[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
I’ve finally finished posting Francis Tandy’s 1896 individualist anarchist work Voluntary Socialism. Chapter 9 defends the occupancy-and-use theory of land ownership, and criticises the Georgist alternative. Chapter 10 is a critique of intellectual property. Chapter 11 criticises the assumption that workers’ cooperatives would dominate the post-capitalist economy. Chapter 12 takes on the postal monopoly. Chapter 13 defends education over electoral politics and violent revolution as a method of advancing anarchism. Chapter 12 – the most depressing for a present-day anarchist – points to signs that the cultural power of statism is waning (in 1896). Finally, an appendix offers suggestions for future reading.
I’ve also posted a contemporary review by one K. C. Felton (who seems not to have read Tandy’s book very carefully).
Coming soon: more Dyer Lum!
I must gently point out that if an idea is inherently crazy when it shows up in the premises, it cannot suddenly become okay when it shows up in the conclusion (even if the conclusion is now derived from different premises). Or, equally, if it is okay in the conclusion, then it can’t be inherently crazy in the premises. In other words, when an idea (such as the distinction between positive and negative action) is all-pervasively presupposed in one’s policy proposals, one cannot coherently reject the distinction as part of the basis for those proposals.
Now in order to claim that there is no interesting metaphysical difference between A’s relation to F’s death and B’s relation to G’s death, one must in strict consistency also claim that there is no interesting metaphysical difference between C’s relation to F’s death and C’s relation to G’s death; C either makes a causal contribution (and we’re not talking about moral responsibility, just causal contribution) to both deaths or to neither. But no one (presumably) will seriously make such a claim. Obviously C makes an (inadvertent) causal contribution to F’s death but not to G’s. (To deny this, I maintain, is to fail to recollect the grammar of the concept of causation.) Hence there must also be a difference between A’s relation to F’s death and B’s relation to G’s death, QED.
These men possess a certain amount of influence. They are trained politicians, well versed in the art of packing conventions and proficient at counting the ballots. When they come to the new party with crocodile tears of repentance coursing down their cheeks, it is too weak to refuse their aid. It opens its arms and kissing away their repentant tears, places them in the front rank where glory awaits them. The result of this is a large gain in votes and sometimes success at the polls. But this victory is only gained at the expense of principle, and the last state of that party is worse than the first.
Meanwhile, check out