SOURCE: “The Birth of Individualist Anarchism,” in The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of Liberalism, University Press of America, 1987, pp. 1-34.

In the following excerpt, Kline discusses the American brand of individualist anarchism advocated by Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews.

Introduction

Almost fifty years ago the last distinct vestiges of an entire radical American tradition disappeared with the death of Benjamin Tucker. Since that time the radical tradition which Tucker represented has been virtually lost in American history books. The reasons for this obscurity are manifold but two seem to predominate. The first reason is that American radicals have frequently been either neglected, or treated quite glibly and tendentiously. The second major reason is reflected in the neat, quiet manner in which this tradition was absorbed into the mainstream of traditional American thought. In turn, the reason for such absorption is to be found in the many fundamental...