There are quite a number of things I didn’t find in my searches through the Boston Investigator this week, but one of the things I did find was “Capital and Labor: Socialism in Massachusetts,” by OMEGA—one of the essays by William Batchelder Greene that was incorporated into his Equality (1849), reprinted from the Worcester Palladium. For some time, I have been wrestling with the question whether or not I could justify research travel to track down these articles, since they, and the book they were turned into, all appear to have been written in a matter of months, late in 1849, and it has been uncertain how much difference there was likely to be between the forms. The question is at least partially answered now—there are real and interesting differences.
Anarchism
John Adams, mutual bank advocate
With two other researchers now working on Josiah Warren, I’ve been trying (as regular readers will know) to get notes together and sources archived. It’s rather wonderful, I must say, to be working in a field so wide open that it’s a relief to find that someone else can make use of your research. One less book to write. My notes on The Boston Investigator turned out to be a little less complete than I had hoped, so I’ve been taking another look at those microfilm reels—no hardship since each pass through a literature as rich as this tends to […]
communism
from the “Fragments:” Communism vs. Mutualism
This chapter from the Socialistic, Communistic, Mutualistic and Financial Fragments (1875), originally appeared in The Word. Greene’s correspondent is apparently Jesse Henry Jones (1836-1904), a frequent contributor to The Word and a number of other reform-oriented or religious magazines, and author of several books. He prompted debates in a couple of the Oneida-related periodicals, and composed a song in support of the 8-hour movement. (I’ll try to find some time to treat Jones separately, and dig up the immediate context for this exchange.) Greene is in his combatative mode here, happy to damn “communism,” specifically in the sense of community […]
Anarchism
William B. Greene, Communism vs. Mutualism
[This is a repost, probably the first of several, highlighting some of the more important statements about the philosophy of mutualism. Long-time readers and students of mutualism should note, particularly as I did not note it myself before, Greene’s apparent adoption of the “cost principle,” and the linked principle of deferred and social profit: “so much as the individual laborer will then get over and above what he has earned will come to him as his share in the general prosperity of the community of which he is an individual member.” That does not mean, however, that Greene had jumped […]