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From the Archives

William Lloyd Garrison, “Why I Am a Single-Taxer” (1890)

June 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] WHY I AM A SINGLE-TAXER. BY WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. I am an advocate of the Single-tax because it stands for a fundamental reform based on a moral principle. The name is intended to indicate a practical method of reaching and curing much of the misery that afflicts society. It seems shameful that in a world of plenty, with more than enough for all to live upon in comfort, there should exist, side by side, congested wealth and abject poverty, evidently arising from a derangement of forces. What is the primal cause? Is it a decree […]
From the Archives

William G. Sumner, “Why I Am a Free Trader” (1890)

June 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] WHY I AM A FREE TRADER. BY PROF. W. G. SUMNER. 1. As a student of political economy: By free trade I mean anti-protectionism. At the present time, in the United States, the policy of protection and the philosophy of protectionism are interlocked with each other. The protected interests make their struggle in the lobby and in Congress to get the privileges which they want, but as soon as they are forced to enter upon any justification of such special privileges, they have recourse to an economic philosophy by which they endeavor to show that […]
From the Archives

Van Buren Denslow, “Why I Am a Protectionist” (1890)

June 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] WHY I AM A PROTECTIONIST. BY VAN BUREN DENSLOW. I am asked to state: “Why I am a Protectionist.” It is a personal question. Whether any other person can be a Protectionist for the same reasons is aside from the form of the question. Its answer also must be purely egotistic, and need not therefore seek to be modest. The editor of the Twentieth Century has doubtless his reasons for putting the topic in this form. It is sufficient that I reply according to the fact. I. I am a Protectionist, because forty years of […]
Anarchist Beginnings

William Holmes, “Why I, an Anarchist, Work with Socialists” (1890)

June 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
I believe Anarchism to be inevitable But while I believe in Anarchism as the highest truth yet evolved, and until I have more evidence of greater, shall disseminate its doctrines, I am not ready to say it contains no error. Perhaps, in the ever pregnant womb of nature there struggles a higher and grander truth which shall some day come to the world, uniting and harmonizing apparently conflicting theories making possible the quick realization of that noble dream of philosophers, prophets, and sages-the millennium on earth.

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non-resistance

A. P. Brown, “Why I Am a Non-Resistant” (1890)

June 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] WHY I AM A NON-RESISTANT. BY A. P. BROWN. Well, first, because having been at the trouble to be born into this somewhat interesting world I feel inclined to linger in it as long as may be to learn more in regard to its workings, and I have noticed that those who are ready and prone to fight, who believe in fighting and practice it, are more likely not to die of old age than are those who follow after the things that make for peace. There is some risk, to be sure, whichever course […]
anarchist individualism

Victor Yarros, “Why I, as an Anarchist, Will Not Work with Socialists” (1890)

June 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] WHY I, AS AN ANARCHIST, WILL NOT WORK WITH THE SOCIALISTS. BY VICTOR YARROS. I find it exceedingly difficult to comply with the editor’s request for a comparatively brief statement of the reason “Why I, as an Anarchist, will not work with Nationalists, Socialists, and Single-taxers.” I doubt not that the editor realizes fully as well as I do the utter absurdity of the question; and if he has put it and has solicited an answer, it must be because the confusion in the mind of what we love to style “the public” is so […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Louisa Sarah Bevington, “Why I Am an Expropriationist” (1894)

June 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] WHY I AM AN EXPROPRIATIONIST. BY L.S. BEVINGTON. I advocate and I look forward to wholesale expropriation because I do not believe there is any such thing as a right to property, and because I hold that it is disastrous, nay, fatal, to the welfare of all individuals composing the community, to have to regulate their lives and affairs in accordance with a fictitious abstraction which has no warrant and no basis in the natural laws of life. I desire universal expropriation, not merely because the power that property-holding gives to man over man is […]
From the Archives

William Morris, “Why I Am a Communist” (1894)

June 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] WHY I AM A COMMUNIST. BY WILLIAM MORRIS. Objection has been made to the use of the word “Communism” to express fully-developed Socialism, on the ground that it has been used for the Community-Building, which played so great a part in some of the phases of Utopian Socialism, and is still heard of from time to time nowadays. Of Communism in this sense I am not writing now; it may merely be said in passing that such experiments are of their nature non-progressive; at their best they are but another form of the Mediæval monastery, […]
The Why I Ams

The Why I Ams

June 5, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
  THE WHY I AMS Twentieth Century Van Buren Denslow, “Why I Am a Protectionist,” Twentieth Century 4 no. 17 (April 24, 1890): 7–8; 4 no. 18 (May 1, 1890): 6–8 William G. Sumner, “Why I Am a Free Trader,” Twentieth Century 4 no. 17 (April 24, 2890): 8–10. William Lloyd Garrison, “Why I Am a Single-Taxer,” Twentieth Century 4 no. 18 (May 1, 1890): 5–6. Laurence Gronlund, “Why I Am a Socialist,” Twentieth Century 4 no. 19 (May 8, 1890): 5–6. Burnette G. Haskell, “Why I Am a Nationalist,” Twentieth Century 4 no. 20 (May 15, 1890): 5–7. John […]