Inventor, Christian minister, writer, land reformer
Spouse
Amanda Gray
(
m. 1837; died 1879)
Joshua King Ingalls (July 16, 1816 – Mar 3, 1899) was an American inventor, Christian minister,[1] writer and land reformer who influenced contemporary
individualist anarchists, despite never self-identifying as one.[2][3]
Biography
Ingalis was born in
Swansea, Massachusetts on July 16, 1816.[4] He married Amanda Gray (1819–1879) on October 29, 1837; they had four children.[5]
Ingalls was an associate of
Benjamin Tucker and the
Boston anarchists. He believed that government protection of idle land was the foundational source of all limitations on individual
liberty. This was in disagreement with Tucker who, while also opposing protection of idle land, believed that government protection of the "banking monopoly" was the greatest evil. Like the individualist anarchists of the United States, Ingalls believed in a form of
free-market socialism where "Every man will be rewarded according to his work" and each person was to receive the "...whole product of his labor."[1] And even denounced capitalism in his critique of land monopoly.[6] Ingalls first learned of the
mutualism of
Proudhon through
Charles A. Dana's articles titled "European Socialism".[1] His three main influences were Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
Josiah Warren, and
Stephen Pearl Andrews.[1]
^J. K. Ingalls, Land ReformerArchived 2006-01-17 at the
Wayback Machine; excerpted from Men Against the State by
James J. Martin "Although, neither Ingalls nor Andrews ever regarded themselves as anarchists, they each managed in their own way to contribute ideas of great significance and consequence to those who did."