Parsons, Albert Richard. Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as defined by some of its apostles. Chicago, Mrs. A. R. Parsons [c1887]. Part I. CHAPTER 1. CAPITALISM-ITS DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. Among all nations, the United States of America has alone possessed the opportunity for developing representative or Republican government to its utmost. Separated by two oceans, isolated and comparatively secure from sudden invasion or the diplomatic embroglios of imperialistic Europe and Asia, the united capacity of Republican government to minister to the peace and welfare of its citizens and the experience --history--of one hundred years has formed the record from which the living present learns its lesson of the past. Free government, a free people, was the talismanic charm which caused the emigrant to abandon the old world and hasten to the new. The population o...
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER 2 Well-Being for All I WELL-BEING for all is not a dream. It is possible, realizable, owing to all that our ancestors have done to increase our powers of production. We know, indeed, that the producers, although they constitute hardly one-third of the inhabitants of civilized countries, even now produce such quantities of goods that a certain degree of comfort could be brought to every hearth. We know further that if all those who squander to-day the fruits of others' toil were forced to employ their leisure in useful work, our wealth would increase in proportion to the number of producers, and more. Finally, we know that contrary to the theory enunciated by Malthus--that Oracle of middle-class Economics --the productive powers of the human race increase at a much more rapid ratio...
Money and Capital. [Liberty, December 1, 1888.] To the Editor of Liberty:(68 ¶ 1) I have read attentively Mr. Westrup’s farther statement on mutual banking, but fail to see wherein he touches what is to my mind the vital point. He says that the system would not be making use of capital that belonged to some one else. Then I cannot see how it would answer its purpose. The bank itself has no capital save the pledges advanced by borrowers, and if they take out no more than they put in, they make no gain, but are merely to the expense of the transaction. On the other hand, if they do take out more, some one else must have put it in. They do not increase their wealth by using their own pro...
Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. System of Economical Contradictions: or, the Philosophy of Misery Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library Chapter 3 CHAPTER III. ECONOMIC EVOLUTIONS. -- FIRST PERIOD. -- THE DIVISION OF LABOR. The fundamental idea, the dominant category, of political economy is VALUE. Value reaches its positive determination by a series of oscillations between supply and demand. Consequently, value appears successively under three aspects: useful value, exchangeable value, and synthetic, or social, value, which is true value. The first term gives birth to the second in contradiction to it, and the two together, absorbing each other in reciprocal penetration, produce the third: so that the contradiction or antagonism of ideas appears as the point of departure of all economic science, allowing us to...
FREEDOM PAMPHLETS. No. 1. New Edition. 1920. I. REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT AND WAGES. In their plan for the reconstruction of society, the Collectivists commit, in our opinion, a double error. Whilst speaking of the abolition of the rule of capital, they wish, nevertheless, to maintain two institutions which form the very basis of that rule, namely, representative government and the wage system. As for representative government, it remains absolutely incomprehensible to us how intelligent men (and they are not wanting among the Collectivists) can continue to be the partizans of national and municipal parliaments, after all the lessons on this subject bestowed on us by history, whether in England or in France, in Germany, Switzerland or the U... (From : Anarchy Archives.)