mutualism

mutualism

J. K. Ingalls—Man and Property, 1849

March 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Spirit of the Age is a really remarkable paper. I’ve been aware of it for some time, as the place where William B. Greene’s “Human Pantheism” appeared, and as one of the projects of William Henry Channing, who, like Greene and Orestes Brownson, was enthusiastic about the work of Proudhon’s rival, Pierre Leroux. Charles A. Dana’s work on Proudhon was published there as well, in the revised form that was eventually published separately. As I’ve turned so much of my attention to Joshua King Ingalls—for reasons which I trust are plain enough—The Spirit of the Age has assumed a […]
Anarchism

Joshua King Ingalls’ 1849 “Creed”

March 8, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m working my way through the radical transcendentalist / associationist / spiritualist journal The Spirit of the Age, which lasted for two volumes in 1849-50, edited by William Henry Channing. Joshua King Ingalls, the libertarian land reformer who is occupying much of my scholarly time right now, contributed ten articles and a poem to the periodical. I’ve already posted “Books—Their Sphere and Influence,” which is in many ways a very nice companion piece to the “Creed” I’m posting today. Ingalls was no doubt still dealing with his break with the Unitarians, which occured early in 1848. In the Evangelical Magazine […]
Anarchism

J. K. Ingalls—What Is Economic Rent?

March 6, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[J. K. Ingalls, “What Is Economic Rent?” Twentieth Century, December 29, 1892, 6-8.—The Twentieth Century was host to several overlapping debates on the questions of rent and interest, with mutualists, single-taxers, advocates of the Topolobampo community, and others mixing it up. There are plenty of names likely to be familiar to readers of Benjamin Tucker’s Liberty, or of this blog: Hugo Bilgram, C. L. James, Victor Yarros, Joshua King Ingalls, Michael Flurscheim, W. H. Van Ornum, and Wm. Bradford DuBois all contributed. Ingalls’ part in the debate complements his contributions to Liberty, where he was one of the most interesting […]
Anarchism

Co-operation – Alfred B. Westrup

March 6, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Alfred B. Westrup, “Co-operation,” Twentieth Century, November 3, 1892, 8-9.—This is a very interesting short piece by Westrup, showing a slightly different side of his individualist anarchism than in many of his writings, where the Mutual Bank Propaganda was his primary concern.] CO-OPERATION. BY ALFRED B. WESTRUP. Much has been written on this subject, and many are the efforts put forward to establish “cooperation” of one kind or another, but so far as there is any hope of settling the economic question, none of the experiments now being carried on can possibly accomplish it. The one essential principle upon which […]
Anarchism

Joshua King Ingalls, The Exodus of Labor (1852)

February 28, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
This essay originally appeared in The Shekinah, Vol. 1 (1852), p. 363-369. The Shekinah was one of several periodicals edited by S. B. Brittan, a spiritualist, reformer, and friend of J. K. Ingalls. Ingalls seems to have contributed something to nearly all of Brittan’s projects. I’ll be posting other material by and about Ingalls in the near future, as I start to finalize the forthcoming print collection. THE EXODUS OF LABORBY J. K. INGALLS Through long, long ages has labor sighed and toiled under a worse than Egyptian bondage. Its utmost stretch of memory can scarce recall its pastoral days, […]
Anarchism

Joshua King Ingalls, bibliography update

February 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
[NOTE: The most current version of the Joshua King Ingalls bibliography can be found at the Libertarian Labyrinth archive.] Here’s an updated bibliography of works by, about and in response to Joshua King Ingalls, consisting primarily of items I have in hand. I’m sharing this more as an indication of progress being made on the first Ingalls Lab Report volume than as a finished project. It is far from finished, which is fairly good news, given the quality of Ingalls’ contributions to the literature. I have yet to begin with his contributions to The Word, Fair Play, the Univercoelum, Social […]
Anarchism

Josiah Warren’s debt to Robert Owen

February 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
The extent to which the individualist anarchists remained suprisingly orthodox students of the so-called “utopian socialists” is a question that interests me quite a bit. I recently suggested a sort of division between “post-Fourierists” and “post-Saint-Simonians” (or “post-Comteans”) among the early individualists. (See also my follow-up here.) Here is some additional, if circumstantial, evidence. The first piece is by Josiah Warren, from the Boston Investigator in the early 1860s. Defending himself against inclusion among the proponents of the “Community System,” he also defends Robert Owen, Robert Dale Owen, and Frances Wright against a variety of charges. But he also takes […]
Anarchism

Practical application of the cost principle in Massachusetts, 1863

February 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Lots of material on Josiah Warren and equitable commerce has surfaced in the Boston Investigator, while I’ve been looking for material by Lewis Masquerier. This is a particularly interesting account of an equity store being opened in Massachusetts in 1863. The note at the end might go some distance in clarifying the terms under which at least some of the Warren-inspired businesses actually traded with suppliers. Some critics have fixated on the labor note and “corn standard” as the central points of Warren’s scheme, which, I think, confuses two projects: the implementation of the “cost principle” and “labor for labor […]
Anarchism

Socialism in Massachusetts, the Palladium version

February 3, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
You can look at this wiki page for a comparison of the Worcester Palladium and Equality versions of William B. Greene’s essay, “Socialism in Massachusetts,” both from late 1849. MediaWiki’s ability to collate versions should be a very useful tool for demonstrating the development or aguments in archived texts. For those unfamiliar with the publishing history involved, you can start with my comments on the 1870 Mutual Banking.