equitable commerce

Josiah Warren, Equitable Commerce, &c.

Here are four pieces, recently added to the archive, all relating to Josiah Warren. Peter I. Blacker, Equitable Villages Peter I. Blacker was a frequent contributor to The Boston Investigator, where his posts were frequently signed “P. I. B.” He was also, from all indications, one of the most enthusiastic converts to the system of “equitable commerce” promoted by Josiah Warren in a series of lectures in Boston in 1848 and 1849. Blacker contributed a number of articles to the Investigator, and to other Boston papers, in support of Warren’s efforts. This article, from 1852, announces the beginnings of the […]
Anarchism

Josiah Warren bloglog

Previous entries on Josiah Warren: Letter to Louis Kossuth Josiah Warren’s debt to Robert Owen Practical application of the cost principle in Massachusetts, 1863 Co-operation – Alfred B. Westrup Josiah Warren, The First American Anarchist To The Friends Of The Equal Exchange Of Labor In The West A Poem on Equitable Commerce Benjamin Tucker enters the fray Henry Edger, a Positivist Priest at Modern Times From the Boston Investigator, 1848-49, Pt. 1
equitable commerce

From the Boston Investigator, 1848-49, Pt. 1

I was contacted this afternoon by a reader of this blog who is working on a biography of Josiah Warren. Taking that together with Crispin Sartwell’s work on a Warren Anthology, Crispin’s Josiah Warren Project archive, and the work that I’ve been doing digging through the archives, it appears that Warren’s star is once again on the rise. Good news! I’ve been promising Crispin the results of my own work for awhile, so here’s a start. XVII, 49 (April 12, 1848) 3. THE “ANGLO SACSUN,”—The publishers of the Phonographic paper, by this name, printed in New York, have issued a […]
Anarchism

An early mutual banking proposal

I’m wrapping up my first exploration of The Spirit of the Age (a little more rapidly than I had hoped, thanks to an Interlibrary Loan mix-up), and am already planning a road trip to scan more of this really important mutualist paper. My lengthy side-trip, from the William B. Greene research through the work of Joshua King Ingalls and ultimately to The Spirit of the Age, has paid an unexpected dividend (if, in this context, I can safely speak about the paying of dividends)—a discussion of Mutual Banking in the 1850 volume which casts Greene’s work in a somewhat different […]
Anarchism

J. K. Ingalls, “Address to Commonwealers”

Joshua King Ingalls, “Address to Commonwealers,” The Twentieth Century, XIII, 2 (July 12, 1894), 11. ADDRESS TO COMMONWEALERS BY J. K. INGALLS. Hirelings who for gold have bled!Voters to polls by bosses led!Toilers, begging “work or bread,” Strike for Liberty!Now’s the day and now’s the hour!Cease to court the oppressors’ power!Who threaten, bribe, while they devour Your fruits of industry. Decline their deal the ballot boxTheir “leaden diet” cartridge box!Detective trick and brutal knocks! Brave thought against them try!In no “god of battles trust!”Give nor take what is not just!And only die, when die you must, As man for man […]
From the Archives

William Henry Van Ornum, “Co-operation” (1894)

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] There are whole books tucked away in the pages of the periodical literature, which have never seen separate publication. One of the pleasures of my current treasure hunt is finding some of those hidden books. William Henry Van Ornum, author of Why Government at All?, published his 19-part Co-operation in The Twentieth Century. [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Co-Operation William Henry Van Ornum from the pages of The Twentieth Century, May 10–September 20, 1894 Introduction In England Its Ideal Ancient Co-operation Some Experiments Various Schemes Various Schemes European Credit Banks European Credit Banks European Credit […]
mutualism

Mutualist Townships: Albert Brisbane and J. K. Ingalls (1849–1850)

In early 1850, The Spirit of the Age featured two proposals for a “mutualist township.” One, by Joshua King Ingalls, was a practical follow-up to his “Method of Transition.” The other was by Albert Brisbane, the well-known popularizer of Charles Fourier. Brisbane was also an acquaintance of Proudhon, having visited him in prison in France. In this sense, Brisbane had the most direct connection to the French mutualist tradition of any of the American writers in 1850. Greene would eventually meet Proudhon, later in the 1850s. What follows is, in a sense, Brisbane’s mutualist resumé, including his account of his […]
Anarchism

Proudhon, The Coming Era of Mutualism

This is a translation of one of Proudhon’s earliest discussions of mutualism—”une théorie de MUTUALITÉ,” in the original—from the System of Economic Contradictions [V. II, 527-9]. It appeared in The Spirit of the Age I no. 7 (August 18, 1849), 107-8. I have appended the original French text as well. THE COMING ERA OF MUTUALISM. From the “System of Contradictions in Political Economy,” BY P. J. PROUDHON. If I am not deceived, my readers must be convinced at least of one thing, that Social Truth is not to be looked for either in Utopia or in the Old Routine; that […]
Anarchism

J. K Ingalls’ Reminiscences, etc

With someplace friendly to put it, I’m starting to clean out my backlog of material. The second dump to From the Libertarian Library consists of material from the Boston Investigator by Lewis Masquerier and material from Joshua King Ingalls, including the first five chapter of his Reminiscences of an Octogenarian in the Fields of Industrial and Social Reform, with some of the annotations that I’ll be including in the in-progress print edition. UPDATE: All of Ingalls’ Reminiscences, except for the Appendix, which consists of a few later writings, is now available online. I think students of mutualism, and of radical […]
Anarchism

A little rearranging

I’ve decided, in the interest of going easy on my readers here, and on various feeds and aggregators where this blog is now available (such as the new leftlibertarian.org site), to limit the number of full texts I post. I feel like there is sufficient “market” for the texts in the blogosphere to keep posting them somewhere where they can easily be accessed via an RSS feed, and through Technorati and other search services. But I would like to make this blog and Travelling in Liberty leaner and more readable than they have been. In order to make that happen, […]