Individualist Anarchism
Native anarchism in the United States has a long pedigree that begins with the antinomian controversy in Puritan New England. Some consider the first anarchist in America to be Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643), a proto-feminist individualist.
The U.S., with its tradition of radical individualism, which is "enshrined in the Declaration of Independence", was a congenial environment for individualist anarchism. Josiah Warren cited the Declaration of Independence and Benjamin Tucker said that "Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats." In 1833 Josiah Warren began publishing "the first explicitly anarchist newspaper in the United States", called "The Peaceful Revolutionist." According to Rudolph Rocker, the American individualist anarchists were "influenced in their intellectual development much more by the principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence than by those of any of the representatives of libertarian socialism in Europe. They were all 'one hundred percent American' by descent, and almost all of them were born in the New England states. As a matter of fact, this school of thought had found literary expression in America before any modern radical movements were even thought of in Europe."
Beginning in 1881, Benjamin Tucker began publishing "Liberty," which was a forum to propagate individualist anarchist ideas. By that time, anarcho-communism and propaganda by the deed was arriving in America, "both of which Tucker detested." Tucker criticized the immigrant anarcho-communist Alexander Berkman's attempt to assassinate Henry Clay Frick, saying "The hope of humanity lies in the avoidance of that revolution by force which the Berkmans are trying to precipitate. No pity for Frick, no praise for Berkman such is the attitude of Liberty in the present crisis."
By the twentieth century, individualist anarchism in America was in decline. It was later revived by Murray Rothbard and the anarcho-capitalists in the mid-twentieth century.
According to Carlotta Anderson:
| “ | "...it is logical that the concept of individualist anarchism reached its fullest expression in the United States, where individual rights and liberty were valued as never before. Developing from these values came a pervasive suspicion, even hostility toward centralized authority, and anti-statism of an intensity found nowhere else in the world." | ” |
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Famous quotes containing the word anarchism:
“Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man’s subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)