individualist anarchism Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

E. Armand’s Individualist Anarchist Initiation

May 5, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve started posting consecutive sections from E. Armand’s The Individualist Anarchist Initiation on the Libertarian Library blog. I started translating back in October, with the section on reciprocity, and promised at that point to begin at the beginning and work my way through the book. A number of things have intervened, most of them exciting and worthwhile, like the Bakunin project (about which there should be more news soonish), but here we go: Some lines of introduction Sketches of the Social Environment [2018 update — See the link above for the translations.] It’s a big book, with 279 numbered sections, […]

The Individual Anarchist Initiation: Sketches of the Social Environment

May 4, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE INDIVIDUALIST ANARCHIST INITIATION PART ONE THE THEORETICAL BASES OF ANARCHIST INDIVIDUALISM 1. Sketches of the Social Environment, Harmful Authority. 1) The social milieu. A chaos of beings, facts and ideas; a harsh, disorderly struggle, without mercy; a perpetual lie; a wheel which turns blindly, one day lifting one to the pinnacle and the next crushing one ruthlessly. A mass, rich and poor, slaves of age-old, inherited prejudices, the first because they find their interests there, and the others because they are immersed in an ignorance from which one does not want they leave; a multitude whose religion is […]

individualist anarchism

1881 – the first three

January 29, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Ah, for the settled life of a scholar, where I could tackle my 1.104 issues of Liberty each day, and keep a regular schedule, rather than the constant fire-fighting and scrambling that goes with part-timing. But the show must go on, however fitfully.] So what actually appears in the pages of Liberty? The staple, stable source for Tucker’s opinions remained, from first to last, the “On Picket Duty” column. From the first issue, of August 6, through the remainder of 1881, this occupied the first two columns on the front page of nearly every issue, while a collection of clippings […]

Progress and Premises, continued

January 14, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

By the time he started Liberty, Benjamin R. Tucker had his trial by fire as a controversialist in the pages of The Index, where he also debated Stephen Pearl Andrews about the merits of Proudhon, had edited The Word for Ezra Heywood and The Radical Review for himself. He was obviously reading voraciously, and making (and breaking) connections with radicals of all stripes. Reading Liberty is, in large part, reading the public record of his reading, or his connections and disconnections. By the end of 1881, the first debates are beginning to take off in the letters section of the […]

Progress and Premises

January 14, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

At this point, I’m putting together “dummy” issues, with titles for all the major articles, and typing or scanning the bits that I think are most significant. I plan to put random free moments to work filling in the blanks in the early issues, while pushing ahead with the general reading and analysis. If anyone would like to help with the project, let me know and I’ll add you to the team. I’ve read through the issues for 1881 several times now, and am starting to get a feel for Liberty‘s beginnings. As I’ve mentioned before, the state of The […]

individualist anarchism

Saturday, September 3, 1881, Vol. 1, No. 3

January 14, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Vol. I BOSTON, MASS., SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1881. No. 3 “For always in thine eyes, O Liberty!Shines that high light whereby the world is saved’And though thou slay us, wewill trust in thee.”John Hay On Picket Duty Wages is not slavery. Wages is a form of voluntary exchange, and voluntary exchange is a form of Liberty. About Progressive People Land and Liberty Within the last two years the above heading probably has decorated every public bulletin-board in this country and Great Britain. Yet probably it owes prominence to the more accidental alliteration, and has no rational significance in the average […]

individualist anarchism

Saturday, August 6, 1881. Vol. 1, No. 1

December 21, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Vol. I BOSTON, MASS., SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1881. No. 1 “For always in thine eyes, O Liberty!Shines that high light whereby the world is saved’And though thou slay us, wewill trust in thee.”John Hay On Picket Duty Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, these three; but the greatest of these is Liberty Formerly the price of Liberty was eternal vigilance, but now it can be had for fifty cents a year. Individuals on becoming adults gain their freedom. Are nations never to attain their majority? The effect of one-half of our laws is to make criminals; the purpose of the other half is […]

Access to “Liberty”

December 21, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur

Considering the importance of Liberty, both as the primary journal of the individualist anarchist tradition and as an important component of the larger debates about social issues in its time, it is a bit surprising how difficult it is to access. For those with access to a university or other large library, Proquest’s APS Online database includes most of the run. John Zube’s microfiche edition is more complete, costs $27, and includes the either issues of Libertas (and you can order the Radical Review from John as well.) I tend to use both, relying primarily on Zube’s edition for completeness, […]