Voluntary Socialism: A Sketch
Francis Dashwood Tandy
6×6″, 192 pages, perfect bound
Stand Alone | SA1215

Available from: Underworld Amusements | Amazon.com | Amazon.UK

Francis Dashwood Tandy (1867–1913) was frequently asked, “Can you recommend some book which will give me a brief but lucid outline of your ideas?” Despite the excellent existing literature on “voluntaryism,” nothing stood out as a primer on the subject, so he wrote Voluntary Socialism.

Tandy was part of the “Denver Circle,” a handful of thinkers who worked their ideas out in the pages of radical journals. Age of Thought, and other journals edited by Edward H. Fulton hosted their writing, as well as Benjamin R. Tucker’s Liberty. Tucker was one of the most influential figures associated with a school of thought known as individualist anarchism. Tandy’s book was one of the first in America to give serious treatment to philosophical egoism, a worldview first articulated by the German post-Hegelian philosopher Max Stirner in 1844.

Voluntary Socialism gives a well-considered introduction to his milieus’ views on banking, profit, transportation, personal freedom, and more. Tandy’s anti-state socialism, founded on egoism and evolution, still echoes in modern libertarian circles and post-left writers to this day.