Josiah Warren: Early American Anarchist
Warren was born in Boston in 1798, but moved to Cincinnati, where he became a music teacher. A follower of Robert Owen, he lived for a time in Owen’s settlement at New Harmony. However, rejecting Owen’s collectivism, he set up a mutual exchange shop, which he called a ‘time store’ in Cincinnati, operating on a cost price basis, with a margin to cover the costs of exchange, based on the time taken for the transaction (but also with a margin to cover the retailer’s costs) using labour for labour notes. In 1833, Warren published a journal, the Peaceful Revolution. Warren then established a community in Ohio called the ‘village of equity’, with a group of families running a co-operative sawmill. When this scheme collapsed, Warren established a community in Long Island, New York, called ‘the city of modern times’ based on his principle of equitable commerce, a scheme which operated from 1851 to 1867. His system was outlined in his book, Equitable Commerce, published in 1852. The book’s subtitle was A New Development of Principles as substitutes for laws and governments, for the harmonious adjustment and regulation of the pecuniary, intellectual and moral intercourse of mankind, proposed as Elements of New Society. Warren’s views and approach were similar to those of the French libertarian Pierre Joseph Proudhon.
He, however, believed that two hours’ work a day was sufficient to provide the necessities of life. He believed in complete religious freedom and in rotating juries to deal with disputes and to set out general rules of conduct. Warren was also something of an inventor, having developed the first rotary printing press. Warren returned to the Boston area, where he sought unsuccessfully to set up new communities based on his economic theory, before dying in 1874. His ideas were later taken up by Stephen Pearl Andrews, the political philosopher and abolitionist, who published in 1852 The Science of Society, which set out Warren’s philosophy more lucidly than in Warren’s own work, and later by the lawyer, Lysander Spooner and by the editor and publisher, Benjamin Tucker.
“Cost is an equitable, and the only equitable principle for the government of prices in the pecuniary commerce of mankind. That this being reduced to practice would give to labour its legitimate reward, and its necessary and natural stimulus. That it would convert the clashing interests of mankind into co-operating interests, and thereby sweep away the principal cause of national prejudice and national wars – would destroy all motive in the masses to invade each other – all necessities for armies, navies, and other paraphernalia for national defence, and therefore neutralize the principle excuse for government – that by infusing into the public mind, correct and practical principles which will give a clear knowledge of the rights of each other and at the same time raise everyone above the temptation to violate them, we can put an end to the other excuse for government ‘protection’. That by disposing with government, we shake off the greatest invader of human rights, the nightmare of society.”
“That the security of person and property demands that every one shall feel secure from any external power rising above them, and controlling his person, time or property, or involving him in any responsibilities, contrary to his own individual inclination – that he must feel that he always has, and always shall have, his own destiny in his own hands – that he shall always be sovereign of himself and all his own interests – that this sovereignty of the individual is directly opposed to all external or artificial government. That this sovereignty of the individual is impractical in national, State, Church or reform organisations; and that combination is, therefore, exactly the wrong condition for the security, peace and liberty of mankind. That the true movement for the attainment of these ends, is for each individual to commence immediately to disconnect his person and all his interests from combinations of every description, and to assume the entire control of them as fast as they can be sufficiently separated from others, so he can control his own, WITHOUT CONTROLLING THEM.”
Further Reading
Warren, Josiah Equitable Commerce (Burt Frankin reprint of 1852)
Modrzejewsk, Magdalena Josiah Warren: The First American Anarchist (Kracow 2016)
Andrews, Stephen Pearl The Science of Society (Boston 1854, reprints available)
Martin, James Men Against the State (Ralph Miles, Colorado Springs 1970)
Marshall, Peter Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism (Fontana 1993)
Schuster, F M Native American Anarchism (Massachusetts 1932)
Stern, Madeleine The Pantarch: A Biography of Stephen Pearl Andrews (Austin, Texas 1968)