLANATION OF THE DESIGN AND ARRANGEMENTS of the Co-operative Magazine, which has recently been commenced in Cincinnati. Whoever can for a moment, so far abstract his thoughts from his pecuniary concerns, as to look around him, and observe the evils, which the established laws and customs, with respect to the administration of property, are daily producing in what is called Civilized Society, must, if he is possessed of the least degree of sensibility, feel a strong desire, […]

Josiah Warren, Positions Defined

December 10, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1third]. . .[/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] Positions Defined An impression is abroad, to some extent, that the “Equity movement” is necessarily characterized by an unusual latitude in the Marriage relations—I as one, protest against this idea. “The Sovereignty of every Individual” is as valid a warrant for retaining the present relations, as for changing them; and it is equally good for refusing to be drawn into any controversies or even conversations on the subject. I find no warrant in my “sovereignty” for invading, disturbing, or offending other people, whatever may be their sentiments or modes of life, while they act only at […]

1848 origins of “agro-industrial federation”

December 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Contr’un Revisited: The work doesn’t always move from triumph to triumph. Sometimes there are missteps or bits that were a little less than fully thought through. [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] We can’t say he didn’t warn us, but Proudhon, despite his explicit embrace of a certain kind of productive contradiction, challenges readers to keep his antinomies in play, and to follow along as he reasons from the most individualistic of starting positions—complete and absolute insolidarité, the denial of common interests—to something like agro-industrial federation, which involves at least some sort of intense “centralization.” In […]

Debate on Abolition and Disunion (1847)

December 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] [Here is a slightly “pre-anarchist” Stephen Pearl Andrews and a Wendell Phillips eager not to be taken as a “no-government man, debating the question of disunion in the context of abolitionism.] ABOLITION REASONS FOR DISUNION. By Wendell Phillips. [A Reply to appear in our next Number.] THE youngest of us can remember the time when it was thought an offence next door to treason, to calculate the value of the Union. Of late years, there are many who not only calculate its value, but openly declare that they would rather part […]

My NaNoWriMo

December 3, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Well, I’ll admit with no regrets that I did not complete the 50,000 words of fiction necessary to “win” during November’s National Novel Writing Month. Some other realities intervened. I wrote a little over 25,000 words on The Distributive Passions, some of which is up on the site. (I may have covered the other half in other writings.) Winner or not, I had a very good time trying, and the pressure of trying to get ready for a month of sustained writing did wonders for my overall sense of where the novel is going. I did manage to write a […]

Anarchist-communism, work, and the virtue of selfishness

December 1, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Contr’un Revisited: Obviously, it’s a big moment when Joseph Déjacque enters the mix, but there’s a lot going on here that would bear fruit later. Adding Déjacque to my list of early anarchist obsessions moved me closer to the recognition of an Era of Anarchy, and discovering the influence of both Fourier and Pierre Leroux in his work would sharpen my interest in the “utopian” roots of anarchism, but the first really dividend from my work on Déjacque was a sense that I had been underestimating the place of egoism among the early anarchists. At […]