Benjamin R. Tucker Archives - Page 4 of 5 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

The Liberty Site and such

August 6, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve set up a somewhat more attractive and informative front-end for The Liberty Site archive. I would encourage folks who are linking to the archive to direct readers there. Thanks to everyone who has publicized the work. That includes Roderick Long (waxing hyperbolic on his own blog and in a more restrained mode at the Mises Institute), Kevin Carson, Presto, Thomas Van Wyck, camelCase, William Gillis, Bernd Haug, and mentions at Positive Liberty and the paxx:blog. I almost missed Brian Doherty’s nod at Reason; he linked to both the Liberty and Lucifer archives, but managed not to mention where they […]

Benjamin R. Tucker, The Lesson of Homestead

July 24, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Benjamin R. Tucker, “The Lesson of Homestead,” Liberty, 8, 48 (Jul 23, 1892), 2. The Lesson of Homestead. Regarding method, one of the truths that has been most steadily inculcated by this journal has been that social questions cannot be settled by force. Recent events have only confirmed this view. But when force comes, it sometimes leads incidentally to the teaching of other lessons than that of its own uselessness and becomes thereby to that extent useful. The appeal to force at Homestead affords a signal example of such incidental beneficence, for it has forced the capitalistic papers of the […]

The Radical Review (1877-1878)

June 27, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Links: Radical Review [tag feed] Contents: [Links are to text in the archive] May, 1877. William J. Potter, “The Two Traditions, Ecclesiastical and Scientific,” 1. B. W. Ball, “To Benedict Spinosa,” [poem]. 24. C. W. Ernst. Practical Socialism in Germany. 25. D. A. Wasson. Theodore Parker as Religious Reformer. 46. Edmund C. Stedman. The Discoverer. [poem] 74. P. J. Proudhon. System of Economical Contradictions, Introduction. 76, Joel A. Allen. The Influence of Physical Conditions in the Genesis of Species. 108. Lysander Spooner. Our Financiers: Their Ignorance, Usurpations, and Frauds. 141. Current Literature. Alfred Tennyson. Harold: A Drama. Notice by John […]

What We Mean

May 28, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

“What We Mean,” Liberty, 1, 19 (April 15, 1882), 2. What We Mean. Our purpose is the abolition, not only of all existing States, but of the State itself. Is not this a straightforward and well-defined purpose? There can be no mistaking it, and it admits of no equivocation. The least that our enemies can say of us is that we stand in the market-place of thought and action with a square protest and a square assertion. And what is the State? It is not a thing that can be especially defined by Russia, Germany, Great Britain, or Massachusetts. The […]

Tucker on Right and Rights, 1882

May 1, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

There have been a series of discussions / arguments / pointless pissing contests in recent months, revolving around the question of just what sorts of property, and what sorts of actions, are authorized by mutualist theory. Mutualism begins—literally, in Proudhon’s What Is Property?—with a sense that “property” may be a problem without a really satisfactory solution. What, then, does that mean about the mutualist understanding of property relations, particularly in a setting where other property systems may be in place, or in competition. The short answer is probably that mutualism authorizes very little. If the best we can do is […]

The Anarchist View of Money, Benjamin R. Tucker, 1896

February 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

I am asked by THE. INDEPENDENT to give my views on the financial question. At the outset, therefore, I must give my definition of the term “money.”

Col. William B. Greene, the author of “Mutual Banking” (which represents my views on finance perhaps more thoroughly than any other work), was accustomed to say that “that is money which does the work of the tool, money”; and the work of the tool, money, is that of mediating exchange. Anything, therefore, that is used as a medium of exchange is money to the extent that it is so used.

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individualist anarchism

1881 – the first three

January 29, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Ah, for the settled life of a scholar, where I could tackle my 1.104 issues of Liberty each day, and keep a regular schedule, rather than the constant fire-fighting and scrambling that goes with part-timing. But the show must go on, however fitfully.] So what actually appears in the pages of Liberty? The staple, stable source for Tucker’s opinions remained, from first to last, the “On Picket Duty” column. From the first issue, of August 6, through the remainder of 1881, this occupied the first two columns on the front page of nearly every issue, while a collection of clippings […]

Armies that Overlap – Tucker on Anarchism and Socialism

January 25, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here’s another statement from Liberty on the relationship between anarchism and socialism (the topic of this weekend’s Carnival of Anarchy), which originally appeared in the issue of March 8, 1890 (p.4). Armies that Overlap. Of late the “Twentieth Century ” has been doing a good deal in the way of definition. Now, definition is very particular business, and it seems to me that it is not always performed with due care in the “Twentieth Century” office. Take this, for instance: A Socialist is “one who believes that each industry should be coordinated for the mutual benefit of all concerned under […]

“Travelling in Liberty” update, etc.

January 15, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve finally getting things rolling over at Travelling in Liberty, my examination of Benjamin R. Tucker’s thought and journal, and have already drawing a good question on Tucker’s relation to the rest of the anarchist tradition, with regard to wages. (Thanks, Iain!) Joshua King Ingalls’ Reminiscences is taking lots of work to annotate, but it is extremely agreeable work. Ingalls seems to have known everyone, including quite a few folks I was unfamiliar with. When I’m done with the notes on this, libertarians can take up “Three Degrees of Separation from J. K. Ingalls” as our new game. Social Wealth […]

Progress and Premises, continued

January 14, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

By the time he started Liberty, Benjamin R. Tucker had his trial by fire as a controversialist in the pages of The Index, where he also debated Stephen Pearl Andrews about the merits of Proudhon, had edited The Word for Ezra Heywood and The Radical Review for himself. He was obviously reading voraciously, and making (and breaking) connections with radicals of all stripes. Reading Liberty is, in large part, reading the public record of his reading, or his connections and disconnections. By the end of 1881, the first debates are beginning to take off in the letters section of the […]