The Era of Anarchy Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Benjamin Colin (1818-1884)

October 21, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

There are a handful of very early anarchist or at least anarchistic writings identified by Max Nettlau that have remained elusive in my searches. One in particular — “Plus de gouvernement!” by Benjamin Colin — has nagged at me a bit, since I have known that the paper it was published in, L’Homme, journal de la démocratie universelle, was accessible in various forms and included some other anarchism-related content. But I have never got around the making the extra effort or financial outlay necessary to get my hands on it. […]

Hector Morel, “Nationalities Considered from the Point of View of Liberty” (1862)

November 4, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

If there are words that we have used and abused, which we use and abuse every day, they are unquestionably the words nation and homeland. Everything in society which aims to muzzle and exploit the people, to paralyze and hold back the development of human intelligence, is always and invariably advanced in the name of the homeland: Laws and regulations, ordinances and decrees, scaffolds and prisons, police and gendarmes, etc., etc., all this hideous paraphernalia of chains and slavery, of plunder and misery, of exploitation and servitude, has only been invented, only exists, in the interest of the good order and internal security of nations. […]

Mikhail Bakunin, “What is Authority” (1870)

September 8, 2016 anarchisms_w4l2ii

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 … Continue reading → […]

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 […]

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

September 4, 2016 anarchisms_w4l2ii

[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 … Continue reading → […]

Ernest Coeurderoy, “Demolish Authority!” (1850)

September 4, 2016 anarchisms_w4l2ii

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. […]

Josiah Warren, “Manifesto” (1841)

September 3, 2016 anarchisms_w4l2ii

An impression has gone abroad that I am engaged in forming societies. This is a very great mistake, which I feel bound to correct. Those who have heard or read anything from me on the subject, know that one of … Continue reading → […]

Calvin Blanchard, “A Crisis Chapter on Government” (1865)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Governments are triumphant monopolies of murder, robbery, swindling and all that is atrocious and detestable. Ever since the beginning, they have forced mankind to kill or prepare and hold themselves in readiness to kill each other by the thousands and even millions at a time, and by the cruelest and most destructive means that spite can devise. […]

Our Lost Continent

April 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

The “lost continent” of anarchist history has been there all along, not so much lost but rather willfully ignored or dismissed, a blank spot on our map marked, not with some dire warning of the […]