Josiah Warren

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Josiah Warren

Josiah Warren (* 1798 in Boston , Massachusetts , † April 14, 1874 ) was an American social reformer , musician, inventor and writer .

Life

Warren was born in Massachusetts in 1798. He showed musical talent early on and was a member of the "Old Boston Brigade Band" at a young age. Warren married in 1820 and moved to Cincinnati , where he invented a special lamp in 1821 and made a living from it.

From 1825 onwards, Warren began advocating Robert Owen's ideas of social reform, focusing on building communities geared towards fair wages and fair exchange. He himself lived from 1825 to 1827 in the commune he co-founded in New Harmony , Indiana, and participated in the Village of Equity in 1834 and in Utopia in 1846 , which existed for over 20 years. Even Modern Times on Long Iceland was co-founded by Warren. At the time, the communal movement in the US was strong; by 1850 there were more than 100 such communities in the US. In their ideology, Christian communes in particular placed supra-worldly justice against state interventions.

Warren opened several "time stores" whose goods were priced according to the hours they worked. The most famous was the Cincinnati Time Store , which existed in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1827 to 1829.

In 1833 he published the magazine " The Peaceful Revolutionist " (The Peaceful Revolutionary), which is described as the first anarchist magazine and for which he built his own printing press and designed a font.

Warren died of edema April 14, 1874, according to his friends .

Think

Benjamin Tucker dedicated his collection of essays, Instead of a Book , to the memory of Warren, "my friend and master [...] whose teachings were my first source of light". Tucker recognized Warren as "the first man to formulate and explain the doctrine that is now known as anarchism ." Although Warren's views are often attributed to mutualism , an individualism can be identified in which personal freedom must not be left behind the organization. Warren supported pacifism . He advocated the theory of a practicing example and of not influencing the personal concerns of other people, which was expressed in his indifferent attitude to abolitionism .

His biographer William Bailie called Warren the first American anarchist.

literature

  • Ronald Creagh: L'Anarchisme aux États-Unis 1826-1896. Series: Études anglo-américaines. Klincksieck, Paris 1983 ISBN 2864600234 . Warren especially Chapter 5: Le project postcapitaliste de JW pp. 183–304 (available in online bookshops)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Bailie, Josiah Warren; George Warren, "Josiah Warren"; "Weekly Summary," in: The Plow Boy, and Journal of the Board of Agriculture, 2, 52 (May 26, 1821), p. 415.
  2. Gabriel Kuhn : ›New Anarchism‹ in the USA. Seattle and the aftermath. Unrast Verlag , Münster, 2008 ISBN 978-3-89771-474-8 , p. 9
  3. ^ William Bailie: Josiah Warren. The First American Anarchist. ( Memento of the original from February 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 111 kB) op.cit., P. 35 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / libertarian-labyrinth.org
  4. Liberty XIV (December, 1900): 1)