Josiah Warren

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

Life

Warren was born in 1798 in Massachusetts. He showed early musical talent at a young age and was a member of the " Old Boston Brigade Band". Warren married in 1820 and moved to Cincinnati, where he was in 1821 a special lamp invented and earned his livelihood with their production.

From 1825 Warren, to commit themselves to Robert Owens ideas of social reform began and focused on the formation of communities that were oriented towards fair wages and fair exchange. He himself lived from 1825 to 1827 he co-founded in the municipality in New Harmony, Indiana and participated in 1834 at the Village of Equity and 1846 in Utopia, which existed for over 20 years. Also Modern Times on Long Iceland was co-founded by Warren. At this time the commune movement in the U.S. was strong, in 1850 there were in the U.S., more than 100 such communities. In particular Christian communities established in their ideology a transcendent justice against government intervention.

Warren opened several "Time Store " whose goods were provided with prices that were calculated according to the time spent working for them. The most famous was the Cincinnati Time Store, which was from 1827 to 1829 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He gave in 1833 published the magazine " The Peaceful Revolutionist " ( The peaceful revolutionary ), which is referred to as the first anarchist journal and for which he built his own printing press and a font designed.

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

Thinking

Benjamin Tucker devoted Instead of a Book, his collection of essays, the memory of Warren, " my friend and champion [ ... ] the briefings were my first source of light." Tucker praised Warren as " the first man who has formulated and explained the doctrine, which is known as Anarchism today " Although Warren's views are often attributed to the mutualism, individualism can be found in the personal freedom must not stand behind the organization. Warren supported pacifism. He represented the theory of a practicing example and the non- interference in personal affairs of other people, which manifested itself in his indifferent attitude to abolitionism.

His biographer, William Bailie described Warren as the first American anarchist.