Victor Yarros

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Victor Yarros was a 19th century American author. An anarchist for some year, he was a prolific contributor to the individualist anarchist periodical in the United States called Liberty.

Victor Yarros' political views changed radically during his life. Early on he associated with the anarcho-communists, only to later convert to individualist anarchism and eventually repudiate anarchism altogether in favor of social democracy. Even during his time contributing to Liberty Yarros' views on expropriation were unique for an individualist,

"we, on the other hand, while insisting on the principle of private property, in wealth honestly obtained under the reign of liberty, do not think it either unjust or unwise to dispossess the landlords who have monopolized natural wealth by force and fraud. We hold that the poor and disinherited toilers would be justified in expropriating, not alone the landlords, who notoriously have no equitable titles to their lands, but all the financial lords and rulers, all the millionaires and very wealthy individuals."^[1]

He did not believe an anarchist society could be achieved until individuals learned to value liberty:

The abolition of the external State must be preceded by the decay of the notions which breathe life and vigour into that clumsy monster: in other words, it is only when the people learn to value liberty, and to understand the truths of the anarchistic philosophy, that the question of practically abolishing the State looms up and acquires significance. Template:Fact

Yarros initially based his individualist anarchism on egoism, penning an essay called Why I Am An Egoist, however, he later repudiated egoism calling it "monstrously absurd and miserably nonsensical". ^[2]

In his later works Yarros was openly critical of anarchism,

Of all the possible and impossible Utopias, that of the Philosophical Anarchists is, of course, the most preposterous one. How many persons of the world today can even imagine a society without the State? The first thing people do under pioneering conditions is to organize a government. ^[3]

[edit] See also

• Individualist anarchism in the United States

[edit] References

1. ↑ Yarros, Liberty 171 (1890): 4-5, quoted by Carl Watner in The English Individualists As They Appear in Liberty
2. ↑ Yarros, Victor Liberty, VII May 6 1891
3. ↑ Yarros, Victor S. (1947) "Adventures in the Realm of Ideas" [Chapter 15]

[edit] External links

• The Reason Why by Victor Yarros (1887) - egoism
• A Princely Paradox by Victor Yarros (1887) - criticism of communist anarchism
• The Woman Question by Victor Yarros (1888)

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