Individualist anarchism in the United States
was strongly influenced by Josiah Warren,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lysander Spooner, Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon, Max Stirner, Herbert Spencer and
Henry David Thoreau. Other important individualist
anarchists in the United States were Stephen
Pearl Andrews, William Batchelder Greene,
Ezra Heywood, M. E. Lazarus, John Beverley
Robinson, James L. Walker, Joseph Labadie,
Steven Byington and Laurance Labadie. The
first American anarchist publication was The
Peaceful Revolutionist, edited by Josiah Warren,
whose earliest experiments and writings predate
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
== Overview ==
For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette
Schuster, American individualist anarchism
"stresses the isolation of the individual
– his right to his own tools, his mind,
his body, and to the products of his labor.
To the artist who embraces this philosophy
it is "aesthetic" anarchism, to the reformer,
ethical anarchism, to the independent mechanic,
economic anarchism. The former is concerned
with philosophy, the latter with practical
demonstration. The economic anarchist is concerned
with constructing a society on the basis of
anarchism. Economically he sees no harm whatsoever
in the private possession of what the individual
produces by his own labor, but only so much
and no more. The aesthetic and ethical type
found expression in the transcendentalism,
humanitarianism, and romanticism of the first
part of the nineteenth century, the economic
type in the pioneer life of the West during
the same period, but more favorably after
the Civil War".Contemporary individualist
anarchist Kevin Carson characterizes American
individualist anarchism saying: "Unlike the
rest of the socialist movement, the individualist
anarchists believed that the natural wage
of labor in a free market was its product,
and that economic exploitation could only
take place when capitalists and landlords
harnessed the power of the state in their
interests. Thus, individualist anarchism was
an alternative both to the increasing statism
of the mainstream socialist movement, and
to a classical liberal movement that was moving
toward a mere apologetic for the power of
big business".It is for this reason that it
has been suggested that in order to understand
American individualist anarchism one must
take into account "the social context of their
ideas, namely the transformation of America
from a pre-capitalist to a capitalist society
... the non-capitalist nature of the early
U.S. can be seen from the early dominance
of self-employment (artisan and peasant production).
At the beginning of the 19th century, around
80% of the working (non-slave) male population
were self-employed. The great majority of
Americans during this time were farmers working
their own land, primarily for their own needs."
and so "Individualist anarchism is clearly
a form of artisanal socialism ... while communist
anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism are forms
of industrial (or proletarian) socialism".Historian
Wendy McElroy reports that American individualist
anarchism received an important influence
of three European thinkers: "One of the most
important of these influences was the french
political philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
whose words "Liberty is not the Daughter But
the Mother of Order" appeared as a motto on
Liberty's masthead" (influential individualist
anarchist publication of Benjamin Tucker).
"Another major foreign influence was the german
philosopher Max Stirner". "The third foreign
thinker with great impact was the british
philosopher Herbert Spencer". Other influences
to consider include William Godwin's "anarchism
(which) exerted an ideological influence on
some of this, but more so the socialism of
Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. After success
of his British venture, Owen himself established
a cooperative community within the United
States at New Harmony, Indiana during 1825.
One member of this commune was Josiah Warren
(1798-1874), considered to be the first individualist
anarchist. After New Harmony failed Warren
shifted his ideological loyalties from socialism
to anarchism (which was no great leap, given
that Owen's socialism had been predicated
on Godwin's anarchism)".According to historian
James J. Martin, the individualist anarchists
and their support for the labor theory of
value made their form of American mutualism
a free market alternative to both capitalism
and Marxism.
== Origins ==
=== Josiah Warren ===
Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first
American anarchist and the four-page weekly
paper he edited during 1833, The Peaceful
Revolutionist, was the first anarchist periodical
published, an enterprise for which he built
his own printing press, cast his own type
and made his own printing plates.Warren was
a follower of Robert Owen and joined Owen's
community at New Harmony, Indiana. Josiah
Warren termed the phrase "Cost the limit of
price," with "cost" here referring not to
monetary price paid but the labor one exerted
to produce an item. Therefore, "[h]e proposed
a system to pay people with certificates indicating
how many hours of work they did. They could
exchange the notes at local time stores for
goods that took the same amount of time to
produce." He put his theories to the test
by establishing an experimental "labor for
labor store" called the Cincinnati Time Store
where trade was facilitated by notes backed
by a promise to perform labor. The store proved
successful and operated for three years, after
which it was closed so that Warren could pursue
establishing colonies based on mutualism.
These included Utopia and Modern Times. Warren
said that Stephen Pearl Andrews' The Science
of Society, published in 1852, was the most
lucid and complete exposition of Warren's
own theories. Catalan historian Xavier Diez
reports that the intentional communal experiments
pioneered by Warren were influential in European
individualist anarchists of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries such as Émile Armand
and the intentional communities started by
them.
=== Henry David Thoreau ===
The American version of individualist anarchism
has a strong emphasis on the non-aggression
principle and individual sovereignty. Some
individualist anarchists, such as Henry David
Thoreau, do not speak of economics but simply
the right of "disunion" from the state, and
foresee the gradual elimination of the state
through social evolution."Civil Disobedience"
(Resistance to Civil Government) is an essay
by Henry David Thoreau that was first published
in 1849. It argues that people should not
permit governments to overrule or atrophy
their consciences, and that people have a
duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to
enable the government to make them the agents
of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part
by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American
War. It would influence Mohandas Gandhi, Martin
Luther King, Jr., Martin Buber and Leo Tolstoy
through its advocacy of nonviolent resistance.
It is also the main prescedent for anarcho-pacifism.Anarchism
started to have an ecological view mainly
in the writings of American individualist
anarchist and transcendentalist Thoreau. In
his book Walden, he advocates simple living
and self-sufficiency among natural surroundings
in resistance to the advancement of industrial
civilization. "Many have seen in Thoreau one
of the precursors of ecologism and anarcho-primitivism
represented today in John Zerzan. For George
Woodcock this attitude can be also motivated
by certain idea of resistance to progress
and of rejection of the growing materialism
which is the nature of American society in
the mid-19th century." John Zerzan himself
included the text "Excursions" (1863) by Thoreau
in his edited compilation of anti-civilization
writings called Against Civilization: Readings
and Reflections from 1999. Walden made Thoreau
influential in the European individualist
anarchist green current of anarcho-naturism.
=== William Batchelder Greene ===
William Batchelder Greene (1819–1878) was
a 19th-century mutualist individualist anarchist,
Unitarian minister, soldier and promotor of
free banking in the United States. Greene
is best known for the works Mutual Banking
(1850), which proposed an interest-free banking
system, and Transcendentalism, a critique
of the New England philosophical school. For
American anarchist historian Eunice Minette
Schuster "It is apparent ... that Proudhonian
Anarchism was to be found in the United States
at least as early as 1848 and that it was
not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist
Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl
Andrews. ... William B. Greene presented this
Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most
systematic form".After 1850 he became active
in labor reform. "He was elected vice-president
of the New England Labor Reform League, the
majority of the members holding to Proudhon's
scheme of mutual banking, and in 1869 president
of the Massachusetts Labor Union". He then
publishes Socialistic, Mutualistic, and Financial
Fragments (1875). He saw mutualism as the
synthesis of "liberty and order." His "associationism
... is checked by individualism ..."Mind your
own business," "Judge not that ye be not judged."
Over matters which are purely personal, as
for example, moral conduct, the individual
is sovereign, as well as over that which he
himself produces. For this reason he demands
"mutuality" in marriage – the equal right
of a woman to her own personal freedom and
property".
=== Stephen Pearl Andrews ===
Stephen Pearl Andrews was an individualist
anarchist and close associate of Josiah Warren.
Andrews was formerly associated with the Fourierist
movement, but converted to radical individualism
after becoming acquainted with the work of
Warren. Like Warren, he held the principle
of "individual sovereignty" as being of paramount
importance.
Andrews said that when individuals act in
their own self-interest, they incidentally
contribute to the well-being of others. He
maintained that it is a "mistake" to create
a "state, church or public morality" that
individuals must serve rather than pursuing
their own happiness. In Love, Marriage and
Divorce, and the Sovereignty of the Individual
he says: "Give up ... the search after the
remedy for the evils of government in more
government. The road lies just the other way
– toward individualism and freedom from
all government. ... Nature made individuals,
not nations; and while nations exist at all,
the liberties of the individual must perish".
Contemporary American anarchist Hakim Bey
reports:
Steven Pearl Andrews ... was not a fourierist
[see Charles Fourier], but he lived through
the brief craze for phalansteries in America
& adopted a lot of fourierist principles & practices.
... a maker of worlds out of words. He syncretized
Abolitionism, Free Love, spiritual universalism,
[Josiah] Warren, & Fourier into a grand utopian
scheme he called the Universal Pantarchy.
He was instrumental in founding several "intentional
communities," including the "Brownstone Utopia"
on 14th St. in New York, & "Modern Times"
in Brentwood, Long Island. The latter became
as famous as the best-known fourierist communes
(Brook Farm in Massachusetts & the North American
Phalanx in New Jersey) – in fact, Modern
Times became downright notorious (for "Free
Love") & finally foundered under a wave of
scandalous publicity. Andrews (& Victoria
Woodhull) were members of the infamous Section
12 of the 1st International, expelled by Marx
for its anarchist, feminist, & spiritualist
tendencies.
== Free love ==
An important current within American individualist
anarchism is Free love. Free love advocates
sometimes traced their roots back to Josiah
Warren and to experimental communities, viewed
sexual freedom as a clear, direct expression
of an individual's self-ownership. Free love
particularly stressed women's rights since
most sexual laws discriminated against women:
for example, marriage laws and anti-birth
control measures.The most important American
free love journal was Lucifer the Lightbearer
(1883–1907) edited by Moses Harman and Lois
Waisbrooker but also there existed Ezra Heywood
and Angela Heywood's The Word (1872–1890,
1892–1893).M. E. Lazarus was an important
American individualist anarchist who promoted
free love. Hutchins Hapgood was a U.S. journalist,
author, individualist anarchist/philosophical
anarchist who was well known within the Bohemian
environment of around the start of the 20th
century New York City. He advocated free love
and committed adultery frequently. Hapgood
was a follower of the German philosophers
Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche.
=== Lucifer the Lightbearer ===
According to Harman, the mission of Lucifer
the Lightbearer was
to help woman to break the chains that for
ages have bound her to the rack of man-made
law, spiritual, economic, industrial, social
and especially sexual, believing that until
woman is roused to a sense of her own responsibility
on all lines of human endeavor, and especially
on lines of her special field, that of reproduction
of the race, there will be little if any real
advancement toward a higher and truer civilization.
The name was chosen because "Lucifer, the
ancient name of the Morning Star, now called
Venus, seems to us unsurpassed as a cognomen
for a journal whose mission is to bring light
to the dwellers in darkness".
In February 1887, the editors and publishers
of Lucifer were arrested after the journal
ran afoul of the Comstock Act for the publication
of a letter condemning forced sex within marriage,
which the author identified as rape. The Comstock
Act specifically prohibited the discussion
of marital rape. A Topeka district attorney
eventually handed down 216 indictments. In
February 1890, Harman, now the sole producer
of Lucifer, was again arrested on charges
resulting from a similar article written by
a New York physician. As a result of the original
charges, Harman would spend large portions
of the next six years in prison.
In 1896, Lucifer was moved to Chicago, but
legal harassment continued. The United States
Postal Service—then known as the United
States Post Office Department—seized and
destroyed numerous issues of the journal and,
in May 1905, Harman was again arrested and
convicted for the distribution of two articles—"The
Fatherhood Question" and "More Thoughts on
Sexology" by Sara Crist Campbell. Sentenced
to a year of hard labor, the 75-year-old editor's
health deteriorated greatly. After 24 years
in production, Lucifer ceased publication
in 1907 and became the more scholarly American
Journal of Eugenics.
They also had many opponents, and Moses Harman
spent two years in jail after a court determined
that a journal he published was "obscene"
under the notorious Comstock Law. In particular,
the court objected to three letters to the
editor, one of which described the plight
of a woman who had been raped by her husband,
tearing stitches from a recent operation after
a difficult childbirth and causing severe
hemorrhaging. The letter lamented the woman's
lack of legal recourse. Ezra Heywood, who
had already been prosecuted under the Comstock
Law for a pamphlet attacking marriage, reprinted
the letter in solidarity with Harman and was
also arrested and sentenced to two years in
prison.
=== Ezra Heywood ===
Ezra Heywood's philosophy was instrumental
in furthering individualist anarchist ideas
through his extensive pamphleteering and reprinting
of works of Josiah Warren, author of True
Civilization (1869), and William B. Greene.
In 1872, at a convention of the New England
Labor Reform League in Boston, Heywood introduced
Greene and Warren to eventual Liberty publisher
Benjamin Tucker. Heywood saw what he believed
to be a disproportionate concentration of
capital in the hands of a few as the result
of a selective extension of government-backed
privileges to certain individuals and organizations.
==== The Word ====
The Word was an individualist anarchist free
love magazine edited by Ezra Heywood and Angela
Heywood's from (1872–1890, 1892–1893),
issued first from Princeton and then from
Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Word was subtitled
"A Monthly Journal of Reform" and it included
contributions from Josiah Warren, Benjamin
Tucker and J.K. Ingalls. Initially, The Word
presented free love as a minor theme which
was expressed within a labor reform format,
but the publication later evolved into an
explicitly free love periodical. At some point
Tucker became an important contributor but
later became dissatisfied with the journal's
focus on free love since he desired a concentration
on economics. In contrast, Tucker's relationship
with Heywood grew more distant. Yet, when
Heywood was imprisoned for his pro-birth control
stand from August to December 1878 under the
Comstock laws, Tucker abandoned the Radical
Review in order to assume editorship of Heywood's
The Word. After Heywood's release from prison,
The Word openly became a free love journal;
it flouted the law by printing birth control
material and openly discussing sexual matters.
Tucker's disapproval of this policy stemmed
from his conviction that "[l]iberty, to be
effective, must find its first application
in the realm of economics".
=== M. E. Lazarus ===
M. E. Lazarus (February 6, 1822 – 1895 or
1896) was an American individualist anarchist
from Guntersville, AL. He is the author of
several essays and anarchist pamphlettes including
Land Tenure: Anarchist View (1889). A famous
quote from Lazarus is "Every vote for a governing
office is an instrument for enslaving me".
Lazarus was also an intellectual contributor
to Fourierism and the Free Love movement of
the 1850s, a social reform group that called
for, in its extreme form, the abolition of
institutionalized marriage.
In Lazarus' 1852 essay, Love vs Marriage,
he argued that marriage as an institution
was akin to "legalized prostitution," oppressing
women and men by allowing loveless marriages
contracted for economic or utilitarian reasons
to take precedence over true love.
== Freethought ==
Freethought as a philosophical position and
as activism was important in North American
individualist anarchism. In the United States
"freethought was a basically anti-christian,
anti-clerical movement, whose purpose was
to make the individual politically and spiritually
free to decide for himself on religious matters.
A number of contributors to Liberty were prominent
figures in both freethought and anarchism.
The individualist anarchist George MacDonald
was a co-editor of Freethought and, for a
time, The Truth Seeker. E.C. Walker was co-editor
of the excellent free-thought / free love
journal Lucifer, the Light-Bearer". "Many
of the anarchists were ardent freethinkers;
reprints from freethought papers such as Lucifer,
the Light-Bearer, Freethought and The Truth
Seeker appeared in Liberty ... The church
was viewed as a common ally of the state and
as a repressive force in and of itself".
== The Boston anarchists ==
Another form of individualist anarchism was
found in the United States as advocated by
the Boston anarchists. By default, American
individualists had no difficulty accepting
the concepts that "one man employ another"
or that "he direct him," in his labor but
rather demanded that "all natural opportunities
requisite to the production of wealth be accessible
to all on equal terms and that monopolies
arising from special privileges created by
law be abolished."They believed state monopoly
capitalism (defined as a state-sponsored monopoly)
prevented labor from being fully rewarded.
Voltairine de Cleyre, summed up the philosophy
by saying that the anarchist individualists
"are firm in the idea that the system of employer
and employed, buying and selling, banking,
and all the other essential institutions of
Commercialism, centred upon private property,
are in themselves good, and are rendered vicious
merely by the interference of the State".Even
among the 19th-century American individualists,
there was not a monolithic doctrine, as they
disagreed amongst each other on various issues
including intellectual property rights and
possession versus property in land. A major
schism occurred later in the 19th century
when Tucker and some others abandoned their
traditional support of natural rights—as
espoused by Lysander Spooner—and converted
to an "egoism" modeled upon Stirner's philosophy.
Lysander Spooner besides his individualist
anarchist activism was also an important anti-slavery
activist and became a member of the First
International.Some "Boston anarchists", including
Benjamin Tucker, identified themselves as
socialists, which in the 19th century was
often used in the sense of a commitment to
improving conditions of the working class
(i.e. "the labor problem"). The "Boston Anarchists"
such as Tucker and his followers are considered
socialists due to their opposition to usury.
This is because as the modern economist Jim
Stanford states there are many different kinds
of competitive markets such as market socialism
and capitalism is only one type of a market
economy.By around the start of the 20th century,
the heyday of individualist anarchism had
passed.
=== Liberty (1881–1908) ===
Liberty was a 19th-century anarchist periodical
published in the United States by Benjamin
Tucker, from August 1881 to April 1908. The
periodical was instrumental in developing
and formalizing the individualist anarchist
philosophy through publishing essays and serving
as a format for debate. Contributors included
Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Auberon
Herbert, Dyer Lum, Joshua K. Ingalls, John
Henry Mackay, Victor Yarros, Wordsworth Donisthorpe,
James L. Walker, J. William Lloyd, Florence
Finch Kelly, Voltairine de Cleyre, Steven
T. Byington, John Beverley Robinson, Jo Labadie,
Lillian Harman, and Henry Appleton. Included
in its masthead is a quote from Pierre Proudhon
saying that liberty is "Not the Daughter But
the Mother of Order".
== American individualist anarchism and the
labor movement ==
George Woodcock reports that the American
individualist anarchists Lysander Spooner
and William B. Greene had been members of
the socialist First InternationalTwo individualist
anarchists who wrote in Benjamin Tucker's
Liberty were also important labor organizers
of the time.
Joseph Labadie (April 18, 1850 – October
7, 1933) was an American labor organizer,
individualist anarchist, social activist,
printer, publisher, essayist, and poet. In
1883 Labadie embraced individualist anarchism,
a non-violent doctrine. He became closely
allied with Benjamin Tucker, the country's
foremost exponent of that doctrine, and frequently
wrote for the latter's publication, Liberty.
Without the oppression of the state, Labadie
believed, humans would choose to harmonize
with "the great natural laws ... without robbing
[their] fellows through interest, profit,
rent and taxes." However, he supported community
cooperation, as he supported community control
of water utilities, streets, and railroads.
Although he did not support the militant anarchism
of the Haymarket anarchists, he fought for
the clemency of the accused because he did
not believe they were the perpetrators. In
1888, Labadie organized the Michigan Federation
of Labor, became its first president, and
forged an alliance with Samuel Gompers.
Dyer Lum was a 19th-century American individualist
anarchist labor activist and poet. A leading
anarcho-syndicalist and a prominent left-wing
intellectual of the 1880s, he is remembered
as the lover and mentor of early anarcha-feminist
Voltairine de Cleyre. Lum was a prolific writer
who wrote a number of key anarchist texts,
and contributed to publications including
Mother Earth, Twentieth Century, Liberty (Benjamin
Tucker's individualist anarchist journal),
The Alarm (the journal of the International
Working People's Association) and The Open
Court among others. Lum's political philosophy
was a fusion of individualist anarchist economics—"a
radicalized form of laissez-faire economics"
inspired by the Boston anarchists—with radical
labor organization similar to that of the
Chicago anarchists of the time.Herbert Spencer
and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon influenced Lum
strongly in his individualist tendency. He
developed a "mutualist" theory of unions and
as such was active within the Knights of Labor
and later promoted anti-political strategies
in the American Federation of Labor. Frustration
with abolitionism, spiritualism, and labor
reform caused Lum to embrace anarchism and
radicalize workers as he came to believe that
revolution would inevitably involve a violent
struggle between the working class and the
employing class. Convinced of the necessity
of violence to enact social change he volunteered
to fight in the American Civil War, hoping
thereby to bring about the end of slavery.
Kevin Carson has praised Lum's fusion of individualist
laissez-faire economics with radical labor
activism as "creative" and described him as
"more significant than any in the Boston group".
== American egoism ==
Some of the American individualist anarchists
later in this era, such as Benjamin Tucker,
abandoned natural rights positions and converted
to Max Stirner's Egoist anarchism. Rejecting
the idea of moral rights, Tucker said that
there were only two rights, "the right of
might" and "the right of contract." He also
said, after converting to Egoist individualism,
"In times past ... it was my habit to talk
glibly of the right of man to land. It was
a bad habit, and I long ago sloughed it off.
... Man's only right to land is his might
over it." In adopting Stirnerite egoism (1886),
Tucker rejected natural rights which had long
been considered the foundation of libertarianism.
This rejection galvanized the movement into
fierce debates, with the natural rights proponents
accusing the egoists of destroying libertarianism
itself. So bitter was the conflict that a
number of natural rights proponents withdrew
from the pages of Liberty in protest even
though they had hitherto been among its frequent
contributors. Thereafter, Liberty championed
egoism although its general content did not
change significantly".Several periodicals
were undoubtedly influenced by Liberty's presentation
of egoism. They included: I published by C.L.
Swartz, edited by W.E. Gordak and J.W. Lloyd
(all associates of Liberty); The Ego and The
Egoist, both of which were edited by Edward
H. Fulton. Among the egoist papers that Tucker
followed were the German Der Eigene, edited
by Adolf Brand, and The Eagle and The Serpent,
issued from London. The latter, the most prominent
English-language egoist journal, was published
from 1898 to 1900 with the subtitle 'A Journal
of Egoistic Philosophy and Sociology'.
Among those American anarchists who adhered
to egoism include Benjamin Tucker, John Beverley
Robinson, Steven T. Byington, Hutchins Hapgood,
James L. Walker, Victor Yarros and E.H. Fulton.
John Beverley Robinson wrote an essay called
"Egoism" in which he states that "Modern egoism,
as propounded by Stirner and Nietzsche, and
expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all
these; but it is more. It is the realization
by the individual that they are an individual;
that, as far as they are concerned, they are
the only individual." Steven T. Byington was
a one-time proponent of Georgism who later
converted to egoist stirnerist positions after
associating with Benjamin Tucker. He is known
for translating two important anarchist works
into English from German: Max Stirner's The
Ego and Its Own and Paul Eltzbacher's Anarchism:
Exponents of the Anarchist Philosophy (also
published by Dover with the title The Great
Anarchists: Ideas and Teachings of Seven Major
Thinkers).
=== James L. Walker and The Philosophy of
Egoism ===
James L. Walker (sometimes known by the pen
name "Tak Kak") was one of the main contributors
to Benjamin Tucker's Liberty. He published
his major philosophical work called Philosophy
of Egoism in the May 1890 to September 1891
in issues of the publication Egoism. James
L. Walker published the work The Philosophy
of Egoism in which he argued that egosim "implies
a rethinking of the self-other relationship,
nothing less than "a complete revolution in
the relations of mankind" that avoids both
the "archist" principle that legitimates domination
and the "moralist" notion that elevates self-renunciation
to a virtue. Walker describes himself a s
an "egoistic anarchist" who believed in both
contract and cooperation as practical principles
to guide everyday interactions." For Walker
the egoist rejects notions of duty and is
indifferent to the hardships of the oppressed
whose consent to their oppression enslaves
not only them, but those who do not consent.
The egoist comes to self-consciousness, not
for the God's sake, not for humanity's sake,
but for his or her own sake. For him "Cooperation
and reciprocity are possible only among those
who are unwilling to appeal to fixed patterns
of justice in human relationships and instead
focus on a form of reciprocity, a union of
egoists, in which person each finds pleasure
and fulfillment in doing things for others."
Walker thought that "what really defines egoism
is not mere self-interest, pleasure, or greed;
it is the sovereignty of the individual, the
full expression of the subjectivity of the
individual ego".
=== Influence of Friedrich Nietzsche ===
Nietzsche and Stirner were frequently compared
by French "literary anarchists" and anarchist
interpretations of Nietzschean ideas appear
to have also been influential in the United
States. One researcher notes "Indeed, translations
of Nietzsche's writings in the United States
very likely appeared first in Liberty, the
anarchist journal edited by Benjamin Tucker."
He adds "Tucker preferred the strategy of
exploiting his writings, but proceeding with
due caution: 'Nietzsche says splendid things,
– often, indeed, Anarchist things, – but
he is no Anarchist. It is of the Anarchists,
then, to intellectually exploit this would-be
exploiter. He may be utilized profitably,
but not prophetably'".
=== Italian American individualist anarchism
===
Italian anti-organizationalist individualist
anarchism was brought to the United States
by Italian born individualists such as Giuseppe
Ciancabilla and others who advocated for violent
propaganda by the deed there. Anarchist historian
George Woodcock reports the incident in which
the important Italian social anarchist Errico
Malatesta became involved "in a dispute with
the individualist anarchists of Paterson,
who insisted that anarchism implied no organization
at all, and that every man must act solely
on his impulses. At last, in one noisy debate,
the individual impulse of a certain Ciancabilla
directed him to shoot Malatesta, who was badly
wounded but obstinately refused to name his
assailant".
==== Enrico Arrigoni ====
Enrico Arrigoni (pseudonym: Frank Brand) was
an Italian American individualist anarchist
Lathe operator, house painter, bricklayer,
dramatist and political activist influenced
by the work of Max Stirner. He took the pseudonym
"Brand" from a fictional character in one
of Henrik Ibsen's plays. In the 1910s he started
becoming involved in anarchist and anti-war
activism around Milan. From the 1910s until
the 1920s he participated in anarchist activities
and popular uprisings in various countries
including Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Argentina
and Cuba. He lived from the 1920s onwards
in New York City and there he edited the individualist
anarchist eclectic journal Eresia in 1928.
He also wrote for other American anarchist
publications such as L' Adunata dei refrattari,
Cultura Obrera, Controcorrente and Intessa
Libertaria. During the Spanish Civil War,
he went to fight with the anarchists but was
imprisoned and was helped on his release by
Emma Goldman. Afterwards Arrigoni became a
longtime member of the Libertarian Book Club
in New York City. He died in New York City
when he was 90 years old on December 7, 1986.
== Since 1945 ==
Murray Bookchin has identified post-left anarchy
as a form of individualist anarchism in Social
Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable
Chasm where he says he identifies "a shift
among Euro-American anarchists away from social
anarchism and toward individualist or lifestyle
anarchism. Indeed, lifestyle anarchism today
is finding its principal expression in spray-can
graffiti, post-modernist nihilism, antirationalism,
neoprimitivism, anti-technologism, neo-Situationist
'cultural terrorism,' mysticism, and a 'practice'
of staging Foucauldian 'personal insurrections.'".
Post-left anarchist Bob Black in his long
critique of Bookchin's philosophy called Anarchy
after leftism said about post-left anarchy
that "It is, unlike Bookchinism, individualistic"
in the sense that if the freedom and happiness
of the individual – i.e., each and every
really existing person, every Tom, Dick and
Murray – is not the measure of the good
society, what is?".A strong relationship does
exist with post-left anarchism and the work
of individualist anarchist Max Stirner. Jason
McQuinn says that "when I (and other anti-ideological
anarchists) criticize ideology, it is always
from a specifically critical, anarchist perspective
rooted in both the skeptical, individualist-anarchist
philosophy of Max Stirner. Also Bob Black
and Feral Faun/Wolfi Landstreicher strongly
adhere to stirnerist egoist anarchism. Bob
Black has humorously suggested the idea of
"marxist stirnerism".Hakim Bey has said "From
Stirner's "Union of Self-Owning Ones" we proceed
to Nietzsche's circle of "Free Spirits" and
thence to Charles Fourier's "Passional Series",
doubling and redoubling ourselves even as
the Other multiplies itself in the eros of
the group." Bey also wrote that "The Mackay
Society, of which Mark & I are active members,
is devoted to the anarchism of Max Stirner,
Benj. Tucker & John Henry Mackay ... The Mackay
Society, incidentally, represents a little-known
current of individualist thought which never
cut its ties with revolutionary labor. Dyer
Lum, Ezra & Angela Haywood represent this
school of thought; Jo Labadie, who wrote for
Tucker's Liberty, made himself a link between
the American "plumb-line" anarchists, the
"philosophical" individualists, & the syndicalist
or communist branch of the movement; his influence
reached the Mackay Society through his son,
Laurance. Like the Italian Stirnerites (who
influenced us through our late friend Enrico
Arrigoni) we support all anti-authoritarian
currents, despite their apparent contradictions."As
far as posterior individualist anarchists,
Jason McQuinn used for some time the pseudonym
Lev Chernyi in honor of the Russian individualist
anarchist of the same name while Feral Faun
has quoted Italian individualist anarchist
Renzo Novatore and has translated Novatore
as well as the young Italian individualist
anarchist Bruno Filippi. Egoism has had also
a strong influence on insurrectionary anarchism
as can be seen in the work of the American
insurrectionist Wolfi Landstreicher.
In 1995, Lansdstreicher writing as Feral Faun
wrote:
In the game of insurgence – a lived guerilla
war game – it is strategically necessary
to use identities and roles. Unfortunately,
the context of social relationships gives
these roles and identities the power to define
the individual who attempts to use them. So
I, Feral Faun, became ... an anarchist ... a
writer ... a Stirner-influenced, post-situationist,
anti-civilization theorist ... if not in my
own eyes, at least in the eyes of most people
who've read my writings.
Left-wing market anarchism, a form of left-libertarianism,
individualist anarchism and libertarian socialism
is associated with scholars such as Kevin
Carson, Roderick T. Long, Charles Johnson,
Brad Spangler, Samuel Edward Konkin III, Sheldon
Richman, Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Gary
Chartier, who stress the value of radically
free markets, termed freed markets to distinguish
them from the common conception which these
libertarians believe to be riddled with statist
and capitalist privileges. Referred to as
left-wing market anarchists or market-oriented
left-libertarians, proponents of this approach
strongly affirm the classical liberal ideas
of self-ownership and free markets while maintaining
that taken to their logical conclusions, these
ideas support anti-capitalist, anti-corporatist,
anti-hierarchical, pro-labor positions in
economics; anti-imperialism in foreign policy;
and thoroughly liberal or radical views regarding
such cultural issues as gender, sexuality,
and race. The genealogy of contemporary market-oriented
left-libertarianism—sometimes labeled "left-wing
market anarchism"—overlaps to a significant
degree with that of Steiner–Vallentyne left-libertarianism
as the roots of that tradition are sketched
in the book The Origins of Left-Libertarianism.
Carson–Long-style left-libertarianism is
rooted in 19th century mutualism and in the
work of figures such as Thomas Hodgskin and
the individualist anarchists Benjamin Tucker
and Lysander Spooner. While with notable exceptions
market-oriented libertarians after Tucker
tended to ally with the political right, relationships
between such libertarians and the New Left
thrived in the 1960s, laying the groundwork
for modern left-wing market anarchism. Left
wing market anarchism identifies with Left-libertarianism
(or left-wing libertarianism) which names
several related but distinct approaches to
politics, society, culture, and political
and social theory, which stress both individual
freedom and social justice. Unlike right-libertarians,
they believe that neither claiming nor mixing
one's labor with natural resources is enough
to generate full private property rights,
and maintain that natural resources (land,
oil, gold, trees) ought to be held in some
egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned
collectively. Those left-libertarians who
support private property do so under the condition
that recompense is offered to the local community.
== See also ==
Anarchism in the United States
Individualist anarchism in Europe
Individualist anarchism in France
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Brooks, Frank H. The Individualist Anarchists:
An Anthology of Liberty (1881–1908). Transaction
Publishers: New Brunswick. 1994.
Chartier, Gary; Johnson, Charles W. (2011).
Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism
Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power,
and Structural Poverty. Brooklyn, NY:Minor
Compositions/Autonomedia.
Men against the State: the expositors of individualist
anarchism in America, 1827–1908 (1970) by
James Joseph Martin.
Native American Anarchism: A Study of Left-Wing
American Individualism by Eunice Minette Schuster.
Rocker, Rudolf. Pioneers of American Freedom:
Origin of Liberal and Radical Thought in America.
Rocker Publishing Committee. 1949.
Nettlau, Max (1996). "Individualist anarchism
in the United States, England and elsewhere.
The early American libertarian intellectuals".
In Heiner M Becker. A Short History of Anarchism.
Freedom Press. ISBN 0-900384-89-1. OCLC 37529250.
