Josiah Warren

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Josiah Warren bigraphy, stories - American writer

Josiah Warren : biography

1798 – April 14, 1874

Josiah Warren (1798 – April 14, 1874) was an individualist anarchist, inventor, musician, and author in the United States. He is widely regarded as the first American anarchist,Palmer, Brian (2010-12-29) , Slate.comRiggenbach, Jeff (2011-02-25) , Mises Institute and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, The Peaceful Revolutionist, was the first anarchist periodical published,William Bailie, Josiah Warren: The First American Anarchist — A Sociological Study, Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1906, p. 20 an enterprise for which he built his own printing press, cast his own type, and made his own printing plates.

Life

Early life

Warren was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1798. He showed an early talent for music and was a member of the "Old Boston Brigade Band" at an early age. He married at age 20 and in 1821 moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he worked as a music teacher and orchestra leader.American National Biography Online, "Josiah Warren" He invented a tallow-burning lamp in 1821 and manufactured his invention for a number of years in Cincinnati.William Bailie, Josiah Warren; George Warren, "Josiah Warren"; "Weekly Summary," The Plough Boy, and Journal of the Board of Agriculture, 2, 52 (May 26, 1821), 415.

Owenism and New Harmony

In 1825, Warren became aware of the "social system" of Robert Owen and began to talk with others in Cincinnati about founding a communist colony.Josiah Warren, "The Motives for Communism — How It Worked and What It Led To," Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, IV, 14 (Feb. 17, 1872), 5. When this group failed to come to agreement about the form and goals of their proposed community, Warren "sold his factory after only two years of operation, packed up his young family, and took his place as one of 900 or so Owenites who had decided to become part of the founding population of New Harmony, Indiana." The Cincinnati colony was attempted without Warren’s involvement, but failed.Josiah Warren, "The Motives for Communism — How It Worked and What It Led To — Article II," Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, IV, 15 (Feb. 24, 1872). Warren traveled by flat-boat from Cincinnati, arriving in New Harmony in early May, 1825. By 1827, he had returned to Cincinnati, convinced that the complete individualization of interests was necessary to cooperation. He considered Owen’s experiment "communism," which he rejected in no uncertain terms, but he developed a warm and lasting respect for Robert Owen and his sons. One of his earliest writings, published in The March of Mind in 1827, attests to this, as do later writings.J. W., "From the March of Mind," New Harmony Gazette (Sept. 10, 1828), 365.

Later life and death

Warren later returned to the Boston area. From 1864 to 1869, he resided in Cliftondale, Massachusetts, where he twice attempted to establish a mutual town. He then moved back to Boston, where he remained until his death.

Warren died on April 14, 1874 in Charlestown at the home of a friend after developing edema.William Bailie, op.cit., p. 35

Notes

Ethics of pricing

Sample labor for labor note for the Cincinnati Time Store. Scanned from Equitable Commerce (1846) by Josiah WarrenJosiah Warren termed the phrase "Cost the limit of price," with "cost" here referring not to monetary price paid but the labor one exerted to produce an item."A watch has a cost and a value. The COST consists of the amount of labor bestowed on the mineral or natural wealth, in converting it into metals…". Warren, Josiah. Equitable Commerce This understanding of cost is congruent with that of the classical economist Adam Smith who said "The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it," though Warren reached different conclusions. He believed that goods and services should trade according to how much labor was exerted to produce them and bring them to market, instead of according to how individuals believed them to be subjectively worth. Therefore, "[h]e proposed a system to pay people with certificates indicating how many hours of work they did. They could exchange the notes at local time stores for goods that took the same amount of time to produce." To charge more labor for something that entailed less labor was "cannibalism," according to him."If a priest is required to get a soul out of purgatory, he sets his price according to the value which the relatives set upon his prayers, instead of their cost to the priest. This, again, is cannibalism. The same amount of labor equally disagreeable, with equal wear and tear, performed by his customers, would be a just remuneration". Warren, Josiah. Equitable Commerce Moreover, he believed that trading according to "cost the limit of price" would promote increasing efficiency in an economy, as he explains in Equitable Commerce: