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From the Archives

Charles T. Fowler, “Corporations” (1886)

January 3, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

A corporation is an association of individuals, acting as one body by force of law. Co-operation is an association of individuals acting together in their separate capacities by private contract. Corporation is a legal word, co-operation is a natural one. The members of one are legal, artificial, constructive persons, those of the other are natural ones; one acts under a charter, the other acts under an article of agreement or association. […]

From the Archives

Charles T. Fowler, “The Reorganization of Business” (1885)

January 2, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

IN a previous issue, we ascertained that the first principles of Co-operation were Liberty and Equity, We showed what they were and their mutual relations. We found that majority rule, in government, must give way to equal sovereignty, and profit, in commerce, give place to cost;—one the rule for properly minding one’s business, the other the basis of common honesty.

Now, these invisible laws, if such, are just as operative when disobeyed as when obeyed. The only part which we are asked to perform is to adapt ourselves to them in our organization. In examining the working, of the present profit-making system we shall see wherein they are violated, and how to apply the remedy. […]

Contr'un

Anarchist History: A Mutualist’s-Eye-View

January 1, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

My understanding of anarchist history is clearly—and quite consciously—the product of certain trajectories through the field of anarchist studies and through the sectarian landscape of the anarchist milieus. It is perhaps important to underline this fact, particular as it is such a central point of my analysis that the dominant narratives regarding anarchist history have a similar character—and that “anarchist history” might, through relatively small changes in the times and places where it was told, have looked very different and perhaps gone by different names. […]

From the Archives

Charles T. Fowler, “Prohibition” (1885)

December 31, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

Now no one disputes the evil of intemperance, suppose we call it the greatest of evils. If government can or ought to suppress the greatest, then it should try its hand at the next in importance. If two pigs are tearing up the sward in your yard is there any reason why, while driving out the one that weighs one hundred pounds, you should leave the other, which counts ninety and nine? That would be a discrimination only against one pound of rooting! […]

anarchist mutualism

Clarence Lee Swartz, “The Practicability of Mutualism” (1926)

December 30, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

Mutualism is applicable to every human relations. Throughout the whole gamut of existence, from birth to death, mutuality—voluntary association for reciprocal action—is everywhere and at every moment waiting to solve every problem of social intercourse, to decide every issue that arises in commerce and industry. In order to practice mutualism, it is necessary to name only two conditions; that the non-invasive individual shall not be coerced, and that no part of the product of any one’s labor shall be taken from him without his consent. With those negative generalizations thus postulated, thereby affirming the sovereignty of the individual, therefrom flows naturally the positive and constructive corollary—reciprocity; which implies individual initiative, free contract, and voluntary association. […]