A Good Word Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Henry Glasse, “Libertarian or Anarchist?” (1899)

July 24, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0″][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] LIBERTARIAN OR ANARCHIST? The term “Libertarian” in place of “Anarchist” seems to be used with increasing frequency. The newer term pleases me better because, while it emphatically denotes our cardinal principle, it admits of no misconstruction nor misunderstanding. We who have long fought under the device of “Anarchy” have naturally acquired a regard for the name and frankly accepted it with whatever stigma might attach thereto, still we must admit that the very word in itself is liable to be taken, quite honestly, in a wrong sense, while our many dishonest […]

Benjamin R. Tucker, “Anarchism or Anarchy” (1881)

June 5, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

At the center of this pamphlet is a disagreement about the use of the terms anarchy and anarchism—a topic that has grown in interest for me in recent years. W. H. Tillinghast accuses Tucker of “misusing words” when he uses the term anarchism to describe anarchist beliefs. The proper word, he claims, would be anarchy—or, more specifically, an-archy (from Proudhon’s occasional spelling, an-archie.) He would seem, from a modern perspective, to be a bit confused and Tucker’s response would be correct, if perhaps a bit excessive. It is easy to forget that in 1881 anarchism was still a “rare” word, whether in English or French.

[…]

Gaston Leval, “Libertarian Socialist! Why? (1956)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

In the past, I’ve discussed the “libertarian socialist” current that broke away from language and organizational commitments of the anarchist movement and summarized some of their arguments, but I thought it would be useful to present some of the material in English, starting with a couple of Gaston Leval’s articles. The translation here is a little rough, in part because I don’t yet have a copy of the original publication in hand, and there are some questions about the transcription available online. But I think the general argument is clear enough, and I will update the translation when the original […]

Libertarian socialist historiography

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Contr’un, June 4, 2015] Recently, I’ve been looking at some very interesting work by René Berthier and Gaston Leval, some of it relating to the familiar question of just how anarchists have used the language of anarchy (anarchist, anarchist, etc.) Berthier (whose various works on Bakunin and Proudhon I have been finding very useful) has written a nice little essay on “L’usage du mot « anarchie » chez Bakounine” (The Use of the Word ‘Anarchy’ by Bakunin), which covers some of the same ground as my work on “Anarchy in All its Senses,” but in the works of Bakunin, rather […]

Anarchy, Understood in All its Senses—II

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Anarchy, understood in all its senses—I (Proudhon, introduction) Anarchy, understood in all its senses—II (Proudhon, 1839-1841) Joseph Déjacque and the First Emergence of “Anarchism” Libertarian socialist historiography (Gaston Leval, René Berthier) Eliphalet Kimball, “Law, Commerce and Religion” (1862) William J. Gorsuch, “Tags” (1891) Gaston Leval, “Libertarian Socialist! Why?” (1956) “Whatever the carpers may say, the word Anarchy is rapidly vindicating itself. No other word could have given such an impetus to the gospel of Liberty in so short a time.” — Benj. R. Tucker “Anarchy is a good word. It means, ‘without a head.’” — Eliphalet Kimball [Contr’un, December 17, […]

Anarchy, Understood in All its Senses

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

A Good Word: Anarchy in All its Senses (outline) Anarchy, understood in all its senses—I (Proudhon, introduction) Anarchy, understood in all its senses—II (Proudhon, 1839-1841) Joseph Déjacque and the First Emergence of “Anarchism” Libertarian socialist historiography (Gaston Leval, René Berthier) Eliphalet Kimball, “Law, Commerce and Religion” (1862) William J. Gorsuch, “Tags” (1891) Gaston Leval, “Libertarian Socialist! Why?” (1956) [From Contr’un, June 30, 2013] “The first term of the series being thus Absolutism, the final, fateful term is Anarchy, understood in all the senses.”–Proudhon, The General Idea of the Revolution In order to start to address the question posed in the […]

Joseph Déjacque and the First Emergence of “Anarchism”

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] [From Contr’un, July 25, 2016] One of this week’s tasks was to finally go back and take a closer look at how Joseph Déjacque used the language of anarchy in his writings. I finally assembled a couple of text files of all the articles from Le Libertaire and worked through the required keyword searches. That process led me to focus on some pieces that I admit I had never read, or read closely, before and produce some new translations. I think the results are interesting and pose some new […]