anarchism without adjectives

Max Nettlau, “1907 and the Present Outlook” (1908)

No one can possibly guess the strength of latent revolutionary energy that will be brought to the surface by coming events. Will it be sufficient to lead to a clean sweeping away of the whole present system, or will by-and-by a greater separation of progressive from reactionary forces arise than exists already, and the next stage be that the progressive forces obtain full elbowroom at the said of the reactionary forces—just as Freethought is existing to-day side by side with the densest religious obtusity? Freethought would have preferred to demolish religion altogether, but had to be content with the success of attracting some of the best and obtaining neutrality from the rest—on its guard always against a treasonous enemy, of course. Will a similar state of things—exemption from the political State and economic independence on a co-operative basis—be the next stage of Anarchism also? Or will it remain in its present state of action by propaganda only? Or will it be able, by bridging over the gulf which still separates Syndicalist from revolutionary action, to establish a new basis—collective property—on which it could be practiced on a larger scale? […]

Blazing Star Library

Address of the Internationals

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] ADDRESS OF THE INTERNATIONALS. The title of the International Association is sometimes rendered, in English, in translated documents, as follows, “Workingmen’s International Association,” and it is […]

The Sex Question

Angela T. Heywood in “The Word”

Men’s wars are grotesque and bloody; but wars between men’s and women’s eyes and ideas will become unique and renovating, and the unsheathed, two-edged sword will be the human tongue. Religion will repent of the subjection it has imposed on women; learning will confess its ignorance to us; books (simply become they are he books) will move forward from their alcove-shelves and come down ashamed longer to be books; and male science will dissolve itself to escape from the infamy of its rude and savage treatment of us. The impression that man can do as he likes without being responsible therefor is base folly, and arises largely from the great selfishness which grows out of his unnatural ascendency over woman through property usurpations and the subtle relations of physical force to her as his mate in primitive stages of growth, as from the animal to the human animal. Having arrived at a human identity, we wish to be recognized as a part of the collective identity […]

Featured articles

Eliphalet Kimball in “Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly”

Supposing that all man-made laws in the United States were abolished at once, disturbance and violence would take place only where they were needed. In parts of the country cursed with luxury, monopoly and rich men, society could be equalized and purified without violence. In neighbor­ hoods where the people were plain and none very rich, things would go on as they did before. If any undertook to commit crimes they would soon be straightened. Society would ferment and work itself clear like a barrel of new cider. Habitual rum-drinkers and opium-takers experience great distress when they undertake to leave off the habit. If they persevere in their abstinence they come right at last. Just so with law-drunken society. Within ten or fifteen years after the reign of natural law commenced, everything would be right. […]

Contr'un

Looking Forward—Mapping our “Lost Continent”

Despite the potentially daunting number of research and publishing projects I have in progress, I really don’t get overwhelmed by the variety.

That’s not to say, of course, that I don’t get overwhelmed. I do, at fairly frequent intervals, but what is truly daunting about the project-load that I’ve accumulated over the last decade or so is the fact that it is all really just one big project.

Somehow — for my sins, as like as not — I’ve found myself committed to some deep explorations of just how the anarchist tradition developed in its earliest, formative years […]