Benjamin R. Tucker

Portrait from WikiPedia: Benjamin Tucker

I’m very pleased to announce that, except for a few finishing touches — internal links, minor points of formatting, and the like — the Fair Use Repository‘s online edition of Benjamin Tucker’s individualist anarchist classic, Instead of a Book, by a Man Too Busy to Write One is now available in full, with all 497 pages of content from the second edition (1897) now available for you to peruse and enjoy. For details on the three sections newly added — on Communism, Methods, and Miscellaneous — see the Fair Use Blog 2007-11-06.

Now, the next question is, what to do next? I have some standing projects that I will continue to work on apace — especially Bertrand Russell’s The Principles of Mathematics. But I’m also very interested to hear suggestions. What do you think would be good to tackle next? Ideally, it should be something that’s:

1. Available in the public domain
2. Valuable
3. Not available online, hard to find online, or formatted inaccessibly (e.g. only in PDFs, only in scanned images, etc.)

Suggest away in the comments.

Also, if there are particular projects would be especially valuable to you — valuable enough that you would be interested in sponsoring the time needed to get them online — you might mention it to me, either in the comments or in an e-mail. I’m working freelance these days, so anything of the sort would get some very prompt and dedicated attention.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow….

Good evening, London.

I would introduce myself, but truth to tell, I do not have a name.

You can call me V.

Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves.

By doing so, they took our power.

By doing nothing, we gave it away.

We’ve seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.

In Anarchy, there is another way.

With Anarchy, from rubble comes new life, hope reinstated. They say Anarchy’s dead, but see…

Reports of my death were…

… Exaggerated.

Tomorrow, Downing Street will be destroyed, the Head reduced to ruins. An end to what has gone before.

Tonight, you must choose what comes next. Lives of our own, or a return to chains.

Choose carefully.

And so, adieu.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been working on an online edition of Benjamin Tucker’s Instead of a Book, by a Man Too Busy to Write One for the Fair Use Repository. Work is ongoing, and I’m pleased to announce that Part IV: Socialism is now available in full online. The articles in this section defend Tucker’s conception of socialism against critics both from the state socialist and from the anti-socialist camps; he argues that the most consistent and logical form of socialism, i.e. anarchistic socialism, in fact means radical laissez-faire in economics–voluntary socialism, based on the eradication of monopolistic legal privileges for capitalists, and the practice of bottom-up mutual aid between workers. The details are discussed more in Part II and Part III than here; his main target in Part IV are those critics who treat Socialism as if it were synonymous with State Socialism, thus making it seem as though the only options were the nationalization of all industry (passed off as if this were synonymous with Socialism), or else the perpetuation of legal privileges to the capitalist class (passed off as if this were synonymous with Free Markets). Here’s something from the first essay, Socialism: What It Is.

Do you like the word Socialism? said a lady to me the other day; I fear I do not; somehow I shrink when I hear it. It is associated with so much that is bad! Ought we to keep it?

The lady who asked this question is an earnest Anarchist, a firm friend of Liberty, and—it is almost superfluous to add—highly intelligent. Her words voice the feeling of many. But after all it is only a feeling, and will not stand the test of thought. Yes, I answered, it is a glorious word, much abused, violently distorted, stupidly misunderstood, but expressing better than any other the purpose of political and economic progress, the aim of the Revolution in this century, the recognition of the great truth that Liberty and Equality, through the law of Solidarity, will cause the welfare of each to contribute to the welfare of all. So good a word cannot be spared, must not be sacrificed, shall not be stolen.

. . .

Why, then, does my lady questioner shrink when she hears the word Socialism? I will tell her. Because a large number of people, who see the evils of usury and are desirous of destroying them, foolishly imagine they can do so by authority, and accordingly are trying to abolish privilege by centring all production and activity in the State to the destruction of competition and its blessings, to the degradation of the individual, and to the putrefaction of Society. They are well-meaning but misguided people, and their efforts are bound to prove abortive. Their influence is mischievous principally in this: that a large number of other people, who have not yet seen the evils of usury and do not know that Liberty will destroy them, but nevertheless earnestly believe in Liberty for Liberty’s sake, are led to mistake this effort to make the State the be-all and end-all of society for the whole of Socialism and the only Socialism, and, rightly horrified at it, to hold it up as such to the deserved scorn of mankind. But the very reasonable and just criticisms of the individualists of this stripe upon State Socialism, when analyzed, are found to be directed, not against the Socialism, but against the State. So far Liberty is with them. But Liberty insists on Socialism, nevertheless,—on true Socialism, Anarchistic Socialism: the prevalence on earth of Liberty, Equality, and Solidarity. From that my lady questioner will never shrink.

You can find a break-down of the essays from Fair Use Blog 2007-10-26. Read, cite, and enjoy!

I’m pleased to announce that Part III of Benjamin Tucker’s Instead of a Book is now available in full in the Fair Use Repository’s online edition. The section, entitled Land and Rent, may just as well have been called Tucker Against the Georgists, without much distortion of the contents. (There are some good exchanges toward the front that cover basic principles and make the case for an occupancy-and-use standard for land tenure. After that, the rest is occupied with piling on Henry George and some long debates with defenders of the Georgist theory.)

Read, cite, and enjoy!