anthology texts Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

William Henry van Ornum, “What is Anarchy?” (1897)

November 18, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

The average man has imbibed a general idea that anarchy is something quite terrible; and it is only necessary to brand a man as an anarchist to damn him in the eyes of the unthinking multitude. If you wish to kill a dog you have only to raise the cry of “mad dog,” and the cry will outrun the unfortunate beast until some one will succeed in ending his life, whether he were mad or not, for everyone feels, in duty bound, to help kill him. Just so, must people regard it as incumbent upon them to help destroy any […]

Mikhail Bakunin, “What is Authority” (1870)

September 7, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

NOTE: This passage is generally known as part of “God and the State” (Dieu et l’État, first published in 1882), but it appears in Bakunin’s manuscript as part of “Sophismes historiques de l’école doctrinaire des communistes allemands,” the second section of the unfinished book L’Empire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale (The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution.) This new translation seeks to clarify some passages that may appear contradictory in existing translations. In particularly the verb repousser, which previous translators have tended to simply render as “reject,” has been brought closer to its literal sense of “push back” and some […]

Mikhail Bakunin, “I believe neither in constitutions, nor in laws” (1848)

September 4, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Max Nettlau has pointed to this letter as the first evidence of anarchist leanings in Bakunin’s writings.] [Early August, 1848] To Citizen George Herwegh. Paris. [Rue St. Augustins] 40 9 [r. sur Cirque] To George My dear friend, since the letter that I have written from Cologne, which I do not know if you have received, I have no longer written a single word. Many things have changed since then, but not our friendship, not the confidence that we have in one another. The thoughts that are essential to us, the aspirations that are essential to us non plus. I […]

Ernest Coeurderoy, “Demolish Authority!” (1850)

September 4, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[From Days of Exile, Vol. 1] To make the Revolution pass, like a red-hot iron, across this century, one thing alone must be done: Demolish authority. This proposition has no need of demonstration. Let each inquire within and let them say whether it is willingly or by force that they accept the fact that another proclaims themselves their master and acts as such. Let them say if they do not believe that they are worth as much as any other. Let them say if they are in the mood to maintain popes, emperors, kings, representatives, monopolists, doctors, teachers, judges, journalists, […]

P.-J. Proudhon, “The Third Form of Society” (1840)

September 2, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[From Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property?] 3. Determination of the third social form. Conclusion Therefore, no government, no public economy, no administration is possible with property for a basis. Community seeks equality and law. Property, born of the autonomy of reason and the feeling of individual worth, wants, above all things, independence and proportionality. But community, taking uniformity for law, and leveling for equality, becomes tyrannical and unjust. Property, through its despotism and its invasions, soon shows itself oppressive and unsociable. What property and community seek is good; what both produce is bad. And why? Because both are exclusive, and […]

Elisée Reclus, “The Development of Liberty in the World” (c. 1850)

September 2, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Development of Liberty in the World An Unpublished Study Elisée Reclus I. In past centuries, peoples only fought for their passions or their immediate interests; it was without remorse, it was even with gladness that, in order to satisfy their ambition or greed, they exterminated entire nations and dragged behind them multitudes of slaves. Without any link of solidarity between them, men stole their selfish well-being from the well-being of their neighbors, and the world, given over to chance, was sometimes the prey of the stronger, sometimes that of the most skillful. However, from the beginnings of humanity, some […]

Elisée Reclus, “An Anarchist on Anarchy” (1884)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

“It is a pity that such men as Elisée Reclus cannot be promptly shot.” – Providence Press To most Englishmen, the word Anarchy is so evil-sounding that ordinary readers of the Contemporary Review will probably turn from these pages with aversion, wondering how anybody could have the audacity to write them. With the crowd of commonplace chatterers we are already past praying for; no reproach is too bitter for us, no epithet too insulting. Public speakers on social and political subjects find that abuse of Anarchists is an unfailing passport to public favor. Every conceivable crime is laid to […]

Albert R. Parsons on Anarchy (1887)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

“In the effort of the prosecution to hold up our opinions to public execration they lost sight of the charge of murder. Disloyalty to their class, and their boasted civilization is in their eyes a far greater crime than murder. “Anarchy, in the language of Grinnell, is simply a compound of robbery, incendiarism and murder. This is the official statement of Mr. Grinnell, and against his definition of anarchy I would put that of Mr. Webster. I think that is pretty near as good authority as that gentleman’s. “What is anarchy? What is the nature of the dreadful thing-this anarchy, […]

Lucy E. Parsons on Anarchy (1887)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

From Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as Defined by Some of Its Apostles [We are frequently asked, ‘what is anarchy and what do the anarchists want?’ We are free to confess that in all we have read and heard from anarchists about how they expected to attain their ends, we never read or heard just what those ends were. In an interview with the New York World, Mrs. Lucy E. Parsons, the well-known lecturess in this new school of social economy, gave the most succinct account we have ever seen; and in answer to the question, ‘what is anarchy,’ […]

Dyer D. Lum, “On Anarchy” (1887)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

I—WHAT IS ANARCHY. The statesman, intent on schemes to compromise principles and tide over clamorous demands for justice, says it is disorder and spoliation. New taxes are then levied to defend the state, to repress incendiary talk, and protect privileged prerogatives. Or false and surface issues are prepared to distract attention, to embroil citizens in partisan quarrels, and furnish new offices for the spoils-hunter. The people pay the bills and the statesman remains. The priest, intent on saving souls, and setting less value on temporal things—for others—says it is abolition of marriage, atheism, and draws a frightful picture of a […]