The archive of Liberty is growing steadily. I passed the 1000-page mark today, which is about 1/3 of the run, in terms of actual pages; about 1/4 in terms of difficulty of scanning the material; and about 1/2 of the way in terms of the actual content of the paper. The response has been very encouraging. Wendy McElroy has offered her Index To Liberty as a means of wading into the archive in a more systematic manner, and it looks like we will be incorporating that index into the archive as it becomes more than just a pile of pdfs. I would encourage those who want to keep more thoroughly in touch with the progress of the archive to keep an eye on my Travelling in Liberty blog, and, once again, those who wish to participate in the project, even if just to kibitz, should get in touch with me, as I hope to launch the all-archivists list yet this evening.
Contr'un
Dyer D. Lum, “The Fiction of Natural Rights”
The Fiction of Natural Rights. [Dyer D. Lum in Pittsburg Truth.] The very corner-stone of Anarchistic philosophy is often supposed to be a paraphrase of Herbert Spencer’s “First Principle” of equal freedom, that: “Every person has a natural right to do what he wills, provided that in the doing thereof he infringes not the equal rights of any other person.” Yet there lurks in the expression a fallacy that correct thought must repudiate, or we must carry with us a diagram explaining the meaning of the words we use. What are “natural rights?” In the middle ages school-men believed that […]
Anarchism
“Travelling in Liberty” update, etc.
I’ve finally getting things rolling over at Travelling in Liberty, my examination of Benjamin R. Tucker’s thought and journal, and have already drawing a good question on Tucker’s relation to the rest of the anarchist tradition, with regard to wages. (Thanks, Iain!) Joshua King Ingalls’ Reminiscences is taking lots of work to annotate, but it is extremely agreeable work. Ingalls seems to have known everyone, including quite a few folks I was unfamiliar with. When I’m done with the notes on this, libertarians can take up “Three Degrees of Separation from J. K. Ingalls” as our new game. Social Wealth […]
Uncategorized
Progress in archiving Liberty
Volumes 1-4 of Liberty and 3 of the 8 issues of Libertas are now available in pdf. The archiving push has brought some offers of assistance. I am hoping to launch a MediaWiki-based site for group discussion and collaborative transcription of the archived material. More news on this, and on indexing for the archive, soon.