socialism

socialism

Laurence Gronlund, “Why I Am a Socialist” (1890)

June 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] WHY I AM A SOCIALIST. BY LAURENCE GRONLUND. I have three reasons to give, but the all-sufficient one, indeed, is my first: that I could not help myself. I do not know whether books convert many, but my experience is that they perform another very important function rather than that. Talking some years ago with the well-known French “Marxist” Jules Guesde, he told me that his own reflections had made him a Socialist long before he had seen a Socialist book; precisely thus it was with me, though I admit that my Socialism was at […]
Anarchist Beginnings

“Socialism and the Lexicographers” (1892)

October 10, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
Socialism and the Lexicographers. Liberty is informed that the Collectivists expect to prove their claim to a monopoly of the name Socialism by reference to the Century Dictionary as an indisputable authority. They will find that the Anarchistic Socialists are not to be stripped of one-half of their title by the mere dictum of the last lexicographer. If the dictionary-makers were in substantial agreement in making Socialism exclusive of Anarchism, the demand that Anarchists should cease to call themselves Socialists might be made with some grace. But that there is no approach to unanimity among them on this point will […]
Anarchist Beginnings

“Socialism,” Harper’s Encyclopædia of United States History (1902)

October 10, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
Socialism, a word now employed in several different senses. Loosely, it includes all schemes for abolishing social inequality, and in this sense it is generally distinguished as utopian socialism, under which designation communities like those of the Essenes, the early Christians, and the Shakers in the United States at the present day, and the ideal commonwealths of Plato, More, and Harington, are to be classed. St. Simon (1760-1825), Owen (1771-1858), and Fourier (1768-1830) were the leading modern Utopians. Scientific socialism is an economic theory which affirms that the materials from which labor produces wealth—i. e., the land—should be the property […]
anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, “More Heretical Views” (1911)

July 19, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
MORE HERETICAL VIEWS * To my mind, at least, the more modern Socialism and Syndicalism spread, the more our ideal of many years is left behind, and real Socialism seems more remote than ever. We all feel, I think, that if intensity of feeling and energy for action were in any way corresponding to numerical strength, we should not see, side by side with immense Socialist and Labour Parties, Capitalism more flourishing than ever, monarchism and militarism triumphant, parsons and priests unabashed and prospering. Socialism, degraded to “Labourism,” now forms part and parcel of a system which it once meant […]
Anarchist Beginnings

A Socialist Dialogue and Catechism (1898)

November 20, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
A SOCIALIST DIALOGUE. Question. What is a Socialist? Answer. One who believes in collective ownership of the means of production and distribution. Q. What do you mean by collective ownership? A. Ownership by all the people. Q. What would be the result of collective ownership? A. The general welfare. Q. How do you know this? A. Because collective ownership has been productive of good wherever tried. Q. Where has it been tried? A. All over the world. Q. How? A. In the management of corporations. Q. Upon what principles do corporations act? A. Upon the principles of collective ownership in […]