"The Quagmires of Necessity": American Anarchists and Dilemmas of Vocation

Abstract

WITH ITS VAST EXPANSES, BOUNTIFUL SOIL, AND DEMOCRATIC PLURALISM, America has fueled the that a utopia could be established on the basis of justice, community, and freedom. On the other hand, the resources, free enterprise ideology, and get ahead spirit of America have also offered the promise of material rather than spiritual riches. From the beginning, many Americans have been torn between the idealistic and the materialistic promises held out by the best hope of the world. Thus communes founded to nurture the soul gradually transformed themselves into manufacturers of silverware and appliances. Yet even the most idealistic enterprises necessarily rest upon a material foundation. America's idealists and communitarians have always confronted the need to earn money, and they have wrestled with the relationship between their worldly efforts and their ultimate goals; America's small number of anarchists constituted one group to face this problem. Despite considerable interest in the anarchists among historians during the past decade, until now no one has investigated the difficulties in their attempts to select ways of making money in a seemingly corrupt society.' As men and women whose aspirations contrasted with those of most Americans, the anarchists saw the contradictions and inequalities of modern America. Living and thinking beyond convention, they offered a unique viewpoint on their times and experienced tensions that illuminated Ameri-