Anarchist Beginnings

anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, The duty of radicals toward Soviet Russia (1924)

May 15, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] NETTLAU 1970—October 26, 1924 The duty of radicals, particularly libertarians, towards Soviet Russia and towards their own cause. I. A symposium on this subject would elicit very different opinions; mine would be a very negative one on the first part of the question and all my interest goes to the second part. My reasons are about these. During a century of active socialist life of every description unfortunately one important problem was not under serious discussion, namely, what will be done when after a collapse of the capitalist system several forms and shades of socialist thought were confronting each […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Anarchy, Panarchy and Peace — I

May 14, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
Max Nettlau’s writings on anarchist strategy form an early entry in a well-established anarchist genre: “Writings about Why this ‘Anarchy’ Thing Hasn’t Caught on Like We Thought it Should.” They’re notable for a number of reasons, including Nettlau’s credentials as “the Herodotus of Anarchism” and the fact that they date from such an early period in anarchist history. If my sense of the chronology is correct, anarchism had been a widely used keyword for less than twenty years when “Responsibility and Solidarity in the Labor Struggle” was published, and Nettlau published his “heresies” to an audience composed of many of […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Max Nettlau, A discussion with an old comrade (c. 1936)

May 8, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] A discussion with an old comrade. Ms. 1984 Max Nettlau (c. 1936) Analyzing the general situation, I believe to find at the bottom of all conflicts animosity and collisions between human strata of different levels of intellectual and ethical development. The progressive elements at all times had the greatest difficulty to merge above the dead level of thoughtless routine and usually violently and cruelly enforced stabilization or stagnation. They succeeded from time to time and materially mankind moved from the cave dwellings to the modern cities, but such progress was always obstructed by the intellectual and ethical cave dwellers […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Max Nettlau, Authority and Freedom (1929)

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
SIDEBAR Authority and Freedom in Their Ages-Old and World-Wide Struggle. [minimally edited; most spelling, punctuation, etc. is Nettlau’s] Many of us who know and feel the beauty of the anarchist ideal, are struck and at times disheartened when they see what a small place anarchism seems to hold in modern life and thought. It is indeed strange to see the disproportion of the numbers of those whom our always strenuous propaganda reaches directly and the many hundreds of million[s] on this globe who are under the sway of immensely developed means of determined, mostly forcible propaganda, by press, pulpit, politics […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Max Nettlau, On the Divide (1932)

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] On the Divide: The Outgoing Authoritarian and the Incipient Libertarian Age [This is a transcription of an uncorrected, handwritten manuscript. It has been lightly edited to fix obvious, distracting spelling errors, but many grammatical errors remain and idiosyncrasies remain. An edited version is in progress.] The present troubled economic and political situation in all countries universalizes waves of discontent and often of despair, but exercises a differentiating influence upon populations of various countries, as their past history and the happenings since 1914 and 1918 have placed each of them in a different position, exposed them to differing influences and […]
anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, Adjectives and the Possibility of Panarchy

May 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Originally posted at Responsibility, Solidarity, Strategy] I’m setting up this new corner of the Libertarian Labyrinth archive in order to gather material for some forthcoming volumes of work by Max Nettlau, but also to explore more fully his persistent “heresy,” the possibility of “mutual tolerance” between anarchist and non-anarchist currents as a key to advancing the anarchist project. Nettlau drew from the current of “anarchism without adjectives” among Spanish collectivists in his day, but also found inspiration in Paul-Émile de Puydt‘s 1860 proposal for “panarchy,” a sort of “free market in governmental systems.” More than anything, however, he seems to […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Introducing “ANARCHISMS” + new issues of “La Frondeuse”

March 10, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m launching a new series of pamphlets collecting introductory summaries and personal statements attempting to define anarchism in the most basic terms. In the ANARCHISMS series, the texts will be collected with very little attention to tendency, beyond trying to mix things up in each issue, and without editorial comment. I am often asked for entry-level texts, and it’s difficult to find material which does not come with some critical apparatus already attached. There are plenty of occasions where context and various kinds of helps are indispensable, but there is also a time for letting individual statements speak for themselves. […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, Cardinal and the Principal Movements in the Harmony of the Universe

September 16, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FOURIER. I am aware that it is very humiliating for an age in possession of so much physical and mathematical science, to be branded with ignorance concerning other branches of knowledge; to be openly accused of entertaining false notions on many subjects, and of not being initiated even in the most elementary details of several very important sciences; such, for instance, as the four following:— Industrial Association. Passional Attraction. Aromal Mechanism. Universal Analogy. If the pride of modern learning feel offended at this sweeping declaration, let it reflect upon the following table of distinctions in the branches of universal unity; […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, Framework for the Integral Study of Nature

September 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FOURIER ON THE UNITY OF SYSTEM IN UNIVERSAL NATURE. Modern sophists, particularly in France, have generally aimed at explaining the unity of system which is remarkable in universal nature, and yet the philosophical world never was farther removed from the right line of study on this subject than at present. There is hardly a correct idea abroad concerning the fundamental basis of universalism or general unity, which may be thus resumed:— Unity of man with man, Unity of man with God, Unity of man with the universe. In this book it will be demonstrated that philosophers have either purposely or […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, The Critical State of Civilization (2 of 2)

September 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FOURIER, ON THE CRITICAL STATE OF CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE. There never was a greater want of useful discoveries in the civilized world than at present. Society is now afflicted with four disastrous elements of a comparatively modern date, which aggravate the primithve causes of human suffering. These modern elements of social misery are, 1. The new pestilence and its complications.[1] 2. The insalubrious effects of injudicious culture and the destruction of Forests. 3. The permanency of revolutionary ferment4. The alarming increase of public debts and stock-jobbing speculation. This quadruple plague proves that civilization and refinement are progressing like the lobster, […]