Transcribing the Past

  Credit to No Bonzo A short story demonstrating a possible Anarchist future, written sometime in the 1890s.   Common-Sense Country There was a country where Common-sense had somehow got the upper hand. In that country sense was as common as lunacy is in a madhouse. There was a place for everything, and everything was either in that place, or else was on the direct way there—the shortest way, the easiest way, the cheapest way. In that country everybody was brought up with the notion that the simplest plan in everything served everybody’s turn best, even the clever people’s; and it was taken as a matter of course that if things did not go wrong people wouldn’t. They read in their books of history and comparative sociology that in countries were things do go wrong, people go wrong too, in the blind, blundering attempt to straighten things back a bit. But in Common-sense Country it was always said when things went wrong that there had been some nonsen...

  From The Agitator ( L'Agitateur ) an Anarchist newspaper published in Marseille on the 13th of March 1892. Merci beaucoup to Constance Bantman for sharing this fragment.  MANIFESTE AN-ARCHISTE  AN-ARCHIE ne signifie pas « DESORDRE » Le mot « ANARCHIE »   vient de deaux mots grees: «A » Privatif, dont 1e sans est «Absence de » et « Arke » qui vent dire — AUTORITE. Done, contrairement a Ia definition que se plaisent a downer tous nos adversaires, ANARCHIE est synonyme de -- ABSENCE D'AUTORITE-- et non « chaos, bouleversement, desordre » . Anarchist Manifesto  AN-ARCHY does not mean "Chaos", the word "Anarchy" comes from the two Greek words "An" the meaning of which is "Absence of" an " Archy " which means AUTHORITY. Well, contrary to the definition that all our adversaries like to use, ANARCHY us a synonym for - ABSENCE OF AUTHORITY, and not " Chaos, upheaval, disorder ". My French is very limited and tre rus...