On July 13th, P. Kropotkin opened the second discussion on work and the distribution of wealth, by pointing out the essential injustice of the wage system as a method of distribution, and showing how even under present economic conditions social feeling has supplemented it by a certain amount of distribution according to needs. The Social Democrats propose to do this to a far larger extent, the Communist-Anarchists to base distribution on needs only. The first part of our comrade's paper will be found in another column. The discussion which followed was even more discursive than usual because the Social Democrats animated by the strongest sense of opposition came too late to hear the opening speech and consequently were reduced to the neces... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
A Discussion
At the suggestion of our individualist fellow-worker for Anarchism, Albert Tarn, we open our columns to a full and free discussion of the question of property. Our own views as Communists are well known to our readers, but as we hold it to be every honest man's business to let the other side speak and to prove the truth of his own position by hearing what the opposition have to say, we welcome the idea and shah be glad to print contributions which are to the point from either Communists or Individualists. FROM THE INDIVIDUALIST SIDE. An investigation into the meaning of Property practically amounts to an inquiry into the origin and meaning of the possessive pronouns. In order to clearly understand what property is we must ascertain precisel... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
Not a Decree, but a Prophecy. [Liberty, April 28, 1888.] Have I made a mistake in my Anarchism, or has the editor of Liberty himself tripped? At any rate, I must challenge the Anarchism of one sentence in his otherwise masterful paper upon State Socialism and Anarchism. If I am wrong, I stand open to conviction. It is this: They [Anarchists] look forward to a time … when the children born of these relations shall belong exclusively to the mothers until old enough to belong to themselves.(44 ¶ 1) Now, that looks to me like an authoritarian statement that is in opposition to theoretical Anarchy, and also to nature. What is the matter with leaving the question of the control...
Lysander Spooner, Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures. Boston: Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill. 1846. CHAPTER 1: ILLEGAL CAUSES OF POVERTY The existing poverty would be rapidly removed, and future poverty almost entirely prevented, a more equal distribution of property than now exists accomplished, and the aggregate wealth of society greatly increased, if the principles of natural law, and of our national and state constitutions generally, were adhered to by the judiciary in their decisions in regard to contracts. These principles are violated by the judiciary in various ways, to wit: 1. In a manner to uphold arbitrary and unconstitutional statutes against freedom in banking, and freedom in the rate of interest; thus denying the natural and constitutional right of the people to make two classes of contracts, which will hereafter be shown to be of vital importance, both to the general increase and to the more equal di...
Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. System of Economical Contradictions: or, the Philosophy of Misery Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library 1. -- Opposition between FACT and RIGHT in social economy. I AFFIRM the REALITY of an economic science. This proposition, which few economists now dare to question, is the boldest, perhaps, that a philosopher ever maintained; and the inquiries to follow will prove, I hope, that its demonstration will one day be deemed the greatest effort of the human mind. I affirm, on the other hand, the absolute certainty as well as the progressive nature of economic science, of all the sciences in my opinion the most comprehensive, the purest, the best supported by facts: a new proposition, which alters this science into logic or metaphysics in concreto, and radically changes the basis of ancient philosophy. In other words,...
From another point of view than the one stated, I also came to the same conclusion. Recollecting my connection with the town-poor during this period, I saw that one cause which prevented me from helping them was their insincerity and falseness. They all considered me, not as an individual but merely as a means to an end. I felt I could not become intimate with them; I thought I did not perhaps understand how to do so; but without truthfulness, no help was possible. How can one help a man who does not tell all his circumstances? Formerly I accused the poor of this (it is so natural to accuse others), but one word spoken by a remarkable man, Sutaief, who was then on a visit at my house, cleared up the difficulty, and showed me wherein lay the cause of my failure. I remember that even then what he said made a deep impression on me; but I did not understand its full meaning until afterwards. It happened that while in the full ardor of my self-deception I was at my sister's hou...
Transcribed from the 1887 Tomas Y. Crowell edition by David Price WHAT TO DO? THOUGHTS EVOKED BY THE CENSUS OF MOSCOW by COUNT LYOF N. TOLSTOÏ translated from the russian By ISABEL F. HAPGOOD NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 13 Astor Place 1887 Copyright, 1887, By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. electrotyped and printed BY RAND AVERY COMPANY, boston. TRANSLATOR’S NOTE. Books which are prohibited by the Russian Censor are not always inaccessible. An enterprising publishing-house in Geneva makes a specialty of supplying the natural craving of man for forbidden fruit, under which heading some of Count L. N. Tolstoy’s essays belong. These essays circulate in Russia in manuscript; and it is from one of these manuscripts, which fell into the hands of the Geneva firm, that the first half of the present translation has been made. It i...