Liberty

individualist anarchism

Saturday, August 6, 1881. Vol. 1, No. 1

December 21, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur
Vol. I BOSTON, MASS., SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1881. No. 1 “For always in thine eyes, O Liberty!Shines that high light whereby the world is saved’And though thou slay us, wewill trust in thee.”John Hay On Picket Duty Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, these three; but the greatest of these is Liberty Formerly the price of Liberty was eternal vigilance, but now it can be had for fifty cents a year. Individuals on becoming adults gain their freedom. Are nations never to attain their majority? The effect of one-half of our laws is to make criminals; the purpose of the other half is […]
Anarchism

New Project: Travelling in Liberty

December 21, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur
With the 2006 projects in the wrap-up phase, it’s time to get the next set rolling. Along with the new Libertatia Lab Reports, I’ve launched Travelling in Liberty, a blog to document my attempt to read through all 403 issues of Benjamin R. Tucker’s Liberty in 2007, and get a more complete sense of the development of individualist anarchism through the years 1881-1908. I hope regular readers here will join the fun.
individualist anarchism

Access to “Liberty”

December 21, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur
Considering the importance of Liberty, both as the primary journal of the individualist anarchist tradition and as an important component of the larger debates about social issues in its time, it is a bit surprising how difficult it is to access. For those with access to a university or other large library, Proquest’s APS Online database includes most of the run. John Zube’s microfiche edition is more complete, costs $27, and includes the either issues of Libertas (and you can order the Radical Review from John as well.) I tend to use both, relying primarily on Zube’s edition for completeness, […]
Anarchism

Travelling through “Liberty”

December 19, 2006 Shawn P. Wilbur
Between 1891 and 1908, Benjamin R. Tucker’s published 403 issues of Liberty, almost certainly the most important individualist anarchist publication in English, and probably in any language. Tucker was a, perhaps the, key player in the second phase of individualist anarchism in the United States. He both continued and greatly modified the earlier mutualist projects of William Batchelder Greene and Josiah Warren. By the end of his career he had come to embrace a Stirneresque egois—apparently worlds away from the Saint-Simon-influenced Christian mutualism of Greene’s early work or the Owenite origins of Warren’s. Questions of continuity and development within the […]