'A remarkable American, Josiah Warren.

" John Stuart Mill

 Josiah Warren: The Peaceful Revolutionist

by Frederick D. Buchstein

I" osiah Warren had lived in the community of New Harmony, Indiana, for
** over a year when he realized that the experimental colony founded by
Robert Owen, the Utopian socialist, was a failure. This experience convinced
Warren that individualism and economic mutualism were the true principles
of social organization and not Owen's communtarianism.
Warren returned to Cincinnati and on May 18, 1827, opened a small country
store on the northwest corner of Fifth and Elm Streets which sold groceries
and dry goods to test his theory. Customers paid cash for the wholesale cost of
their purchases, plus a small charge, usually four cents on the dollar, to defray
shipping costs and store overhead and "labor notes." These were notes which
promised that the customer would exchange his time or labor equally for the
labor or time Warren expended in serving him as measured by a wall clock
which gave the store its nickname, the "Time Store."
The store, called by one authority "the first scientific experiment in coopera-
tive economy in modern history," was a moderate success. 1 But Warren closed
it three years later to launch a succession of anarchist colonies including the
villages of Equity (1834) and Utopia (1847) in Ohio and Modern Times (1851)
on Long Island, New York. In addition, Warren wrote a defense of the labor
theory of value, bold criticisms of socialism, published several periodicals such
as The Peaceful Revolutionist and The Periodical Letter, created a new system
of musical notation, invented inexpensive and simple printing presses and
stereotyping processes, founded a prototype anarchist vocational school, and
developed a full-scale theory of individualism in such works as Equitable
Commerce (1846) and True Civilization (1863).2
These labors earned him the title "the first American anarchist," but brought
him little fame, in part because he was an exemplary though not successful
revolutionary.3 Historians disagree over the significance of his career. He has
been hailed as "undoubtedly the most important of the American individualist
anarchists," "the American Proudhon," and "the father of American anarchism."4
One of his disciples, Stephen Pearl Andrews, went beyond even these accolades to call
him the "Euclid of the Social Sciences."5
Others, however, have dismissed him as an "eccentric," "a voice in the wilderness,"
and a "bizarre extremist."6 No matter what he is called, Warren remains, as John

61
 Stuart Mill put it, "a remarkable American." 7
There have been many varieties of anarchism and anarchists: conspiratorial;
peasant; utilitarian; anarcho-syndicalist; collectivism communist; and pacifist,
to name some.8 The common bond uniting anarchists lies in their opposition to
coercive authority, usually that of the State, because it perpetuates class rule
and represses the individual's development. Anarchists advocate overthrowing
the state by revolution, not by the ballot. In fact, it is this hostility to authority
which separates anarchism from liberalism, socialism, Marxism, and
libertarianism. 9
Anarchism is a system of social thought which conceives of society without
government. Harmony in such a society is obtained not by submission to law,
or by obedience to any authority, but by the voluntary association of members
to provide specific services, such as the education of the young, and the
opportunity to maximize freedom, equality and self-development. Government,
the anarchists argue, is needed only to defend injustice. Without state support
and with proper education, unjust arrangements will disappear and be replaced
by voluntary associations and face-to-face democracy. 10
The most common objection to anarchism is that it is impractical. Few an-
archist societies have been established and then endured. 11 Anarchism, on the
other hand, has been praised for being a bulwark of pragmatic individualism,
and anarchists as unrelenting fighters against the encroaching State.12
In either case, anarchism must be seen as a protest against the evils of an
expanding industrial society—alienation, authoritarianism, and oppression —
and a reaffirmation of the humanitarian ideals of freedom, equality, individuality,
and justice. 13
Warren's crusades on behalf of individualist or philosophic anarchism took
place in a period which historian Douglas Miller describes as a "major age of
innovation," an era of optimism and insecurity, flux and social reform, utili-
tarianism and romanticism. The country was becoming more urbanized,
industrialized, centralized, and stratified. It was shifting from a traditional
society to a modern one, as witnessed by the change from self-sufficiency to
capitalism and from craftsmanship to mass production. Frustration with tradi-
tional institutions led to the formation of ideological third parties, such as the
Working Men's parties and the Liberty Party, an active trade union movement,
and many types of Utopian communities such as Brook Farm, based on
Fourierism, and new millenial religious sects such as the Millerites.14
Josiah Warren was born in Boston in 1798, the third of five children of
Josiah Warren Jr. of Little Cambridge (later Brighton) and Mary (Polley) Parker
of Lynn, Massachusetts. 15 Josiah was descended from Richard Warren, the
Mayflower Pilgrim. But he was not related, as biographer William Bailie says,
to General Joseph Warren, commander of American forces at Bunker Hill.
However, his grandfather, Captain Josiah Warren, and great uncle, Lt. William
Warren, were at Bunker Hill. Josiah and his elder brother, George, played in

62
the "Old Boston Brigade Band." Little else of an authoritative nature is known
of his early life. In 1818 he married Caroline Cutter and the following year
moved to Cincinnati where he earned his living as a musician and orchestra
leader. In 1821 he had patented and by 1823 was successfully manufacturing a
lamp which burned lard instead of the more costly tallow.16 In 1825 Robert Owen
came to Cincinnati to lecture on his plans to launch a New Moral World.
Warren was so taken with Owen's ideas that he sold his prosperous business
and moved his family, which now included two children, to New Harmony,
Owen's community in the extreme southwestern corner of Indiana. The fail-
ure of the experiment at New Harmony did not end Warren's friendship with
Owen, or their mutual exchange of ideas, but it did make Warren an anarchist.
Warren believed that the collapse of the New Moral World was due to Owen's
idea of "combination," or communitarianism. 17 A society which was based on
a system of authority and in which property was shared could not work. It led
to the suppression of the individual, a lack of initiative, and the failure to accept
personal responsibility. 18 Warren abandoned Owen's idea of "combination,"
but not his belief that a cooperative community could be successfully established.
Warren believed the New Society must be based on a blend of individualism,
the rejection of authority, and economic mutualism. 19 The foundation of this
community was summed up by two slogans —"Sovereignty of the Individual"
and "Cost the Limit of Price." The import of these slogans is that the New
Society must be a voluntary association of individuals, with each owning prop-
erty equal to the value of his own labor. Warren said the defect of gold- and
silver-backed money is that they do not represent a definite amount of labor or
property. How much the dollar can buy can vary daily. The value of the labor
note does not change. In a society with a "labor for labor" economy, in which
natural resources are available to all equally at cost, the relative value of a
specific job is determined on the basis of time and its unpleasantness. The
"cost principle" eliminates monopoly, interest, rent, and profit by making labor,
and not value or utility, the measure of price. Warren said the price of a com-
modity should be determined by the time and trouble required to produce it,
not by its usefulness. The only reason merchants can exact usury from labor is
that they are backed by the legal privilege of monopoly. Warren said that the only
way to eliminate monopoly was to make free competition the rule. The "cost
principle" rests on the freedom of the individual to control his labor, affairs,
life, and property at his own cost without interfering with the equal rights of
others to do the same. Since the individual has this natural right to govern
himself, any other authority such as the State's is tyranny and should be abol-
ished. In the New Society, there would be "counsellors in equity" to arbitrate
disputes and settle community problems without recourse to force or punish-
ment. The counsellors, Warren believed, would be the most respected elders of
the community. In cases where the social order collapsed, Warren sanctioned
the formation of a militia to protect life and property. The rest of Warren's life

63
The actual cost of the goods purchased was paid for in cash. The
labor note of the customer was given to pay for the service rendered.
was devoted to developing these ideas, disseminating them in books like
Equitable Commerce and True Civilization, and demonstrating that they
worked. He hoped that successes like his "Time Store" would prompt others
to follow his way.20
Warren opened the "Time Store" —or "Equity Store" as it was also known —
on May 18, 1827, with $300 in groceries and dry goods.21 He prominently
posted the bills of purchase for the goods and next to them a column showing
the markup, usually four cents on the dollar, to defray shipping costs and store
overhead. Also in plain sight was a clock to measure the time Warren spent in
serving customers. Below the clock was a dial. Warren would set the hand on
it on the time he started waiting on a customer. A comparison showed how
much time had elapsed during the transaction. Customers paid cash for the
wholesale cost of their purchases, plus the four per cent markup and labor
notes for Warren's time in serving them. A typical labor note read: "Due to
Josiah Warren, on demand, thirty minutes in carpenter work." The difference
between Warren's store and those operated by his competitors was that in his
shop the merchant's compensation was separated from the price of the goods.
Other features included labor and commodity exchanges. Also posted was a
"report of demand," a sheet of paper on which people who needed work done
advertised for someone to do it. Payment was on a "labor for labor" basis.
There was also a list of commodities which Warren wanted and for which he
would exchange other commodities.
Warren modified his system of labor currency in his New Harmony "Time
Store" (1842-1844) and in his equity villages so that people could compare one
labor with another and give the promiser an alternative in case it became in-
convenient to give his labor on demand. Warren decided that Indian corn was
an acceptable alternative. The notes were guaranteed in pounds of corn if labor
was inconvenient. Each individual set the value of his own work. This estimate,
however, was kept reasonable by the weight of public opinion. Warren later
modified the system to take into account the intensity and unpleasantness of
work and previous training and education. The most unpleasant work, Warren
said, was worthy of the highest remuneration.
Warren did only slightly more than $5.00 of business the first week. The Cin-
cinnati "Time Store" was denounced as a Utopian experiment, a scheme by
big businessmen to unload damaged goods, or a plot to destroy the profit and
credit systems, which it was. Warren's New Harmony "Time Store" 1842-1-844
was shunned by the community's leading citizens and Warren's essays on
equitable commerce were not published in any of New Harmony's newspapers.
The store was patronized by people willing to take advantage of the low prices,
but unwilling to take the time to understand his motives, Warren admitted.
Warren undersold his competitors by buying wholesale lots of goods at auc-
tion. Other merchants did the same, Warren said, but failed to pass the savings
on to their customers. Warren's customers included lawyers, physicians,

65
 blacksmiths, and widows. It was to their advantage to take up as little of
Warren's time with haggling and bargaining in transacting their business be-
cause Warren's time in serving them was reflected in their bills. He closed
the Cincinnati "Time Store ' in May, 1830, believing that it showed the prin-
ciples of equitable commerce worked and it was time to test them on a
community level.
Warren spent several years after closing the "Time Store" in Cincinnati dab-
bling in iron working, printing, type casting, and house construction. From
August, 1830, to March, 1831, he lived at Spring Hill, a small community just
beyond Massillon, Ohio, where he attempted to teach young boys trades rapidly
by eliminating unnecessarily long apprenticeships. Warren said the apprentice
system was an "obsolete barbarity'' which limited employment, forced women
and children to work for less pay than men, and inflated labor costs. He taught
eleven and twelve year old boys by putting them out on their own as soon as
possible, making them responsible for their own work, and equitably rewarding
them for it. Warren argued that children are embryonic adults who should be
educated to be "Individual Sovereigns," and taught only what is needed for
adult life.22
In January, 1833, Warren began publishing The Peaceful Revolutionist, a
weekly journal, with profits from his invention of a stereotyping process and
a cheap modified proof press. He said the idea for launching his own journal
started when advertiser pressure forced local newspapers to ignore the first
"Time Store." The Peaceful Revolutionist, called by several historians the first
anarchist periodical in America and possibly anywhere, was written, set in
type, and printed on a homemade press in Cincinnati. 23 Warren used it as a
vehicle to explain his views and try to win converts. It cost thirty-seven cents
for a six month subscription, the price being calculated at cost. Labor notes
were acceptable. The February 5, 1833, issue contained an argument for the
thesis that man is a creature of his environment, an analysis of the nullification
issue, an article on the "Time Store", and a poem written by Warren on the
death of a friend, Camilla Wright, sister of abolitionist Frances Wright. A lack
of subscribers forced Warren to cease publication of the journal with the
April 5, 1833, issue. Warren later published other periodicals which presented
his ideas, such as The Peaceful Revolutionist in 1844 which explained the
principles and practices of Utopia, and The Periodical Letter which did the
same for Modern Times.
In 1834 Warren and six other families purchased a four hundred acre site
in Ohio's Tuscarawas County. Equity, some writers say, was the first anarchist
community in America.24 The settlers built their own houses and cooperatively
constructed and operated a steam saw mill. The community was run without
elected officials and on a voluntary and "labor for labor " basis. It failed by early
1835 because the land, which was near the Tuscarora River, was infested with
malaria. An epidemic of influenza dealt the final blow and turned Warren's

66
dream into a nightmare.
Following the collapse of the community at Tuscarawas, Warren resumed
his experiments in printing. In 1840 he invented a press which printed from
continuous rolls of paper at a speed of three to four thousand impressions an
hour. Publishers of the Southwestern Sentinel, an Evansville, Indiana, news-
paper, agreed to use Warren's so-called "speed press." Shortly after it was in-
stalled printers, fearing the onslaught of automation, began sabotaging it,
forcing Warren to travel twenty-five miles from New Harmony each time it
needed repairs. Finally he had had enough and dismantled the press.
Warren opened his second "Time Store" in New Harmony in 1842. He closed
it two years later even though it had overcome opposition and had become
successful. The experience convinced him that the support for his ideas came
from the poor, the humble, and the downtrodden, and not from established
rivals or those with a stake in the system.
In 1844 Warren invented a new system of musical notation which represented
harmonic sounds phonetically making music available to all. He eliminated as
unnecessary and confusing the transposition of keys in vocal music and the
study of flats and sharps and clefs. It took him sixteen years to find a publisher
for his musical system because of traditional bias, reverence for authority, and
vested interests. Warren used a new method of engraving in printing the work
which he did not patent. He did, however, patent the music system.25
A windfall of $7000 from his stereotyping inventions renewed Warren's
desire to launch an anarchist colony. In 1847 n e founded the village of Utopia,
thirty miles up the Ohio River from Cincinnati and a mile above the site of the
Claremount Phalanx, a defunct Fourierite settlement.26 Utopia was laid out in
eighty quarter acre lots. Each lot cost $15.00 and no resident could buy more
than two parcels. The price was fixed at $15.00 until all eighty lots were sold.
An agreement forbid a price increase for three years after all the lots were
purchased. The original settlers included the Warrens and four other families,
who had the right to decide who was to be admitted to the community. Warren
believed that every man has the right to choose his neighbors and associates.
This restriction insured that only those who had similar ideas would be
admitted. Residents used labor notes as their currency and corn as the alter-
nate. It was agreed that twenty pounds of corn was equal to an hour's labor.
They did their shopping at Warren's "Time Store." In addition to operating
the store, Warren was publishing The Peaceful Revolutionist and running a
music school. Lessons were paid for with labor notes. The students agreed to
exchange so many minutes of their time for so many minutes of Warren's time
in teaching them music. There were no laws, no priests, no officials, and no
prophets in the community. Warren left Utopia after it had been in existence
for slightly more than a year and was operating successfully because he was
restless and felt that his non-magnetic personality hindered the growth of the
community and the equitable commerce movement. Warren believed that

67
 Utopia had shown that his .ideas worked. A few of Utopia's original settlers
remained in the community, which came to be known as Smith's Landing,
until the 1870's.
Modern Times was founded in March, 1851, by Warren and Stephen Pearl
Andrews, an ardent disciple, phonographer, abolitionist, journalist, and
lawyer.27 The collaboration between Warren and Andrews was fruitful for both
reformers. Warren found an able propagandist for his ideas and Andrews a
philosophy to which he could become committed. Prior to meeting Andrews,
Warren had only a small following. Andrews popularized Warren's ideas in his
The Science of Society published in 1851. In 1852 the two reformers entered
into a partnership in which Andrews wrote a preface for Warren's Equitable
Commerce published by the Fowlers and Wells Company, Andrews' New York
publishers, and Andrews received the copyrights to all of Warren's writings.
Modern Times was located about forty miles from New York City in Long
Island's Suffolk County. The community was built on 750 acres, about ninety
acres of which were devoted to the town itself. Settlers could buy the land for
$20.00 an acre and could purchase a maximum of three acres. Warren hoped
that the village, his most ambitious and well-publicized effort to launch the
New Society, would eventually have a population of 1000 people. At its zenith
there were up to 200 Individual Sovereigns living in Modern Times. Residents
built their own homes and shops with the aid of an invention by Warren which
reduced construction costs by allowing them to make sun-burnt bricks out of
gravel and lime. Warren taught printing, plank laying, brickmaking, music,
and carpentry at a vocational school called "The College." He also ran a "Time
Store" and published a monthly journal, The Periodical Letter. A debate in the
pages of the New York Tribune between Andrews and editor Horace Greely
led to an influx of fanatics, including free love advocates, and earned Andrews
and Modern Times much notoriety. Fanatics and the Civil War led to the dis-
ruption of the community and a change in its name from Modern Times
to Brentwood.
One visitor to Modern Times, Moncure Conway, a Unitarian preacher, de-
scribed Warren in 1865 as a short, thickset man, who "was fluent, eager and
entirely absorbed in his social ideas." Conway said Warren was an optimistic
and industrious jack-of-all-trades who, unlike so many reformers who are abso-
lutely convinced that they have a mission to regenerate society, was not hard
to get along with. 28 Charles A. Codman, one of the earliest settlers and later
patriarch of Modern Times, said the community and the principles upon which
it was based were successful, but Warren was a weak leader. Warren was.a shy,
hesitating man who was a poor, non-inspiring speaker, Codman said.29
The Civil War shattered some of Warren's optimism and left him confused.
After leaving Modern Times he travelled to Ohio and Indiana in the winter of
1865-1866 to visit friends and to finish writing the summary of his life's thought
called True Civilization which was published in 1873. Warren then briefly

68
tinkered with establishing equity villages in Jamaica and Central America as
retreats from the strife of Civil War. He died in Boston on April 14, 1874, after
a long illness.
Warren had some moderate successes, but admitted that he failed to get his
ideas widely accepted.30 His disciples —Andrews, Benjamin1 Tucker, Lysander
Spooner, William B. Greene, and Joshua K. Ingalls —did what they could.31 Owen
also contributed to this cause by spreading Warren's ideas to the British trade
union movement. 32 Warren himself influenced the abolitionist movement
through Frances Wright. He founded the anarchist press with publication of
The Peaceful Revolutionist in 1833 and the first anarchist community in
America with Equity in 1834. There were scattered attempts in America and
England to establish "Time Stores,'' "Equity Eating Houses,'' and "Equity
Villages," particularly in Boston, Philadelphia, Canton, Cincinnati, and London.
Equitable Commerce was printed in England. John Stuart Mill and Henry
George were influenced by Warren. In his Autobiography, Mill said that he
borrowed the phrase "Individual Sovereignty" from Warren. Today, however,
the reputation of this rebel is known only by a handful of specialists in the
history of American radicalism and anarchism and contemporary anarchists,
despite a recent revival of interest in anarchism. 33
Josiah Warren was "a remarkable American." He should be counted along
with rebels like Emma Goldman and Henry David Thoreau as unrelenting
crusaders on behalf of individual liberty. He was a peaceful revolutionist who
remains a solitary figure committed to showing his fellow man how to save
himself, but few have heeded his message. He was truly an Individual Sovereign.

FREDERICK D. B U C H S T E I N is a reporter for the Cleveland Press. He has pub-

lished articles on various aspects of news media in Journalism Quarterly,
Journalism History, and the Penn State Journalist.

(1) James J. Martin, Men Against the A Study of Left-Wing American

State: The Expositors of Individualist
Anarchism in America, l82j-igo8
(Dekalb, Illinois, 1953), p. 17.
(2) The main sources for biographical
information on Josiah Warren are
found in William Bailie, Josiah Warren:
The First American Anarchist
(Boston, 1906), Martin, Rudolph
Rocker, Pioneers of American
Freedom: Origins of Liberal and Radi-
cal Thought in America (Los Angeles,
California, 1949) and Eunice Minette
Schuster, Native American Anarchism:
Individualism (Northampton, Mass.:
Department of History, Smith
College, 1932).
(3) Eunice Minette Schuster discusses
"native American" anarchists before
Warren. She argues that Warren was
"the first American anarchist" because
he was the first to evolve a complete
anarchism.
(4) These evaluations, in order of
appearance, were made by George
Woodcock in Anarchism: A History of
Libertarian Ideas and Movements
(Cleveland, 1962), p. 459; Schuster,
op. cit, p. 92; and Lillian Symes and
Travers Clement, with an introduction
by Richard Drinnon, in Rebel America:
The Story of Social Revolt in the
United States (Boston, 1972), p. 79.
(5) Quoted in Madeleine B. Stern,
"Stephen Pearl Andrews and Modern
Times, Long Island," Journal of Long
Island History, IV.4 (Summer, 1964), p. 2.
(6) These criticisms, in order of
appearance, are found in Arthur M.
Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Jackson
(Boston, 1945), p. 492; and the rest in
Merle Curti, The Growth of American
Thought (New York, 1964), p. 462.
(7) Quoted in Leonard I. Krimerman
and Lewis Perry (ed.), Patterns of
Anarchy: A Collection of Writings on
the Anarchist Tradition (Garden City,
New York, 1966), p. 312.
(8) Irving L. Horowitz (ed.), The
Anarchists (New York, 1964),
pp. 28-55.
(9) Marshall S. Shatz (ed.), The Essential
Works of Anarchism (New York, 1971),
pp. xi-xxix.
(10) Ibid.
(11) Gerald Runkle, Anarchism: Old and
New (New York, 1972), pp. 144-169.
(12) These evaluations, in order of
appearance, are in Krimmerman and Perry,
op. cit, pp. 555-564, and Barbara W.
Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of
the World Before the War, 18QO-IQ14
(New York, 1966), p. 113.
(13) Shatz, op. cit., p. xxiii.
(14) Douglas T. Miller, The Birth of
Modern America: 1820-1850 (New York,
1970), pp. 1-170.
(15) This section is based on a letter this
writer found in The University of
Michigan's Labadie Collection and later
corroborated. The letter was written in
January, 1969, by Lyman Warren. See
Bailie, op. cit, p. 1.
(16) A copy of this patent is at the Working
Men's Institute in New Harmony, Indiana.
(17) Josiah Warren, Manifesto (New
Harmony, 1841) p. I.
70
(18) William Bailie, "Josiah Warren," in
George B. Lockwood, with a foreword by
Mark Holloway, The New Harmony
Movement (New York, 1971), pp. 295-296.
(19) The phrase "New Society" is Warren's,
This interpretation of Warren's philosophy
is based on primary and secondary sources.
Warren never called himself an anarchist.
He used the word "anarchy" as a
synonym for chaos. See Martin,
op. cit, p. 55.
(20) Warren wrote articles that appeared in
The Western Tiller on September 21 and
28, 1827; September 12, 1828; and
October 3 and 10, 1828.
(21) This history of Warren's "Time Stores"
is based on primary and secondary sources.
(22) Warren, Equitable Commerce (New
Harmony, Ind.: 1846), pp. 110-113.
(23) Rocker, op. cit, p. 61. See also my
article called "The Role of the Anarchist
Press in American Journalism " scheduled
for publication in the June, 1974, issue
of Journalism History.
(24) Martin, op. cit, p. 42.
(25) Warren, Written Music Remodeled
and Invested with the Simplicity of an
Exact Science (Boston, i860), title page.
(26) The Peaceful Revolutionist, May, 1848.
(27) Stephen Pearl Andrews, with an
introduction by Charles Shively, The
Science of Society (Weston, Mass., 1970),
pp. 7-21.
(28) Moncure D. Conway, "Modern Times,
New York," Fortnightly Review
(July 1, 1865).
(29) Martin, op. cit, p. 83.
(30) The Peaceful Revolutionist, May, 1848.
(31) The basic secondary works on native
American anarchism are Schuster and
Martin. It must be remembered, however,
that there are two anarchist traditions in
America —native and immigrant. The
immigrant tradition began among the
German revolutionary socialists in the
late 1870's. The immigrant tradition was
first collectivist and then
anarcho-communist.
(32) A contemporary English analysis of
Warren and his ideas can be found in
"Triallville and Modern Times,"
Chamber's Edinburgh Journal,
Dec. 18, 1852.
(33) This revival began in i960 with
publication of Paul Goodman's Growing Up
Absurd and peaked in the late 1960s.
Further information on it may be found
in Michael Lerner, "Anarchism and the
American Counter-Culture," David Apter
and James Joll (eds), Anarchism Today
(New York, 1971), pp. 34-59.