Anarchism

Anarchism

Ernest Lesigne on “The Two Socialisms”

January 23, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
The third Carnival of Anarchy, scheduled for the upcoming weekend, is on “Anarchism and Socialism.” I’ll probably be posted related items off and on all week. Here’s an important item from the pages of Liberty. Ernest Lesigne wrote a series of Socialistic letters for Le Radical, and Benjamin R. Tucker printed some in translation. This one is certainly on-topic this week. Socialistic Letter[Le Radical] There are two Socialisms. One is communistic, the other solidaritarian. One is dictatorial, the other libertarian. One is metaphysical, the other positive. One is dogmatic, the other scientific. One is emotional, the other reflective. One is […]
Anarchism

Josiah Warren – Letter to Louis Kossuth

January 17, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[This is the first fruits of an expedition through the microfilm available to me of the Boston Investigator. I was particularly in search of the contributions of Lewis Masquerier, many of which ended up in his “instead of a book” compilation, Sociology. Working through an unfortunately fragmentary archive, I have indeed dug up some of those items—including the first two “Godology” essays—as well as quite a few uncollected pieces—such as an exchange on the merits of different phonotypic systems. But I also found several contributions by Josiah Warren, including this “open letter” to Kossuth, which is, in many ways, a […]
Anarchism

“Travelling in Liberty” update, etc.

January 15, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve finally getting things rolling over at Travelling in Liberty, my examination of Benjamin R. Tucker’s thought and journal, and have already drawing a good question on Tucker’s relation to the rest of the anarchist tradition, with regard to wages. (Thanks, Iain!) Joshua King Ingalls’ Reminiscences is taking lots of work to annotate, but it is extremely agreeable work. Ingalls seems to have known everyone, including quite a few folks I was unfamiliar with. When I’m done with the notes on this, libertarians can take up “Three Degrees of Separation from J. K. Ingalls” as our new game. Social Wealth […]
Anarchism

Our ideas are in everyone’s archives

January 13, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
From the Support from Unexpected Quarters Department: I’m a big fan of Archive.org’s moving pictures collection, but hadn’t spent a lot of time looking at their texts. There are some gems tucked away there, including: John Henry Mackay, The Anarchists; a Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century Sadakichi Hartmann, My Rubaiyat Both of these are, amusingly enough, sponsored by MSN. Other finds: Anna Bowman Dodd, The Republic of the Future, or, Socialism a Reality (1888) Laurence Gronlund, Our Destiny : the influence of socialism on morals and religion : an essay in ethics (1891) Jack London, […]
Anarchism

Progress of the project

January 4, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Am I behind yet? I’m wrestling with the best approach to these early issues, and to the archiving end of things in general. It may be that I end up creating pdf files of some of these early issues that are useful to read in their entirety, just to get a sense of the jumping-off place for this expedition, but which aren’t all that exciting in comparison to later periods of Liberty. In any event, my scanning and posting chores are not always going to line up neatly, as other projects, such as the new Lab Reports, cause me to […]
Anarchism

Enclaves of Single Tax Or Economic Rent, 1921

January 4, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here’s a very useful resource, available from Google Books : Enclaves of Single Tax Or Economic Rent, Being a compendium of the legal documents involved, together with a historical description, by Charles White Huntington. Covering the “single tax colonies” of Fairhope, Arden, Tahanto, Halidon, Free Acres, and Saint Jordi, this is a collection of the communities charters and reports of the status of each. There appear to have been 10 volumes released annually between 1921 and 1930. Some of you may remember these volumes being mentioned on Kevin Carson’s Mutualist Blog back in June, 2005.
Anarchism

Stephen Pearl Andrews’ “New Catholic Church”

January 4, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Here is a very nice account of a visit with Stephen Pearl Andrews, including excerpts that appear to come from his Constitution or Organic Basis of the New Catholic Church (1860). From Spiritualism in American, by Benjamin Coleman (1861), pages 82-4.]Mr. Freeland, an intelligent, gentlemanly young man, called on me at my hotel, explaining the object of his visit to be, that hearing of my visit to New York, and that I was enquiring into the subject of Spiritualism, he was anxious that I should make the acquaintance of his friend Mr. Andrews. I ought not, he said, to leave […]
Anarchism

New Project: Travelling in Liberty

December 21, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur
With the 2006 projects in the wrap-up phase, it’s time to get the next set rolling. Along with the new Libertatia Lab Reports, I’ve launched Travelling in Liberty, a blog to document my attempt to read through all 403 issues of Benjamin R. Tucker’s Liberty in 2007, and get a more complete sense of the development of individualist anarchism through the years 1881-1908. I hope regular readers here will join the fun.
Anarchism

Travelling through “Liberty”

December 19, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur
Between 1891 and 1908, Benjamin R. Tucker’s published 403 issues of Liberty, almost certainly the most important individualist anarchist publication in English, and probably in any language. Tucker was a, perhaps the, key player in the second phase of individualist anarchism in the United States. He both continued and greatly modified the earlier mutualist projects of William Batchelder Greene and Josiah Warren. By the end of his career he had come to embrace a Stirneresque egois—apparently worlds away from the Saint-Simon-influenced Christian mutualism of Greene’s early work or the Owenite origins of Warren’s. Questions of continuity and development within the […]