Uncategorized Archives - Page 22 of 39 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Resource on British labor periodicals

May 19, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Dr. Detlev Mares has posted a number of pdfs of “Source material on British popular radicalism (1864-1886).” There are some partial periodical indexes, plus a number of other resources. I ran across it looking for references to A. C. Cuddon, the British advocate of equitable commerce.

stupid search engine tricks

May 14, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Specific searches get specific results. Right? It depends, actually. Here are a couple of examples: I was searching for a particular edition of one of Josiah Warren’s works, the full title of which is, believe it or not, The former title of this work was “Equitable Commerce”, but it is now ranked as the first part of True Civilization: a subject of vital and serious interest to all people; but most immediately to the men and women of labor and sorrow. This is not to be confused with the first book to be published as True Civilization an immediate necessity, […]

Josiah Warren’s stereotype-plate patents

May 12, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Josiah Warren’s 1830 “Reduction in the Cost of Printing Apparatus” described one of his attempts to make the power of the press widely available. An 1846 patent (#4479) issued for “Improvement in Compositions for Stereotype-Plates” marked on advance in this project. Matrices of a composite material, largely made up of clay, took the place of the lead matrices proposed in 1830 (themselves an improvement of copper matrices, in terms of the ease with which they could be used. (There is a reissue on file for either 1853 or 1883.) It took me quite awhile to actually find this patent, although […]

The Big Time, at last!

May 6, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Just recently, in a Wikipedia talk-page debate about the significance of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left, the True Intentions of the Agorists, etc., someone asked the interesting, if slightly incoherent question: Why aren’t “Shawn Wilbur” and “Brad Spangler” have Wikipedia articles if they are notable people? Who are these people? Who, indeed? Well, it turns out that yours truly does have a Wikipedia article dedicated to him. On it, we learn the following: Shawn P. Wilbur, född 1963, är en nutida amerikansk individualanarkist och mutualist. Now you know. Funny, though, that’s far from the first indication I’ve had that […]

Bridge over Troubled Waters

May 4, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Donald Drumm’s “Bridge over Troubled Waters,” the BGSU Kent State / Jackson State memorial sculpture, is, as I said earlier, hidden in plain sight. This shot, with snow piled around it and a trash barrel tucked underneath, is unfortunately characteristic of the sort of attention it gets on campus. Drumm created a number of sculptures for the campus, designed the murals for the exterior of Jerome Library, and also, if I recall correctly, contributed a number of book cover illustrations for the Popular Press. The memorial statue currently stands on the corner, between lots A and G, right beside the […]

May Days to Remember

May 4, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

There is a Kent State / Jackson State memorial sculpture on the Bowling Green State University campus, hidden in plain sight on a busy corner between parking lots. Walking over at noon, through the end-of-semester move-out crowds, I suddenly heard the sirens of a passing ambulance. . .

Joshua King Ingalls on land reform and the single tax

May 3, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Joshua King Ingalls’ essay “Henry George Examined: Should Land Be Nationalized or Individualized?” is now available in the archive. This is the classic encounter between the mutualist land reform doctrine of Ingalls and George’s single-tax scheme. This version was taken from the supplement to Liberty, October 14, 1882, and differs slightly from the version incorporated in Ingalls’ Reminiscences.

The “Little-Landers” of San Ysidro

May 3, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

“A little land and a living, surely, is better than a desperate struggle and wealth, possibly.” So said William Ellworth Smythe, using the phrase of Bolton Hall, whose and Three Acres and Liberty and A Little Land and a Living were among the basic works of the back to the land movement. Hall was a single-tax advocate and anarchist, friend and supporter of Emma Goldman, etc. His Free Acres community was one of the single tax enclaves, which attempted a non-state form of Georgism. He was also a promoter of intensive, small-lot farming practices. Smythe followed Hall in some aspects […]

Josiah Warren, “On Mobs” (1863)

April 26, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here’s a two-part essay by Josiah Warren, from The Boston Investigator: Josiah Warren, On Mobs (Part 1 of 2) Josiah Warren, On Mobs (Part 2 of 2) Other bits of interest from the Investigator in the early 1860s: Add labor activist John Farrel, of Pennsylvania and then Sonora, California, to the ranks of those promoting the work of Josiah Warren. And prepare yourself for more of Eliphalet Kimball (whose “Civilization—Anarchy” appears here and here.) Kimball turns out to have been fairly prolific, consistently entertaining, and, most significantly, he was unafraid to say that “Anarchy is a good word” in 1862, […]

Henry Olerich

April 21, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

HENRY OLERICH One more for the Rogues Gallery: Henry Olerich, one of the occasional contributors to Liberty, and a more regular contributor to The Twentieth Century, is probably best known for his utopian novel, A Cityless and Countryless World, an Outline of Practical Cooperative Individualism. He wrote a number of other works, including Viola Olerich, the Famous Baby Scholar (which has just leaped to the top of my Weird Books by Libertarians must-see list) and Modern Paradise: An Outline Or Story of How Some of the Cultured People Will Probably Live, Work and Organize in the Near Future. Google Patents […]