From: "John Zube" To: "Wendy McElroy" Cc: "Christian Butterbach" ; ... Subject: 030603 Wendy McElroy et al re Meulen Bth letters, shorter batches offered free by e-mail, for a short time Date: Tuesday, 3 June 2003 5:44 AM Dear Wendy, thanks for your e-mail of 21.5.03. Until yesterday I was very busy finishing the below-mentioned large file, which will interest you, too, as a Tucker fan and writer. Some day a special volume will be produced on the influence that Tucker had on the thinking and lives of other people, not only those who contributed to Liberty, while it still appeared. Great that you do now offer e.g.: The Debates of Liberty and the Index to LIBERTY and a partial autobiography of Tucker on your website. I will have to visit it again, soon. Thanks very much for mentioning my publications. My offer of LIBERTY on microfiche is probably still the cheapest and perhaps, presently, even the only one. I guess that the reprint is now out of print. I have not yet added up how often I mentioned you and your writings in my series. Probably not yet often enough. "Liberty" on CD-ROM: Perhaps an appeal by you and by some other Tucker fans will help to get enough collaborators to reduce the work for each of them to a bearable chore? Get the idea to simmer in their minds. And point out the opportunity for them to add their own, however belated comments. Meulen knew Tucker personally. They visited each other. A find search will show up Tucker very frequently, also some references to Stirner and Mackay. The letter exchange between Mackay and Tucker, now out in English and German, was rather disappointing because of lack of "meat" (or good vegetarian thought food) in this exchange. Between them their friendship & business or lack of it was the main subject. Between Beckerath and Meulen rather their disagreements and few basic agreements. I can only hope that you are not as much a voice in the wilderness in your individualistic feminist struggle as these two old fighting cocks were regarding their main interest: monetary freedom. But I guess that you have an uphill battle behind and ahead of you as well. (A private note is omitted here. - J.Z., 25.12.03.) B. was also a fan of some of the female revolutionaries in Russia and of Charlotte Corday, who executed Marat - and of Queen Christina of Sweden, who significantly contributed to ending the war of 30 years with the Peace of Osnabrueck in 1648. He refers to her at least twice in this correspondence. But you find also, in this correspondence, many critical remarks about other women, like Magdalena, the "witness" to Christ's rising to heaven, etc. C. Corday is not mentioned here. B. was also a fan of Malvida von Meysenbug, an associate of Alexander Herzen and of many other famous names. Were her writings ever translated into English? I have of her: Memoiren einer Idealistin (memoirs of an idealist), in 2 volumes and marked many observations in it. B. called her: "one of the most important women who ever lived - describes herein how she developed herself more and more into a social reformer and how thereby the interests of average people became more and more indifferent for her and even more so their amusements. ... Even Nietzsche, who despised women, tried for her friendship...." B. wrote in 1955: "Through her own thinking MvM arrived already 90 years ago at the conclusion than Russia and America would be the next cultural spheres. At that time the main world powers were France, England, Austria and Prussia. Russia was defeated a few years before in the Crimean War. The USA were seemingly very feebled through the Civil War." I wish you still more successes in your endeavours for liberty. PIOT, John Zube ========================================================================== Dear Fellow Freedom-Fighters & lovers of peace and justice. For a short time only I offer free of charge, via e-mail, a long and very interesting correspondence (I think so!) between two old freedom fighters, Ulrich von Beckerath, 1882 - 1969 & Henry Meulen, 1882 - 1978. Both were fans of Benjamin R. Tucker and for a long time lone voices for radical individualistic liberties. Beckerath once came close to executing Hitler (page 59), and also once, before, close to preventing his regime altogether. (Through the 4 Law Drafts, under Bruening, initiated by Bth.) Alas, not close enough in both cases. (The best laid plans ... or, if one is not sufficiently prepared ... Luck and timing still play a large role. Are most anarchists and libertarians today sufficiently prepared for rightful & efficient resistance actions against despotism? As Machiavelli said: It takes at least ca. 12 such attempts to make sure one will succeed.) On the 4 Law Drafts I have microfiched much before in the Beckerath Papers. 1.) This letter exchange comes in RTF, with minimal margins, to 1241 pages or 6 Mbs. in RTF. Winzipped down the single large file comes to 2 Mbs - too large for many e-mail boxes. 2.) Alternatively, I can offer it, upon request in 2 parts, each zipped down to 1 Mb. 3.) I could also send it in RTF, not zipped, 1 Mb each, in 6 files over 6 days. Take your pick! Soon the first half of it will be put on a website by Christian Butterbach Christian Butterbach www.butterbach.net/ E-mail Address(es): cb@butterbach.net Then the second part will only be obtainable via a small donation to this struggling Internet publisher. Later it may also become available for sale, rather cheaply, on a special libertarian CD-ROM, which may come to contain ca. 2000 Mbs of plain texts, zipped, i.e., represent a whole small freedom library. On the CD-ROM project see www.butterbach.net/project.htm - provided others submit, or better add, enough of their input. Ulrich von Beckerath wrote 3 classical monetary freedom books in the 1930's. So far these were readily available only on my libertarian microfiche, in PEACE PLANS Nos. 9-11, and, lately, via e-mail through me, until they become available on a website or on CD-ROM. Putting them online is presently considered by Mike Aldana and his associate. His friend, opponent & collaborator in this long-lasting (alas, still incomplete) correspondence or dispute, Henry Meulen, wrote one book: "Free Banking" and a short pamphlet & many articles on this subject. The second edition of "Free Banking" appeared 1934, its first edition 1917, under another title. He was also secretary of the Personal Rights Association and editor and publisher of THE INDIVIDUALIST, London, both for decades and to his death. Virus danger? Only through the (hopefully infective) ideas contained in this correspondence. My server checks each e-mail with 2 anti-virus programs that are automatically updated every two hours. You might also be interested in a long and alphabetised compilation of monetary freedom definitions, thoughts and explanations that is offered by me as a first and still unripe contribution towards a much larger and alphabetised handbook on monetary freedom: www.butterbach.net/freebank.htm Maybe it will inspire you to make your contributions towards such a special encyclopaedia. In our lifetime up to 1 billion people in the world were unemployed or under-employed, which led not only to poverty for them but to economic crises, like inflations and deflations, sales difficulties, and, indirectly, to dictatorships, civil wars, mass murders, revolutions, wars and terrorism. Ulrich von Beckerath made a very strong case for the abolition of involuntary mass unemployment in most cases within hours to days through sound monetary freedom techniques, that could also help to finance a largely peaceful and quite rightful revolution against any tyranny or dictatorship - leaving it, however, panarchistically untouched, for its remaining volunteers, as their particular utopia, at their expense and risk, so that they will not be driven to desperate resistance, but, instead, can keep their ideal and their "great" leaders for themselves - while having got rid, peacefully and rightfully, of all their internal opponents through individual and group secessionism combined with exterritorial autonomy for their volunteer communities. With his consistent monetary freedom system, based on the best monetary traditions, experiences and writings, inflations can be stopped instantly and without harmful side-effects in the transition period. See e.g. my "The Soft Option" & essay The Legal Tender Crime (appendixes to my main website) and B.'s hints here to an ancient and sound currency reformer. Freedom works, in these spheres, too, if one makes fullest use of all its relevant options. Modern governments, central banks and their "experts" have no clue how to do either. Nor are they able and willing to learn enough on these subjects. Their secret police and their "experts" never finds out such essential truths, even if they are already somewhat published. Such assertions sound only unbelievable to those who have not yet studied the writings of Ulrich von Beckerath. Catch up with your essential self-education! Freedom to live in accordance with one's ideals does not require territorial domination over dissenters but merely full exterritorial autonomy for volunteers. With it they can safely continue their sense or nonsense for centuries, like the Catholic Church did. But it tests the faith in one's own beliefs if their practice is thrown open to free competition with the tolerantly practised beliefs of dissenters, operating their own panarchies, i.e., when every group is gains full freedom of action, experimental freedom or minority autonomy - as far as all its own affairs are concerned and always only at the own risk and expense. The ideas in this correspondence prepare the ground not only for an economic and social revolution but also for a new kind of political science, based upon radical individual rights and their rightful, because voluntaristic and non-territorial institutions. Its motto: "To each the government or non-governmental society of his or her dreams!" - What more could any somewhat rational being rightly ask for? Monetary freedom means panarchistic freedom for all monetary reformers, status quo defenders and monetary reactionaries - at their own risk and expense. With it realized, other aspects of panarchism are likely to follow soon and all will tend to lead to the same progress that religious liberty, scientific liberty, technological liberty and liberty in the arts and crafts led to, when they were no longer interfered with. So far the consequences of monetary despotism, combined with financial despotism (instances: compulsory taxation, loans, government budgets) and territorial despotism, including the democratic authoritarianism (the latter much less so), have held us back in almost every sphere. This letter exchange deals mainly only with monetary freedom and some aspects of financial freedom. My PEACE PLANS series offers more on voluntary taxation and on well organized tax strikes. More on monetary freedom that can be found in my two peace books, accessible through www.exterritorial.info/ or www.panarchism.info and on www.panarchy.org - and in numerous other texts in my LMP microfiche. My microfiched ON PANARCHY materials collection towards an encyclopaedia on this subject comes so far to 24 volumes on 24 of my LMP microfiche, supplemented by a number of book tiltes on this subject. I still believe that all texts on monetary freedom should be combined in a special freedom library on CD-ROM and all texts on Panarchism, Polyarchy etc. on another and all texts on freedom at the workplace and self-management, cooperative and voluntary socialism, autonomous group work etc. on still another CD-ROM. Maybe libertarian defence, liberation, revolution and militia information could and should fill another CD-ROM. Likewise the peaceful competition between various land reform attempts among all their believers would require another special library on a CD-ROM. But many will have to productively contribute on such projects to reach ca. 2,000 - 2,400 Mbs in plain texts, then zipped town to 650 - 800 Mbs. If you get the single file or combine the two or 6 files into one, then the "find" command will make searches easier. I still intend to provide a contents listing by page number, date, size of letter and summary of main contents by catchwords. You can ask me for that later, while it is not yet added to the intended website. For me this letter exchange between 2 atheist libertarian and anarchistic "Apostles" is something like a pro-freedom "bible", dealing with libertarian essentials and certainly offering more and better genuine values than "the" Bible or any other "holy" book that I know of. It also contains some interesting criticism of Christianity, among many other things. It is also a kind of informal correspondence course on freedom. In future, I hope, your input will be added, as I did add my comments to these letters. To get it this exchange to this stage took me about half a year! Its main subject is full monetary freedom, to which B. fully subscribed and M. only partly. If you know of more thoughtful, ideas-rich and accessible correspondence, why don't you point it out to me? I felt free to add my comments - and so could you, if you publish the file in some way or the other or pass it on to friends. In a first batch, yesterday, I send the 2 Mbs zipped file to 17 addresses. I will not step on other people's toes like that again. At least two got through, without trouble. The things one does in the first enthusiasm of finally having finished a job of 6 months! It's an old fallacy to believe that whatever has been one's main interest for most of one's life would or should also be of some interest to other people who are also freedom lovers of some kind or the other. Now I make the acquisition of this ideas and opinion exchange a bit easier and optional for you by offering smaller files. One feedback, apart from Christian Butterbach's, came from Mike Aldana mike@axxess.net . - He stated that he and Tom Greco work on the E. C. Riegel archives to post them on www.newapproachtofreedom.info (Later:www.reinventingmoney.com - J.Z., 25.12.03.) The freedom fight does cause, inevitably, some troubles and requires enormous patience and tolerance. With this new offer I hope to reduce the trouble for you. Naturally, I cannot send you the time to read ca. 1,200 pages. But I believe that some skim-reading or browsing through these letters will bring lead you to some worthwhile information that will interest you. I for one, consider it to be VERY important and have dedicated my life so such ideas, as did Ulrich von Beckerath and Henry Meulen, the former as a Kantian, the latter as an Egoist. I do hold that this letter exchange is worth taking a little trouble with. I do hold copyrights for the writings for U. v. Beckerath and throw them into the public domain, together with my comments, as long as the source is mentioned in all reproductions of the whole or of extracts. Henry Meulen, as a Tuckerian, was also opposed to copyrights and patents and welcomed my reproductions of his writings in my PEACE PLANS series. An incomplete set of his THE INDIVIDUALIST is offered by me on my LMP microfiche, together with an index by him and by me. The Australian National Library in Canberra and the Sydney State Library of NSW have many of the back issues of THE INDIVIDUALIST. I leave it to others to bring them to the light of microfiche reading machines or computer screens. Many of the other writings of Ulrich von Beckerath have already been microfiched by me. Many more will follow, alas, mostly only in German, but also with some more translations of his writings into English. Available, for the time being, via e-mail through me, are also PEACE PLANS 1-20, 41, 183, and SLOGANS FOR LIBERTY, A - J., in small batches. Later they may also appear on a website or on CD-ROM. For Beckerath's three monetary freedom books, in Peace Plans 9-11, that is already planned. For my main website, listing the LMP Literature, see www.acenet.com.au/~jzube It contains, in the appendix, 2 monetary freedom and 2 panarchistic papers. My main literature list is also reproduced on the Butterbach.net and there together with the supplementary PEACE PLANS list www.butterbach.net/lmp/ and some other of my writings and MUCH other material that Christian Butterbach offers on numerous pages to all freedom and peace lovers. PIOT, John Zube, 3.6.03.