1877 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Emile Gautier, “Social Darwinism” (1877 / 1880)

April 14, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

Emile Gautier’s 1880 pamphlet, Le Darwinisme sociale, is often cited as the first French use of the term “social Darwinism,” three years after the term was first used in English. Gautier was an anarchist, the a political prisoner, and finally a popular science writer and novelist. He was tried alongside Kropotkin in the “Trial of the 66,” collaborated with Louise Michel, and provided the preface for Sébastien Faure’s La douleur universelle. Drawn into a debate about the application of Darwin’s theories to the solution of social problems, he championed a pro-socialist interpretation of the science, anticipating Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid in some ways. A translation of the pamphlet can be found in the pdf linked in the sidebar, but the research for that task also turned up an earlier essay, with the same name and much the same argument, in a periodical, Le Mot d’Ordre, in which Gautier was one of the principal contributors. That essay (also included in the pdf) is presented below.

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Lewis Masquerier, “Politicology”

March 14, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur

What is assembled here is two different sets of texts related to “a forthcoming work, entitled “Politicology;” a new development of Rights and Wrongs, &c., &c.,” announced in the land reform paper Young America in 1845 and then published as a 24-page separately numbered section in Sociology in 1877.

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Henry Edger, “Prostitution and the International Woman’s League” (1877)

September 19, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Henry Edger, “Prostitution and the International Woman’s League,” The Radical Review 1, no. 3 (November 1877): 397-418. PROSTITUTION AND THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN’S LEAGUE. Human questions need for their effectual study to be regarded from all points of view, and from all points of view simultaneously. — Richard Congreve. A YEAR or two ago there were distributed to a select few in this and some other countries some pamphlets, —one the Prospectus, and another the “ Constitution and By-laws,” of a projected “International Woman’s League,” the object of which League is stated to be “ the advancement and elevation of woman […]

Sidney H. Morse, “So the Railway Kings Itch for an Empire, Do They?” (1877)

July 4, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Related links: The Radical Review [Google Books] pamphlet [Internet Archive] A page from Benjamin R. Tucker’s catalog, identifying Morse as “A Red-Hot Striker.” SO THE RAILWAY KINGS ITCH FOR AN EMPIRE, DO THEY? By “A RED-HOT STRIKER.” (Being a letter to Mr. W. M. Grosvenor, whose slander of working-people in the “International Review” has stirred me up mightily.) Scranton, Pa., September 15, 1877. COMPLIMENTS to Mr. Grosvenor. So you and Jay Gould want an Empire, do you? I’m glad you’ve shown your hand. It’s what I’ve been expecting that some of you fellows would do. You run up Tom Scott […]

Joshua King Ingalls in “The American Socialist” (1877)

October 4, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Joshua King Ingalls (1816 – 1898) BIBLIOGRAPHY: Joshua King Ingalls, “More About the Liberal Club,” The American Socialist 2 no. 21 (May 24, 1877): 163. Joshua King Ingalls, “The Wage Question,” The American Socialist 2 no. 38 (September 20, 1877): 298. Editor, “Reply To Mr. Ingalls,” The American Socialist 2 no. 38 (September 20, 1877): 300. Samuel Leavitt, “A Hotel and Cottage Association,” The American Socialist, Jan 31, 1878; 3, 5. [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] MORE ABOUT THE LIBERAL CLUB. New York, May 4, 1877. EDITOR AMERICAN SOCIALIST:—Your intimation that the readers of your […]

From “l’Anarchia,” edited by Emilio Covelli (1877)

April 19, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Extracts from l’Anarchia, edited by Emilio Covelli, 1877: “Humanity is divided into oppressors and oppressed. The first need a state to sanction their oppression, by restraining the liberty of others within certain limits. The others tend to rise up against every government and to freely associate among themselves. “So, on the one hand, the aristocratic or democratic politics and on the other, socialism, the true socialism, revolutionary anarchist socialism. “The oppressed have always attempted to free themselves and join their forces. They have not succeeded because they have always turned against one form of government, and not against authority itself… […]