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The “Little-Landers” of San Ysidro

May 3, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

“A little land and a living, surely, is better than a desperate struggle and wealth, possibly.” So said William Ellworth Smythe, using the phrase of Bolton Hall, whose and Three Acres and Liberty and A Little Land and a Living were among the basic works of the back to the land movement. Hall was a single-tax advocate and anarchist, friend and supporter of Emma Goldman, etc. His Free Acres community was one of the single tax enclaves, which attempted a non-state form of Georgism. He was also a promoter of intensive, small-lot farming practices. Smythe followed Hall in some aspects […]

Three by Kropotkin

May 2, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Prince Peter Kropotkin was a regular contributor to The Nineteenth Century, and his essays were widely reprinted. Here are three of his contributions to that journal. Peter Kropotkin, The Coming Anarchy Peter Kropotkin, The Scientific Bases of Anarchy Peter Kropotkin, The Morality of Nature

Tucker on Right and Rights, 1882

May 1, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

There have been a series of discussions / arguments / pointless pissing contests in recent months, revolving around the question of just what sorts of property, and what sorts of actions, are authorized by mutualist theory. Mutualism begins—literally, in Proudhon’s What Is Property?—with a sense that “property” may be a problem without a really satisfactory solution. What, then, does that mean about the mutualist understanding of property relations, particularly in a setting where other property systems may be in place, or in competition. The short answer is probably that mutualism authorizes very little. If the best we can do is […]

William B. Greene, Communism vs. Mutualism

April 28, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[This is a repost, probably the first of several, highlighting some of the more important statements about the philosophy of mutualism. Long-time readers and students of mutualism should note, particularly as I did not note it myself before, Greene’s apparent adoption of the “cost principle,” and the linked principle of deferred and social profit: “so much as the individual laborer will then get over and above what he has earned will come to him as his share in the general prosperity of the community of which he is an individual member.” That does not mean, however, that Greene had jumped […]

Eliphalet Kimball—”Anarchy is a good word.”

April 27, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

As promised, here’s a bit more from Eliphalet Kimball. One of his early contributions to The Boston Investigator was “Law, Commerce, and Religion” (June 30, 1862). It may, in fact, be his earliest explicitly anarchist essay. And it’s a doozy—a mix of revolutionary and primitivist elements, written in fine ranting style. There’s something to amuse and/or offend pretty much any anarchist or libertarian. But, most importantly, there is the very existence of Kimball, a Yankee doctor calling for a very radical anarchy in the midst of the Civil War, as striking as he is unexpected. Here’s a taste: It is […]

Josiah Warren, “On Mobs” (1863)

April 26, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here’s a two-part essay by Josiah Warren, from The Boston Investigator: Josiah Warren, On Mobs (Part 1 of 2) Josiah Warren, On Mobs (Part 2 of 2) Other bits of interest from the Investigator in the early 1860s: Add labor activist John Farrel, of Pennsylvania and then Sonora, California, to the ranks of those promoting the work of Josiah Warren. And prepare yourself for more of Eliphalet Kimball (whose “Civilization—Anarchy” appears here and here.) Kimball turns out to have been fairly prolific, consistently entertaining, and, most significantly, he was unafraid to say that “Anarchy is a good word” in 1862, […]

Henry Olerich

April 21, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

HENRY OLERICH One more for the Rogues Gallery: Henry Olerich, one of the occasional contributors to Liberty, and a more regular contributor to The Twentieth Century, is probably best known for his utopian novel, A Cityless and Countryless World, an Outline of Practical Cooperative Individualism. He wrote a number of other works, including Viola Olerich, the Famous Baby Scholar (which has just leaped to the top of my Weird Books by Libertarians must-see list) and Modern Paradise: An Outline Or Story of How Some of the Cultured People Will Probably Live, Work and Organize in the Near Future. Google Patents […]

From the Libertarian Library – the first wave

April 20, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

120 posts since I launched From the Libertarian Library on March 23! Not bad for a month’s work. Here’s an index of what’s there so far: Welcome to the Libertarian Library John Adams, Social Reform, No. 1 [mutual banking] Peter I. Blacker, Equitable Villages Albert Brisbane, The Mutualist Township, II Albert Brisbane, The Mutualist Township Bolton Hall, Declaration of Children’s Independence Bolton Hall, Emerson the Anarchist Bolton Hall, The Growth of Socialism Bolton Hall, The Land Question and Economic Progress Bolton Hall, The New Charity Bolton Hall, The Taxation of Farmers Bolton Hall, The Tree of Equity [Bolton Hall, et […]

John Adams, mutual bank advocate

April 19, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

With two other researchers now working on Josiah Warren, I’ve been trying (as regular readers will know) to get notes together and sources archived. It’s rather wonderful, I must say, to be working in a field so wide open that it’s a relief to find that someone else can make use of your research. One less book to write. My notes on The Boston Investigator turned out to be a little less complete than I had hoped, so I’ve been taking another look at those microfilm reels—no hardship since each pass through a literature as rich as this tends to […]

J. K. Ingalls, Woman’s Industrial Subjection

April 17, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Joshua King Ingalls was one of the most tireless of the radical writers of the second half of the 19th century, and one of those most interested in the “social problem” in all its aspects. Although land reform was his primary interest, he also addressed women’s rights in several of his writings. The four parts of “Woman’s Industrial Subjection” appeared in 1889 in The Woman’s Tribune, an important woman’s newspaper. They contain Ingalls’ attempt at a historical or anthopological account of the origins of women’s subjection to men, and an analysis of how this subjection paralleled the creation of modern […]