equitable commerce

Clarence L. Swartz on Warren and Bailie

  Josiah Warren and His Work. Josiah Warren, as Liberty’s readers know, was the original founder and teacher of Philosophical Anarchism in America. A scion of the Massachusetts puritan house of Warren, which numbers among its many distinguished members the revolutionary hero of Bunker Hill, Gen. Joseph Warren, Josiah, who was born in Boston toward the close of the eighteenth century, became one of the most noted social reformers of his time. As the exponent of the doctrine of Individual Sovereignty and Cost the Limit of Price, he blazed the path which Liberty, for twenty-five years, has followed as its […]
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More Lucifer, plus some Liberty

Thanks to Jesse Walker at Reason Hit & Run and the folks at boing boing for making my rather off-hand announcement of the budding Lucifer the Light-Bearer archive something of a hit in the blogosphere. Apparently the interest is out there, so I’ve been adding to the archived issues as time allows: 52 down, and only 1057 issues to go! I’ve also begun an archive of Benjamin R. Tucker’s Liberty in pdf form, scanning from John Zube’s microfilm edition. Again, the quality is not perfect, and in some cases is not even particularly good, but hopefully I can put something […]
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on ALLiance

This stuff gets messy, pretty much right out of the gate. As if we expected anything else. There are plenty of sincere comrades of various persuasions, not to mention our share of out-and-out trolls, ready to point out the dangers, difficulties and obvious follies of an Alliance of the Libertarian Left. Any common language or agreement on more than very basic principles, upon which some more practical form of alliance might be solidly grounded, is strictly something to come. We’ve bet on a shared intuition that the obviousness of our folly is somewhat illusory. The leap of faith represented by […]
equitable commerce

John Pickering on “Equitable Commerce” (1847)

John Pickering, The working man’s political economy: founded upon the principle of immutable justice and the inalienable rights of man; designed for the promotor of national reform. Cincinnati : Stereotyped in Warren’s new patent method by Thomas Varney, 1847. CHAPTER XIX. “EQUITABLE COMMERCE.” A work bearing the above title, published by Josiah Warren, New Harmony, Indiana, has lately appeared before the public. The work professes to be, “A new development of principles for the harmonious adjustment and regulation of the pecuniary, intellectual and moral intercourse of mankind, proposed as elements of new society.” The author of this work, and myself, […]
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Left-Libertarian Library Proposal

I’m in the midst of putting together a first-stage proposal for a digital library of left-libertarian and related material, a more “walkable” version of my Libertarian Labyrinth. I would be interested in input at this stage from folks who see themselves using, or perhaps contributing to, such an archive. For those unfamiliar with my general archiving project, I’ve been amassing public domain anarchist texts, with a heavy emphasis on William B. Greene and the mutualist tradition, in the Labyrinth archive and at the From the Libertarian Library blog. My collection strategy has been to ignore questions of ideological purity and […]
equitable commerce

on the “Boston House of Equity,” 3/26/1856

“To Correspondents,” Boston Investigator, 25, 48 (March 26, 1856), 3. “J. N.”—The “Boston House of Equity” (established for the sale of provisions and groceries at about wholesale prices or a small advance upon cost,) and the “People’s Paper,” (pledged to advocate the enterprise,) have both failed or suspended operations.—The principle, however, upon which the movement was founded was a very good one, and deserved to succeed; but in a city where rent and labor are high, such an experiment is doubtful, even if well managed, and this probably was not. It undertook to do more than it had means to […]
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Peaceful Revolutionist: contents

The Peaceful Revolutionist: Contents [Monthly; Vol. 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1833)-v. 1, no. 4 (Apr. 5, 1833); v. 2, no. 1 (May 1848).] Volume 1 No. 1: January, 1833 Volume 1 No. 2: February 5, 1833 5. Surrounding Circumstances 6 (?): Of Our State Difficulties (J.W.) 6: Principles and Progress of an Experiment of Rational Social Intercourse Continued 7: Written on Hearing Unwelcome News (poem: J.W.) Progress of Equal Exchange in England 8: Society as it Is: The Causes of Its Evils, and the Practical Applications of the Proposed Remedies “Themistocles said…” A General Convention of the States “The two […]
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A Taste of Lucifer

Lucifer the Lightbearer, aside from having one of the more provocative and wonderful names ever, was an important anarchist newspaper. Originally the Kansas Liberal of Valley Falls, and eventually the American Journal of Eugenics, it was, throughout its incarnations, it was concerned with marital and sexual freedom, as well as more strictly political aspects of anarchism. I have made a number of issues available in scanned pdf form. They are unlovely, multi-generation reproductions, but scanned at a resolution where they are at least usable. Dana Ward’s Anarchy Archives also includes some transcriptions from Lucifer.
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Modern Times “card” in The Circular

[notice], The Circular, 2, 41 (April 6, 1853), 162 The Tribune of April 4th, publishes a “Card to the Public,” signed by four leading men at the ‘Modern Times’ settlement on Long Island, setting forth in brief the object of the settlement, the advantages it offers to laboring men and women, and the terms of admission. The object of the settlement is “to build a large town, or ‘Equity Village,’ upon just and reciprocal principles,” based on the philosophy of “Cost the limit of Price,’ and the ‘Sovereignty of the Individual,’ as set forth in the publications of Josiah Warren […]
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Stephen Pearl Andrews “converts”

“Literary,” The Independent, 3, 111 (January 16, 1851), 16. “Mr. S. P. Andrews has become a convert to what purports to be a New Theory of Society, discovered by Mr. Josiah Warren, of Indiana, formerly of New Harmony. To exhibit the system, he has commenced a series, or periodical issue of pamphlets, under the title of “The Science of Society: The New Constitution of Government, in the Sovereignty of the Individual, as the Final Development of Protestantism, Democracy, and Socialism.” We opine he will have some hard problems to solve before he succeeds in converting the people to his doctrine, […]