Monday, June 02, 2008

Mala šola ANARHIJE

1. Kaj pomeni "anarhija"?

Pojem izvira iz grških besed an (brez) in arche (oblast), kar dobesedno pomeni brezvladje, v družbeno - filozofskem smislu pa označuje družbo brez oblasti in vseh oblik prisile, ki temelji na pravici, enakosti in medsebojnem sodelovanju svobodnih posameznikov.

2. Kaj hočejo anarhisti?

* Ukinitev vlade in vsake oblasti, ki deluje po načelih prisile in svojo voljo vsiljuje drugim.
* Svobodno družbo enakopravnih posameznikov, ki bo temeljila na medsebojnem sodelovanju, ne pa na principu ukazujoče oblasti in poslušnih državljanov.
* Odpravo zasebne lastnine zemlje, surovin in delovnih sredstev, s katerimi lastniki izkoriščajo delo drugih

3. Zakaj bi ukinili državo?

Samo v 20. stoletju so države pomorile preko 100 milijonov ljudi, naj bo v vojnah, koncentracijskih taboriščih, ali s terorjem, zatiranjem in stradanjem svojega prebivalstva. Države so vedno zatirale manjšine in oporečnike, ter vseskozi ovirale prizadevanja za intelektualni, moralni, kulturni in ekonomski napredek človeštva.

4. Kako doseči anarhijo?

Mirna pot je edina, po kateri je mogoče vzpostaviti anarhistično družbo. Ne revolucija, temveč postopna preobrazba družbe, v smeri širjenja pravic posameznikov in ukinjanja privilegijev, ki omogočajo izbrancem izkoriščanje vseh ostalih.
Od sužnjelastništva do sodobne demokracija je bila prehojena dolga pot in danes si prizadevamo za naslednji korak: ozdravitvi družbo predsodka, da je oblast koristna ali celo nujno potrebna in da bi brez nje zavladali kaos, nered in nasilje. Ko bo zadostno število ljudi spregledalo to lažno iluzijo, se bodo vrata anarhije na široko odprla.

5. Je družba brez oblasti sploh mogoča?

Najpomembnejše družbene funkcije se že zdaj izvajajo brez vmešavanja oblasti. Ljudje delajo, trgujejo, se učijo, potujejo in imajo nešteto skupnih interesov, ne da bi kdajkoli začutili potrebo, da jih kdo upravlja in jim predpisuje, kako naj se obnašajo v teh zadevah. Z oblastjo imajo navadno opravka samo takrat, ko ta od njih kaj zahteva.

6. Kaj pa če je človek po naravi tiran in nasilnež?

Človekova narava je kompleksna in polna nasprotij; človek lahko sovraži in ljubi, je krut in usmiljen, sebičen in radodaren, sposoben je moriti in se žrtvovati za druge, želi vladati in da mu vladajo. Človekova narava je med drugim tudi anarhistična - želi si svobode in se upira vsemu, kar jo utesnjuje.
Zato ni prav nobenega razloga za prepričanje, da so ravno nasilnost in želja po vladanju tiste najizrazitejše človekove lastnosti, na katerih bi morala temeljiti družba.

7. Kdo bi nas branil pred zločinci, če ne bi bilo policije?

Z ukinitvijo zakonov, ki vzdržujejo prepad med bogatimi in revnimi, bi izginili tudi motivi za celo vrsto danes najbolj pogostih zločinov. Nadalje, če bi podrli hierarhično piramido, na kateri stoji avtoriteta oblasti, bi se rešili vseh zločinov, povezanih z bojem za oblast. Med preostalimi zločini je največ takih, ki so storjeni v afektu in jih zato z nikakršnimi ukrepi ni mogoče preprečiti. V manj stresni družbi pa bilo tudi teh zločinov manj.
Sploh pa glavni namen državnega represivnega aparata ni zaščita državljanov, ampak varovanje interesov vladajoče elite. Vse individualne kršitve zakonov skupaj so prav neznatne, če jih primerjamo z zakonitimi zločini, ki jih države izvajajo proti posameznikom in drugim narodom.

8. So anarhisti pristaši nereda in nasilja?

Nasprotno, anarhizem pomeni red brez vlade in mir brez nasilja. Govori o miru in harmoniji, nenapadanju in nedotakljivosti življenja in svobode. Anarhisti so humani, kakor je human ostali del človeštva, morda še bolj. Občutljivi so za slabo in krivično, hitrejši so pri obsodbi zatiranja, zato se nekateri pri izražanju protesta poslužujejo tudi nasilja. Toda taka dejanja so izraz individualnega temperamenta in ne kake določene teorije.

9. Kaj je oblast?

Oblast ni abstraktna družbena sila, ki bi ji po naravi pripadala pravica do vladanja - oblast je skupek gospodarjev. In gospodarji - kralji, predsedniki, ministri - so tisti, ki imajo moč, da sprejemajo zakone, in moč, da vsakogar prisilijo, da se tem zakonom pokori. To so tisti, ki odločajo o davkih, predpisujejo vojno obveznost, sodijo in kaznujejo kršilce zakona, napovedujejo vojne in sklepajo mir z oblastmi drugih držav. To niso bogovi ampak iznajdljivi ljudje, ki izrabljajo našo lastno moč, da nam vladajo.

10. Kaj je država?

Država je sklop institucij, političnih, zakonodajnih, sodnih, vojnih, finančnih itd., s pomočjo katerih je ljudem odvzeto upravljanje svojih zadev in odločanje o lastnem ravnanju; vse to je zaupano določenim posameznikom, ki jim je dana pravica, da sprejemajo zakone za vse in o vsem in da ljudi prisilijo k spoštovanju teh zakonov, za kar uporabljajo moč celotne skupnosti.

11. Kaj je narobe z demokracijo?

Demokracija, celo v svoji idealni obliki, ne pomeni drugega kot diktaturo večine nad manjšino. Večina lahko uveljavi svojo voljo zato, ker je močnejša - to pa je surovi zakon močnejšega, ki mu je človeški razum že zdavnaj odrekel legitimnost. Posameznik bi bil dolžan spoštovati voljo večine (oz. njenih predstavnikov - vlade) samo, če bi vnaprej pristal na takšen način odločanja. Prvo pravilo demokracije, ki pravi: podredil se bom volji večine - bi moralo biti sprejeto s 100% soglasjem, če naj bi bilo legitimno in obvezujoče za vse. Kdor tega pravila ne sprejme prostovoljno, ga ni dolžan spoštovati. Če ga prisilijo, legitimizirajo zakon močnejšega, s tem pa demokracijo izenačijo z diktaturo.
Ko te država razglasi za volilnega upravičenca, te pahne v igro, ne da bi te vprašala, če se strinjaš z njenimi pravili. Vlado moraš brezpogojno ubogati, čeprav nisi nikoli podpisal, da se boš volji večine brezpogojno podrejal.

12. Ali ne dajejo volitve vsem ljudem možnosti odločanja?

Volitve so prebrisana sleparija, ki daje ljudem lažni občutek nadzora. Kakorkoli obračamo filozofijo in matematiko, dejstvo ostaja, da nima posameznik praktično nobenega vpliva na izbiro oblasti. Tvoj glas ničesar ne spremeni, tvoj vpliv na vlado je skoraj enak nuli - po drugi strani pa ima vlada nesorazmerno veliko moč nad tabo.

Tudi izbira, ki naj bi jo imeli volilci, je navadna laž: konkurenčne stranke praviloma pihajo v isti rog, le o postranskih zadevah se med seboj teatralno pričkajo. Volitve premešajo nekaj stolčkov in to je vse. Resnično možnost izbire imajo volilci samo ob redkih velikih prelomnicah, kakršna se je v Sloveniji nazadnje zgodila leta 1991.

13. Kakšna oblast bi bila boljša od demokratično izvoljene?

Nobena; kljub vsemu je demokracija še vedno druga najboljša možnost, takoj za anarhijo.
Sam pojem "dobra oblast" je protisloven: vladati, pomeni zahtevati od človeka, da lastne želje podredi vladarjevim, to pa zanj ne more biti dobro. Ljudje res nismo popolna in absolutno razumna bitja, zato se marsikdaj zmotimo - ampak to velja tudi za oblastnike. Tudi vladarji so zmotljivi, zraven tega pa njihov glavni interes ni naša korist, temveč njihova lastna. Vlada deluje v korist vladanih samo toliko, kolikor je nujno potrebno, da ostane na oblasti.

14. Ali v sodobnih demokracijah vlada nasilje?

Vse naše življenje temelji na nasilju ali strahu pred njim. Že od najzgodnejšega otroštva ste podvrženi nasliju staršev in starejših ljudi. Doma, v šoli, v pisarni, na delu, na polju ali v trgovini - povsod lahko naletimo na kako avtoriteto, zaradi katere smo poslušni ali ki nas prisili, da ravnamo po njeni volji. Vsiljujejo nam zakone in pravila, ki vplivajo na skoraj vsak aspekt našega vedenja. Povsod smo vklenjeni v okove, od katerih jih je večina nepotrebnih in škodljivih.

15. Za kaj gre pri kapitalizmu?

V kapitalizmu si stojita nasproti dva razreda: lastniki (vladajoči razred) in delavci (delavski razred). Več ko delavski razred pridobi, manj vladajoči razred ima.
Vladajoči razred je manjšina, ki svojo lastnino (tovarne, podjetja, zemljišča) varuje pred večino z represivnimi sredstvi, ki vključujejo raznovrstna orodja, od propagande s strani izobraževalnega sistema in cerkve, do državnih sodišč, policije in vojske.

16. Če lastnik delavca pošteno plača, potem to vendar ni izkoriščanje?

Delavec nikoli ni pošteno plačan. Za vrhunsko plačanega strokovnjaka velja isto, kot za tovarniškega delavca ali rudarja: od njegovega dela ima nekdo drug več koristi, kot on sam. Lahko si dobro ali celo odlično plačan za svoje delo, a vendar nekje obstaja nekdo - namreč lastnik podjetja - ki mu tvoje delo prinaša še več dobička kot tebi, čeprav niti s prstom ne migne. Temu ni mogeče reči pošteno.

17. Ali nimamo v kapitalizmu vsi enkih možnosti?

Možnosti posameznika so v kapitalizmu res precej odvisne od osebnih sposobnosti, še bolj pa okoliščin, v katerih se je rodil. Bogatašev sin ima v izhodišču velikansko prednost pred revežem.

18. Je kapitalizem mogoče popraviti in izboljšati?

Kapitalizem ima več nepopravljivih strukturnih napk, ena bolj grozljivih je ta, da daje prednost tistim posameznikom, ki so obdarjeni z lastnostmi kot so grabežljivost, povzpetništvo, zvijačnost, dvoličnost in podobno. Takšni ljudje imajo največje možnosti, da se pozpnejo na vrh in potem krojijo usode celim narodom ali pa kar celemu človeštvu.

Mcquinn / Bakunin / Chomsky / Kropotkin

Prologue to Post-Left Anarchy

Author: Jason McQuinn
Publishing date: 10.11.2003 13:18


It is now nearly a decade and a half since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is seven years since Bob Black first sent me the manu­script for his book, Anarchy after Leftism, published in 1997. It's over four years since I asked Anarchy magazine Contributing Editors to participate in a discussion of “post-left anarchy” which ultimately appeared in the Fall/Winter 1999-2000 issue of the magazine (#48). And it's also one year since I first wrote and published “Post-Left Anarchy: Rejecting the Reification of Revolt,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2002-2003 issue (#54) of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed.

Jason McQuinn became an anarchist after encountering the writings of Paul Goodman in the late '60s while living in St. Louis. Since that time he has dedicated himself to encouraging the growth of a self-critical anarchist milieu through development of various radical media projects, most notably Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, the North American Anarchist Review, Modern Slavery and the Alternative Press Review, along with the C.A.L. Press book publishing project. Anarchy magazine, started in 1980, is one of the most widely read anarchist periodicals in North America. The Alternative Press Review has an even larger circulation, primarily aiming to reach those outside the anarchist milieu. Over the years Jason McQuinn has also been involved in a wide range of other radical projects: numerous interventions, protests, collectives, co-operatives and other groups. He has been especially influenced by Paul Goodman, Max Stirner, Raoul Vaneigem and Fredy Perlman. And he remains committed, as the cover of each Anarchy magazine issue declares, to working "Towards a society based on mutual aid, voluntary cooperation and the liberation of desire."

Aside from creating a hot new topic for debate in anarchist and leftist periodicals, web sites and e-mail lists, one can legitimately ask what has been accomplished by introducing the term and the debate to the anarchist, and more generally radical, milieu? In response I'd say that the reaction continues to grow, and the promise of post-left anarchy primarily lies in what appears to be a continually brightening future.
One of the most troubling problems of the contemporary anarchist milieu has been the frequent fixation on attempts to recreate the struggles of the past as though nothing significant has changed since 1919, 1936, or at best 1968. Partly this is a function of the long-prevalent anti-intellectualism amongst many anarchists. Partly it's a result of the historical eclipse of the anarchist movement following the victory of Bolshevik state communism and the (self‑) defeat of the Spanish Revolution. And partly it is because the vast majority of the most important anarchist theorists—like Godwin, Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Malatesta—come from the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The void in the development of anarchist theory since the rebirth of the milieu in the 1960s has yet to be filled by any adequate new formulation of theory and practice powerful enough to end the impasse and catch the imaginations of the majority of contemporary anarchists in a similar manner to Bakunin's or Kropotkin's formulations in the nineteenth century.
Since the 1960s the originally minuscule—but since that time, ever-growing—anarchist milieu has been influenced (at least in passing) by the Civil Rights Movement, Paul Goodman, SDS, the Yippies, the anti-Vietnam War movement, Fred Woodworth, the Marxist New Left, the Situationist International, Sam Dolgoff and Murray Bookchin, the single-issue movements (anti-racist, feminist, anti-nuclear, anti-imperialist, environmental/ecological, animal rights, etc.), Noam Chomsky, Freddie Perlman, George Bradford/David Watson, Bob Black, Hakim Bey, Earth First! and Deep Ecology, neo-Paganism and New Ageism, the anti-globalization movement, and many others. Yet these various influences over the last forty years, both non-anarchist and anarchist alike, have failed to bring to the fore any inspiring new synthesis of critical and practical theory. A few anarchists, most notably Murray Bookchin and the Love & Rage project, have tried and failed miserably in attempting to meld the extremely diverse and idiosyncratic anarchist milieu into a genuinely new movement with a commonly-held theory. I would argue that in our current situation this is a project guaranteed to fail no matter who attempts it.
The alternative argued for by the post-left anarchist synthesis is still being created. It cannot be claimed by any single theorist or activist because it's a project that was in the air long before it started becoming a concrete set of proposals, texts and interventions. Those seeking to promote the synthesis have been primarily influenced by both the classical anarchist movement up to the Spanish Revolution on the one hand, and several of the most promising critiques and modes of intervention developed since the 60s. The most important critiques involved include those of everyday life and the spectacle, of ideology and morality, of industrial technology, of work and of civilization. Modes of intervention focus on the concrete deployment of direct action in all facets of life. Rather than aiming at the construction of institutional or bureaucratic structures, these interventions aim at maximal critical effectiveness with minimal compromise in constantly changing networks of action.
Clearly these new critiques and modes of intervention are largely incompatible with both the old left of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and most of the New Left of the 60s and 70s. And just as clearly they are engaging a growing number of anar­chists who gravitate to them because they seem to be much more congruent with the global situation we find ourselves in today than the old theories and tactics of leftism. If anarchism doesn't change to address the lived realities of the twenty-first century—by leaving the outmoded politics and organizational fetishism of leftism behind—its relevance will dissipate and the opportunities for radical contestation now so apparent will slowly vanish. Post-left anarchy is most simply a rubric through which many thoughtful contemporary anarchists would like to see the most vital of the new critiques and modes of intervention coalesce in an increasingly coherent and effective movement, which genuinely promotes unity in diversity, the complete autonomy of individuals and local groups in struggle, and the organic growth of levels of organization which don't hold back our collective energies, spontaneity and creativity.
Introduction
Anarchist critiques of leftism have a history nearly as long as the term “left” has had a political meaning. The early anarchist movement emerged from many of the same struggles as other socialist movements (which made up a major part of the political left), from which it eventually differentiated itself. The anarchist movement and other socialist movements were primarily a product of the social ferment which gave rise to the Age of Revolutions—intro­duced by the English, American and French Revolutions. This was the historical period in which early capitalism was developing through the enclosure of commons to destroy community self-sufficiency, the industrialization of production with a factory system based on scientific techniques, and the aggressive expansion of the commodity market economy throughout the world. But the anarchist idea has always had deeper, more radical and more holistic implications than mere socialist criticism of the exploitation of labor under capitalism. This is because the anarchist idea springs from both the social ferment of the Age of Revolutions and the critical imagination of individuals seeking the abolition of every form of social alienation and domination.
The anarchist idea has an indelibly individualist foundation upon which its social critiques stand, always and everywhere proclaiming that only free individuals can create a free, unalienated society. Just as importantly, this individualist foundation has included the idea that the exploitation or oppression of any individual diminishes the freedom and integrity of all. This is quite unlike the collectivist ideologies of the political left, in which the individual is persistently devalued, denigrated or denied in both theory and practice—though not always in the ideological window dressing that is meant only to fool the naive. It is also what prevents genuine anarchists from taking the path of authoritarians of the left, right and center who casually employ mass exploita­tion, mass oppression and frequently mass imprisonment or murder to capture, protect and expand their holds on political and economic power.
Because anarchists understand that only people freely organizing themselves can create free communities, they refuse to sacrifice individuals or communities in pursuit of the kinds of power that would inevitably prevent the emergence of a free society. But given the almost mutual origins of the anarchist movement and the socialist left, as well as their historical battles to seduce or capture the support of the international workers movement by various means, it isn't surprising that over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries socialists have often adopted aspects of anarchist theory or practice as their own, while even more anarchists have adopted aspects of leftist theory and practice into various left-anarchist syntheses. This is despite the fact that in the worldwide struggles for individual and social freedom the political left has everywhere proven itself either a fraud or a failure in practice. Wherever the socialist left has been success­ful in organizing and taking power it has at best reformed (and rehabilitated) capitalism or at worst instituted new tyrannies, many with murderous policies—some of genocidal proportions.
Thus, with the stunning international disintegration of the political left following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the time is now past due for all anarchists to reevaluate every compromise that has been or continues to be made with the fading remnants of leftism. Whatever usefulness there might have been in the past for anarchists to make compromises with leftism is evaporating with the progressive disappearance of the left from even token opposition to the fundamental institutions of capitalism: wage labor, market production, and the rule of value.
Leftists in the Anarchist Milieu
The rapid slide of the political left from the stage of history has increasingly left the international anarchist milieu as the only revolutionary anti-capitalist game in town. As the anarchist milieu has mushroomed in the last decade, most of its growth has come from disaffected youth attracted to its increasingly visible, lively and iconoclastic activities and media. But a significant minority of that growth has also come from former leftists who have—sometimes slowly and sometimes suspiciously swiftly—decided that anarchists might have been right in their critiques of political authority and the state all along. Unfortunately, not all leftists just fade away—or change their spots—overnight. Most of the former leftists entering the anarchist milieu inevitably bring with them many of the conscious and unconscious leftist attitudes, prejudices, habits and assumptions that structured their old political milieus. Certainly, not all of these attitudes, habits and assumptions are necessarily authoritarian or anti-anarchist, but just as clearly many are.
Part of the problem is that many former leftists tend to misunder­stand anarchism only as a form of anti-statist leftism, ignoring or downplaying its indelibly individualist foundation as irrelevant to social struggles. Many simply don't understand the huge divide between a self-organizing movement seeking to abolish every form of social alienation and a merely political movement seeking to reorganize production in a more egalitarian form. While others do understand the divide quite well, but seek to re-form the anarchist milieu into a political movement anyway, for various reasons. Some former leftists do this because they consider the abolition of social alienation unlikely or impossible; some because they remain fundamentally opposed to any individualist (or sexual, or cultural, etc.) component of social theory and practice. Some cynically realize that they will never achieve any position of power in a genuinely anarchist movement and opt for building more narrowly political organizations with more room for manipulation. Still others, unused to autonomous thinking and practice, simply feel anxious and uncomfortable with many aspects of the anarchist tradition and wish to push those aspects of leftism within the anarchist milieu that help them feel less threatened and more secure—so that they can continue to play their former roles of cadre or militant, just without an explicitly authoritarian ideology to guide them.
In order to understand current controversies within the anarchist milieu, anarchists need to remain constantly aware—and carefully critical—of all this. Ad hominem attacks within the anarchist milieu are nothing new, and most often a waste of time, because they substitute for rational criticism of people's actual posi­tions. (Too often rational criticism of positions is simply ignored by those unable to argue for their own positions, whose only recourse is to wild or irrelevant accusations or attempted smears.) But there remains an important place for ad hominem criticism addressed to people's chosen identities, especially when these identities are so strong that they include sedimented, often unconscious, layers of habits, prejudices and dependencies. These habits, prejudices and dependencies—leftist or otherwise—all constitute highly appropriate targets for anarchist criticism.
Recuperation and the Left-Wing of Capital
Historically, the vast majority of leftist theory and practice has functioned as a loyal opposition to capitalism. Leftists have been (often vociferously) critical of particular aspects of capitalism, but always ready to reconcile themselves with the broader interna­tional capitalist system whenever they've been able to extract a bit of power, partial reforms—or sometimes, just the vague promise of partial reforms. For this reason leftists have often been quite justifiably criticized (by both ultra-leftists and by anarchists) as the left wing of capital.
It's not just a problem that those leftists who claim to be anti-capitalist don't really mean it, although some have consciously used such lies to gain positions of power for themselves in opposition movements. The major problem is that leftists have incomplete, self-contradictory theories about capitalism and social change. As a result their practice always tends towards the recuperation (or co-optation and reintegration) of social rebel­lion. Always with a focus on organization, leftists use a variety of tactics in their attempts to reify and mediate social struggles—representation and substitution, imposition of collectivist ideologies, collectivist moralism, and ultimately repressive violence in one form or another. Typically, leftists have employed all of these tactics in the most unrepentently heavy-handed and explicitly authoritarian of ways. But these tactics (except for the last) can also be—and have often been—employed in more subtle, less-overtly authoritarian ways as well, the most important examples for our purposes being the historical and present practices of many (but not all) left anarchists.
Reification is often most generally described as “thingification.” It's the reduction of a complex, living process to a frozen, dead or mechanical collection of objects or actions. Political mediation (a form of practical reification) is the attempt to intervene in conflicts as a third-party arbiter or representative. Ultimately these are the definitive characteristics of all leftist theory and practice. Leftism always involves the reification and mediation of social revolt, while consistent anarchists reject this reification of revolt. The formulation of post-left anarchy is an attempt to help make this rejection of the reification of revolt more consistent, widespread and self-aware than it already is.
Anarchy as a Theory & Critique of Organization
One of the most fundamental principles of anarchism is that social organization must serve free individuals and free groups, not vice versa. Anarchy cannot exist when individuals or social groups are dominated—whether that domination is facilitated and enforced by outside forces or by their own organization.
For anarchists the central strategy of would-be revolutionaries has been the non-mediating (anti-authoritarian, often informal or minimalist) self-organization of radicals (based on affinity and/or specific theoretical/practical activities) in order to encourage and participate in the self-organization of popular rebellion and insurrection against capital and state in all their forms. Even among most left anarchists there has always been at least some level of understanding that mediating organizations are at best highly unstable and unavoidably open to recuperation, requiring constant vigilance and struggle to avoid their complete recupera­tion.
But for all leftists (including left anarchists), on the other hand, the central strategy is always expressly focused on creating mediating organizations between capital & state on the one side and the mass of disaffected, relatively powerless people on the other. Usually these organizations have been focused on mediating between capitalists and workers or between the state and the working class. But many other mediations involving opposition to particular institutions or involving interventions among particular groups (social minorities, subgroups of the working class, etc.) have been common.
These mediating organizations have included political parties, syndicalist unions, mass political organizations, front groups, single-issue campaign groups, etc. Their goals are always to crystallize and congeal certain aspects of the more general social revolt into set forms of ideology and congruent forms of activity. The construction of formal, mediating organizations always and necessarily involves at least some levels of:
• Reductionism (Only particular aspects of the social struggle are included in these organizations. Other aspects are ignored, invalidated or repressed, leading to further and further compartmentalization of the struggle. Which in turn facilitates manipulation by elites and their eventual transformation into purely reformist lobbying societies with all generalized, radical critique emptied out.)
• Specialization or Professionalism (Those most involved in the day-to-day operation of the organization are selected—or self-selected—to perform increasingly specialized roles within the organization, often leading to an official division between leaders and led, with gradations of power and influence intro­duced in the form of intermediary roles in the evolving organi­zational hierarchy.)
• Substitutionism (The formal organization increasingly becomes the focus of strategy and tactics rather than the people-in-revolt. In theory and practice, the organization tends to be progressively substituted for the people, the organization's leadership—especially if it has become formal—tends to substi­tute itself for the organization as a whole, and eventually a maximal leader often emerges who ends up embodying and control­ling the organization.)
• Ideology (The organization becomes the primary subject of theory with individuals assigned roles to play, rather than people constructing their own self-theories. All but the most self-consciously anarchistic formal organizations tend to adapt some form of collectivist ideology, in which the social group at some level is acceded to have more political reality than the free individual. Wherever sovereignty lies, there lies political authority; if sovereignty is not dissolved into each and every person it always requires the subjugation of individuals to a group in some form.)
All anarchist theories of self-organization, on the contrary, call for (in various ways and with different emphases):
• Individual and Group Autonomy with Free Initiative (The autono­mous individual is the fundamental basis of all genuinely anarchistic theories of organization, for without the autonomous individual, any other level of autonomy is impossible. Freedom of initiative is likewise fundamental for both individuals and groups. With no higher powers comes the ability and necessity for all decisions to be made at their point of immediate impact. As a side note, post-structuralists or postmodernists who deny the existence of the autonomous anarchist individual most often mistake the valid critique of the metaphysical subject to imply that even the process of lived subjectivity is a complete fiction—a self-deluded perspective which would make social theory impossible and unnecessary.)
• Free Association (Association is never free if it is forced. This means that people are free to associate with anyone in any combination they wish, and to dissociate or refuse association as well.)
• Refusal of Political Authority, and thus of Ideology (The word “anarchy” literally means no rule or no ruler. No rule and no ruler both mean there is no political authority above people themselves, who can and should make all of their own decisions however they see fit. Most forms of ideology function to legitimate the authority of one or another elite or institution to make decisions for people, or else they serve to delegitimate people's own decision-making for themselves.)
• Small, Simple, Informal, Transparent and Temporary Organization (Most anarchists agree that small face-to-face groups allow the most complete participation with the least amount of unnecessary specialization. The most simply structured and least complex organizations leave the least opportunity for the development of hierarchy and bureaucracy. Informal organization is the most protean and most able to continually adapt itself to new conditions. Open and transparent organization is the most easily understood and controlled by its members. The longer organiza­tions exist the more susceptible they usually become to the development of rigidity, specialization and eventually hierar­chy. Organizations have life spans, and it is rare that any anarchist organization will be important enough that it should exist over generations.)
• Decentralized, Federal Organization with Direct Decision-Making and Respect for Minorities (When they are necessary larger, more complex and formal organizations can only remain self-manageable by their participants if they are decentralized and federal. When face-to-face groups—with the possibility for full partici­pation and convivial discussion and decision-making—become impossible due to size, the best course is to decentralize the organization with many smaller groups in a federal structure. Or when smaller groups need to organize with peer groups to better address larger-scale problems, free federation is preferred—with absolute self-determination at every level beginning with the base. As long as groups remain of manageable size, assemblies of all concerned must be able to directly make decisions according to whatever methods they find agreeable. However, minorities can never be forced into agreement with majorities on the basis of any fictitious conception of group sovereignty. Anarchy is not direct democracy, though anarchists may certainly choose to use democratic methods of decision-making when and where they wish. The only real respect for minority opinions involves accepting that minorities have the same powers as majorities, requiring negotiation and the greatest level of mutual agreement for stable, effective group decision-making)
In the end, the biggest difference is that anarchists advocate self-organization while leftists want to organize you. For leftists, the emphasis is always on recruiting to their organiza­tions, so that you can adopt the role of a cadre serving their goals. They don't want to see you adopt your own self-determined theory and activities because then you wouldn't be allowing them to manipulate you. Anarchists want you to determine your own theory and activity and self-organize your activity with like-minded others. Leftists want to create ideological, strategic and tactical unity through “self-discipline” (your self-repression) when possible, or organizational discipline (threat of sanctions) when necessary. Either way, you are expected to give up your autonomy to follow their heteronomous path that has already been marked out for you.
Anarchy as a Theory & Critique of Ideology
The anarchist critique of ideology dates from the work of Max Stirner, though he did not use the term himself to describe his critique. Ideology is the means by which alienation, domination and exploitation are all rationalized and justified through the deformation of human thought and communication. All ideology in essence involves the substitution of alien (or incomplete) concepts or images for human subjectivity. Ideologies are systems of false consciousness in which people no longer see themselves directly as subjects in their relation to their world. Instead they conceive of themselves in some manner as subordinate to one type or another of abstract entity or entities which are mistaken as the real subjects or actors in their world.
Whenever any system of ideas and duties is structured with an abstraction at its center—assigning people roles or duties for its own sake—such a system is always an ideology. All the various forms of ideology are structured around different abstractions, yet they all always serve the interests of hierarchical and alienating social structures, since they are hierarchy and alienation in the realm of thought and communication. Even if an ideology rhetori­cally opposes hierarchy or alienation in its content, its form still remains consistent with what is ostensibly being opposed, and this form will always tend to undermine the apparent content of the ideology. Whether the abstraction is God, the State, the Party, the Organization, Technology, the Family, Humanity, Peace, Ecology, Nature, Work, Love, or even Freedom; if it is conceived and presented as if it is an active subject with a being of its own which makes demands of us, then it is the center of an ideology. Capitalism, Individualism, Communism, Socialism, and Pacifism are each ideological in important respects as they are usually conceived. Religion and Morality are always ideological by their very definitions. Even resistance, revolution and anarchy often take on ideological dimensions when we are not careful to maintain a critical awareness of how we are thinking and what the actual purposes of our thoughts are. Ideology is nearly ubiquitous. From advertisements and commercials, to academic treatises and scien­tific studies, almost every aspect of contemporary thinking and communication is ideological, and its real meaning for human subjects is lost under layers of mystification and confusion.
Leftism, as the reification and mediation of social rebellion, is always ideological because it always demands that people conceive of themselves first of all in terms of their roles within and relationships to leftist organizations and oppressed groups, which are in turn considered more real than the individuals who combine to create them. For leftists history is never made by individuals, but rather by organizations, social groups, and—above all, for Marxists—social classes. Each major leftist organization usually molds its own ideological legitimation whose major points all members are expected to learn and defend, if not proselytize. To seriously criticize or question this ideology is always to risk expulsion from the organization.
Post-left anarchists reject all ideologies in favor of the individual and communal construction of self-theory. Individual self-theory is theory in which the integral individual-in-context (in all her or his relationships, with all her or his history, desires, and projects, etc.) is always the subjective center of perception, understanding and action. Communal self-theory is similarly based on the group as subject, but always with an underlying awareness of the individuals (and their own self-theories) which make up the group or organization. Non-ideological, anarchist organizations (or informal groups) are always explicitly based upon the autonomy of the individuals who construct them, quite unlike leftist organizations which require the surrender of personal autonomy as a prerequisite for membership.
Neither God, nor Master, nor Moral Order:
Anarchy as Critique of Morality and Moralism
The anarchist critique of morality also dates from Stirner's master work, The Ego and Its Own (1844). Morality is a system of reified values—abstract values which are taken out of any context, set in stone, and converted into unquestionable beliefs to be applied regardless of a person's actual desires, thoughts or goals, and regardless of the situation in which a person finds him- or herself. Moralism is the practice of not only reducing living values to reified morals, but of considering oneself better than others because one has subjected oneself to morality (self-righteousness), and of proselytizing for the adoption of morality as a tool of social change.
Often, when people's eyes are opened by scandals or disillusion­ment and they start to dig down under the surface of the ideologies and received ideas they have taken for granted all their lives, the apparent coherence and power of the new answer they find (whether in religion, leftism or even anarchism) can lead them to believe that they have now found the Truth (with a capital ‘T'). Once this begins to happen people too often turn onto the road of moralism, with its attendant problems of elitism and ideology. Once people succumb to the illusion that they have found the one Truth that would fix everything—if only enough other people also understood, the temptation is then to view this one Truth as the solution to the implied Problem around which everything must be theorized, which leads them to build an absolute value system in defense of their magic Solution to the Problem this Truth points them to. At this point moralism takes over the place of critical thinking.
The various forms of leftism encourage different types of morality and moralism, but most generally within leftism the Problem is that people are exploited by capitalists (or dominated by them, or alienated from society or from the productive process. etc.). The Truth is that the People need to take control of the Economy (and/or Society) into their own hands. The biggest Obstacle to this is the Ownership and Control of the Means of Production by the Capitalist Class backed up by its monopoly over the use of legalized violence through its control of the political State. To overcome this people must be approached with evangelical fervor to convince them to reject all aspects, ideas and values of Capitalism and adopt the culture, ideas and values of an idealized notion of the Working Class in order to take over the Means of Production by breaking the power of the Capitalist Class and constituting the power of the Working Class (or its representative institutions, if not their Central Committees or its Supreme Leader) over all of Society.... This often leads to some form of Workerism (usually including the adoption of the dominant image of the culture of the working class, in other words, working-class lifestyles), a belief in (usually Scientific) Organizational Salvation, belief in the Science of (the inevitable victory of the Proletariat in) Class Struggle, etc. And therefore tactics consistent with building the fetishized One True Organization of the Working Class to contest for Economic and Political Power. An entire value system is built around a particular, highly oversimplified conception of the world, and moral categories of good and evil are substituted for critical evaluation in terms of individual and communal subjectivity.
The descent into moralism is never an automatic process. It is a tendency which naturally manifests itself whenever people start down the path of reified social critique. Morality always involves derailing the development of a consistent critical theory of self and society. It short-circuits the development of strategy and tactics appropriate for this critical theory, and encourages an emphasis on personal and collective salvation through living up to the ideals of this morality, by idealizing a culture or lifestyle as virtuous and sublime, while demonizing everything else as being either the temptations or perversions of evil. One inevitable emphasis then becomes the petty, continuous attempt to enforce the boundaries of virtue and evil by policing the lives of anyone who claims to be a member of the in-group sect, while self-righteously denouncing out-groups. In the workerist milieu, for example, this means attacking anyone who doesn't sing paeans to the virtues of working class organization (and especially to the virtues of the One True form of Organization), or to the virtues of the dominant image of Working Class culture or lifestyles (whether it be beer drinking instead of drinking wine, rejecting hip subcultures, or driving a Ford or Chevy instead of BMWs or Volvos). The goal, of course, is to maintain the lines of inclusion and exclusion between the in-group and the out-group (the out-group being variously portrayed in highly industrialized countries as the Middle and Upper Classes, or the Petty Bourgeois and Bourgeois, or the Managers and Capitalists big and small).
Living up to morality means sacrificing certain desires and temptations (regardless of the actual situation you might find yourself in) in favor of the rewards of virtue. Don't ever eat meat. Don't ever drive SUVs. Don't ever work 9-5. Don't ever scab. Don't ever vote. Don't ever talk to a cop. Don't ever take money from the government. Don't ever pay taxes. Don't ever etc., etc. Not a very attractive way to go about living your life for anyone interested in critically thinking about the world and evaluating what to do for oneself.
Rejecting Morality involves constructing a critical theory of one's self and society (always self-critical, provisional and never totalistic) in which a clear goal of ending one's social alienation is never confused with reified partial goals. It involves emphasiz­ing what people have to gain from radical critique and solidarity rather than what people must sacrifice or give up in order to live virtuous lives of politically correct morality.
Post-Left Anarchy:
Neither Left, nor Right, but Autonomous
Post-left anarchy is not something new and different. It's neither a political program nor an ideology. It's not meant in any way to constitute some sort of faction or sect within the more general anarchist milieu. It's in no way an opening to the political right; the right and left have always had much more in common with each other than either has in common with anarchism. And it's certainly not intended as a new commodity in the already crowded marketplace of pseudo-radical ideas. It is simply intended as a restatement of the most fundamental and important anarchist positions within the context of a disintegrating international political left.
If we want to avoid being taken down with the wreckage of leftism as it crumbles, we need to fully, consciously and explicitly dissociate ourselves from its manifold failures—and especially from the invalid presuppositions of leftism which led to these failures. This doesn't mean that it's impossible for anarchists to also consider themselves leftists—there has been a long, most often honorable, history of anarchist and left syntheses. But it does mean that in our contemporary situation it is not possible for anyone—even left-anarchists—to avoid confronting the fact that the failures of leftism in practice require a complete critique of leftism and an explicit break with every aspect of leftism implicated in its failures.
Left anarchists can no longer avoid subjecting their own leftism to intensive critique. From this point on it is simply not sufficient (not that it really ever has been) to project all the failures of leftism onto the most explicitly obnoxious varieties and episodes of leftist practice, like Leninism, Trotskyism and Stalinism. The critiques of leftist statism and leftist party organization have always been only the tip of a critique that must now explicitly encompass the entire iceberg of leftism, including those aspects often long incorporated into the traditions of anarchist practice. Any refusal to broaden and deepen the criticism of leftism constitutes a refusal to engage in the self-examination necessary for genuine self-understanding. And stubborn avoidance of self-understanding can never be justified for anyone seeking radical social change.
We now have the unprecedented historical opportunity, along with a plenitude of critical means, to recreate an international anarchist movement that can stand on its own and bow to no other movements. All that remains is for all of us to take this opportu­nity to critically reformulate our anarchist theories and reinvent our anarchist practices in light of our most fundamental desires and goals.
Reject the reification of revolt. Leftism is dead! Long live anarchy!

posted by Alternativa.Obstaja at 5:31 PM | 0 comments
Bakunin, Chomsky, Ema Goldman, Kropotkin

Stateless Socialism: Anarchism
by Mikhail Bakunin 1814-1876

From "The Political Philosophy of Bakunin"
by G.P. Maximoff
1953, The Free Press, NY

Effect of the Great Principles Proclaimed by the French Revolution. From the time when the Revolution brought down to the masses its Gospel - not the mystic but the rational, not the heavenly but the earthly, not the divine but the human Gospel, the Gospel of the Rights of Man - ever since it proclaimed that all men are equal, that all men are entitled to liberty and equality, the masses of all European countries, of all the civilized world, awakening gradually from the sleep which had kept them in bondage ever since Christianity drugged them with its opium, began to ask themselves whether they too, had the right to equality, freedom, and humanity.
As soon as this question was posed, the people, guided by their admirable sound sense as well as by their instincts, realized that the first condition of their real emancipation, or of their humanization, was above all a radical change in their economic situation. The question of daily bread is to them justly the first question, for as it was noted by Aristotle, man, in order to think, in order to feel himself free, in order to become man, must be freed from the material cares of daily life. For that matter, the bourgeois, who are so vociferous in their outcries against the materialism of the people and who preach to the latter the abstinences of idealism, know it very well, for they themselves preach it only by word and not by example.
The second question arising before the people - that of leisure after work - is the indispensable condition of humanity. But bread and leisure can never be obtained apart from a radical transformation of existing society, and that explains why the Revolution, impelled by the implications of its own principles, gave birth to Socialism.
Socialism Is Justice...Socialism is justice. When we speak of justice, we understand thereby not the justice contained in the Codes and in Roman jurisprudence - which were based to a great extent upon facts of violence achieved by force, violence consecrated by time and by the benedictions of some church or other (Christian or pagan), and as such accepted as absolute principles, from which all law is to be deduced by a process of logical reasoning - no, we speak of that justice which is based solely upon human conscience, the justice to be found in the consciousness of every man - even in that of children - and which can be expressed in a single word: equity.
This universal justice which, owing to conquests by force and religious influences, has never yet prevailed in the political or juridical or economic worlds, should become the basis of the new world. Without it there can be neither liberty, nor republic, nor prosperity, nor peace. It then must govern our resolutions in order that we work effectively toward the establishment of peace. And this justice urges us to take upon ourselves the defense of the interests of the terribly maltreated people and demand their economic and social emancipation along with political freedom.
The Basic Principle of Socialism. We do not propose here, gentlemen, this or any other socialist system. What we demand now is the proclaiming anew of the great principle of the French Revolution: that every human being should have the material and moral means to develop all his humanity, a principle which, in our opinion, is to be translated into the following problem:
To organize society in such a manner that every individual, man or woman, should find, upon entering life, approximately equal means for the development of his or her diverse faculties and their utilization in his or her work. And to organize such a society that, rendering impossible the exploitation of anyone's labor, will enable every individual to enjoy the social wealth, which in reality is produced only by collective labor, but to enjoy it only in so far as he contributes directly toward the creation of that wealth.
State Socialism Rejected. The carrying out of this task will of course take centuries of development. But history has already brought it forth and henceforth we cannot ignore it without condemning ourselves to utter impotence. We hasten to add here that we vigorously reject any attempt at social organization which would not admit the fullest liberty of individuals and organizations, or which would require the setting up of any regimenting power whatever. In the name of freedom, which we recognize as the only foundation and the only creative principle of organization, economic or political, we shall protest against anything remotely resembling State Communism, or State Socialism.
Abolition of the Inheritance Law. The only thing which, in opinion, the State can and should do, is first to modify little by little inheritance law so as to arrive as soon as possible at its complete abolition. That law being purely a creation of the State, and one of the conditions of the very existence of the authoritarian and divine State can and should be abolished by freedom in the State. In other words, State should dissolve itself into a society freely organized in accord with the principles of justice. Inheritance right, in our opinion, should abolished, for so long as it exists there will be hereditary economic inequality, not the natural inequality of individuals, but the artificial man inequality of classes - and the latter will always beget hereditary equality in the development and shaping of minds, continuing to be source and consecration of all political and social inequalities. The task of justice is to establish equality for everyone, inasmuch that equality will depend upon the economic and political organization society - an equality with which everyone is going to begin his life, that everyone, guided by his own nature, will be the product of his own efforts. In our opinion, the property of the deceased should accrue to social fund for the instruction and education of children of both sexes including their maintenance from birth until they come of age. As Slavs and as Russians, we shall add that with us the fundamental social idea, bas upon the general and traditional instinct of our populations, is that las the property of all the people, should be owned only by those who cultivate it with their own hands.
We are convinced gentlemen, that this principle is just, that it is essential and inevitable condition of all serious social reform, and consequently Western Europe in turn will not fail to recognize and accept this principle, notwithstanding the difficulties of its realization in countries as in France, for instance where the majority of peasants own the land which they cultivate, but where most of those very peasants will soon end up by owning next to nothing, owing to the parceling out of land coming as the inevitable result of the political and economic system now prevailing in France. We shall, however, refrain from offering any proposals on the land question...We shall confine ourselves now to proposing the following declaration:
The Declaration of Socialism. "Convinced that the serious realization of liberty, justice, and peace will be impossible so long as the majority of the population remains dispossessed of elementary needs, so long as it is deprived of education and is condemned to political and social insignificance and slavery - in fact if not by law - by poverty as well as by the necessity of working without rest or leisure, producing all the wealth upon which the world now prides itself, and receiving in return only such a small pan thereof that it hardly suffices to assure its livelihood for the next day;
"Convinced that for all that mass of population, terribly maltreated for centuries, the problem of bread is the problem of mental emancipation, of freedom and humanity;
"Convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality;
"The League [for Peace and Freedom] loudly proclaims the necessity of a radical social and economic reconstruction, having for its aim the emancipation of people's labor from the yoke of capital and property owners, a reconstruction based upon strict justice - neither juridical nor theological nor metaphysical justice, but simply human justice - upon positive science and upon the widest freedom."
Organization of Productive Forces in Place of Political Power. It is necessary to abolish completely, both in principle and in fact, all that which is called political power; for, so long as political power exists, there will be ruler and ruled, masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited. Once abolished, political power should be replaced by an organization of productive forces and economic service.
Notwithstanding the enormous development of modern states - a development which in its ultimate phase is quite logically reducing the State to an absurdity - it is becoming evident that the days of the State and the State principle are numbered. Already we can see approaching the full emancipation of the toiling masses and their free social organization, free from governmental intervention, formed by economic associations of the people and brushing aside all the old State frontiers and national distinctions, and having as its basis only productive labor, humanized labor, having one common interest in spite of its diversity.
The Ideal of the People. This ideal of course appears to the people as signifying first of all the end of want, the end of poverty, and the full satisfaction of all material needs by means of collective labor, equal and obligatory for all, and then, as the end of domination and the free organization of the people's lives in accordance with their needs - not from the top down, as we have it in the State, but from the bottom up, an organization formed by the people themselves, apart from all governments and parliaments, a free union of associations of agricultural and factory workers, of communes, regions, and nations, and finally, in the more remote future; the universal human brotherhood, triumphing above the ruins of all States.
The Program of a Free Society. Outside of the Mazzinian system which is the system of the republic in the form of a State, there is no other system but that of the republic as a commune, the republic as a federation, a Socialist and a genuine people's republic - the system of Anarchism. It is the politics of the Social Revolution, which aims at the abolition of the State, and the economic, altogether free organization of the people, an organization from below upward, by means of a federation.
...There will be no possibility of the existence of a political government, for this government will be transformed into a simple administration of common affairs.
Our program can be summed up in a few words:
Peace, emancipation, and the happiness of the oppressed.
War upon all oppressors and all despoilers.
Full restitution to workers: all the capital, the factories, and all instruments of work and raw materials to go to the associations, and the land to those who cultivate it with their own hands.
Liberty, justice, and fraternity in regard to all human beings upon the earth.
Equality for all.
To all, with no distinction whatever, all the means of development, education, and upbringing, and the equal possibility of living while working.
Organizing of a society by means of a free federation from below upward, of workers associations, industrial as well as a agricultural, scientific as well as literary associations - first into a commune, then a federation communes into regions, of regions into nations, and of nations into international fraternal association.
Correct Tactics During a Revolution. In a social revolution, which in everything is diametrically opposed to a political revolution, the a of individuals hardly count at all, whereas the spontaneous action of masses is everything. All that individuals can do is to clarify, propagate, and work out ideas corresponding to the popular instinct, and, what is more, to contribute their incessant efforts to revolutionary organization of the natural power of the masses - but nothing else beyond that; the rest can and should be done by the people themselves. Any other method would lead to political dictatorship, to the re-emergence of the State, of privileges of inequalities of all the oppressions of the State - that is, it would lead in a roundabout but logical way toward re-establishment of political, social, and economic slavery of the masses of people.
Varlin and all his friends, like all sincere Socialists, and in general like all workers born and brought up among the people, shared to a high degree this perfectly legitimate bias against the initiative coming from isolated individuals, against the domination exercised by superior individuals, and being above all consistent, they extended the same prejudice and distrust to their own persons.
Revolution by Decrees Is Doomed to Failure. Contrary to the ideas of the authoritarian Communists, altogether fallacious ideas in my opinion, that the Social Revolution can be decreed and organized by means of a dictatorship or a Constituent Assembly - our friends, the Parisian Social-Socialists, held the opinion that that revolution can be waged and brought to fits full development only through the spontaneous and continued mass action of groups and associations of the people.
Our Parisian friends were a thousand times right. For, indeed, there is no mind, much as it may be endowed with the quality of a genius; or if we speak of a collective dictatorship consisting of several hundred supremely endowed individuals - there is no combination of intellects so vast as to be able to embrace all the infinite multiplicity and diversity of the real interests, aspirations, wills, and needs constituting in their totality the collective will of the people; there is no intellect that can devise a social organization capable of satisfying each and all.
Such an organization would ever be a Procrustean bed into which violence, more or less sanctioned by the State, would force the unfortunate society. But it is this old system of organization based upon force that the Social Revolution should put an end to by giving full liberty to the masses, groups, communes, associations, and even individuals, and by destroying once and for all the historic cause of all violence - the very existence of the State, the fall of which will entail the destruction of all the iniquities of juridical right and all the falsehood of various cults, that right and those cults having ever been simply the complaisant consecration, ideal as well as real, of all violence represented, guaranteed, and authorized by the State.
It is evident that only when the State has ceased to exist humanity will obtain its freedom, and the true interests of society, of all groups, of all local organizations, and likewise of all the individuals forming such organization, will find their real satisfaction.
Free Organization to Follow Abolition of the State. Abolition of the State and the Church should be the first and indispensable condition of the real enfranchisement of society. It will be only after this that society can and should begin its own reorganization; that, however, should take place not from the top down, not according to an ideal plan mapped by a few sages or savants, and not by means of decrees issued by some dictatorial power or even by a National Assembly elected by universal suffrage. Such a system, as I have already said, inevitably would lead to the formation of a governmental aristocracy, that is, a class of persons which has nothing in common with the masses of people; and, to be sure, this class would again turn to exploiting and enthralling the masses under the pretext of common welfare or of the salvation of the State.
Freedom Must Go Hand-in-Hand With Equality. I am a convinced partisan of economic and social equality, for I know that outside of this equality, freedom, justice, human dignity, morality, and the well-being of individuals as well as the prosperity of nations are all nothing but so many falsehoods. But being at the same time a partisan of freedom - the first condition of humanity - I believe that equality should be established in the world by a spontaneous organization of labor and collective property, by the free organization of producers' associations into communes, and free federation of communes - but nowise by means of the supreme tutelary action of the State.
The Difference Between Authoritarian and Libertarian Revolution. It is this point which mainly divides the Socialists or revolutionary collectivists from the authoritarian Communists, the partisans of the absolute initiative of the State. The goal of both is the same: both parties want the creation of a new social order based exclusively upon collective labor, under economic conditions that are equal for all - that is, under conditions of collective ownership of the tools of production.
Only the Communists imagine that they can attain through development and organization of the political power of the working classes, and chiefly of the city proletariat, aided by bourgeois radicalism - whereas the revolutionary Socialists, the enemies of all ambiguous alliances, believe, on the contrary, that this common goal can be attained not through the political but through the social (and therefore anti-political) organization and power of the working masses of the cities and villages, including all those who, though belonging by birth to the higher classes, have broken with their past of their own free will, and have openly joined the proletariat and accepted its program.
The Methods of the Communists and the Anarchists. Hence the two different methods. The Communists believe that it is necessary to organize the forces of the workers in order to take possession of the political might of the State. The revolutionary Socialists organize with the view of destroying, or if you prefer a more refined expression, of liquidating the State. The Communists are the partisans of the principle and practice of authority, while revolutionary Socialists place their faith only in freedom. Both are equally the partisans of science, which is to destroy superstition and take the place of faith; but the first want to impose science upon the people, while the revolutionary collectivists try to diffuse science and knowledge among the people, so that the various groups of human society, when convinced by propaganda, may organize and spontaneously combine into federations, in accordance with their natural tendencies and their real interests, but never according to a plan traced in advance and imposed upon the ignorant masses by a few "superior" minds.
Revolutionary Socialists believe that there is much more of practical reason and intelligence in the instinctive aspirations and real needs of the masses of people than in the profound minds of all these learned doctors and self-appointed tutors of humanity, who, having before them the sorry examples of so many abortive attempts to make humanity happy, still intend to keep on working in the same direction. But revolutionary Socialists believe, on the contrary, that humanity has permitted itself to be ruled for a long time, much too long, and that the source of its misfortune lies not in this nor in any other form of government but in the principle and the very existence of the government, whatever its nature may be.
It is this difference of opinion, which already has become historic, that now exists between the scientific Communism, developed by the German school and partly accepted by American and English Socialists, and Proudhonism, extensively developed and pushed to its ultimate conclusions, and by now accepted by the proletariat of the Latin countries. Revolutionary Socialism has made its first brilliant and practical appearance in the Paris Commune.
On the Pan-German banner is written: Retention and strengthening of the State at any cost. On our banner, the social-revolutionary banner, on the contrary, are inscribed, in fiery and bloody letters: the destruction of all States, the annihilation of bourgeois civilization, free and spontaneous organization from below upward, by means of free associations, the organization of the unbridled rabble of toilers, of all emancipated humanity, and the creation of a new universally human world.
Before creating, or rather aiding the people to create, this new organization, it is necessary to achieve a victory. It is necessary to overthrow that which is, in order to be able to establish that which should be...



THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM
by Michael Bakunin
This pamphlet is an excerpt from The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution and included in The Complete Works of Michael Bakunin under the title "Fragment." Parts of the text were originally translated into English by G.P. Maximoff for his anthology of Bakunin's writings, with missing paragraphs translated by Jeff Stein from the Spanish edition, Diego Abad de Santillan, trans. (Buenos Aires 1926) vol. III, pp. 181-196.
Is it necessary to repeat here the irrefutable arguments of Socialism which no bourgeois economist has yet succeeded in disproving? What is property, what is capital in their present form? For the capitalist and the property owner they mean the power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to live without working. And since neither property nor capital produces anything when not fertilized by labor - that means the power and the right to live by exploiting the work of someone else, the right to exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both. Note that I have left out of account altogether the following question: In what way did property and capital ever fall into the hands of their present owners? This is a question which, when envisaged from the points of view of history, logic, and justice, cannot be answered in any other way but one which would serve as an indictment against the present owners. I shall therefore confine myself here to the statement that property owners and capitalists, inasmuch as they live not by their own productive labor but by getting land rent, house rent, interest upon their capital, or by speculation on land, buildings, and capital, or by the commercial and industrial exploitation of the manual labor of the proletariat, all live at the expense of the proletariat. (Speculation and exploitation no doubt also constitute a sort of labor, but altogether non-productive labor.)
I know only too well that this mode of life is highly esteemed in all civilized countries, that it is expressly and tenderly protected by all the States, and that the States, religions, and all the juridical laws, both criminal and civil, and all the political governments, monarchies and republican - with their immense judicial and police apparatuses and their standing armies - have no other mission but to consecrate and protect such practices. In the presence of these powerful and respectable authorities I cannot even permit myself to ask whether this mode of life is legitimate from the point of view of human justice, liberty, human equality, and fraternity. I simply ask myself: Under such conditions, are fraternity and equality possible between the exploiter and the exploited, are justice and freedom possible for the exploited?
Let us even suppose, as it is being maintained by the bourgeois economists and with them all the lawyers, all the worshippers and believers in the juridical right, all the priests of the civil and criminal code - let us suppose that this economic relationship between the exploiter and the exploited is altogether legitimate, that it is the inevitable consequence, the product of an eternal, indestructible social law, yet still it will always be true that exploitation precludes brotherhood and equality. It goes without saying that it precludes economic equality. Suppose I am your worker and you are my employer. If I offer my labor at the lowest price, if I consent to have you live off my labor, it is certainly not because of devotion or brotherly love for you. And no bourgeois economist would dare to say that it was, however idyllic and naive their reasoning becomes when they begin to speak about reciprocal affections and mutual relations which should exist between employers and employees. No, I do it because my family and I would starve to death if I did not work for an employer. Thus I am forced to sell you my labor at the lowest possible price, and I am forced to do it by the threat of hunger.
But - the economists tell us - the property owners, the capitalists, the employers, are likewise forced to seek out and purchase the labor of the proletariat. Yes, it is true, they are forced to do it, but not in the same measure. Had there been equality between those who offer their labor and those who purchase it, between the necessity of selling one's labor and the necessity of buying it, the slavery and misery of the proletariat would not exist. But then there would be neither capitalists, nor property owners, nor the proletariat, nor rich, nor poor: there would only be workers. It is precisely because such equality does not exist that we have and are bound to have exploiters.
This equality does not exist because in modern society where wealth is produced by the intervention of capital paying wages to labor, the growth of the population outstrips the growth of production, which results in the supply of labor necessarily surpassing the demand and leading to a relative sinking of the level of wages. Production thus constituted, monopolized, exploited by bourgeois capital, is pushed on the one hand by the mutual competition of the capitalists to concentrate evermore in the hands of an ever diminishing number of powerful capitalists, or in the hands of joint-stock companies which, owing to the merging of their capital, are more powerful than the biggest isolated capitalists. (And the small and medium-sized capitalists, not being able to produce at the same price as the big capitalists, naturally succumb in the deadly struggle.) On the other hand, all enterprises are forced by the same competition to sell their products at the lowest possible price. It [capitalist monopoly] can attain this two-fold result only by forcing out an ever-growing number of small or medium-sized capitalists, speculators, merchants, or industrialists, from the world of exploiters into the world of the exploited proletariat, and at the same time squeezing out ever greater savings from the wages of the same proletariat.
On the other hand, the mass of the proletariat, growing as a result of the general increase of the population - which, as we know, not even poverty can stop effectively - and through the increasing proletarianization of the petty-bourgeoisie, ex-owners, capitalists, merchants, and industrialists - growing, as I have said, at a much more rapid rate than the productive capacities of an economy that is exploited by bourgeois capital - this growing mass of the proletariat is placed in a condition wherein the workers are forced into disastrous competition against one another.
For since they possess no other means of existence but their own manual labor, they are driven, by the fear of seeing themselves replaced by others, to sell it at the lowest price. This tendency of the workers, or rather the necessity to which they are condemned by their own poverty, combined with the tendency of the employers to sell the products of their workers, and consequently buy their labor, at the lowest price, constantly reproduces and consolidates the poverty of the proletariat. Since he finds himself in a state of poverty, the worker is compelled to sell his labor for almost nothing, and because he sells that product for almost nothing, he sinks into ever greater poverty.
Yes, greater misery, indeed! For in this galley-slave labor the productive force of the workers, abused, ruthlessly exploited, excessively wasted and underfed, is rapidly used up. And once used up, what can be its value on the market, of what worth is this sole commodity which he possesses and upon the daily sale of which he depends for a livelihood? Nothing! And then? Then nothing is left for the worker but to die.
What, in a given country, is the lowest possible wage? It is the price of that which is considered by the proletarians of that country as absolutely necessary to keep oneself alive. All the bourgeois economists are in agreement on this point. Turgot, who saw fit to call himself the `virtuous minister' of Louis XVI, and really was an honest man, said:
"The simple worker who owns nothing more than his hands, has nothing else to sell than his labor. He sells it more or less expensively; but its price whether high or low, does not depend on him alone: it depends on an agreement with whoever will pay for his labor. The employer pays as little as possible; when given the choice between a great number of workers, the employer prefers the one who works cheap. The workers are, then, forced to lower their price in competition each against the other. In all types of labor, it necessarily follows that the salary of the worker is limited to what is necessary for survival." (Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses)
J.B. Say, the true father of bourgeois economists in France also said: "Wages are much higher when more demand exists for labor and less if offered, and are lowered accordingly when more labor is offered and less demanded. It is the relation between supply and demand which regulates the price of this merchandise called the workers' labor, as are regulated all other public services. When wages rise a little higher than the price necessary for the workers' families to maintain themselves, their children multiply and a larger supply soon develops in proportion with the greater demand. When, on the contrary, the demand for workers is less than the quantity of people offering to work, their gains decline back to the price necessary for the class to maintain itself at the same number. The families more burdened with children disappear; from them forward the supply of labor declines, and with less labor being offered, the price rises... In such a way it is difficult for the wages of the laborer to rise above or fall below the price necessary to maintain the class (the workers, the proletariat) in the number required." (Cours complet d' economie politique)
After citing Turgot and J.B. Say, Proudhon cries: "The price, as compared to the value (in real social economy) is something essentially mobile, consequently, essentially variable, and that in its variations, it is not regulated more than by the concurrence, concurrence, let us not forget, that as Turgot and Say agree, has the necessary effect not to give to wages to the worker more than enough to barely prevent death by starvation, and maintain the class in the numbers needed."1
The current price of primary necessities constitutes the prevailing constant level above which workers' wages can never rise for a very long time, but beneath which they drop very often, which constantly results in inanition, sickness, and death, until a sufficient number of workers disappear to equalize again the supply of and demand for labor. What the economists call equalized supply and demand does not constitute real equality between those who offer their labor for sale and those who purchase it. Suppose that I, a manufacturer, need a hundred workers and that exactly a hundred workers present themselves in the market - only one hundred, for if more came, the supply would exceed demand, resulting in lowered wages. But since only one hundred appear, and since I, the manufacturer, need only that number - neither more nor less - it would seem at first that complete equality was established; that supply and demand being equal in number, they should likewise be equal in other respects. Does it follow that the workers can demand from me a wage and conditions of work assuring them of a truly free, dignified, and human existence? Not at all! If I grant them those conditions and those wages, I, the capitalist, shall not gain thereby any more than they will. But then, why should I have to plague myself and become ruined by offering them the profits of my capital? If I want to work myself as workers do, I will invest my capital somewhere else, wherever I can get the highest interest, and will offer my labor for sale to some capitalist just as my workers do.
If, profiting by the powerful initiative afforded me by my capital, I ask those hundred workers to fertilize that capital with their labor, it is not because of my sympathy for their sufferings, nor because of a spirit of justice, nor because of love for humanity. The capitalists are by no means philanthropists; they would be ruined if they practiced philanthropy. It is because I hope to draw from the labor of the workers sufficient profit to be able to live comfortably, even richly, while at the same time increasing my capital - and all that without having to work myself. Of course I shall work too, but my work will be of an altogether different kind and I will be remunerated at a much higher rate than the workers. It will not be the work of production but that of administration and exploitation.
But isn't administrative work also productive work? No doubt it is, for lacking a good and an intelligent administration, manual labor will not produce anything or it will produce very little and very badly. But from the point of view of justice and the needs of production itself, it is not at all necessary that this work should be monopolized in my hands, nor, above all, that I should be compensated at a rate so much higher than manual labor. The co-operative associations already have proven that workers are quite capable of administering industrial enterprises, that it can be done by workers elected from their midst and who receive the same wage. Therefore if I concentrate in my hands the administrative power, it is not because the interests of production demand it, but in order to serve my own ends, the ends of exploitation. As the absolute boss of my establishment I get for my labor ten or twenty times more than my workers get for theirs, and this is true despite the fact that my labor is incomparably less painful than theirs.
But the capitalist, the business owner, runs risks, they say, while the worker risks nothing. This is not true, because when seen from his side, all the disadvantages are on the part of the worker. The business owner can conduct his affairs poorly, he can be wiped out in a bad deal, or be a victim of a commercial crisis, or by an unforeseen catastrophe; in a word he can ruin himself. This is true. But does ruin mean from the bourgeois point of view to be reduced to the same level of misery as those who die of hunger, or to be forced among the ranks of the common laborers? This so rarely happens, that we might as well say never. Afterwards it is rare that the capitalist does not retain something, despite the appearance of ruin. Nowadays all bankruptcies are more or less fraudulent. But if absolutely nothing is saved, there are always family ties, and social relations, who, with help from the business skills learned which they pass to their children, permit them to get positions for themselves and their children in the higher ranks of labor, in management; to be a state functionary, to be an executive in a commercial or industrial business, to end up, although dependent, with an income superior to what they paid their former workers.
The risks of the worker are infinitely greater. After all, if the establishment in which he is employed goes bankrupt, he must go several days and sometimes several weeks without work, and for him it is more than ruin, it is death; because he eats everyday what he earns. The savings of workers are fairy tales invented by bourgeois economists to lull their weak sentiment of justice, the remorse that is awakened by chance in the bosom of their class. This ridiculous and hateful myth will never soothe the anguish of the worker. He knows the expense of satisfying the daily needs of his large family. If he had savings, he would not send his poor children, from the age of six, to wither away, to grow weak, to be murdered physically and morally in the factories, where they are forced to work night and day, a working day of twelve and fourteen hours.
If it happens sometimes that the worker makes a small savings, it is quickly consumed by the inevitable periods of unemployment which often cruelly interrupt his work, as well as by the unforeseen accidents and illnesses which befall his family. The accidents and illnesses that can overtake him constitute a risk that makes all the risks of the employer nothing in comparison: because for the worker debilitating illness can destroy his productive ability, his labor power. Over all, prolonged illness is the most terrible bankruptcy, a bankruptcy that means for him and his children, hunger and death.
I know full well that under these conditions that if I were a capitalist, who needs a hundred workers to fertilize my capital, that on employing these workers, all the advantages are for me, all the disadvantages for them. I propose nothing more nor less than to exploit them, and if you wish me to be sincere about it, and promise to guard me well, I will tell them:
"Look, my children, I have some capital which by itself cannot produce anything, because a dead thing cannot produce anything. I have nothing productive without labor. As it goes, I cannot benefit from consuming it unproductively, since having consumed it, I would be left with nothing. But thanks to the social and political institutions which rule over us and are all in my favor, in the existing economy my capital is supposed to be a producer as well: it earns me interest. From whom this interest must be taken - and it must be from someone, since in reality by itself it produces absolutely nothing - this does not concern you. It is enough for you to know that it renders interest. Alone this interest is insufficient to cover my expenses. I am not an ordinary man as you. I cannot be, nor do I want to be, content with little. I want to live, to inhabit a beautiful house, to eat and drink well, to ride in a carriage, to maintain a good appearance, in short, to have all the good things in life. I also want to give a good education to my children, to make them into gentlemen, and send them away to study, and afterwards, having become much more educated than you, they can dominate you one day as I dominate you today. And as education alone is not enough, I want to give them a grand inheritance, so that divided between them they will be left almost as rich as I. Consequently, besides all the good things in life I want to give myself, I also want to increase my capital. How will I achieve this goal? Armed with this capital I propose to exploit you, and I propose that you permit me to exploit you. You will work and I will collect and appropriate and sell for my own behalf the product of your labor, without giving you more than a portion which is absolutely necessary to keep you from dying of hunger today, so that at the end of tomorrow you will still work for me in the same conditions; and when you have been exhausted, I will throw you out, and replace you with others. Know it well, I will pay you a salary as small, and impose on you a working day as long, working conditions as severe, as despotic, as harsh as possible; not from wickedness - not from a motive of hatred towards you, nor an intent to do you harm - but from the love of wealth and to get rich quick; because the less I pay you and the more you work, the more I will gain."
This is what is said implicitly by every capitalist, every industrialist, every business owner, every employer who demands the labor power of the workers they hire.
But since supply and demand are equal, why do the workers accept the conditions laid down by the employer? If the capitalist stands in just as great a need of employing the workers as the one hundred workers do of being employed by him, does it not follow that both sides are in an equal position? Do not both meet at the market as two equal merchants - from the juridical point of view at least - one bringing a commodity called a daily wage, to be exchanged for the daily labor of the worker on the basis of so many hours per day; and the other bringing his own labor as his commodity to be exchanged for the wage offered by the capitalist? Since, in our supposition, the demand is for a hundred workers and the supply is likewise that of a hundred persons, it may seem that both sides are in an equal position.
Of course nothing of the kind is true. What is it that brings the capitalist to the market? It is the urge to get rich, to increase his capital, to gratify his ambitions and social vanities, to be able to indulge in all conceivable pleasures. And what brings the worker to the market? Hunger, the necessity of eating today and tomorrow. Thus, while being equal from the point of juridical fiction, the capitalist and the worker are anything but equal from the point of view of the economic situation, which is the real situation. The capitalist is not threatened with hunger when he comes to the market; he knows very well that if he does not find today the workers for whom he is looking, he will still have enough to eat for quite a long time, owing to the capital of which he is the happy possessor. If the workers whom he meets in the market present demands which seem excessive to him, because, far from enabling him to increase his wealth and improve even more his economic position, those proposals and conditions might, I do not say equalize, but bring the economic position of the workers somewhat close to his own - what does he do in that case? He turns down those proposals and waits. After all, he was not impelled by an urgent necessity, but by a desire to improve his position, which, compared to that of the workers, is already quite comfortable, and so he can wait. And he will wait, for his business experience has taught him that the resistance of workers who, possessing neither capital, nor comfort, nor any savings to speak of, are pressed by a relentless necessity, by hunger, that this resistance cannot last very long, and that finally he will be able to find the hundred workers for whom he is looking - for they will be forced to accept the conditions which he finds it profitable to impose upon them. If they refuse, others will come who will be only too happy to accept such conditions. That is how things are done daily with the knowledge and in full view of everyone.
If, as a consequence of the particular circumstances that constantly influence the market, the branch of industry in which he planned at first to employ his capital does not offer all the advantages that he had hoped, then he will shift his capital elsewhere; thus the bourgeois capitalist is not tied by nature to any specific industry, but tends to invest (as it is called by the economists - exploit is what we say) indifferently in all possible industries. Let's suppose, finally, that learning of some industrial incapacity or misfortune, he decides not to invest in any industry; well, he will buy stocks and annuities; and if the interest and dividends seem insufficient, then he will engage in some occupation, or shall we say, sell his labor for a time, but in conditions much more lucrative than he had offered to his own workers.
The capitalist then comes to the market in the capacity, if not of an absolutely free agent, at least that of an infinitely freer agent than the worker. What happens in the market is a meeting between a drive for lucre and starvation, between master and slave. Juridically they are both equal; but economically the worker is the serf of the capitalist, even before the market transaction has been concluded whereby the worker sells his person and his liberty for a given time. The worker is in the position of a serf because this terrible threat of starvation which daily hangs over his head and over his family, will force him to accept any conditions imposed by the gainful calculations of the capitalist, the industrialist, the employer.
And once the contract has been negotiated, the serfdom of the workers is doubly increased; or to put it better, before the contract has been negotiated, goaded by hunger, he is only potentially a serf; after it is negotiated he becomes a serf in fact. Because what merchandise has he sold to his employer? It is his labor, his personal services, the productive forces of his body, mind, and spirit that are found in him and are inseparable from his person - it is therefore himself. From then on, the employer will watch over him, either directly or by means of overseers; everyday during working hours and under controlled conditions, the employer will be the owner of his actions and movements. When he is told: "Do this," the worker is obligated to do it; or he is told: "Go there," he must go. Is this not what is called a serf?
M. Karl Marx, the illustrious leader of German Communism, justly observed in his magnificent work Das Kapital2 that if the contract freely entered into by the vendors of money -in the form of wages - and the vendors of their own labor -that is, between the employer and the workers - were concluded not for a definite and limited term only, but for one's whole life, it would constitute real slavery. Concluded for a term only and reserving to the worker the right to quit his employer, this contract constitutes a sort of voluntary and transitory serfdom. Yes, transitory and voluntary from the juridical point of view, but nowise from the point of view of economic possibility. The worker always has the right to leave his employer, but has he the means to do so? And if he does quit him, is it in order to lead a free existence, in which he will have no master but himself? No, he does it in order to sell himself to another employer. He is driven to it by the same hunger which forced him to sell himself to the first employer. Thus the worker's liberty, so much exalted by the economists, jurists, and bourgeois republicans, is only a theoretical freedom, lacking any means for its possible realization, and consequently it is only a fictitious liberty, an utter falsehood. The truth is that the whole life of the worker is simply a continuous and dismaying succession of terms of serfdom -voluntary from the juridical point of view but compulsory in the economic sense - broken up by momentarily brief interludes of freedom accompanied by starvation; in other words, it is real slavery.
This slavery manifests itself daily in all kinds of ways. Apart from the vexations and oppressive conditions of the contract which turn the worker into a subordinate, a passive and obedient servant, and the employer into a nearly absolute master - apart from all that, it is well known that there is hardly an industrial enterprise wherein the owner, impelled on the one hand by the two-fold instinct of an unappeasable lust for profits and absolute power, and on the other hand, profiting by the economic dependence of the worker, does not set aside the terms stipulated in the contract and wring some additional concessions in his own favor. Now he will demand more hours of work, that is, over and above those stipulated in the contract; now he will cut down wages on some pretext; now he will impose arbitrary fines, or he will treat the workers harshly, rudely, and insolently.
But, one may say, in that case the worker can quit. Easier said than done. At times the worker receives part of his wages in advance, or his wife or children may be sick, or perhaps his work is poorly paid throughout this particular industry. Other employers may be paying even less than his own employer, and after quitting this job he may not even be able to find another one. And to remain without a job spells death for him and his family. In addition, there is an understanding among all employers, and all of them resemble one another. All are almost equally irritating, unjust, and harsh.
Is this calumny? No, it is in the nature of things, and in the logical necessity of the relationship existing between the employers and their workers.

NOTES:
1. Not having to hand the works mentioned, I took these quotes from la Histoire de la Revolution de 1848, by Louis Blanc. Mr. Blanc continues with these words: "We have been well alerted. Now we know, without room for doubt, that according to all the doctrines of the old political economy, wages cannot have any other basis than the regulation between supply and demand, although the result is that the remuneration of labor is reduced to what is strictly necessary to not perish by starvation. Very well, and let us do no more than repeat the words inadvertently spoken in sincerity by Adam Smith, the head of this school: It is small consolation for individuals who have no other means for existence than their labor." (Bakunin)
2. Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, by Karl Marx; Erster Band. This work will need to be translated into French, because nothing, that I know of, contains an analysis so profound, so luminous, so scientific, so decisive, and if I can express it thus, so merciless an expose of the formation of bourgeois capital and the systematic and cruel exploitation that capital continues exercising over the work of the proletariat. The only defect of this work... positivist in direction, based on a profound study of economic works, without admitting any logic other than the logic of the facts - the only defect, say, is that it has been written, in part, but only in part, in a style excessively metaphysical and abstract... which makes it difficult to explain and nearly unapproachable for the majority of workers, and it is principally the workers who must read it nevertheless. The bourgeois will never read it or, if they read it, they will never want to comprehend it, and if they comprehend it they will never say anything about it; this work being nothing other than a sentence of death, scientifically motivated and irrevocably pronounced, not against them as individuals, but against their class. (Bakunin)


"Notes on Anarchism" in For Reasons of State
Noam Chomsky, 1970
Transcribed by rael@ll.mit.edu (Bill Lear)
A French writer, sympathetic to anarchism, wrote in the 1890s that "anarchism has a broad back, like paper it endures anything"---including, he noted those whose acts are such that "a mortal enemy of anarchism could not have done better."[1] There have been many styles of thought and action that have been referred to as "anarchist." It would be hopeless to try to encompass all of these conflicting tendencies in some general theory or ideology. And even if we proceed to extract from the history of libertarian thought a living, evolving tradition, as Daniel Guérin does in Anarchism, it remains difficult to formulate its doctrines as a specific and determinate theory of society and social change. The anarchist historian Rudolph Rocker, who presents a systematic conception of the development of anarchist thought towards anarchosyndicalism, along lines that bear comparison to Guérins work, puts the matter well when he writes that anarchism is not
a fixed, self-enclosed social system but rather a definite trend in the historic development of mankind, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. Even freedom is only a relative, not an absolute concept, since it tends constantly to become broader and to affect wider circles in more manifold ways. For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.[2]
One might ask what value there is in studying a "definite trend in the historic development of mankind" that does not articulate a specific and detailed social theory. Indeed, many commentators dismiss anarchism as utopian, formless, primitive, or otherwise incompatible with the realities of a complex society. One might, however, argue rather differently: that at every stage of history our concern must be to dismantle those forms of authority and oppression that survive from an era when they might have been justified in terms of the need for security or survival or economic development, but that now contribute to---rather than alleviate---material and cultural deficit. If so, there will be no doctrine of social change fixed for the present and future, nor even, necessarily, a specific and unchanging concept of the goals towards which social change should tend. Surely our understanding of the nature of man or of the range of viable social forms is so rudimentary that any far-reaching doctrine must be treated with great skepticism, just as skepticism is in order when we hear that "human nature" or "the demands of efficiency" or "the complexity of modern life" requires this or that form of oppression and autocratic rule.
Nevertheless, at a particular time there is every reason to develop, insofar as our understanding permits, a specific realization of this definite trend in the historic development of mankind, appropriate to the tasks of the moment. For Rocker, "the problem that is set for our time is that of freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement"; and the method is not the conquest and exercise of state power, nor stultifying parliamentarianism, but rather "to reconstruct the economic life of the peoples from the ground up and build it up in the spirit of Socialism."
But only the producers themselves are fitted for this task, since they are the only value-creating element in society out of which a new future can arise. Theirs must be the task of freeing labor from all the fetters which economic exploitation has fastened on it, of freeing society from all the institutions and procedure of political power, and of opening the way to an alliance of free groups of men and women based on co-operative labor and a planned administration of things in the interest of the community. To prepare the toiling masses in the city and country for this great goal and to bind them together as a militant force is the objective of modern Anarcho-syndicalism, and in this its whole purpose is exhausted. [P. 108]
As a socialist, Rocker would take for granted "that the serious, final, complete liberation of the workers is possible only upon one condition: that of the appropriation of capital, that is, of raw material and all the tools of labor, including land, by the whole body of the workers."[3] As an anarchosyndicalist, he insists, further, that the workers' organizations create "not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself" in the prerevolutionary period, that they embody in themselves the structure of the future society---and he looks forward to a social revolution that will dismantle the state apparatus as well as expropriate the expropriators. "What we put in place of the government is industrial organization."
Anarcho-syndicalists are convinced that a Socialist economic order cannot be created by the decrees and statutes of a government, but only by the solidaric collaboration of the workers with hand and brain in each special branch of production; that is, through the taking over of the management of all plants by the producers themselves under such form that the separate groups, plants, and branches of industry are independent members of the general economic organism and systematically carry on production and the distribution of the products in the interest of the community on the basis of free mutual agreements. [p. 94]
Rocker was writing at a moment when such ideas had been put into practice in a dramatic way in the Spanish Revolution. Just prior to the outbreak of the revolution, the anarchosyndicalist economist Diego Abad de Santillan had written:
...in facing the problem of social transformation, the Revolution cannot consider the state as a medium, but must depend on the organization of producers.
We have followed this norm and we find no need for the hypothesis of a superior power to organized labor, in order to establish a new order of things. We would thank anyone to point out to us what function, if any, the State can have in an economic organization, where private property has been abolished and in which parasitism and special privilege have no place. The suppression of the State cannot be a languid affair; it must be the task of the Revolution to finish with the State. Either the Revolution gives social wealth to the producers in which case the producers organize themselves for due collective distribution and the State has nothing to do; or the Revolution does not give social wealth to the producers, in which case the Revolution has been a lie and the State would continue.
Our federal council of economy is not a political power but an economic and administrative regulating power. It receives its orientation from below and operates in accordance with the resolutions of the regional and national assemblies. It is a liaison corps and nothing else.[4]
Engels, in a letter of 1883, expressed his disagreement with this conception as follows:
The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organization of the state....But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries, and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris commune.[5]
In contrast, the anarchists---most eloquently Bakunin---warned of the dangers of the "red bureaucracy," which would prove to be "the most vile and terrible lie that our century has created."[6] The anarchosyndicalist Fernand Pelloutier asked: "Must even the transitory state to which we have to submit necessarily and fatally be a collectivist jail? Can't it consist in a free organization limited exclusively by the needs of production and consumption, all political institutions having disappeared?"[7]
I do not pretend to know the answers to this question. But it seems clear that unless there is, in some form, a positive answer, the chances for a truly democratic revolution that will achieve the humanistic ideals of the left are not great. Martin Buber put the problem succinctly when he wrote: "One cannot in the nature of things expect a little tree that has been turned into a club to put forth leaves."[8] The question of conquest or destruction of state power is what Bakunin regarded as the primary issue dividing him from Marx.[9] In one form or another, the problem has arisen repeatedly in the century since, dividing "libertarian" from "authoritarian" socialists.
Despite Bakunin's warnings about the red bureaucracy, and their fulfillment under Stalin's dictatorship, it would obviously be a gross error in interpreting the debates of a century ago to rely on the claims of contemporary social movements as to their historical origins. In particular, it is perverse to regard Bolshevism as "Marxism in practice." Rather, the left-wing critique of Bolshevism, taking account of the historical circumstances surrounding the Russian Revolution, is far more to the point.[10]
The anti-Bolshevik, left-wing labor movement opposed the Leninists because they did not go far enough in exploiting the Russian upheavals for strictly proletarian ends. They became prisoners of their environment and used the international radical movement to satisfy specifically Russian needs, which soon became synonymous with the needs of the Bolshevik Party-State. The "bourgeois" aspects of the Russian Revolution were now discovered in Bolshevism itself: Leninism was adjudged a part of international social-democracy, differing from the latter only on tactical issues.[11]
If one were to seek a single leading idea within the anarchist tradition, it should, I believe, be that expressed by Bakunin when, in writing on the Paris Commune, he identified himself as follows:
I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; not the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by the School of J.-J. Rousseau and other schools of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of each---an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero. No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being---they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.[12]
These ideas grew out of the Enlightenment; their roots are in Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, Humboldt's Limits of State Action, Kant's insistence, in his defense of the French Revolution, that freedom is the precondition for acquiring the maturity for freedom, not a gift to be granted when such maturity is achieved. With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. In fact, on the very same assumptions that led classical liberalism to oppose the intervention of the state in social life, capitalist social relations are also intolerable. This is clear, for example, from the classic work of Humboldt, The Limits of State Action, which anticipated and perhaps inspired Mill. This classic of liberal thought, completed in 1792, is in its essence profoundly, though prematurely, anticapitalist. Its ideas must be attenuated beyond recognition to be transmuted into an ideology of industrial capitalism.
Humboldt's vision of a society in which social fetters are replaced by social bonds and labor is freely undertaken suggests the early Marx., with his discussion of the "alienation of labor when work is external to the worker...not part of his nature...[so that] he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself...[and is] physically exhausted and mentally debased," alienated labor that "casts some of the workers back into a barbarous kind of work and turns others into machines," thus depriving man of his "species character" of "free conscious activity" and "productive life." Similarly, Marx conceives of "a new type of human being who needs his fellow men....[The workers' association becomes] the real constructive effort to create the social texture of future human relations."[13] It is true that classical libertarian thought is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty, diversity, and free association. On the same assumptions, capitalist relations of production, wage labor, competitiveness, the ideology of "possessive individualism"---all must be regarded as fundamentally antihuman. Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.
Rudolf Rocker describes modern anarchism as "the confluence of the two great currents which during and since the French revolution have found such characteristic expression in the intellectual life of Europe: Socialism and Liberalism." The classical liberal ideals, he argues, were wrecked on the realities of capitalist economic forms. Anarchism is necessarily anticapitalist in that it "opposes the exploitation of man by man." But anarchism also opposes "the dominion of man over man." It insists that "socialism will be free or it will not be at all. In its recognition of this lies the genuine and profound justification for the existence of anarchism."[14] From this point of view, anarchism may be regarded as the libertarian wing of socialism. It is in this spirit that Daniel Guérin has approached the study of anarchism in Anarchism and other works.[15] Guérin quotes Adolph Fischer, who said that "every anarchist is a socialist but not every socialist is necessarily an anarchist." Similarly Bakunin, in his "anarchist manifesto" of 1865, the program of his projected international revolutionary fraternity, laid down the principle that each member must be, to begin with, a socialist.
A consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production and the wage slavery which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer. As Marx put it, socialists look forward to a society in which labor will "become not only a means of life, but also the highest want in life,"[16] an impossibility when the worker is driven by external authority or need rather than inner impulse: "no form of wage-labor, even though one may be less obnoxious that another, can do away with the misery of wage-labor itself."[17] A consistent anarchist must oppose not only alienated labor but also the stupefying specialization of labor that takes place when the means for developing production
mutilate the worker into a fragment of a human being, degrade him to become a mere appurtenance of the machine, make his work such a torment that its essential meaning is destroyed; estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labor process in very proportion to the extent to which science is incorporated into it as an independent power...[18]
Marx saw this not as an inevitable concomitant of industrialization, but rather as a feature of capitalist relations of production. The society of the future must be concerned to "replace the detail-worker of today...reduced to a mere fragment of a man, by the fully developed individual, fit for a variety of labours...to whom the different social functions...are but so many modes of giving free scope to his own natural powers."[19] The prerequisite is the abolition of capital and wage labor as social categories (not to speak of the industrial armies of the "labor state" or the various modern forms of totalitarianism since capitalism). The reduction of man to an appurtenance of the machine, a specialized tool of production, might in principle be overcome, rather than enhanced, with the proper development and use of technology, but not under the conditions of autocratic control of production by those who make man an instrument to serve their ends, overlooking his individual purposes, in Humboldt's phrase.
Anarchosyndicalists sought, even under capitalism, to create "free associations of free producers" that would engage in militant struggle and prepare to take over the organization of production on a democratic basis. These associations would serve as "a practical school of anarchism."[20] If private ownership of the means of production is, in Proudhon's often quoted phrase, merely a form of "theft"---"the exploitation of the weak by the strong"[21]---control of production by a state bureaucracy, no matter how benevolent its intentions, also does not create the conditions under which labor, manual and intellectual, can become the highest want in life. Both, then, must be overcome.
In his attack on the right of private or bureaucratic control over the means of production,, the anarchist takes his stand with those who struggle to bring about "the third and last emancipatory phase of history," the first having made serfs out of slaves, the second having made wage earners out of serfs, and the third which abolishes the proletariat in a final act of liberation that places control over the economy in the hands of free and voluntary associations of producers (Fourier, 1848).[22] The imminent danger to "civilization" was noted by de Tocqueville, also in 1848:
As long as the right of property was the origin and groundwork of many other rights, it was easily defended---or rather it was not attacked; it was then the citadel of society while all the other rights were its outworks; it did not bear the brunt of attack and, indeed, there was no serious attempt to assail it. but today, when the right of property is regarded as the last undestroyed remnant of the aristocratic world, when it alone is left standing, the sole privilege in an equalized society, it is a different matter. Consider what is happening in the hearts of the working-classes, although I admit they are quiet as yet. It is true that they are less inflamed than formerly by political passions properly speaking; but do you not see that their passions, far from being political, have become social? Do you not see that, little by little, ideas and opinions are spreading amongst them which aim not merely at removing such and such laws, such a ministry or such a government, but at breaking up the very foundations of society itself?[23]
The workers of Paris, in 1871, broke the silence, and proceeded
to abolish property, the basis of all civilization! Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intended to abolish that class property which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriators. It wanted to make individual property a truth by transforming the means of production, land and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving and exploiting labor, into mere instruments of free and associated labor.[24]
The Commune, of course, was drowned in blood. The nature of the "civilization" that the workers of Paris sought to overcome in their attack on "the very foundations of society itself" was revealed, once again, when the troops of the Versailles government reconquered Paris from its population. As Marx wrote, bitterly but accurately:
The civilization and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its lurid light whenever the slaves and drudges of that order rise against their masters. Then this civilization and justice stand forth as undisguised savagery and lawless revenge...the infernal deeds of the soldiery reflect the innate spirit of that civilization of which they are the mercenary vindicators....The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the destruction of brick and mortar. [Ibid., pp. 74, 77]
Despite the violent destruction of the Commune, Bakunin wrote that Paris opens a new era, "that of the definitive and complete emancipation of the popular masses and their future true solidarity, across and despite state boundaries...the next revolution of man, international in solidarity, will be the resurrection of Paris"---a revolution that the world still awaits.
The consistent anarchist, then, should be a socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not only oppose alienated and specialized labor and look forward to the appropriation of capital by the whole body of workers, but he will also insist that this appropriation be direct, not exercised by some elite force acting in the name of the proletariat. He will, in short, oppose
the organization of production by the Government. It means State-socialism, the command of the State officials over production and the command of managers, scientists, shop-officials in the shop....The goal of the working class is liberation from exploitation. This goal is not reached and cannot be reached by a new directing and governing class substituting itself for the bourgeoisie. It is only realized by the workers themselves being master over production.
These remarks are taken from "Five Theses on the Class Struggle" by the left-wing Marxist Anton Pannekoek, one of the outstanding left theorists of the council communist movement. And in fact, radical Marxism merges with anarchist currents.
As a further illustration, consider the following characterization of "revolutionary Socialism":
The revolutionary Socialist denies that State ownership can end in anything other than a bureaucratic despotism. We have seen why the State cannot democratically control industry. Industry can only be democratically owned and controlled by the workers electing directly from their own ranks industrial administrative committees. Socialism will be fundamentally an industrial system; its constituencies will be of an industrial character. Thus those carrying on the social activities and industries of society will be directly represented in the local and central councils of social administration. In this way the powers of such delegates will flow upwards from those carrying on the work and conversant with the needs of the community. When the central administrative industrial committee meets it will represent every phase of social activity. Hence the capitalist political or geographical state will be replaced by the industrial administrative committee of Socialism. The transition from the one social system to the other will be the social revolution. The political State throughout history has meant the government of men by ruling classes; the Republic of Socialism will be the government of industry administered on behalf of the whole community. The former meant the economic and political subjection of the many; the latter will mean the economic freedom of all---it will be, therefore, a true democracy.
This programmatic statement appears in William Paul's The State, its Origins and Functions, written in early 1917---shortly before Lenin's State and Revolution, perhaps his most libertarian work (see note 9). Paul was a member of the Marxist-De Leonist Socialist Labor Party and later one of the founders of the British Communist Party.[25] His critique of state socialism resembles the libertarian doctrine of the anarchists in its principle that since state ownership and management will lead to bureaucratic despotism, the social revolution must replace it by the industrial organization of society with direct workers' control. Many similar statements can be cited.
What is far more important is that these ideas have been realized in spontaneous revolutionary action, for example in Germany and Italy after World War I and in Spain (not only in the agricultural countryside, but also in industrial Barcelona) in 1936. One might argue that some form of council communism is the natural form of revolutionary socialism in an industrial society. It reflects the intuitive understanding that democracy is severely limited when the industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether of owners, managers and technocrats, a "vanguard" party, or a state bureaucracy. Under these conditions of authoritarian domination the classical libertarian ideals developed further by Marx and Bakunin and all true revolutionaries cannot be realized; man will not be free to develop his own potentialities to their fullest, and the producer will remain "a fragment of a human being," degraded, a tool in the productive process directed from above.
The phrase "spontaneous revolutionary action" can be misleading. The anarchosyndicalists, at least, took very seriously Bakunin's remark that the workers' organizations must create "not only the ideas but also the facts of the future itself" in the prerevolutionary period. The accomplishments of the popular revolution in Spain, in particular, were based on the patient work of many years of organization and education, one component of a long tradition of commitment and militancy. The resolutions of the Madrid Congress of June 1931 and the Saragossa Congress in May 1936 foreshadowed in many ways the acts of the revolution, as did the somewhat different ideas sketched by Santillan (see note 4) in his fairly specific account of the social and economic organization to be instituted by the revolution. Guérin writes "The Spanish revolution was relatively mature in the minds of libertarian thinkers, as in the popular consciousness." And workers' organizations existed with the structure, the experience, and the understanding to undertake the task of social reconstruction when, with the Franco coup, the turmoil of early 1936 exploded into social revolution. In his introduction to a collection of documents on collectivization in Spain, the anarchist Augustin Souchy writes:
For many years, the anarchists and the syndicalists of Spain considered their supreme task to be the social transformation of the society. In their assemblies of Syndicates and groups, in their journals, their brochures and books, the problem of the social revolution was discussed incessantly and in a systematic fashion.[26]
All of this lies behind the spontaneous achievements, the constructive work of the Spanish Revolution.
The ideas of libertarian socialism, in the sense described, have been submerged in the industrial societies of the past half-century. The dominant ideologies have been those of state socialism or state capitalism (of increasingly militarized character in the United States, for reasons that are not obscure).[27] But there has been a rekindling of interest in the past few years. The theses I quoted by Anton Pannekoek were taken from a recent pamphlet of a radical French workers' group (Informations Correspondance Ouvrière). The remarks by William Paul on revolutionary socialism are cited in a paper by Walter Kendall given at the National Conference on Workers' Control in Sheffield, England, in March 1969. The workers' control movement has become a significant force in England in the past few years. It has organized several conferences and has produced a substantial pamphlet literature, and counts among its active adherents representatives of some of the most important trade unions. The Amalgamated Engineering and Foundryworkers' Union, for example, has adopted, as official policy, the program of nationalization of basic industries under "workers' control at all levels."[28] On the Continent, there are similar developments. May 1968 of course accelerated the growing interest in council communism and related ideas in France and Germany, as it did in England.
Given the highly conservative cast of our highly ideological society, it is not too surprising that the United States has been relatively untouched by these developments. But that too may change. The erosion of cold-war mythology at least makes it possible to raise these questions in fairly broad circles. If the present wave of repression can be beaten back, if the left can overcome its more suicidal tendencies and build upon what has been accomplished in the past decade, then the problem of how to organize industrial society on truly democratic lines, with democratic control in the workplace and in the community, should become a dominant intellectual issue for those who are alive to the problems of contemporary society, and, as a mass movement for libertarian socialism develops, speculation should proceed to action.
In his manifesto of 1865, Bakunin predicted that one element in the social revolution will be "that intelligent and truly noble part of youth which, though belonging by birth to the privileged classes, in its generous convictions and ardent aspirations, adopts the cause of the people." Perhaps in the rise of the student movement of the 1960s one sees steps towards a fulfillment of this prophecy.
Daniel Guérin has undertaken what he has described as a "process of rehabilitation" of anarchism. He argues, convincingly I believe, that "the constructive ideas of anarchism retain their vitality, that they may, when re-examined and sifted, assist contemporary socialist thought to undertake a new departure...[and] contribute to enriching Marxism."[29]
From the "broad back" of anarchism he has selected for more intensive scrutiny those ideas and actions that can be described as libertarian socialist. This is natural and proper. This framework accommodates the major anarchist spokesmen as well as the mass actions that have been animated by anarchist sentiments and ideals. Guérin is concerned not only with anarchist thought but also with the spontaneous actions of popular revolutionary struggle. He is concerned with social as well as intellectual creativity. Furthermore, he attempts to draw from the constructive achievements of the past lessons that will enrich the theory of social liberation. For those who wish not only to understand the world, but also to change it, this is the proper way to study the history of anarchism.
Guérin describes the anarchism of the nineteenth century as essentially doctrinal, while the twentieth century, for the anarchists, has been a time of "revolutionary practice."[30] Anarchism reflects that judgment. His interpretation of anarchism consciously points toward the future. Arthur Rosenberg once pointed out that popular revolutions characteristically seek to replace "a feudal or centralized authority ruling by force" with some form of communal system which "implies the destruction and disappearance of the old form of State." Such a system will be either socialist or an "extreme form of democracy...[which is] the preliminary condition for Socialism inasmuch as Socialism can only be realized in a world enjoying the highest possible measure of individual freedom." This ideal, he notes, was common to Marx and the anarchists.[31] This natural struggle for liberation runs counter to the prevailing tendency towards centralization in economic and political life.
A century ago Marx wrote that the workers of Paris "felt there was but one alternative---the Commune, or the empire---under whatever name it might reappear."
The empire had ruined them economically by the havoc it made of public wealth, by the wholesale financial swindling it fostered, by the props it lent to the artificially accelerated centralization of capital, and the concomitant expropriation of their own ranks. It had suppressed them politically, it had shocked them morally by its orgies, it had insulted their Voltairianism by handing over the education of their children to the frères Ignorantins, it had revolted their national feeling as Frenchmen by precipitating them headlong into a war which left only one equivalent for the ruins it made---the disappearance of the empire.[32]
The miserable Second Empire "was the only form of government possible at a time when the bourgeoisie had already lost, and the working class had not yet acquired, the faculty of ruling the nation."
It is not very difficult to rephrase these remarks so that they become appropriate to the imperial systems of 1970. The problem of "freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement" remains the problem of our time. As long as this is so, the doctrines and the revolutionary practice of libertarian socialism will serve as an inspiration and guide.
******************NOTES***************
This essay is a revised version of the introduction to Daniel Guérin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. In a slightly different version, it appeared in the New York Review of Books, May 21, 1970.
[1] Octave Mirbeau, quoted in James Joll, The Anarchists, pp. 145--6.
[2] Rudolf Rocker, Anarchosyndicalism, p. 31.
[3] Cited by Rocker, ibid., p. 77. This quotation and that in the next sentence are from Michael Bakunin, "The Program of the Alliance," in Sam Dolgoff, ed. and trans., Bakunin on Anarchy, p. 255.
[4] Diego Abad de Santillan, After the Revolution, p. 86. In the last chapter, written several months after the revolution had begun, he expresses his dissatisfaction with what had so far been achieved along these lines. On the accomplishments of the social revolution in Spain, see my American Power and the New Mandarins, chap. 1, and references cited there; the important study by Broué and Témime has since been translated into English. Several other important studies have appeared since, in particular: Frank Mintz, L'Autogestion dans l'Espagne révolutionaire (Paris: Editions Bélibaste, 1971); César M. Lorenzo, Les Anarchistes espagnols et le pouvoir, 1868--1969 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1969); Gaston Leval, Espagne libertaire, 1936--1939: L'Oeuvre constructive de la Révolution espagnole (Paris: Editions du Cercle, 1971). See also Vernon Richards, Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, enlarged 1972 edition.
[5] Cited by Robert C. Tucker, The Marxian Revolutionary Idea, in his discussion of Marxism and anarchism.
[6] Bakunin, in a letter to Herzen and Ogareff, 1866. Cited by Daniel Guérin, Jeunesse du socialisme libertaire, p. 119.
[7] Fernand Pelloutier, cited in Joll, Anarchists. The source is "L'Anarchisme et les syndicats ouvriers," Les Temps nouveaux, 1895. The full text appears in Daniel Guérin, ed., Ni Dieu, ni Maítre, an excellent historical anthology of anarchism.
[8] Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia, p. 127.
[9] "No state, however democratic," Bakunin wrote, "not even the reddest republic---can ever give the people what they really want, i.e., the free self-organization and administration of their own affairs from the bottom upward, without any interference or violence from above, because every state, even the pseudo-People's State concocted by Mr. Marx, is in essence only a machine ruling the masses from above, from a privileged minority of conceited intellectuals, who imagine that they know what the people need and want better than do the people themselves...." "But the people will feel no better if the stick with which they are being beaten is labeled 'the people's stick' " (Statism and Anarchy [1873], in Dolgoff, Bakunin on Anarchy, p. 338)---"the people's stick" being the democratic Republic.
Marx, of course, saw the matter differently.
For discussion of the impact of the Paris Commune on this dispute, see Daniel Guérin's comments in Ni Dieu, ni Maítre; these also appear, slightly extended, in his Pour un marxisme libertaire. See also note 24.
[10] On Lenin's "intellectual deviation" to the left during 1917, see Robert Vincent Daniels, "The State and Revolution: a Case Study in the Genesis and Transformation of Communist Ideology," American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (1953).
[11] Paul Mattick, Marx and Keynes, p. 295.
[12] Michael Bakunin, "La Commune de Paris et la notion de l'état," reprinted in Guérin, Ni Dieu, ni Maítre. Bakunin's final remark on the laws of individual nature as the condition of freedom can be compared to the creative thought developed in the rationalist and romantic traditions. See my Cartesian Linguistics and Language and Mind.
[13] Shlomo Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, p. 142, referring to comments in The Holy Family. Avineri states that within the socialist movement only the Israeli kibbutzim "have perceived that the modes and forms of present social organization will determine the structure of future society." This, however, was a characteristic position of anarchosyndicalism, as noted earlier.
[14] Rocker, Anarchosyndicalism, p. 28.
[15] See Guérin's works cited earlier.
[16] Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme.
[17] Karl Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie, cited by Mattick, Marx and Keynes, p. 306. In this connection, see also Mattick's essay "Workers' Control," in Priscilla Long, ed., The New Left; and Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Marx.
[18] Karl Marx, Capital, quoted by Robert Tucker, who rightly emphasizes that Marx sees the revolutionary more as a "frustrated producer" than a "dissatisfied consumer" (The Marxian Revolutionary Idea). This more radical critique of capitalist relations of production is a direct outgrowth of the libertarian thought of the Enlightenment.
[19] Marx, Capital, cited by Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Marx, p. 83.
[20] Pelloutier, "L'Anarchisme."
[21] "Qu'est-ce que la propriété?" The phrase "property is theft" displeased Marx, who saw in its use a logical problem, theft presupposing the legitimate existence of property. See Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Marx.
[22] Cited in Buber's Paths in Utopia, p. 19.
[23] Cited in J. Hampden Jackson, Marx, Proudhon and European Socialism, p. 60.
[24] Karl Marx, The Civil War in France, p. 24. Avineri observes that this and other comments of Marx about the Commune refer pointedly to intentions and plans. As Marx made plain elsewhere, his considered assessment was more critical than in this address.
[25] For some background, see Walter Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain.
[26] Collectivisations: L'Oeuvre constructive de la Révolution espagnole, p. 8.
[27] For discussion, see Mattick, Marx and Keynes, and Michael Kidron, Western Capitalism Since the War. See also discussion and references cited in my At War With Asia, chap. 1, pp. 23--6.
[28] See Hugh Scanlon, The Way Forward for Workers' Control. Scanlon is the president of the AEF, one of Britain's largest trade unions. The institute was established as a result of the sixth Conference on Workers' Control, March 1968, and serves as a center for disseminating information and encouraging research.
[29] Guérin, Ni Dieu, ni Maítre, introduction.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Arthur Rosenberg, A History of Bolshevism, p. 88.
[32] Marx, Civil War in France, pp. 62--3.
*************BIBLIOGRAPHY*************
Avineri, Shlomo. The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx. London: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Bakunin, Michael. Bakunin on Anarchy. Edited and translated by Sam Dolgoff. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.
Buber, Martin. Paths in Utopia. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958.
Chomsky, Noam. Cartesian Linguistics. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
------. American Power and the New Mandarins. New York: Pantheon Books, 1969.
------. At War with Asia. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970.
Collectivisations: L'Oeuvre constructive de la Révolution espagnole. 2nd ed. Toulouse: Editions C.N.T., 1965. First edition, Barcelona, 1937.
Daniels, Robert Vincent. "The State and Revolution: a Case Study in the Genesis and Transformation of Communist Ideology." American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (1953).
Guérin, Daniel. Jeunesse du socialisme libertaire. Paris: Librairie Marcel Rivière, 1959.
------. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, translated by Mary Klopper. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970.
------. Pour un marxisme libertaire. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1969.
------, ed. Ni Dieu, ni Maítre. Lausanne: La Cité Editeur, n.d.
Jackson, J. Hampden. Marx, Proudhon and European Socialism. New York: Collier Books, 1962.
Joll, James. The Anarchists. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1964.
Kendall, Walter. The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900--1921. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969.
Kidron, Michael Western Capitalism Since the War. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968.
Mattick, Paul. Marx and Keynes: The Limits of Mixed Economy. Extending Horizons Series. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969.
------. "Workers' Control." In The New Left: A Collection of Essays, edited by Priscilla Long. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969.
Marx, Karl. The Civil War in France, 1871. New York: International Publishers, 1941.
Pelloutier, Fernand. "L'Anarchisme et les syndicats ouvriers." Les Temps nouveaux, 1895. Reprinted in Ni Dieu, ni Maítre, edited by Daniel Guérin. Lausanne: La Cité Editeur, n.d.
Richards, Vernon. Lessons of the Spanish Revolution (1936--1939). Enlarged ed. London: Freedom Press, 1972.
Rocker, Rudolf. Anarchosyndicalism. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938.
Rosenberg, Arthur. A History of Bolshevism from Marx to the First Five Years' Plan. Translated by Ian F. Morrow. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965.
Santillan, Diego Abad de. After the Revolution. New York: Greenberg Publishers, 1937.
Scanlon, Hugh. The Way Forward for Workers' Control. Institute for Workers' Control Pamphlet Series, no. 1, Nottingham, England, 1968.
Tucker, Robert C. The Marxian Revolutionary Idea. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1969.


Noam Chomsky on
Anarchism
Tom Lane
December 23, 1996
Introduction
Though Chomsky has written a considerable amount about anarchism in the past three decades, people often ask him for a more tangible, detailed vision of social change. His political analysis never fails to instill outrage and anger with the way the world works, but many readers are left uncertain about what exactly Chomsky would do to change it. Perhaps because they regard his analytical work with such respect, they anticipate he will lay out his goals and strategy with similar precision and clarity, only to be disappointed with his generalized statements of libertarian socialist values. Or perhaps many look to a great intellectual to provide a "master plan" for them to follow step-by-step into a bright shining future.
Yet Chomsky shys away from such pronouncements. He cautions that it is difficult to predict what particular forms a more just social organization will take, or even to know for sure what alternatives to the current system are ideal. Only experience can show us the best answers to these questions, he says. What should guide us along the way are a general set of principles which will underly whatever specific forms our future society will take. For Chomsky, those principles arise from the historical trend of thought and action known as anarchism.
Chomsky warns that little can be said about anarchism on a very general level. "I haven't tried to write anything systematic about these topics, nor do I know of anything by others that I could recommend," he wrote to me in reply to a set of questions on the subject. He's written here and there about it, notably in the recent Powers and Prospects, but there just isn't a lot to say in general terms. "The interest lies in the applications," he thinks, "but these are specific to time and place.
"In Latin America," Chomsky says, "I talked about many of these topics, and far more important, learned about them from people who are actually doing things, a good deal of which had an anarchist flavor. Also had a chance to meet with lively and interesting groups of anarchists, from Buenos Aires to Belem at the mouth of the Amazon (the latter I didn't know about at all -- amazing where our friends show up). But the discussions were much more focused and specific than I often see here; and rightly, I think."
As such, Chomsky's responses to these questions are general and terse. However, as a brief introduction to some of his thoughts on anarchism, perhaps they may inspire the reader to pursue other writings on the subject (a list appears at the end of the questions), and more importantly, to develop the concept of anarchism through the process of working for a more free and democratic society.
Tom Lane

Answers from Chomsky to eight questions on anarchism
General comment on all the questions:
No one owns the term "anarchism." It is used for a wide range of different currents of thought and action, varying widely. There are many self-styled anarchists who insist, often with great passion, that theirs is the only right way, and that others do not merit the term (and maybe are criminals of one or another sort). A look at the contemporary anarchist literature, particularly in the West and in intellectual circles (they may not like the term), will quickly show that a large part of it is denunciation of others for their deviations, rather as in the Marxist-Leninist sectarian literature. The ratio of such material to constructive work is depressingly high.
Personally, I have no confidence in my own views about the "right way," and am unimpressed with the confident pronouncements of others, including good friends. I feel that far too little is understood to be able to say very much with any confidence. We can try to formulate our long-term visions, our goals, our ideals; and we can (and should) dedicate ourselves to working on issues of human significance. But the gap between the two is often considerable, and I rarely see any way to bridge it except at a very vague and general level. These qualities of mine (perhaps defects, perhaps not) will show up in the (very brief) responses I will make to your questions.
1. What are the intellectual roots of anarchist thought, and what movements have developed and animated it throughout history?
The currents of anarchist thought that interest me (there are many) have their roots, I think, in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, and even trace back in interesting ways to the scientific revolution of the 17th century, including aspects that are often considered reactionary, like Cartesian rationalism. There's literature on the topic (historian of ideas Harry Bracken, for one; I've written about it too). Won't try to recapitulate here, except to say that I tend to agree with the important anarchosyndicalist writer and activist Rudolf Rocker that classical liberal ideas were wrecked on the shoals of industrial capitalism, never to recover (I'm referring to Rocker in the 1930s; decades later, he thought differently). The ideas have been reinvented continually; in my opinion, because they reflect real human needs and perceptions. The Spanish Civil War is perhaps the most important case, though we should recall that the anarchist revolution that swept over a good part of Spain in 1936, taking various forms, was not a spontaneous upsurge, but had been prepared in many decades of education, organization, struggle, defeat, and sometimes victories. It was very significant. Sufficiently so as to call down the wrath of every major power system: Stalinism, fascism, western liberalism, most intellectual currents and their doctrinal institutions -- all combined to condemn and destroy the anarchist revolution, as they did; a sign of its significance, in my opinion.
2. Critics complain that anarchism is "formless, utopian." You counter that each stage of history has its own forms of authority and oppression which must be challenged, therefore no fixed doctrine can apply. In your opinion, what specific realization of anarchism is appropriate in this epoch?
I tend to agree that anarchism is formless and utopian, though hardly more so than the inane doctrines of neoliberalism, Marxism-Leninism, and other ideologies that have appealed to the powerful and their intellectual servants over the years, for reasons that are all too easy to explain. The reason for the general formlessness and intellectual vacuity (often disguised in big words, but that is again in the self-interest of intellectuals) is that we do not understand very much about complex systems, such as human societies; and have only intuitions of limited validity as to the ways they should be reshaped and constructed.
Anarchism, in my view, is an expression of the idea that the burden of proof is always on those who argue that authority and domination are necessary. They have to demonstrate, with powerful argument, that that conclusion is correct. If they cannot, then the institutions they defend should be considered illegitimate. How one should react to illegitimate authority depends on circumstances and conditions: there are no formulas.
In the present period, the issues arise across the board, as they commonly do: from personal relations in the family and elsewhere, to the international political/economic order. And anarchist ideas -- challenging authority and insisting that it justify itself -- are appropriate at all levels.
3. What sort of conception of human nature is anarchism predicated on? Would people have less incentive to work in an egalitarian society? Would an absence of government allow the strong to dominate the weak? Would democratic decision-making result in excessive conflict, indecision and "mob rule"?
As I understand the term "anarchism," it is based on the hope (in our state of ignorance, we cannot go beyond that) that core elements of human nature include sentiments of solidarity, mutual support, sympathy, concern for others, and so on.
Would people work less in an egalitarian society? Yes, insofar as they are driven to work by the need for survival; or by material reward, a kind of pathology, I believe, like the kind of pathology that leads some to take pleasure from torturing others. Those who find reasonable the classical liberal doctrine that the impulse to engage in creative work is at the core of human nature -- something we see constantly, I think, from children to the elderly, when circumstances allow -- will be very suspicious of these doctrines, which are highly serviceable to power and authority, but seem to have no other merits.
Would an absence of government allow the strong to dominate the weak? We don't know. If so, then forms of social organization would have to be constructed -- there are many possibilities -- to overcome this crime.
What would be the consequences of democratic decision-making? The answers are unknown. We would have to learn by trial. Let's try it and find out.
4. Anarchism is sometimes called libertarian socialism -- How does it differ from other ideologies that are often associated with socialism, such as Leninism?
Leninist doctrine holds that a vanguard Party should assume state power and drive the population to economic development, and, by some miracle that is unexplained, to freedom and justice. It is an ideology that naturally appeals greatly to the radical intelligentsia, to whom it affords a justification for their role as state managers. I can't see any reason -- either in logic or history -- to take it seriously. Libertarian socialism (including a substantial mainstream of Marxism) dismissed all of this with contempt, quite rightly.
5. Many "anarcho-capitalists" claim that anarchism means the freedom to do what you want with your property and engage in free contract with others. Is capitalism in any way compatible with anarchism as you see it?
Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of "free contract" between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.
I should add, however, that I find myself in substantial agreement with people who consider themselves anarcho-capitalists on a whole range of issues; and for some years, was able to write only in their journals. And I also admire their commitment to rationality -- which is rare -- though I do not think they see the consequences of the doctrines they espouse, or their profound moral failings.
6. How do anarchist principles apply to education? Are grades, requirements and exams good things? What sort of environment is most conducive to free thought and intellectual development?
My feeling, based in part on personal experience in this case, is that a decent education should seek to provide a thread along which a person will travel in his or her own way; good teaching is more a matter of providing water for a plant, to enable it to grow under its own powers, than of filling a vessel with water (highly unoriginal thoughts I should add, paraphrased from writings of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism). These are general principles, which I think are generally valid. How they apply in particular circumstances has to be evaluated case by case, with due humility, and recognition of how little we really understand.
7. Depict, if you can, how an ideal anarchist society would function day-to-day. What sorts of economic and political institutions would exist, and how would they function? Would we have money? Would we shop in stores? Would we own our own homes? Would we have laws? How would we prevent crime?
I wouldn't dream of trying to do this. These are matters about which we have to learn, by struggle and experiment.
8. What are the prospects for realizing anarchism in our society? What steps should we take?
Prospects for freedom and justice are limitless. The steps we should take depend on what we are trying to achieve. There are, and can be, no general answers. The questions are wrongly put. I am reminded of a nice slogan of the rural workers' movement in Brazil (from which I have just returned): they say that they must expand the floor of the cage, until the point when they can break the bars. At times, that even requires defense of the cage against even worse predators outside: defense of illegitimate state power against predatory private tyranny in the United States today, for example, a point that should be obvious to any person committed to justice and freedom -- anyone, for example, who thinks that children should have food to eat -- but that seems difficult for many people who regard themselves as libertarians and anarchists to comprehend. That is one of the self-destructive and irrational impulses of decent people who consider themselves to be on the left, in my opinion, separating them in practice from the lives and legitimate aspirations of suffering people.
So it seems to me. I'm happy to discuss the point, and listen to counter-argument, but only in a context that allows us to go beyond shouting of slogans -- which, I'm afraid, excludes a good deal of what passes for debate on the left, more's the pity.
Noam

In another letter, Chomsky offered this expansion on his thoughts regarding a future society:
About a future society, I...may be repeating, but it's something I've been concerned with every since I was a kid. I recall, about 1940, reading Diego Abad de Santillan's interesting book After the Revolution, criticizing his anarchist comrades and sketching in some detail how an anarchosyndicalist Spain would work (these are >50 year old memories, so don't take it too literally). My feeling then was that it looked good, but do we understand enough to answer questions about a society in such detail? Over the years, naturally I've learned more, but it has only deepened my skepticism about whether we understand enough. In recent years, I've discussed this a good deal with Mike Albert, who has been encouraging me to spell out in detail how I think society should work, or at least react to his "participatory democracy" conception. I've backed off, in both cases, for the same reasons. It seems to me that answers to most such questions have to be learned by experiment. Take markets (to the extent that they could function in any viable society -- limited, if the historical record is any guide, not to speak of logic). I understand well enough what's wrong with them, but that's not sufficient to demonstrate that a system that eliminates market operations is preferable; simply a point of logic, and I don't think we know the answer. Same with everything else.


ANARCHISM:
Its Philosophy and ldeal.
BY
PETER KROPOTKIN. ANARCHY.
______
(Translated from the German by Harry Lyman Koopman.)
______
Ever reviled, accursed,-n'er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."
O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven,
The truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word's right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
That sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! -Thine secure
When each at last unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
I cannot tell......but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!
-John Henry Mackay.

IT is not without a certain hesitation that I have decided to take the philosophy and ideal of Anarchy as the subject of this lecture.
Those who are persuaded that Anarchy is a collection of visions relating to the future, and an unconscious striving toward the destruction of all present civilization, are still very numerous; and to clear the ground of such prejudices of our education as maintain this view we should have, perhaps, to enter into many details which it would be difficult to embody in a single lecture. Did not the Parisian press, only two or three years ago, maintain that the whole philosophy of Anarchy consisted in destruction, and that its only argument was violence?
Nevertheless Anarchists have been spoken of so much lately, that part of the public has at last taken to reading and discussing our doctrines. Sometimes men have even given themselves trouble to reflect, and at the present moment we have at least gained a point: it is willingly admitted that Anarchists have an ideal. Their ideal is even found too beautiful, too lofty for a society not composed of superior beings.
But is it not pretentious on my part to speak of a philosophy, when, according to our critics, our ideas are but dim visions of a distant future? Can Anarchy pretend to possess a philosophy, when it is denied that Socialism has one?
This is what I am about to answer with all possible precision and clearness, only asking you to excuse me beforehand if I repeat an example or two which I have already given at a London lecture, and which seem to be best fitted to explain what is meant by the philosophy of Anarchism.

You will not bear me any ill-will if I begin by taking a few elementary illustrations borrowed from natural sciences. Not for the purpose of deducing our social ideas from them-far from it; but simply the better to set off certain relations, which are easier grasped in phenomena verified by the exact sciences than in examples only taken from the complex facts of human societies.
Well, then, what especially strikes us at present in exact sciences, is the profound modification which they are undergoing now, in the whole of their conceptions and interpretations of the facts of the universe.
There was a time, you know, when man imagined the earth placed in the center of the universe. Sun, moon, planets and stars seemed to roll round our globe; and this globe, inhabited by man, represented for him the center of creation. He himself-the superior being on his planet-was the elected of his Creator. The sun, the moon, the stars were but made for him; toward him was directed all the attention of a God, who watched the least of his actions, arrested the sun's course for him, wafted in the clouds, launching his showers or his thunder-bolts on fields and cities, to recompense the virtue or punish the crimes of mankind. For thousands of years man thus conceived the universe.
You know also what an immense change was produced in the sixteenth century in all conceptions of the civilized part of mankind, when it was demonstrated that, far from being the centre of the universe, the earth was only a grain of sand in the solar system-a ball, much smaller even than the other planets; that the sun itself-though immense in comparison to our little earth, was but a star among many other countless stars which we see shining in the skies and swarming in the milky-way. How small man appeared in comparison to this immensity without limits, how ridiculous his pretensions! All the philosophy of that epoch, all social and religious conceptions, felt the effects of this transformation in cosmogony. Natural science, whose present development we are so proud of, only dates from that time.
But a change, much more profound, and with far wider reaching results, is being effected at the present time in the whole of the sciences, and Anarchy, you will see, is but one of the many manifestations of this evolution.
Take any work on astronomy of the last century, or the beginning of ours. You will no longer find in it, it goes without saying, our tiny planet placed in the center of the universe. But you will meet at every step the idea of a central luminary-the sun-which by its powerful attraction governs our planetary world. From this central body radiates a force guiding the course of the planets, and maintaining the harmony of the system. Issued from a central agglomeration, planets have, so to say, budded from it; they owe their birth to this agglomeration; they owe everything to the radiant star that represents it still: the rhythm of their movements, their orbits set at wisely regulated distances, the life that animates them and adorns their surfaces. And when any perturbation disturbs their course and makes them deviate from their orbits, the central body re-establishes order in the system; it assures and perpetuates its existence.
This conception, however, is also disappearing as the other one did. After having fixed all their attention on the sun and the large planets, astronomers are beginning to study now the infinitely small ones that people the universe. And they discover that the interplanetary and interstellar spaces are peopled and crossed in all imaginable directions by little swarms of matter, invisible, infinitely small when taken separately, but all-powerful in their numbers. Among those masses, some, like the bolide that fell in Spain some time ago, are still rather big; others weigh but a few ounces or grains, while around them is wafted dust, almost microscopic, filling up the spaces.
It is to this dust, to these infinitely tiny bodies that dash through space in all directions with giddy swiftness, that clash with one another, agglomerate, disintegrate, everywhere and always, it is to them that today astronomers look for an explanation of the origin of our solar system, the movements that animate its parts, and the harmony of their whole. Yet another step, and soon universal gravitation itself will be but the result of all the disordered and incoherent movements of these infinitely small bodies-of oscillations of atoms that manifest themselves in all possible directions. Thus the center, the origin of force, formerly transfered from the earth to the sun, now turns out to be scattered and disseminated: it is everywhere and nowhere. With the astronomer, we perceive that solar systems are the work of infinitely small bodies; that the power which was supposed to govern the system is itself but the result of the collisions among those infinitely tiny clusters of matter, that the harmony of stellar systems is harmony only because it is an adaptation, a resultant of all these numberless movements uniting, completing, equilibrating one another.
The whole aspect of the universe changes with this new conception. The idea of force governing the world, of pre- established law, preconceived harmony, disappears to make room for the harmony that Fourier had caught a glimpse of: the one which results from the disorderly and incoherent movements of numberless hosts of matter, each of which goes its own way and all of which hold each other in equilibrium.

If it were only astronomy that were undergoing this change! But no; the same modification takes place in the philosophy of all sciences without exception; those which study nature as well as those which study human relations.
In physical sciences, the entities of heat, magnetism, and electricity disappear. When a physicist speaks today of a heated or electrified body, he no longer sees an inanimate mass, to which an unknown force should be added. He strives to recognize in this body and in the surrounding space, the course, the vibrations of infinitely small atoms which dash in all directions, vibrate, move, live, and by their vibrations, their shocks, their life, produce the phenomena of heat, light, magnetism or electricity.
In sciences that treat of organic life, the notion of species and its variations is being substituted by a notion of the variations of the individual. The botanist and zoologist study the individual-his life, his adaptations to his surroundings. Changes produced in him by the action of drought or damp, heat or cold, abundance or poverty of nourishment, of his more or less sensitiveness to the action of exterior surroundings will originate species; and the variations of species are now for the biologist but resultants-a given sum of variations that have been produced in each individual separately. A species will be what the individuals are, each undergoing numberless influences from the surroundings in which they live, and to which they correspond each in his own way.
And when a physiologist speaks now of the life of a plant or of an animal, he sees rather an agglomeration, a colony of millions of separate individuals than a personality one and indivisible. He speaks of a federation of digestive, sensual, nervous organs, all very intimately connected with one another, each feeling the consequence of the well-being or indisposition of each, but each living its own life. Each organ, each part of an organ in its turn is composed of independent cellules which associate to struggle against conditions unfavorable to their existence. The individual is quite a world of federations, a whole universe in himself.
And in this world of aggregated beings the physiologist sees the autonomous cells of blood, of the tissues, of the nerve-centers; he recognizes the millions of white corpuscles-the phagocytes-who wend their way to the parts of the body infected by microbes in order to give battle to the invaders. More than that: in each microscopic cell he discovers today a world of autonomous organisms, each of which lives its own life, looks for well-being for itself and attains it by grouping and associating itself with others. In short, each individual is a cosmos of organs, each organ is a cosmos of cells, each cell is a cosmos of infinitely small ones; and in this complex world, the well-being of the whole depends entirely on the sum of well-being enjoyed by each of the least microscopic particles of organized matter. A whole revolution is thus produced in the philosophy of life.

But it is especially in psychology that this revolution leads to consequences of great importance.
Quite recently the psychologist spoke of man as an entire being, one and indivisible. Remaining faithful to religious tradition, he used to class men as good and bad, intelligent and stupid, egotists and altruists. Even with materialists of the eighteenth century, the idea of a soul, of an indivisible entity, was still upheld.
But what would we think today of a psychologist who would still speak like this! The modern psychologist sees in man a multitude of separate faculties, autonomous tendencies, equal among themselves, performing their functions independently, balancing, opposing one another continually. Taken as a whole, man is nothing but a resultant, always changeable, of all his divers faculties, of all his autonomous tendencies, of brain cells and nerve centers. All are related so closely to one another that they each react on all the others, but they lead their own life without being subordinated to a central organ-the soul.

Without entering into further details you thus see that a profound modification is being produced at this moment in the whole of natural sciences. Not that this analysis is extended to details formerly neglected. No! the facts are not new, but the way of looking at them is in course of evolution; and if we had to characterize this tendency in a few words, we might say that if formerly science strove to study the results and the great sums (integrals, as mathematicians say), today it strives to study the infinitely small ones-the individuals of which those sums are composed and in which it now recognizes independence and individuality at the same time as this intimate aggregation.
As to the harmony that the human mind discovers in Nature, and which harmony is, on the whole, but the verification of a certain stability of phenomena, the modern man of science no doubt recognizes it more than ever. But he no longer tries to explain it by the action of laws conceived according to a certain plan preestablished by an intelligent will.
What used to be called "natural law" is nothing but a certain relation among phenomena which we dimly see, and each "law" takes a temporary character of causality; that is to say: If such a phenomenon is produced under such conditions, such another phenomenon will follow. No law placed outside the phenomena: each phenomenon governs that which follows it-not law.
Nothing preconceived in what we call harmony in Nature. The chance of collisions and encounters has sufficed to establish it. Such a phenomenon will last for centuries because the adaption, the equilibrium it represents has taken centuries to be established; while such another will last but an instant if that form of momentary equilibrium was born in an instant. If the planets of our solar system do not collide with one another and do not destroy one another every day, if they last millions of years, it is because they represent an equilibrium that has taken millions of centuries to establish as a resultant of millions of blind forces. If continents are not continually destroyed by volcanic shocks, it is because they have taken thousands and thousands of centuries to build up, molecule by molecule, and to take their present shape. But lightning will only last an instant; because it represents a momentary rupture of the equilibrium, a sudden redistribution of force.
Harmony thus appears as a temporary adjustment, established among all forces acting upon a given spot-a provisory adaptation; and that adjustment will only last under one condition: that of being continually modified; of representing every moment the resultant of all conflicting actions. Let but one of those forces be hampered in its action for some time and harmony disappears. Force will accumulate its effect; it must come to light, it must exercise its action, and if other forces hinder its manifestation it will not be annihilated by that, but will end by upsetting the present adjustment, by destroying harmony, in order to find a new form of equilibrium and to work to form a new adaptation. Such is the eruption of a volcano, whose imprisoned force ends by breaking the petrified lavas which hindered them to pour forth the gases, the molten lavas, and the incandescent ashes. Such, also, are the revolutions of mankind.

An analogous transformation is being produced at the same time in the sciences that treat of man. Thus we see that history, after having been the history of kingdoms, tends to become the history of nations and then the study of individuals. The historian wants to know how the members, of which such a nation was composed, lived at such a time, what their beliefs were, their means of existence, what ideal of society was visible to them, and what means they possessed to march toward this ideal. And by the action of all those forces, formerly neglected, he interprets the great historical phenomena.
So the man of science who studies jurisprudence is no longer content with such or such a code. Like the ethnologist he wants to know the genesis of the institution that succeed one another; he follows their evolution through ages, and in this study he applies himself far less to written law than to local customs-to the "customary law" in which the constructive genius of the unknown masses has found expression in all times. A wholly new science is being elaborated in this direction and promises to upset established conceptions we learned at school, succeeding in interpreting history in the same manner as natural sciences interpret the phenomena of Nature.
And, finally, political economy, which was at the beginning a study of the wealth of nations, becomes today a study of the wealth of individuals. It cares less to know if such a nation has or has not a large foreign trade; it wants to be assured that bread is not wanting in the peasant's or worker's cottage. It knocks at all doors-at that of the palace as well as that of the hovel-and asks the rich as well as the poor: Up to what point are your needs satisfied both for necessaries and luxuries?
And as it discovers that the most pressing needs of nine-tenths of each nation are not satisfied, it asks itself the question that a physiologist would ask himself about a plant or an animal:-" Which are the means to satisfy the needs of all with the least lose of power? How can a society guarantee to each, and consequently to all, the greatest sum of satisfaction?" It is in this direction that economic science is being transformed; and after having been so long a simple statement of phenomena interpreted in the interest of a rich minority, it tends to become (or rather it elaborates the elements to become) a science in the true sense of the word--a physiology of human societies.

While a new philosophy-a new view of knowledge taken as a whole-is thus being worked out, we may observe that a different conception of society, very different from that which now prevails, is in process of formation. Under the name of Anarchy, a new interpretation of the past and present life of society arises, giving at the same time a forecast as regards its future, both conceived in the same spirit as the above-mentioned interpretation in natural sciences. Anarchy, therefore, appears as a constituent part of the new philosophy, and that is why Anarchists come in contact, on so many points, with the greatest thinkers and poets of the present day.
In fact, it is certain that in proportion as the human mind frees itself from ideas inculcated by minorities of priests, military chiefs and judges, all striving to establish their domination, and of scientists paid to perpetuate it, a conception of society arises, in which conception there is no longer room for those dominating minorities. A society entering into possession of the social capital accumulated by the labor of preceding generations, organizing itself so as to make use of this capital in the interests of all, and constituting itself without reconstituting the power of the ruling minorities. It comprises in its midst an infinite variety of capacities, temperaments and individual energies: it excludes none. It even calls for struggles and contentions; because we know that periods of contests, so long as they were freely fought out, without the weight of constituted authority being thrown on the one side of the balance, were periods when human genius took its mightiest flight and achieved the greatest aims. Acknowledging, as a fact, the equal rights of all its members to the treasures accumulated in the past, it no longer recognizes a division between exploited and exploiters, governed and governors, dominated and dominators, and it seeks to establish a certain harmonious compatibility in its midst-not by subjecting all its members to an -authority that is fictitiously supposed to represent society, not by trying to establish uniformity, but by urging all men to develop free initiative, free action, free association.
It seeks the most complete development of individuality combined with the highest development of voluntary association in all its aspects, in all possible degrees, for all imaginable aims; ever changing, ever modified associations which carry in themselves the elements of their durability and constantly assume new forms, which answer best to the multiple aspirations of all.
A society to which preestablished forms, crytalized by law, are repugnant; which looks for harmony in an ever-changing and fugitive equilibrium between a multitude of varied forces and influences of every kind, following their own course,-these forces promoting themselves the energies which are favorable to their march toward progress, toward the liberty of developing in broad daylight and counter-balancing one another.
This conception and ideal of society is certainly not new. On the contrary, when we analyze the history of popular institutions-the clan, the village community, the guild and even the urban commune of the Middle Ages in their first stages,-we find the same popular tendency to constitute a society according to this idea; a tendency, however, always trammelled by domineering minorities. All popular movements bore this stamp more or less, and with the Anabaptists and their forerunners in the ninth century we already find the same ideas clearly expressed in the religious language which was in use at that time. Unfortunately, till the end of the last century, this ideal was always tainted by a theocratic spirit; and it is only nowadays that the conception of society deduced from the observation of social phenomena is rid of its swaddling-clothes.
It is only today that the ideal of a society where each governs himself according to his own will (which is evidently a result of the social influences borne by each) is affirmed in its economic, political and moral aspects at one and the same time, and that this ideal presents itself based on the necessity of Communism, imposed on our modern societies by the eminently social character of our present production.
In fact, we know full well today that it is futile to speak of liberty as long as economic slavery exists.
"Speak not of liberty-poverty is slavery!" is not a vain formula; it has penetrated into the ideas of the great working-class masses; it filters through all the present literature; it even carries those along who live on the poverty of others, and takes from them the arrogance with which they formerly asserted their rights to exploitation.
Millions of Socialists of both hemispheres already agree that the present form of capitalistic appropriation cannot last much longer. Capitalists themselves feel that it must go and dare not defend it with their former assurance. Their only argument is reduced to saying to us: "You have invented nothing better!" But as to denying the fatal consequences of the present forms of property, as to justifying their right to property, they cannot do it. They will practice this right as long as freedom of action is left to them, but without trying to base it on an idea. This is easily understood.
For instance, take the town of Paris-a creation of so many centuries, a product of the genius of a whole nation, a result of the labor of twenty or thirty generations. How could one maintain to an inhabitant of that town who works every day to embellish it, to purify it, to nourish it, to make it a centre of thought and art-how could one assert before one who produces this wealth that the palaces adorning the streets of Paris belong in all justice to those who are the legal proprietors today, when we are all creating their value, which would be nil without us?
Such a fiction can be kept up for some time by the skill of the people's educators. The great battalions Of workers may not even reflect about it; but from the moment a minority of thinking men agitate the question and submit it to all, there can be no doubt of the result. Popular opinion answers: "It is by spoliation that they hold these riches!"
Likewise, how can the peasant be made to believe that the bourgeois or manorial land belongs to the proprietor who has a legal claim, when a peasant can tell us the history of each bit of land for ten leagues around? Above all, how make him believe that it is useful for the nation that Mr. So-and-So keeps a piece of land for his park when so many neighboring peasants would be only too glad to cultivate it ?
And, lastly, how make the worker in a factory, or the miner in a mine, believe that factory and mine equitably belong to their present masters, when worker and even miner are beginning to see clearly through Panama scandals, bribery, French, Turkish or other railways, pillage of the State and legal theft, from which great commercial and industrial property are derived ?
In fact the masses have never believed in sophisms taught by economists, uttered more to confirm exploiters in their rights than to convert exploited! Peasants and workers, crushed by misery and finding no support in the well-to-do classes, have let things go, save from time to time when they have affirmed their rights by insurrection. And if workers ever thought that the day would come when personal appropriation of capital would profit all by turning it into a stock of wealth to be shared by all, this illusion is vanishing like so many others. The worker perceives that he has been disinherited, and that disinherited he will remain, unless he has recourse to strikes or revolts to tear from his masters the smallest part of riches built up by his own efforts; that is to say, in order to get that little, he already must impose on himself the pangs of hunger and face imprisonment, if not exposure to Imperial, Royal, or Republican fusillades.

But a greater evil of the present system becomes more and more marked; namely, that in a system based on private appropriation, all that is necessary to life and to production-land, housing, food and tools-having once passed into the hands of a few, the production of necessities that would give well-being to all is continually hampered. The worker feels vaguely that our present technical power could give abundance to all, but he also perceives how the capitalistic system and the State hinder the conquest of this well-being in every way.
Far from producing more than is needed to assure material riches, we do not produce enough. When a peasant covets the parks and gardens of industrial filibusters and Panamists, round which judges and police mount guard-when he dreams of covering them with crops which, he knows, would carry abundance to the villages whose inhabitants feed on bread hardly washed down with sloe wine-he understands this.
The miner, forced to be idle three days a week, thinks of the tons of coal he might extract, and which are sorely Deeded in poor households.
The worker whose factory is closed, and who tramps the streets in search of work, sees bricklayers out of work like himself, while one-fifth of the population of Paris live in insanitary hovels; he hears shoe-makers complain of want of work, while so many people need shoes-and so on.

In short, if certain economists delight in writing treatises on over-production, and in explaining each industrial crisis by this cause, they would be much at a loss if called upon to name a single article produced by France in greater quantities than are necessary to satisfy the needs of the whole population. It is certainly not corn: the country is obliged to import it. It is not wine either: peasants drink but little wine, and substitute sloe wine in its stead, and the inhabitants of towns have to be content with adulterated stuff. It is evidently not houses: millions still live in cottages of the most wretched description, with one or two apertures. It is not even good or bad books, for they are still objects of luxury in the villages. Only one thing is produced in quantities greater than needed,-it is the budget-devouring individual; but such merchandise is not mentioned in lectures by political economists, although those individuals possess all the attributes of merchandise, being ever ready to sell themselves to the highest bidder.
What economists call over-production is but a production that is above the purchasing power of the worker, who is reduced to poverty by Capital and State. Now, this sort of over-production remains fatally characteristic of the present capitalist production, because-Proudhon has already shown it-workers cannot buy with their salaries what they have produced and at the same time copiously nourish the swarm of idlers who live upon their work.
The very essence of the present economic system is, that the worker can never enjoy the well-being he has produced, and that the number of those who live at his expense will always augment. The more a country is advanced in industry, the more this number grows. Inevitably, industry is directed, and will have to be directed, not towards what is needed to satisfy the needs of all, but towards that which, at a given moment, brings in the greatest temporary profit to a few. Of necessity, the abundance of some will be based on the poverty of others, and the straitened circumstances of the greater number will have to be maintained at all costs, that there may be hands to sell themselves for a part only of that which they are capable of producing; without which, private accumulation of capital is impossible!
These characteristics of our economical system are its very essence. Without them, it cannot exist; for, who would sell his labor power for less than it is capable of bringing in, if he were not forced thereto by the threat of hunger?
And those essential traits of the system are also its most crushing condemnation.

As long as England and France were pioneers of industry, in the midst of nations backward in their technical development, and as long as neighbors purchased their wools, their cotton goods, their silks, their iron and machines, as well as a whole range of articles of luxury, at a price that allowed them to enrich themselves at the expense of their clients,- the worker could be buoyed up by hope that he, too, would be called upon to appropriate an ever and ever larger share of the booty to himself. But these conditions are disappearing. In their turn, the backward nations of thirty years ago have become great producers of cotton goods, wools, silks, machines and articles of luxury. In certain branches of industry they have even taken the lead, and not only do they struggle with the pioneers of industry and commerce in distant lands, but they even compete with those pioneers in their own countries. In a few years Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the United States, Russia and Japan have become great industrial countries. Mexico, the Indies, even Servia, are on the march-and what will it be when China begins to imitate Japan in manufacturing for the world's market?
The result is, that industrial crises, the frequency and duration of which are always augmenting, have passed into a chronic state in many industries. Likewise, wars for Oriental and African markets have become the order of the day since several years; it is now twenty-five years that the sword of war has been suspended over European states. And if war has not burst forth, it is especially due to influential financiers who find it advantageous that States should become more and more indebted. But the day on which Money will find its interest in fomenting war, human flocks will be driven against other human flocks, and will butcher one another to settle the affairs of the world's master-financiers.
All is linked, all holds together under the present economic system, and all tends to make the fall of the industrial and mercantile system under which we live inevitable. Its duration is but a question of time that may already be counted by years and no longer by centuries. A question of time-and energetic attack on our part! Idlers do not make history: they suffer it!

That is why such powerful minorities constitute themselves in the midst of civilized nations, and loudly ask for the return to the community of all riches accumulated by the work of preceding generations. The holding in common of land, mines, factories, inhabited houses, and means of transport is already the watch-word of these imposing fractions, and repression-the favorite weapon of the rich and powerful-can no longer do anything to arrest the triumphal march of the spirit of revolt. And if millions of workers do not rise to seize the land and factories from the monopolists by force, be sure it is not for want of desire. They but wait for a favorable opportunity-a chance, such as presented itself in 1848, when they will be able to start the destruction of the present economic system, with the hope of being supported by an International movement.
That time cannot be long in coming; for since the International was crushed by governments in 1872-especially since then-it has made immense progress of which its most ardent partisans are hardly aware. It is, in fact, constituted-in ideas, in sentiments, in the establishment of constant intercommunication. It is true the French, English, Italian and German plutocrats are so many rivals, and at any moment can even cause nations to war with one another. Nevertheless, be sure when the Communist and Social Revolution does take place in France, France will find the same sympathies as formerly among the nations of the world, including Germans, Italians and English. And when Germany, which, by the way, is nearer a revolution than is thought, will plant the flag-unfortunately a Jacobin one-of this revolution, when it will throw itself into the revolution with all the ardor of youth in an ascendant period, such as it is traversing today, it will find on this side of the Rhine all the sympathies and all the support of a nation that loves the audacity of revolutionists and hates the arrogance of plutocracy.

Divers causes have up till now delayed the bursting forth of this inevitable revolution. The possibility of a great European war is no doubt partly answerable for it. But there is, it seems to me, another cause, a deeper-rooted one, to which I would call your attention. There is going on just now among the Socialists-many tokens lead us to believe it-a great transformation in ideas, like the one I sketched at the beginning of this lecture in speaking of general sciences. And the uncertainty of Socialists themselves concerning the organization of the society they are wishing for, paralyses their energy up to a certain point.
At the beginning, in the forties, Socialism presented itself as Communism, as a republic one and indivisible, as a governmental and Jacobin dictatorship, in its application to economics. Such was the ideal of that time. Religious and freethinking Socialists were equally ready to submit to any strong government, even an imperial one, if that government would only remodel economic relations to the worker's advantage.
A profound revolution has since been accomplished, especially among Latin and English peoples. Governmental Communism, like theocratic Communism, is repugnant to the worker. And this repugnance gave rise to a new conception or doctrine-that of Collectivism-in the International. This doctrine at first signified the collective possession of the instruments of production (not including what is necessary to live), and the right of each group to accept such method of remuneration, whether communistic or individualistic, as pleased its members. Little by little, however, this system was transformed into a sort of compromise between communistic and individualistic wage remuneration. Today the Collectivist wants all that belongs to production to become common property, but that each should be individually remunerated by labor checks, according to the number of hours he has spent in production. These checks would serve to buy all merchandise in the Socialist stores at cost price, which price would also be estimated in hours of labor.
But if you analyze this idea you will own that its essence, as summed up by one of our friends, is reduced to this:
Partial Communism in the possession of instruments of production and education. Competition among individuals and groups for bread, housing and clothing. Individualism for works of art and thought. The Socialistic State's aid for children, invalids and old people.
In a word-a struggle for the means of existence mitigated by charity. Always the Christian maxim: "Wound to heal afterwards!" And always the door open to inquisition, in order to know if you are a man who must be left to struggle, or a man the State must succor.
The idea of labor checks, you know, is old. It dates from Robert Owen; Proudhon commended it in 1848; Marxists have made "Scientific Socialism" of it today.
We must say, however, that this system seems to have little hold on the minds of the masses; it would seem they foresaw its drawbacks, not to say its impossibility. Firstly, the duration of time given to any work does not give the measure of social utility of the work accomplished, and the theories of value that economists have endeavored to base, from Adam Smith to Marx, only on the cost of production, valued in labor time, have not solved the question of value. As soon as there is exchange, the value of an article becomes a complex quantity, and depends also on the degree of satisfaction which it brings to the needs-not of the individual, as certain economists stated formerly, but of the whole of society, taken in its entirety. Value is a social fact. Being the result of an exchange, it has a double aspect: that of labor, and that of satisfaction of needs, both evidently conceived in their social and not individual aspect.
On the other hand, when we analyze the evils of the present economic system, we see-and the worker knows it full well-that their essence lies in the forced necessity of the worker to sell his labor power. Not having the wherewithal to live for the next fortnight, and being prevented by the State from using his labor power without selling it to someone, the worker sells himself to the one who undertakes to give him work; he renounces the benefits his labor might bring him in; he abandons the lion's share of what he produces to his employer; he even abdicates his liberty; he renounces his right to make his opinion heard on the utility of what he is about to produce and on the way of producing it.
Thus results the accumulation of capital, not in its faculty of absorbing surplus-value but in the forced position the worker is placed to sell his labor power: -the seller being sure in advance that he will not receive all that his strength can produce, of being wounded in his interests, and of becoming the inferior of the buyer. Without this the capitalist would never have tried to buy him; which proves that to change the system it must be attacked in its essence: in its cause-sale and purchase,-not in its effect-Capitalism.
Workers themselves have a vague intuition of this, and we hear them say oftener and oftener that nothing will be done if the Social Revolution does not begin with the distribution of products, if it does not guarantee the necessities of life to all-that is to say, housing, food and clothing. And we know that to do this is quite impossible, with the powerful means of production at our disposal.
If the worker continues to be paid in wages, lie necessarily will remain the slave or the subordinate of the one to whom he is forced to sell his labor force-be the buyer a private individual or the State. In the popular mind-in that sum total of thousands of opinions crossing the human brain-it is felt that if the State were to be substituted for the employer, in his role of buyer and overseer of labor, it would still be an odious tyranny. A man of the people does not reason about abstractions, he thinks in concrete terms, and that is why he feels that the abstraction, the State, would for him assume the form of numberless functionaries, taken from among his factory and workshop comrades, and he knows what importance he can attach to their virtues: excellent comrades today, they become unbearable foremen tomorrow. And he looks for a social constitution that will eliminate the present evils without creating new ones.
That is why Collectivism has never taken hold of the masses, who always come back to Communism-but a Communism more and more stripped of the Jacobin theocracy and authoritarianism of the forties - to Free Communism - Anarchy.
Nay more: in calling to mind all we have seen during this quarter of a century in the European Socialist movement, I cannot help believing that modern Socialism is forced to make a step towards Free Communism; and that so long as that step is not taken, the incertitude in the popular mind that I have just pointed out will paralyze the efforts of Socialist propaganda.
Socialists seem to me to be brought, by force of circumstances, to recognize that the material guarantee of existence of all the members of the community shall be the first act of the Social Revolution.
But they are also driven to take another step. They are obliged to recognize that this guarantee must come, not from the State, but independently of the State, and without its intervention.
We have already obtained the unanimous assent of those who have studied the subject, that a society, having recovered the possession of all riches accumulated in its midst, can liberally assure abundance to all in return for four or five hours effective and manual work a day, as far as regards production. If everybody, from childhood, learned whence came the bread he eats, the house he dwells in, the book he studies, and so on; and if each one accustomed himself to complete mental work by manual labor in some branch of manufacture,-society could easily perform this task, to say nothing of the further simplification of production which a more or less near future has in store for us.
In fact, it suffices to recall for a moment the present terrible waste, to conceive what a civilized society can produce with but a small quantity of labor if all share in it, and what grand works might be undertaken that are out of the question today. Unfortunately, the metaphysics called political economy has never troubled about that which should have been its essence-economy of labor.
There is no longer any doubt as regards the possibility of wealth in a Communist society, armed with our present machinery and tools. Doubts only arise when the question at issue is, whether a society can exist in which man's actions are not subject to State control; whether, to reach well-being, it is not necessary for European communities to sacrifice the little personal liberty they have reconquered at the cost of so many sacrifices during this century? A section of Socialists believe that it is impossible to attain such a result without sacrificing personal liberty on the altar of the State. Another section, to which we belong, believes, on the contrary, that it is only by the abolition of the State, by the conquest of perfect liberty by the individual, by free agreement, association, and absolute free federation that we can reach Communism-the possession in common of our social inheritance, and the production in common of all riches.
That is the question outweighing all others at present, and Socialism must solve it, on pain of seeing all its efforts endangered and all its ulterior development paralysed.
Let us, therefore, analyse it with all the attention it deserves.

If every Socialist will carry his thoughts back to an earlier date, he will no doubt remember the host of prejudices aroused in him when, for the first time, he came to the idea that abolishing the capitalist system and private appropriation of land and capital had become an historical necessity.
The same feelings are today produced in the man who for the first time hears that the abolition of the State, its laws, its entire system of management, governmentalism and centralization, also becomes an historical necessity: that the abolition of the one without the abolition of the other is materially impossible. Our whole education-made, be it noted, by Church and State, in the interests of both-revolts at this conception.
Is it lass true for that? And shall we allow our belief in the State to survive the host of prejudices we have already sacrificed for our emancipation?
It is not my intention to criticise tonight the State. That has been done and redone so often, and I am obliged to put off to another lecture the analysis of the historical part played by the State. A few general remarks will suffice.
To begin with, if man, since his origin, has always lived in societies, the State is but one of the forms of social life, quite recent as far as regards European societies. Men lived thousands of years before the first States were constituted; Greece and Rome existed for centuries before the Macedonian and Roman Empires were built up, and for us modern Europeans the centralized States date but from the sixteenth century. It was only then, after the defeat of the free mediæval Communes had been completed that the mutual insurance company between military, judicial, landlord, and capitalist authority which we call "State," could be fully established.
It was only in the sixteenth century that a mortal blow was dealt to ideas of local independence, to free union and organization, to federation of all degrees among sovereign groups, possessing all functions now seized upon by the State. It was only then that the alliance between Church and the nascent power of Royalty put an end to an organization, based on the principle of federation, which had existed from the ninth to the fifteenth century, and which had produced in Europe the great period of free cities of the middle ages, whose character has been so well understood in France by Sismondi and Augustin Thierry-two historians unfortunately too little read now-a-days.
We know well the means by which this association of the lord, priest, merchant, judge, soldier, and king founded its domination. It was by the annihilation of all free unions: of village communities, guilds, trades unions, fraternities, and mediæval cities. It was by confiscating the land of the communes and the riches of the guilds; it was by the absolute and ferocious prohibition of all kinds of free agreement between men; it was by massacre, the wheel, the gibbet, the sword, and the fire that Church and State established their domination, and that they succeeded henceforth to reign over an incoherent agglomeration of subjects, who had no direct union more among themselves.

It is now hardly thirty or forty years ago that we began to reconquer, by struggle, by revolt, the first steps of the right of association, that was freely practised by the artisans and the tillers of the soil through the whole of the middle ages.
And, already now, Europe is covered by thousands of voluntary associations for study and teaching, for industry, commerce, science, art, literature, exploitation, resistance to exploitation, amusement, serious work, gratification and self-denial, for all that makes up the life of an active and thinking being. We see
these societies rising in all nooks and corners of all domains: political, economic, artistic, intellectual. Some are as shortlived as roses, some hold their own since several decades, and all strive-while maintaining the independence of each group, circle, branch, or section-to federate, to unite, across frontiers as well as among each nation; to cover all the life of civilized men with a net, meshes of which are intersected and interwoven. Their numbers can already be reckoned by tens of thousands, they comprise millions of adherents-although less than fifty years have elapsed since Church and State began to tolerate a few of them-very few, indeed.
These societies already begin to encroach everywhere on the functions of the State, and strive to substitute free action of volunteers for that of a centralized State. In England we see arise insurance companies against theft; societies for coast defense, volunteer societies for land defense, which the State endeavors to got under its thumb, thereby making them instruments of domination, although their original aim was to do without the State. Were it not for Church and State, free societies would have already conquered the whole of the immense domain of education. And, in spite of all difficulties, they begin to invade this domain as well, and make their influence already felt.
And when we mark the progress already accomplished in that direction, in spite of and against the State, which tries by all means to maintain its supremacy of recent origin; when we see how voluntary societies invade everything and are only impeded in their development by the State, we are forced to recognize a powerful tendency, a latent force in modern society. And we ask ourselves this question: If, five, ten, or twenty years hence-it matters little-the workers succeed by revolt in destroying the said mutual insurance society of landlords, bankers, priests, judges, and soldiers; if the people become masters of their destiny for a few months, and lay hands on the riches they have created, and which belong to them by right-will they really begin to reconstitute that blood-sucker, the State? Or will they not rather try to organize from the simple to the complex, according to mutual agreement and to the infinitely varied, ever-changing needs of each locality, in order to secure the possession of those riches for themselves, to mutually guarantee one another's life, and to produce what will be found necessary for life?
Will they follow the dominant tendency of the century, towards decentralization, home rule and free agreement; or will they march contrary to this tendency and strive to reconstitute demolished authority?

Educated men-"civilized," as Fourier used to say with disdain-tremble at the idea that society might some day be without judges, police, or gaolers.
But, frankly, do you need them as much as you have been told in musty books ? Books written, be it noted, by scientists who generally know well what has been written before them, but, for the most part, absolutely ignore the people and their every-day life.
If we can wander, without fear, not only in the streets of Paris, which bristle with police, but especially in rustic walks where you rarely meet passers by, is it to the police that we owe this security? or rather to the absence of people who care to rob or murder us? I am evidently not speaking of the one who carries millions about him. That one-a recent trial tells us-is soon robbed, by preference in places where there are as many policemen as lamp posts. No, I speak of the man who fears for his life and not for his purse filled with ill-gotten sovereigns. Are his fears real?
Besides, has not experience demonstrated quite recently that Jack the Ripper performed hie exploits under the eye of the London police-a most active force-and that he only left off killing when the population of Whitechapel itself began to give chase to him?
And in our every-day relations with our fellow-citizens, do you think that it is really judges, gaolers, and police that hinder anti-social acts from multiplying? The judge, ever ferocious, because he is a maniac of law, the accuser, the informer, the police spy, all those interlopers that live from hand to mouth around the Law Courts, do they not scatter demoralization far and wide into society? Read the trials, glance behind the scenes, push your analysis further than the exterior facade of law courts, and you will come out sickened.
Have not prisons-which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any other spot of the globe-always been universities of crime? Is not the court of a tribunal a school of ferocity? And so on.
When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions!
Once a German jurist of great renown, Ihering, wanted to sum up the scientific work of his life and write a treatise, in which he proposed to analyze the factors that preserve social life in society. "Purpose in Law" (Der Zweck im Rechte), such is the title of that book, which enjoys a well-deserved reputation.
He made an elaborate plan of his treatise, and, with much erudition, discussed both coercive factors which are used to maintain society: wagedom and the different forms of coercion which are sanctioned by law. At the end of his work he reserved two paragraphs only to mention the two non-coercive factors-the feeling of duty and the feeling of mutual sympathy-to which lie attached little importance, as might be expected from a writer in law.
But what happened? As he went on analyzing the coercive factors he realized their insufficiency. He consecrated a whole volume to their analysis, and the result was to lessen their importance! When he began the last two paragraphs, when he began to reflect upon the non-coercive factors of society, he perceived, on the contrary, their immense, outweighing importance; and instead of two paragraphs, he found himself obliged to write a second volume, twice as large as the first, on these two factors: voluntary restraint and mutual help; and yet, he analyzed but an infinitesimal part of these latter-those which result from personal sympathy-and hardly touched free agreement, which results from social institutions.
Well, then, leave off repeating the formulæ which you have learned at school; meditate on this subject; and the same thing that happened to Ihering will happen to you: you will recognize the infinitesimal importance of coersion, as compared to the voluntary assent, in society.
On the other hand, if by following the very old advice given by Bentham yon begin to think of the fatal consequences-direct, and especially indirect-of legal coersion, like Tolstoy, like us, you will begin to hate use of coersion, and you will begin to say that society possesses a thousand other means for preventing antisocial acts. If it neglects those means today, it is because, being educated by Church and State, our cowardice and apathy of spirit hinder us seeing clearly on this point. When a child has committed a fault, it is so easy to hang a man-especially when there is an executioner who is paid so much for each execution-and it dispenses us from thinking of the cause of crimes.

It is often said that Anarchists live in a world of dreams to come, and do not see the things which happen today. We do see them only too well, and in their true colors, and that is what makes us carry the hatchet into the forest of prejudice that besets us.
Far from living in a world of visions and imagining men better than they are, we see them as they are; and that is why we affirm that the best of men is made essentially bad by the exercise of authority, and that the theory of the "balancing of powers" and "control of authorities" is a hypocritical formula, invented by those who have seized power, to make the "sovereign people," whom they despise, believe that the people themselves are governing. It is because we know men that we say to those who imagine that men would devour one another without those governors: "You reason like the king, who, being sent across the frontier, called out, 'What will become of my poor subjects without me?'"
Ah, if men were those superior beings that the utopians of authority like to speak to us of, if we could close our eyes to reality, and live, like them, in a world of dreams and illusions as to the superiority of those who think themselves called to power, perhaps we also should do like them; perhaps we also should believe in the virtues of those who govern.
With virtuous masters, what dangers could slavery offer? Do you remember the Slave-owner of whom we heard so often, hardly thirty years ago? Was he not supposed to take paternal care of his slaves? "He alone," we were told, "could hinder these lazy, indolent, improvident children dying of hunger. How could he crush his slaves through hard labor, or mutilate them by blows, when his own interest lay in feeding them well, in taking care of them as much as of his own children! And then, did not 'the law' see to it that the least swerving of a slave-owner from the path of duty was punished?" How many times have we not been told so! But the reality was such that, having returned from a voyage to Brazil, Darwin was haunted all his life by the cries of agony of mutilated slaves, by the sobs of moaning women whose fingers were crushed in thumbserews!
If the gentlemen in power were really so intelligent and so devoted to the public cause, as panegyrists of authority love to represent, what a pretty government and paternal utopia we should be able to construct! The employer would never be the tyrant of the worker; he would be the father! The factory would be a palace of delight, and never would masses of workers be doomed to physical deterioration. The State would not poison its workers by making matches with white phosphorus, for which it is so easy to substitute red phosphorus.* A judge would not have the ferocity to condemn the wife and children of the one whom he sends to prison to suffer years of hunger and misery and to die some day of anemia; never would a public prosecutor ask for the head of the accused for the unique pleasure of showing off his oratorical talent; and nowhere would we find a gaoler or an executioner to do the bidding of judges, who have not the courage to carry out their sentences themselves. What do I say! We should never have enough Plutarchs to praise the virtues of Members of Parliament who would all hold Panama checks in horror! Biribi** would become an austere nursery of virtue, and permanent armies would be the joy of citizens, as soldiers would only take up arms to parade before nursemaids, and to carry nosegays on the point of their bayonets!
Oh, the beautiful utopia, the lovely Christmas dream we can make as soon as we admit that those who govern represent a superior caste, and have hardly any or no knowledge of simple mortals' weaknesses! It would then suffice to make them control one another in hierarchical fashion, to let them exchange fifty papers, at most, among different administrators, when the wind blows down a tree on the national road. Or, if need be, they would have only to be valued at their proper worth, during elections, by those same masses of mortals which are supposed to be endowed with all stupidity in their mutual relations but become wisdom itself when they have to elect their masters.
All the science of government, imagined by those who govern, is imbibed with these utopias. But we know men too well to dream such dreams. We have not two measures for the virtues of the governed and those of the governors; we know that we ourselves are not without faults and that the best of us would soon be corrupted by the exercise of power. We take men for what they are worth-and that is why we hate the government of man by man, and that we work with all our might-perhaps not strong enough-to put an end to it.

But it is not enough to destroy. We must also know how to build, and it is owing to not having thought about it that the masses have always been led astray in all their revolutions. After having demolished they abandoned the care of reconstruction to the middle class people, who possessed a more or less precise conception of what they wished to realize, and who consequently reconstituted authority to their own advantage.
That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement-at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist. Only, instead of demanding that those social customs should be maintained through the authority of a few, it demands it from the continued action of all.
Communist customs and institutions are of absolute necessity for society, not only to solve economic difficulties, but also to maintain and develop social customs that bring men in contact with one another; they must be looked to for establishing such relations between men that the interest of each should be the interest of all; and this alone can unite men instead of dividing them.
In fact, when we ask ourselves by what means a certain moral level can be maintained in a human or animal society, we find only three such means: the repression of anti-social acts; moral teaching; and the practice of mutual help itself. And as all three have already been put to the test of practice, we can judge them by their effects.
As to the impotence of repression-it is sufficiently demonstrated by the disorder of present society and by the necessity of a revolution that we all desire or feel inevitable. In the domain of economy, coercion has led us to industrial servitude; in the domain of politics-to the State, that is to say, to the destruction of all ties that formerly existed among citizens, and to the nation becoming nothing but an incoherent mass of obedient subjects of a central authority.
Not only has a coercive system contributed and powerfully aided to create all the present economical, political and social evils, but it has given proof of its absolute impotence to raise the moral level of societies; it has not been even able to maintain it at the level it had already reached. If a benevolent fairy could only reveal to our eyes all the crimes that are committed every day, every minute, in a civilized society under cover of the unknown, or the protection of law itself,-society would shudder at that terrible state of affairs. The authors of the greatest political crimes, like those of Napoleon III. coup d'etat, or the bloody week in May after the fall of the Commune of 1871, never are arraigned ; and as a poet said; "the small miscreants are punished for the satisfaction of the great ones." More than that, when authority takes the moralization of society in hand, by "punishing criminals" it only heaps up now crimes!
Practised for centuries, repression has so badly succeeded that it has but led us into a blind alley from which we can only issue by carrying torch and hatchet into the institutions of our authoritarian past.

Far be it from us not to recognize the importance of the second factor, moral teaching-especially that which is unconsciously transmitted in society and results from the whole of the ideas and comments emitted by each of us on facts and events of every-day life. But this force can only act on society under one condition, that of not being crossed by a mass of contradictory immoral teachings resulting from the practice of insitutions.
In that case its influence is nil or baneful. Take Christian morality: what other teaching could have had more hold on minds than that spoken in the name of a crucified God, and could have acted with all its mystical force, all its poetry of martyrdom, its grandeur in forgiving executioners? And yet the institution was more powerful than the religion: soon Christianity-a revolt against imperial Rome-was conquered by that same Rome; it accepted its maxims, customs, and language. The Chriatian church accepted the Roman law as its own, and as such-allied to the State-it became in history the most furious enemy of all semi-communist institutions, to which Christianity appealed at Its origin.
Can we for a moment believe that moral teaching, patronized by circulars from ministers of public instruction, would have the creative force that Christianity has not had? And what could the verbal teaching of truly social men do, if it were counteracted by the whole teaching derived from institutions based, as our present institutions of property and State are, upon unsocial principles?
The third element alone remains-the institution itself, acting in such a way as to make social acts a state of habit and instinct. This element-history proves it-has never missed its aim, never has it acted as a double-bladed sword; and its influence has only been weakened when custom strove to become immovable, crystallized, to become in its turn a religion not to be questioned when it endeavored to absorb the individual, taking all freedom of action from him and compelling him to revolt against that which had become, through its crystallization, an enemy to progress.
In fact, all that was an element of progress in the past or an instrument of moral and intellectual improvement of the human race is due to the practice of mutual aid, to the customs that recognized the equality of men and brought them to ally, to unite, to associate for the purpose of producing and consuming, to unite for purpose of defence to federate and to recognize no other judges in fighting out their differences than the arbitrators they took from their own midst.
Each time these institutions, issued from popular genius, when it had reconquered its liberty for a moment,-each time these institutions developed in a new direction, the moral level of society, its material well-being, its liberty, its intellectual progress, and the affirmation of individual originality made a step in advance. And, on the contrary, each time that in the course of history, whether following upon a foreign conquest, or whether by developing authoritarian prejudices men become more and more divided into governors and governed, exploiters and exploited, the moral level fell, the well-being of the masses decreased in order to insure riches to a few, and the spirit of the age declined.
History teaches us this, and from this lesson we have learned to have confidence in free Communist institutions to raise the moral level of societies, debased by the practice of authority.

Today we live side by side without knowing one another. We come together at meetings on an election day: we listen to the lying or fanciful professions of faith of a candidate, and we return home. The State has the care of all questions of public interest; the State alone has the function of seeing that we do not harm the interests of our neighbor, and, if it fails in this, of punishing us in order to repair the evil.
Our neighbor may die of bringer or murder his children,-it is no business of ours; it is the business of the policeman. You hardly know one another, nothing unites you, everything tends to alienate you from one another, and finding no better way, you ask the Almighty (formerly it was a God, now it is the State) to do all that lies within his power to stop anti-social passions from reaching their highest climax.
In a Communist society such estrangement, such confidence in an outside force could not exist. Communist organization cannot be left to be constructed by legislative bodies called parliaments, municipal or communal council. It must be the work of all, a natural growth, a product of the constructive genius of the great mass. Communism cannot be imposed from above; it could not live even for a few months if the constant and daily co-operation of all did not uphold it. It must be free.
It cannot exist without creating a continual contact between all for the thousands and thousands of common transactions; it cannot exist without creating local life, independent in the smallest unities-the block of houses, the street, the district, the commune. It would not answer its purpose if it did not cover society with a network of thousands of associations to satisfy its thousand needs: the necessaries of life, articles of luxury, of study, enjoyment, amusements. And such associations cannot remain narrow and local; they must necessarily tend (as is already the case with learned societies, cyclist clubs, humanitarian societies and the like) to become international.
And the sociable customs that Communism-were it only partial at its origin-must inevitably engender in life, would already be a force incomparably more powerful to maintain and develop the kernel of sociable customs than all repressive machinery.
This, then, is the form-sociable institution-of which we ask the development of the spirit of harmony that Church and State had undertaken to impose on us-with the sad result we know only too well. And these remarks contain our answer to those who affirm that Communism and Anarchy cannot go together. They are, you see, a necessary complement to one another. The most powerful development of individuality, or individual originality-as one of our comrades has so well said,- can only be produced when the first needs of food and shelter are satisfied; when the struggle for existence against the forces of nature has been simplified; when man's time is no longer taken up entirely by the meaner side of daily subsistence,-then only, his intelligence, his artistic taste, his inventive spirit, his genius, can develop freely and ever strive to greater achievements.
Communism is the best basis for individual development and freedom; not that individualism which drives man to the war of each against all-this is the only one known up till now,-but that which represents the full expansion of man's faculties, the superior development of what is original in him, the greatest fruitfulness of intelligence, feeling and will.

Such being our ideal, what does it matter to us that it cannot be realized at once!
Our first duty is to find out, by an analysis of society, its characteristic tendencies at a given moment of evolution and to state them clearly. Then, to act according to those tendencies in our relations with all those who think as we do. And, finally, from to-day and especially daring a revolutionary period, work for the destruction of the institutions, as, weII as the prejudices, that impede the development of such tendencies.
That is all we can do by peaceable or revolutionary methods, and we know that by favoring those tendencies we contribute to progress, while who resist them impede the march of progress.
Nevertheless, men often speak of stages to be travelled through, and they propose to work to reach what they consider to be the nearest station and only then to take the high road leading to what they recognize to be a still higher ideal.
But reasoning like this seems to me to misunderstand the true character of human progress and to make use of a badly chosen military comparison. Humanity is not a rolling ball, nor even a marching column. It is a whole that evolves simultaneously in the mulitude of millions of which it Is composed; and if you wish for a comparison, you must rather take it in the laws of organic evolution than In those of an inorganic moving body.
The fact is that each phase of development of a society is a resultant of all the activities of the Intellects which compose that society; it bears the imprint of all those millions of wills. Consequently, whatever may be the stage of development that the twentieth century is preparing for us, this future state of society will show the effects of the awakening of libertarian ideas which is now taking place. And the depth with which this movement will be impressed upon the coming twentieth century institutions will depend upon the number of men who will have broken to-day with authoritarian prejudices, on the energy they will have used in attacking old institutions, on the impression they will make on the masses, on the clearness with which the ideal of a free society will have been impressed on the minds of the masses. But, to-day, we can say in full confidence, that in France the awakening of libertarian ideas had already put its stamp on society; and that the next revolution will not be the Jacobin revolution which it would have been had it buret out twenty years ago.
And as these ideas are neither the invention of a man nor a group, but result from the whole of the movement of ideas of the time, we can be sure that, whatever comes out of the next revolution, it will not be the dictatorial and centralized Communism which was so much in vogue forty years ago, nor the authoritarian Collectivism to which we were quite recently invited to ally ourselves, and which its advocates dare only defend very feebly at present.
The "first stage," it is certain, will then be quite different from what was described under that name hardly twenty years ago. The latest developments of the libertarian ideas have already modified it beforehand in an Anarchist sense.
I have already mentioned that the great all-dominating question now is for the Socialist party, taken as a whole, to harmonize its ideal of society with the libertarian movement that germinates, in the spirit of the masses, in literature, in science, in philosophy. It is also, it is especially so, to rouse the spirit of popular initiative.
Now, it is precisely the workers' and peasants' initiative that all parties-the Socialist authoritarian party included-have always stifled, wittingly or not, by party discipline. Committees, centers, ordering everything; local organs having but to obey, "so as not to put the unity of the organization in danger." A whole teaching, in a word; a whole false history, written to serve that purpose, a whole incomprehensible pseudo-science of economics, elaborated to this end.
Well, then, those who will work to break up these superannuated tactics, those who will know how to rouse the spirit of initiative in individuals and in groups, those who will be able to create in their mutual relations a movement and a life based on the principles of free understanding-those that will understand that variety, conflict even, is life, and that uniformity is death,-they will work, not for future centuries, but in good earnest for the next revolution, for our own times.

We need not fear the dangers and "abuses" of liberty. It is only those who do nothing who make no mistakes. As to those who only know how to obey, they make just as many, and more, mistakes than those who strike out their own path in trying to act in the direction their intelligence and their social education suggest to them. The ideal of liberty of the individual-if it is incorrectly understood owing to surroundings where the notion of solidarity is insufficiently accentuated by institutions-can certainly lead isolated men to acts that are repugnant to the social sentiments of humanity. Let us admit that it does happen: is it, however, a reason for throwing the principle of liberty overboard? Is it a reason for accepting the teaching of those masters who, in order to prevent "digressions," reestablish the censure of an enfranchised press and guillotine advanced parties to maintain uniformity and discipline-that which, when all is said, was in 1793 the best means of insuring the triumph of reaction?
The only thing to be done when we see anti-social acts committed in the name of liberty of the individual, is to repudiate the principle of "each for himself and God for all," and to have the courage to say aloud in any one's presence what we think of such acts. This can perhaps bring about a conflict; but conflict is life itself. And from the conflict will arise an appreciation of those acts far more just than all those appreciations which could have been produced under the influence of old-established ideas.
When the moral level of a society descends to the point it has reached today we must expect beforehand that a revolt against such a society will sometimes assume forms that will make us shudder. No doubt, heads paraded on pikes disgust us; but the high and low gibbets of the old regime in France, and the iron cages Victor Hugo has told us of, were they not the origin of this bloody exhibition? Let us hope that the coldblooded massacre of thirty-five thousand Parisians in May, 1871, after the fall of the Commune, and the bombardment of, Paris by Thiers will have passed over the French nation without leaving too great a fund of ferocity. Let us hope that. Let us also hope that the corruption of the swell mob, which is continually brought to light in recent trials, will not yet have ruined the heart of the nation. Lot us hope it! Let us help that it be so! But if our hopes are not fulfilled-you, young Socialists, will you then turn your backs on the people in revolt, because the ferocity of the rulers of today will have left its furrow in the people's minds; because the mud from above has splashed far and wide?

It is evident that so profound a revolution producing itself in people's minds cannot be confined to the domain of ideas without expanding to the sphere of action. As was so well expressed by the sympathetic young philosopher, too early snatched by death from our midst, Mark Guyau,*** in one of the most beautiful books published for thirty years, there is no abyss between thought and action, at least for those who are not used to modern sophistry. Conception is already a beginning of action.
Consequently, the new ideas have provoked a multitude of acts of revolt in all countries, under all possible conditions: first, individual revolt against Capital and State; then collective revolt-strikes and working class insurrections-both preparing, in men's minds as in actions, a revolt of the masses, a revolution. In this, Socialism and Anarchism have only followed the course of evolution, which is always accomplished by force-ideas at the approach of great popular risings.
That is why it would be wrong to attribute the monopoly of acts of revolt to Anarchism. And, in fact, when we pass in review the acts of revolt of the last quarter of a century, we see them proceeding from all parties.
In all Europe we see a multitude of risings of working masses and peasants. Strikes, which were once "a war of folded arms," today easily turning to revolt, and sometimes taking-in the United States, in Belgium, in Andalusia-the proportions of vast insurrections. In the new and old worlds it is by the dozen that we count the risings of strikers having turned to revolts.
On the other hand, the individual act of revolt takes all possible characters, and all advanced parties contribute to it. We pass before us the rebel young woman Vera Zassulitch shooting a satrap of Alexander II.; the Social Democrat Hœdel and the Republican Nobiling shooting at the Emperor of Germany; the cooper Otero shooting at the King of Spain, and the religious Mazzmian, Passanante, striking at the King of Italy. We see agrarian murders in Ireland and explosions in London, organized by Irish Nationalists who have a horror of Socialism and Anarchism. We see a whole generation of young Russians-Socialists, Constitutionalists and Jacobins- declare war to the knife against Alexander II., and pay for that revolt against autocracy by thirty-five executions and swarms of exiles. Numerous acts of personal revenge take place among Belgian, English and American miners; and it is only at the end of this long series that we see the Anarchists appear with their acts of revolt in Spain and France.
And, during this same period, massacres, wholesale and retail, organized by governments, follow their regular course. To the applause of the European bourgeoisie, the Versailles Assembly causes thirty-five thousand Parisian workmen to be butchered-for the most part prisoners of the vanquished Commune. "Pinkerton thugs"-that private army of the rich American capitalists-massacre strikers according to the rules of that art. Priests incite an idiot to shoot at Louise Michel, who-as a true Anarchist-snatches her would-be murderer from his judges by pleading for him. Outside Europe the Indians of Canada are massacred and Riel is strangled, the Matabele are exterminated, Alexandria is bombarded, without saying more of the butcheries in Madagascar, in Tonkin , in Turkoman's land everywhere, to which is given the name of war. And, finally, each year hundreds and even thousands of years of imprisonment are distributed among the rebellious workers of the two continents, and the wives and children, who are thus condemned to expiate the so-called crimes of their fathers, are doomed to the darkest misery.-The rebels are transported to Siberia, to Biribi, to Noumea and to Guiana; and in those places of exile the convicts are shot down like dogs for the least act of insubordination. What a terrible indictment the balance sheet of the sufferings endured by workers and their friends, during this last quarter of a century, would be! What a multitude of horrible details that are unknown to the public at large and that would haunt you like a nightmare if I ventured to tell you them tonight! What a fit of passion each page would provoke if the martyrology of the modern forerunners of the great Social Revolution were written!-Well, then, we have lived through such a history, and each one of us has read whole pages from that book of blood and misery.
And, in the face of those sufferings, those executions, those Guianas, Siberias, Noumeas and Biribis, they have the insolence to reproach the rebel worker with want of respect for human life!!!
But the whole of our present life extinguishes the respect for human life! The judge who sentences to death, and his lieutenant, the executioner, who garrots in broad daylight in Madrid, or guillotines in the mists of Paris amid the jeers of the degraded members of high and low society; the general who massacres at Bac-leh, and the newspaper correspondent who strives to cover the assassins with glory; the employer who poisons his workmen with white lead, because-he answers-"it would cost so much more to substitute oxide of zinc for it;" the so-called English geographer who kills an old women lest she should awake a hostile village by her sobs, and the German geographer who causes the girl he had taken as a mistress to be hanged with her lover, the court-martial that is content with fifteen days arrest for the Biribi gaoler convicted of murder....all, all, all in the present society teaches absolute contempt for human life-for that flesh that costs so little in the market! And those who garrot, assassinate, who kill depreciated human merchandise, they who have made a religion of the maxim that for the safety of the public you must garrot, shoot and kill, they complain that human life is not sufficiently respected!!!
No, citizens, as long as society accepts the law of retaliation, as long as religion and law, the barrack and the law-courts, the prison and industrial penal servitude, the press and the school continue to teach supreme contempt for the life of the individual,-do not ask the rebels against that society to respect it. It would be exacting a degree of gentleness and magnanimity from them, infinitely superior to that of the whole society.
If you wish, like us, that the entire liberty of the individual and, consequently, his life be respected, you are necessarily brought to repudiate the government of man by man, whatever shape it assumes; you are forced to accept the principles of Anarchy that you have spurned so long. You must then search with us the forms of society that can best realize that ideal and put an end to all the violence that rouses your indignation.
* The making of matches is a State's monopoly in France.
** Biribi is the name given in France to the punishment battalions in Algeria. Every young man who has been in prison before he begins his military service, is sent to such a battalion. Many soldiers, for want of discipline, undergo the same punishment. The treatment in these places is so horrid that no Englishman would believe it possible. A very few years ago, the pear shaped hole in the ground, where men were left for weeks, and some were actually devoured by vermin, was an habitual punishment. At the present time, it is quite habitual to let a man, handcuffed and chained, lay for a fortnight on the ground, covered by a bit of cloth, under the scorching sun of Algeria and through the bitterly cold nights, compelled to eat his food and to lap his water like a dog. Scores of the most terrible facts became known lately, since Georges Darien published his book "Biribi" (Paris, 1890, Savine publisher) based on actual experience, and full of the most horrible revelations. One of my Clairvaux companions had to spend two years of military service in such a battalion-his condemnation at Lyons, as the editor of an Anarchist paper, being already a reason to be transported to Algeria. He fully confirmed, on his release. all that was written by Darien.
*** La morale sans obligation ni sanction, par M. Guyau.






Note For "Anarchist Morality"

This study of the origin and function of what we

call "morality" was written for pamphlet publication as a

result of an amusing situation. An anarchist who ran a

store in England found that his comrades in the

movement regarded it as perfectly right to take his goods

without paying for them. "To each according to his need"

seemed to them to justify letting those who were best able

foot the bills. Kropotkin was appealed to, with the result

that he not only condemned such doctrine, but was

moved to write the comrades this sermon.

Its conception of morality is based on the ideas set

forth in Mutual Aid and later developed in his Ethics.

Here they are given special application to "right

and wrong" in the business of social living. The job is

done with fine feeling and with acute shafts at the shams

of current morality.

Kropotkin sees the source of all so-called moral

ideas in primitive superstitions. The real moral sense

which guides our social behavior is instinctive, based on

the sympathy and unity inherent in group life. Mutual

aid is the condition of successful social living. The moral

base is therefore the good old golden rule "Do to others as

you would have others do to you in the same

circumstances," --which disposed of the ethics of the

shopkeeper's anarchist customers.

This natural moral sense was perverted, Kropotkin

says, by the superstitions surrounding law, religion and

authority, deliberately cultivated by conquerors,

exploiters and priests for their own benefit. Morality has

therefore become the instrument of ruling classes to

protect their privileges.

He defends the morality of killing for the benefit of

mankind --as in the assassination of tyrants--- but never

for self. Love and hate he regards as greater social forces

for controlling wrong-doing than punishment, which he

rejects as useless and evil. Account-book morality --doing

right only to receive a benefit-- he scores roundly, urging

instead the satisfactions and joy of "sowing life around

you" by giving yourself to the uttermost to your fellow-

men. Not of course to do them good, in the spirit of

philanthropy, but to be one with them, equal and sharing.

Anarchist Morality by Peter Kropotkin



The history of human thought recalls the swinging

of a pendulum which takes centuries to swing. After a

long period of slumber comes a moment of awakening.

Then thought frees herself from the chains with which

those interested --rulers, lawyers, clerics-- have carefully

enwound her.

She shatters the chains. She subjects to severe

criticism all that has been taught her, and lays bare the

emptiness of the religious political, legal, and social

prejudices amid which she has vegetated. She starts

research in new paths, enriches our knowledge with new

discoveries, creates new sciences.

But the inveterate enemies of thought --the

government, the lawgiver, and the priest-- soon recover

from their defeat. By degrees they gather together their

scattered forces, and remodel their faith and their code of

laws to adapt them to the new needs. Then, profiting by

the servility of thought and of character, which they

themselves have so effectually cultivated; profiting, too,

by the momentary disorganization of society, taking

advantage of the laziness of some, the greed of others, the

best hopes of many, they softly creep back to their work

by first of all taking possession of childhood through

education.

A child's spirit is weak. It is so easy to coerce it by

fear. This they do. They make the child timid, and then

they talk to him of the torments of hell. They conjure up

before him the sufferings of the condemned, the

vengeance of an implacable god. The next minute they

will be chattering of the horrors of revolution, and using

some excess of the revolutionists to make the child "a

friend of order." The priest accustoms the child to the

idea of law, to make it obey better what he calls the

"divine law," and the lawyer prates of divine law, that the

civil law may be the better obeyed.

And by that habit of submission, with which we are

only too familiar, the thought of the next generation

retains this religious twist, which is at once servile and

authoritative, for authority and servility walk ever hand in

hand.

During these slumbrous interludes, morals are rarely dis-

cussed. Religious practices and judicial hypocrisy take

their place. People do not criticize, they let themselves be

drawn by habit, or indifference.They do not put

themselves out for or against the established morality.

They do their best to make their actions appear to accord

with their professions.

All that was good, great, generous or independent

in man, little by little becomes moss-grown; rusts like a

disused knife. A lie becomes a virtue, a platitude a duty.

To enrich oneself, to seize one's opportunities, to exhaust

one's intelligence, zeal and energy, no matter how,

become the watchwords of the comfortable classes, as

well as of the crowd of poor folk whose ideal is to appear

bourgeois. Then the degradation of the ruler and of the

judge, of the clergy and of the more or less comfortable

classes becomes so revolting that the pendulum begins to

swing the other way.

Little by little, youth frees itself. It flings overboard

its prejudices, and it begins to criticize. Thought

reawakens, at first among the few; but insensibly the

awakening reaches the majority. The impulse is given, the

revolution follows.

And each time the question of morality comes up again.

"Why should I follow the principles of this hypocritical

morality?" asks the brain, released from religious terrors.

Why should any morality be obligatory?"

Then people try to account for the moral sentiment

that they meet at every turn without having explained it

to themselves. And they will never explain it so long as

they believe it a privilege of human nature, so long as

they do not descend to animals, plants and rocks to

understand it. They seek the answer, however, in the

science of the hour.

And, if we may venture to say so, the more the basis

of conventional morality, or rather of the hypocrisy that

fills its place is sapped, the more the moral plane of

society is raised. It is above all at such times precisely

when folks are criticizing and denying it, that moral

sentiment makes the most progress. It is then that it grows,

that it is raised and refined.

Years ago the youth of Russia were passionately

agitated by this very question. "I will be immoral!" a

young nihilist came and said to his friend, thus

translating into action the thoughts that gave him no rest.

"I will be immoral, and why should I not? Because the

Bible wills it? But the Bible is only a collection of

Babylonian and Hebrew traditions, traditions collected

and put together like the Homeric poems, or as is being

done still with Basque poems and Mongolian legends.

Must I then go back to the state of mind of the half-

civilized peoples of the East?

"Must I be moral because Kant tells me of a

categoric imperative, of a mysterious command which

comes to me from the depths of my own being and bids

me be moral? But why should this 'categoric imperative'

exercise a greater authority over my actions than that

other imperative, which at times may command me to get

drunk. A word, nothing but a word, like the words

'Providence,' or 'Destiny,' invented to conceal our

ignorance.

"Or perhaps I am to be moral to oblige Bentham,

who wants me to believe that I shall be happier if I drown

to save a passerby who has fallen into the river than if I

watched him drown?

"Or perhaps because such has been my education?

Because my mother taught me morality? Shall I then go

and kneel down in a church, honor the Queen, bow before

the judge I know for a scoundrel, simply because our

mothers, our good ignorant mothers, have taught us such

a pack of nonsense ?

"I am prejudiced, --like everyone else. I will try to rid

myself of prejudice! Even though immorality be distaste-

ful, I will yet force myself to be immoral, as when I was a

boy I forced myself to give up fearing the dark, the church-

yard, ghosts and dead people --all of which I had been

taught to fear.

"It will be immoral to snap a weapon abused by

religion; I will do it, were it only to protect against the

hypocrisy imposed on us in the name of a word to which

the name morality has been given!"

Such was the way in which the youth of Russia

reasoned when they broke with old-world prejudices,

and unfurled this banner of nihilist or rather of anarchist

philosophy: to bend the knee to no authority whatsoever,

however respected; to accept no principle so long as it is

unestablished by reason.

Need we add, that after pitching into the waste-

paper basket the teachings of their fathers, and burning all

systems of morality, the nihilist youth developed in their

midst a nucleus of moral customs, infinitely superior to

anything that their fathers had practiced under the

control of the "Gospel," of the "Conscience," of the

"Categoric Imperative," or of the "Recognized

Advantage" of the utilitarian. But before answering the

question, "Why am I to be moral ?" let us see if the

question is well put; let us analyze the motives of human

action.

Section II


When our ancestors wished to account for what led

men to act in one way or another, they did so in a very

simple fashion. Down to the present day, certain catholic

images may be seen that represent this explanation. A man

is going on his way, and without being in the least aware

of it, carries a devil on his left shoulder and an angel on

his right. The devil prompts him to do evil, the angel tries

to keep him back. And if the angel gets the best of it and

the man remains virtuous, three other angels catch him up

and carry him to heaven. In this way everything is explained

wondrously well.

Old Russian nurses full of such lore will tell you never

to put a child to bed without unbuttoning the collar of its

shirt. A warm spot at the bottom of the neck should be left

bare, where the guardian angel may nestle. Otherwise the

devil will worry the child even in its sleep.

These artless conceptions are passing away. But

though the old words disappear, the essential idea

remains the same.

Well brought up folks no longer believe in the devil, but

as their ideas are no more rational than those of our

nurses, they do but disguise devil and angel under a

pedantic wordiness honored with the name of philosophy.

They do not say "devil" nowadays, but "the flesh," or "the

passions." The"angel" is replaced by the words

"conscience" or "soul," by "reflection of the thought of a

divine creator" or "the Great Architect," as the Free-

Masons say. But man's action is still represented as the

result of a struggle between two hostile elements. And a

man is always considered virtuous just in the degree to

which one of these two elements --the soul or

conscience-- is victorious over the other --the flesh or

passions.

It is easy to understand the astonishment of our

great-grandfathers when the English philosophers, and

later the Encyclopedists, began to affirm in opposition to

these primitive ideas that the devil and the angel had

nothing to do with human action, but that all acts of man,

good or bad, useful or baneful, arise from a single motive:

the lust for pleasure.

The whole religious confraternity, and, above all,

the numerous sects of the pharisees shouted "immorality."

They covered the thinkers with insult, they

excommunicated them. And when later on in the course

of the century the same ideas were again taken up by

Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Tchernischevsky, and a host of

others, and when these thinkers began to affirm and prove

that egoism, or the lust for pleasure, is the true motive of

all our actions, the maledictions redoubled. The books

were banned by a conspiracy of silence; the authors were

treated as dunces.

And yet what can be more true than the assertion

they made?

Here is a man who snatches its last mouthful of

bread from a child. Every one agrees in saying that he is a

horrible egoist, that he is guided solely by self-love.

But now here is another man, whom every one

agrees to recognize as virtuous. He shares his last bit of

bread with the hungry, and strips off his coat to clothe the

naked. And the moralists, sticking to their religious

jargon, hasten to say that this man carries the love of his

neighbor to the point of self-abnegation, that he obeys a

wholly different passion from that of the egoist. And yet

with a little reflection we soon discover that however

great the difference between the two actions in their result

for humanity, the motive has still been the same. It is the

quest of pleasure.

If the man who gives away his last shirt found no

pleasure in doing so, he would not do it. If he found

pleasure in taking bread from a child, he would do that

but this is distasteful to him. He finds pleasure in giving,

and so he gives. If it were not inconvenient to cause

confusion by employing in a new sense words that have a

recognized meaning, it might be said that in both cases

the men acted under the impulse of their egoism. Some

have actually said this, to give prominence to the thought

and precision to the idea by presenting it in a form that

strikes the imagination, and at the same time to destroy

the myth which asserts that these two acts have two

different motives. They have the same motive, the quest of

pleasure, or the avoidance of pain, which comes to the

same thing.

Take for example the worst of scoundrels: a Thiers,

who massacres thirty-five thousand Parisians, or an

assassin who butchers a whole family in order that he may

wallow in debauchery. They do it because for the moment

the desire of glory or of money gains in their minds the

upper hand of every other desire. Even pity and

compassion are extinguished for the moment by this other

desire, this other thirst. They act almost automatically to

satisfy a craving of their nature. Or again, putting aside

the stronger passions, take the petty man who deceives his

friends, who lies at every step to get out of somebody the

price of a pot of beer, or from sheer love of brag, or from

cunning. Take the employer who cheats his workmen to

buy jewels for his wife or his mistress. Take any petty

scoundrel you like. He again only obeys an impulse. He

seeks the satisfaction of a craving, or he seeks to escape

what would give him trouble.

We are almost ashamed to compare such petty

scoundrels with one who sacrifices his whole existence to

free the oppressed, and like a Russian nihilist mounts the

scaffold. So vastly different for humanity are the results of

these two lives; so much do we feel ourselves drawn

towards the one and repelled by the other.

And yet were you to talk to such a martyr, to the

woman who is about to be hanged, even just as she nears

the gallows, she would tell you that she would not

exchange either her life or her death for the life of the

petty scoundrel who lives on the money stolen from his

work-people. In her life, in the struggle against monstrous

might, she finds her highest joys. Everything else outside

the struggle, all the little joys of the bourgeois and his

little troubles seem to her so contemptible, so tiresome, so

pitiable! "You do not live, you vegetate," she would

reply; "I have lived."

We are speaking of course of the deliberate,

conscious acts of men, reserving for the present what we

have to say about that immense series of unconscious, all

but mechanical acts, which occupy so large a portion of

our life. In his deliberate, conscious acts man always seeks

what will give him pleasure.

One man gets drunk, and every day lowers himself

to the condition of a brute because he seeks in liquor the

nervous excitement that he cannot obtain from his own

nervous system. Another does not get drunk; he takes no

liquor, even though he finds it pleasant, because he wants

to keep the freshness of his thoughts and the plentitude of

his powers, that he may be able to taste other pleasures

which he prefers to drink. But how does he act if not like

the judge of good living who, after glancing at the menu

of an elaborate dinner rejects one dish that he likes very

well to eat his fill of another that he likes better.

When a woman deprives herself of her last piece of

bread to give it to the first comer, when she takes off her

own scanty rags to cover another woman who is cold,

while she herself shivers on the deck of a vessel, she does

so because she would suffer infinitely more in seeing a

hungry man, or a woman starved with cold, than in

shivering or feeling hungry herself. She escapes a pain of

which only those who have felt it know the intensity.

When the Australian, quoted by Guyau, wasted

away beneath the idea that he has not yet revenged his

kinsman's death; when he grows thin and pale, a prey to

the consciousness of his cowardice, and does not return to

life till he has done the deed of vengeance, he performs

this action, a heroic one sometimes, to free himself of a

feeling which possesses him, to regain that inward peace

which is the highest of pleasures.

When a troupe of monkeys has seen one of its

members fall in consequence of a hunter's shot, and

comes to besiege his tent and claim the body despite the

threatening gun; when at length the Elder of the band

goes right in, first threatens the hunter, then implores him,

and finally by his lamentations induces him to give up the

corpse, which the groaning troupe carry off into the

forest, these monkeys obey a feeling of compassion

stronger than all considerations of personal security. This

feeling in them exceeds all others. Life itself loses its

attraction for them while they are not sure whether they

can restore life to their comrade or not. This feeling

becomes so oppressive that the poor brutes do everything

to get rid of it.

When the ants rush by thousands into the flames of

the burning ant-hill, which that evil beast, man, has set on

fire, and perish by hundreds to rescue their larvae, they

again obey a craving to save their offspring. They risk

everything for the sake of bringing away the larvae that

they have brought up with more care than many women

bestow on their children.

To seek pleasure, to avoid pain, is the general line

of action (some would say law) of the organic world.

Without this quest of the agreeable, life itself

would be impossible. Organisms would disintegrate, life

cease.

Thus whatever a man's actions and line of conduct

may be, he does what he does in obedience to a craving of

his nature. The most repulsive actions, no less than

actions which are indifferent or most attractive, are all

equally dictated by a need of the individual who

performs them. Let him act as he may, the individual acts

as he does because he finds a pleasure in it, or avoids, or

thinks he avoids, a pain.

Here we have a well-established fact. Here we have

the essence of what has been called the egoistic theory.

Very well, are we any better off for having reached

this general conclusion?

Yes, certainly we are. We have conquered a truth

and destroyed a prejudice which lies at the root of all

prejudices. All materialist philosophy in its relation to

man is implied in this conclusion. But does it follow that

all the actions of the individual are indifferent, as some

have hastened to conclude? This is what we have now to

see

Section III


We have seen that men's actions (their deliberate

and conscious actions, for we will speak afterwards of

unconscious habits) all have the same origin. Those that

are called virtuous and those that are designated as

vicious, great devotions and petty knaveries, acts that

attract and acts that repel, all spring from a common

source. All are performed in answer to some need of the

individual's nature. all have for their end the quest of

pleasure, the desire to avoid pain.

We have seen this in the last section, which is but a

very succinct summary of a mass of facts that might be

brought forward in support of this view.

It is easy to understand how this explanation makes those

still imbued with religious principles cry out. It leaves no

room for the supernatural. It throws over the idea of an

immortal soul. If man only acts in obedience to the needs

of his nature, if he is, so to say, but a "conscious

automaton," what becomes of the immortal soul? What of

immortality, that last refuge of those who have known too

few pleasures and too many sufferings, and who dream of

finding some compensation in another world?

It is easy to understand how people who have

grown up in prejudice and with but little confidence in

science, which has so often deceived them, people who

are led by feeling rather than thought, reject an

explanation which takes from them their last hope.

Section IV


Mosaic, Buddhist, Christian and Mussulman theologians

have had recourse to divine inspiration to distinguish

between good and evil. They have seen that man, be he

savage or civilized, ignorant or learned, perverse or

kindly and honest, always knows if he is acting well or ill,

especially always knows if he is acting ill. And as they

have found no explanation of this general fact, they have

put it down to divine inspiration. Metaphysical

philosophers, on their side, have told us of conscience, of

a mystic "imperative," and, after all, have changed nothing

but the phrases.

But neither have known how to estimate the very

simple and very striking fact that animals living in

societies are also able to distinguish between good and

evil, just as man does. Moreover, their conceptions of

good and evil are of the same nature as those of man.

Among the best developed representatives of each

separate class, --fish, insects, birds, mammals,-- they are

even identical.

Forel, that inimitable observer of ants, has shown by

a mass of observations and facts that when an ant who has

her crop well filled with honey meets other ants with

empty stomachs, the latter immediately ask her for food.

And amongst these little insects it is the duty of the

satisfied ant to disgorge the honey that her hungry friends

may also be satisfied. Ask the ants if it would be right to

refuse food to other ants of the same anthill when one has

had oneUs share. They will answer, by actions impossible

to mistake, that it would be extremely wrong. So selfish

an ant would be more harshly treated than enemies of

another species. If such a thing happens during a battle

between two different species, the ants would stop

fighting to fall upon their selfish comrade. This fact has

been proved by experiments which exclude all doubt.

Or again, ask the sparrows living in your garden if

it is right not to give notice to all the little society when

some crumbs are thrown out, so that all may come and

share in the meal. Ask them if that hedge sparrow has

done right in stealing from his neighbor's nest those

straws he had picked up, straws which the thief was too

lazy to go and collect himself. The sparrows will answer

that he is very wrong, by flying at the robber and pecking

him.

Or ask the marmots if it is right for one to refuse

access to his underground storehouse to other marmots of

the same colony. they will answer that it is very wrong, by

quarrelling in all sorts of ways with the miser.

Finally, ask primitive man if it is right to take food

in the tent of a member of the tribe during his absence. He

will answer that, if the man could get his food for himself,

it was very wrong. On the other hand, if he was weary or

in want, he ought to take food where he finds it; but in

such a case, he will do well to leave his cap or his knife, or

even a bit of knotted string, so that the absent hunter may

know on his return that a friend has been there, not a

robber. Such a precaution will save him the anxiety

caused by the possible presence of a marauder near his

tent.

Thousands of similar facts might be quoted, whole

books might be written, to show how identical are the

conceptions of good and evil amongst men and the other

animals.

The ant, the bird, the marmot, the savage have read neither

Kant nor the fathers of the Church nor even Moses. And

yet all have the same idea of good and evil. And if you re-

flect for a moment on what lies at the bottom of this idea,

you will see directly that what is considered good among

ants, marmots, and Christian or atheist moralists is that

which is useful for the preservation of the race; and that

which is considered evil is that which is hurtful for race

preservation. Not for the individual, as Bentham and Mill

put it, but fair and good for the whole race.

The idea of good and evil has thus nothing to do

with religion or a mystic conscience. It is a natural need of

animal races. And when founders of religions,

philosophers, and moralists tell us of divine or

metaphysical entities, they are only recasting what each

ant, each sparrow practices in its little society.

Is this useful to society? Then it is good. Is this

hurtful? Then it is bad.

This idea may be extremely restricted among

inferior animals, it may be enlarged among the more

advanced animals; but its essence always remains the

same.

Among ants it does not extend beyond the anthill.

All sociable customs, all rules of good behavior are

applicable only to the individuals in that one anthill, not

to any others. One anthill will not consider another as

belonging to the same family, unless under some

exceptional circumstances, such as a common distress

falling upon both. In the same way the sparrows in the

Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, though they will mutually

aid one another in a striking manner, will fight to the

death with another sparrow from the Monge Square who

may dare to venture into the Luxembourg. And the

savage will look upon a savage of another tribe as a person

to whom the usages of his own tribe do not apply. It is

even allowable to sell to him, and to sell is always to rob

the buyer more or less; buyer or seller, one or other is

always "sold." A Tchoutche would think it a crime to sell

to the members of his tribe: to them he gives without any

reckoning. And civilized man, when at last he

understands the relations between himself Ind the

simplest Papuan, close relations, though imperceptible at

the first glance, will extend his principles of solidarity to

the whole human race, and even to the animals. The idea

enlarges, but its foundation remains the same.

On the other hand, the conception of good or evil

varies according to the degree of intelligence or of

knowledge acquired. There is nothing unchangeable

about it.

Primitive man may have thought it very right --that is,

useful to the race-- to eat his aged parents when they

became a charge upon the community-- a very heavy

charge in the main. He may have also thought it useful to

the community to kill his new-born children, and only

keep two or three in each family, so that the mother could

suckle them until they were three years old and lavish

more of her tenderness upon them.

In our days ideas have changed, but the means of

subsistence are no longer what they were in the Stone Age.

Civilized man is not in the position of the savage family

who have to choose between two evils: either to eat the

aged parents or else all to get insufficient nourishment

and soon find themselves unable to feed both the aged

parents and the young children. We must transport

ourselves into those ages, which we can scarcely call up

in our mind, before we can understand that in the

circumstances then existing, half-savage man may have

reasoned rightly enough.

Ways of thinking may change. The estimate of what

is useful or hurtful to the race changes, but the

foundation remains the same. And if we wished to sum

up the whole philosophy of the animal kingdom in a

single phrase, we should see that ants, birds, marmots,

and men are agreed on one point.

The morality which emerges from the observation

of the whole animal kingdom may be summed up in the

words: "Do to others what you would have them do to

you in the same circumstances.

And it adds: "Take note that this is merely a piece

of advice; but this advice is the fruit of the long experience

of animals in society. And among the great mass of social

animals, man included, it has become habitual to act on

this principle. Indeed without this no society could exist,

no race could have vanquished the natural obstacles

against which it must struggle."

Is it really this very simple principle which

emerges from the observation of social animals and

human societies? Is it applicable? And how does this

principle pass into a habit and continually develop? This

is what we are now going to see.

Section V


The idea of good and evil exists within humanity

itself. Man, whatever degree of intellectual development

he may have attained, however his ideas may be obscured

by prejudices and personal interest in general, considers

as good that which is useful to the society wherein he

lives, and as evil that which is hurtful to it.

But whence comes this conception, often so vague

that it can scarcely be distinguished from a feeling? There

are millions and millions of human beings who have

never reflected about the human race. They know for the

most part only the clan or family, rarely the nation, still

more rarely mankind. How can it be that they should

consider what is useful for the human race as good, or

even attain a feeling of solidarity with their clan, in spite

of all their narrow, selfish interests?

This fact has greatly occupied thinkers at all times,

and it continues to occupy them still. We are going in our

turn to give our view of the matter. But let us remark in

passing that though the explanations of the fact may vary,

the fact itself remains none the less incontestable. And

should our explanation not be the true one, or should it

be incomplete, the fact with its consequences to humanity

will still remain. We may not be able fully to explain the

origin of the planets revolving round the sun, but the

planets revolve none the less, and one of them carries us

with it in space.

We have already spoken of the religious

explanation. If man distinguishes between good and evil,

say theologians, it is God who has inspired him with this

idea. Useful or hurtful is not for him to inquire; he must

merely obey the fiat of his creator. We will not stop at this

explanation, fruit of the ignorance and terrors of the

savage. We pass on.

Others have tried to explain the fact by law. It must

have been law that developed in man the sense of just and

unjust, right and wrong. Our readers may judge of this

explanation for themselves. They know that law has

merely utilized the social feelings of man, to slip in,

among the moral precepts he accepts, various mandates

useful to an exploiting minority, to which his nature

refuses obedience. Law has perverted the feeling of

justice instead of developing it. Again let us pass on.

Neither let us pause at the explanation of the

Utilitarians. They will have it that man acts morally from

self-interest, and they forget his feelings of solidarity with

the whole race, which exist, whatever be their origin.

There is some truth in the Utilitarian explanation. But it is

not the whole truth. Therefore, let us go further.

It is again to the thinkers of the eighteenth century

that we are indebted for having guessed, in part at all

events, the origin of the moral sentiment.

In a fine work, The Theory of Moral Sentiment, left

to slumber in silence by religious prejudice, and indeed

but little known even among anti-religious thinkers,

Adam Smith has laid his finger on the true origin of the

moral sentiment. He does not seek it in mystic religious

feelings; he finds it simply in the feeling of sympathy.

You see a man beat a child. You know that the

beaten child suffers. Your imagination causes you

yourself to suffer the pain inflicted upon the child; or

perhaps its tears, its little suffering face tell you. And if

you are not a coward, you rush at the brute who is

beating it and rescue it from him.

This example by itself explains almost all the moral

sentiments. The more powerful your imagination, the

better you can picture to yourself what any being feels

when it is made to suffer, and the more intense and

delicate will your moral sense be. The more you are

drawn to put yourself in the place of the other person, the

more you feel the pain inflicted upon him, the insult

offered him, the injustice of which he is a victim, the more

will you be urged to act so that you may prevent the pain,

insult, or injustice. And the more you are accustomed by

circumstances, by those surrounding you, or by the

intensity of your own thought and your own imagination,

to act as your thought and imagination urge, the more will

the moral sentiment grow in you, the more will it become

habitual.

This is what Adam Smith develops with a wealth of

examples. He was young when he wrote this book which is

far superior to the work of his old age upon political econ-

omy. Free from religious prejudice, he sought the

explanation of morality in a physical fact of human nature,

and this is why official and non-official theological

prejudice has put the treatise on the Black List for a

century.

Adam Smith's only mistake was not to have

understood that this same feeling of sympathy in its

habitual stage exists among animals as well as among

men.

The feeling of solidarity is the leading

characteristic of all animals living in society. The eagle

devours the sparrow, the wolf devours the marmot. But

the eagles and the wolves respectively aid each other in

hunting, the sparrow and the marmot unite among

themselves against the beasts and birds of prey so

effectually that only the very clumsy ones are caught. In

all animal societies solidarity is a natural law of far greater

importance than that struggle for existence, the virtue of

which is sung by the ruling classes in every strain that may

best serve to stultify us.

When we study the animal world and try to explain

to ourselves that struggle for existence maintained by

each living being against adverse circumstances and

against its enemies, we realize that the more the principles

of solidarity and equality are developed in an animal

society and have become habitual to it, the more chance

has it of surviving and coming triumphantly out of the

struggle against hardships and foes. The more thoroughly

each member of the society feels his solidarity with each

other member of the society, the more completely are

developed in all of them those two qualities which are the

main factors of all progress: courage on the one hand, md

on the other, free individual initiative. And on the

contrary, the more any animal society or little group of

animals loses this feeling of solidarity --which may chance

as the result of exceptional scarcity or else of exceptional

plenty-- the more do the two other factors of progress

courage and individual initiative, diminish. In the end

they disappear, and the society falls into decay and sinks

before its foes. Without mutual confidence no struggle is

possible; there is no courage, no initiative, no solidarity--

and no victory! Defeat is certain.

We can prove with a wealth of examples how in the

animal and human worlds the law of mutual aid is the

law of progress, and how mutual aid with the courage

and individual initiative which follow from it secures

victory to the species most capable of practicing it.

Now let us imagine this feeling of solidarity acting dur-

ing the millions of ages which have succeeded one another

since the first beginnings of animal life appeared upon the

globe. Let us imagine how this feeling little by little

became a habit, and was transmitted by heredity from the

simplest microscopic organism to its descendants --

insects, birds, reptiles, mammals, man-- and we shall

comprehend the origin of the moral sentiment, which is a

necessity to the animal like food or the organ for

digesting it.

Without going further back and speaking of

complex animals springing from colonies of extremely

simple little beings, here is the origin of the moral

sentiment. We have been obliged to be extremely brief in

order to compress this great question within the limits of

a few pages, but enough has already been said to show

that there is nothing mysterious or sentimental about it.

Without this solidarity of the individual with the species,

the animal kingdom would never have developed or

reached its present perfection. The most advanced being

upon the earth would still be one of those tiny specks

swimming in the water and scarcely perceptible under a

microscope. Would even this exist? For are not the

earliest aggregations of cellules themselves an instance of

association in the struggle?

Section VI


Thus by an unprejudiced observation of the animal

kingdom, we reach the conclusion that wherever society

exists at all, this principle may be found: Treat others as

you would like them to treat you under similar

circumstances.

And when we study closely the evolution of the

animal world, we discover that the aforesaid principle,

translated by the one word Solidarity, has played an

infinitely larger part in the development of the animal

kingdom than all the adaptations that have resulted from

a struggle between individuals to acquire personal

advantages.

It is evident that in human societies a still greater

degree of solidarity is to be met with. Even the societies of

monkeys highest in the animal scale offer a striking

example of practical solidarity, and man has taken a step

further in the same direction. This and this alone has

enabled him to preserve his puny race amid the obstacles

cast by nature in his way, and to develop his intelligence.

A careful observation of those primitive societies

still remaining at the level of the Stone Age shows to what

a great extent the members of the same community

practice solidarity among themselves.

This is the reason why practical solidarity never

ceases; not even during the worst periods of history. Even

when temporary circumstances of domination, servitude,

exploitation cause the principle to be disowned, it still

lives deep in the thoughts of the many, ready to bring

about a strong recoil against evil institutions, a

revolution. If it were otherwise society would perish.

For the vast majority of animals and men this feeling re-

mains, and must remain an acquired habit, a principle

always present to the mind even when it is continually

ignored in action.

It is the whole evolution of the animal kingdom

speaking in us. And this evolution has lasted long, very

long. It counts by hundreds of millions of years.

Even if we wished to get rid of it we could not. It

would be easier for a man to accustom himself to walk on

fours than to get rid of the moral sentiment. It is anterior

in-- animal evolution to the upright posture of man.

The moral sense is a natural faculty in us like the

sense of smell or of touch.

As for law and religion, which also have preached

this principle, they have simply filched it to cloak their

own wares, their injunctions for the benefit of the

conqueror, the exploiter, the priest. Without this principle

of solidarity, the justice of which is so generally

recognized, how could they have laid hold on men's

minds?

Each of them covered themselves with it as with a garment;

like authority which made good its position by posing as the

protector of the weak against the strong.

By flinging overboard law, religion and authority, mankind

can regain possession of the moral principle which

has been taken from them. Regain that they may criticize

it, and purge it from the adulterations wherewith priest,

judge and ruler have poisoned it and are poisoning it yet.

Besides this principle of treating others as one

wishes to be treated oneself, what is it but the very same

principle as equality, the fundamental principle of

anarchism? And how can any one manage to believe

himself an anarchist unless he practices it?

We do not wish to be ruled. And by this very fact,

do we not declare that we ourselves wish to rule nobody?

We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told

nothing but the truth. And by this very fact, do we not de-

clare that we ourselves do not wish to deceive anybody,

that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the

truth, the whole truth? We do not wish to have the fruits

of our labor stolen from us. And by that very fact, do we

not declare that we respect the fruits of others' labor?

By what right indeed can we demand that we

should be treated in one fashion, reserving it to ourselves

to treat others in a fashion entirely different? Our sense of

equality revolts at such an idea.

Equality in mutual relations with the solidarity

arising from it, this is the most powerful weapon of the

animal world in the struggle for existence. And equality

is equity.

By proclaiming ourselves anarchists, we proclaim before-

hand that we disavow any way of treating others in which

we should not like them to treat us; that we will no longer

tolerate the inequality that has allowed some among us to

use their strength, their cunning or their ability after a

fashion in which it would annoy us to have such qualities

used against ourselves. Equality in all things, the

synonym of equity, this is anarchism in very deed. It is not

only against the abstract trinity of law, religion, and

authority that we declare war. By becoming anarchists we

declare war against all this wave of deceit, cunning,

exploitation, depravity, vice --in a word, inequality--

which they have poured into all our hearts. We declare

war against their way of acting, against their way of

thinking. The governed, the deceived, the exploited, the

prostitute, wound above all else our sense of equality. It

is in the name of equality that we are determined to have

no more prostituted, exploited, deceived and governed

men and women.

Perhaps it may be said --it has been said sometimes

"But if you think that you must always treat others as you

would be treated yourself, what right have you to use

force under any circumstances whatever? What right have

you to level a cannon at any barbarous or civilized

invaders of your country? What right have you to

dispossess the exploiter? What right to kill not only a

tyrant but a mere viper?"

What right? What do you mean by that singular

word, borrowed from the law? Do you wish to know if I

shall feel conscious of having acted well in doing this ? If

those I esteem will think I have done well? Is this what you

ask? If so the answer is simple.

Yes, certainly! Because we ourselves should ask to

be killed like venomous beasts if we went to invade

Burmese or Zulus who have done us no harm. We should

say to our son or our friend: "Kill me, if I ever take part in

the invasion!"

Yes, certainly! Because we ourselves should ask to

be dispossessed, if giving the lie to our principles, we

seized upon an inheritance, did it fall from on high, to use

it for the exploitation of others.

Yes, certainly! Because any man with a heart asks be-

forehand that he may be slain if ever he becomes

venomous; that a dagger may be plunged into his heart if

ever he should take the place of a dethroned tyrant.

Ninety-nine men out of a hundred who have a wife

and children would try to commit suicide for fear they

should do harm to those they love, if they felt themselves

going mad. Whenever a good-hearted man feels himself

becoming dangerous to those he loves, he wishes to die

before he is so.

Perovskaya and her comrades killed the Russian

Czar. And all mankind, despite the repugnance to the

spilling of blood, despite the sympathy for one who had

allowed the serfs to be liberated, recognized their right to

do as they did. Why? Not because the act was generally

recognized as useful; two out of three still doubt if it were

so. But because it was felt that not for all the gold in the

world would Perovskaya and her comrades have

consented to become tyrants themselves. Even those who

know nothing of the drama are certain that it was no

youthful bravado, no palace conspiracy, no attempt to

gain power. It was hatred of tyranny, even to the scorn of

self, even to the death.

"These men and women," it was said, "had

conquered the right to kill"; as it was said of Louise

Michel, "She had the right to rob." Or again, "They have

the right to steal," in speaking of those terrorists who

lived on dry bread, and stole a million or two of the

Kishineff treasure.

Mankind has never refused the right to use force on

those who have conquered that right, be it exercised upon

the barricades or in the shadow of a cross-way. But if such

an act is to produce a deep impression upon men's

minds, the right must be conquered. Without this, such an

act whether useful or not will remain merely a brutal fact,

of no importance in the progress of ideas. People will see

in it nothing but a displacement of force, simply the

substitution of one exploiter for another.

Section VII


We have hitherto been speaking of the conscious,

deliberate actions of man, those performed intentionally.

But side by side with our conscious life we have an

unconscious life which is very much wider. Yet we have

only to notice how we dress in the morning, trying to

fasten a button that we know we lost last night, or

stretching out our hand to take something that we

ourselves have moved away, to obtain an idea of this

unconscious life and realize the enormous part it plays in

our existence.

It makes up three-fourths of our relations with

others. Our ways of speaking, smiling, frowning, getting

heated or keeping cool in a discussion, are unintentional,

the result of habits, inherited from our human or pre-

human ancestors (only notice the likeness in expression

between an angry man and an angry beast), or else

consciously or unconsciously acquired.

Our manner of acting towards others thus tends to

become habitual. To treat others as he would wish to be

treated himself becomes with man and all sociable

animals, simply a habit. So much so that a person does

not generally even ask himself how he must act under

such and such circumstances. It is only when the

circumstances are exceptional, in some complex case or

under the impulse of strong passion that he hesitates, and

a struggle takes place between the various portions of his

brain --for the brain is a very complex organ, the various

portions of which act to a certain degree independently.

When this happens, the man substitutes himself in

imagination for the person opposed to him; he asks

himself if he would like to be treated in such a way, and

the better he has identified himself with the person whose

dignity or interests he has been on the point of injuring,

the more moral will his decision be. Or maybe a friend

steps in and says to him: "Fancy yourself in his place;

should you have suffered from being treated by him as he

has been treated by you? And this is enough.

Thus we only appeal to the principle of equality in

moments of hesitation, and in ninety-nine cases out of a

hundred act morally from habit.

It must have been obvious that in all we have hitherto

said, we have not attempted to enjoin anything,we have

only set forth the manner in which things happen in the

animal world and amongst mankind.

Formerly the church threatened men with hell to

moralize them, and she succeeded in demoralizing them

instead. The judge threatens with imprisonment, flogging,

the gallows, in the name of those social principles he has

filched from society; and he demoralizes them. And yet

the very idea that the judge may disappear from the earth

at the same time as the priest causes authoritarians of

every shade to cry out about peril to society.

But we are not afraid to forego judges and their

sentences. We forego sanctions of all kinds, even

obligations to morality. We are not afraid to say: "Do what

you will; act as you will"; because we are persuaded that

the great majority of mankind, in proportion to their

degree of enlightenment and the completeness with which

they free themselves from existing fetters will behave and

act always in a direction useful to society just as we are

persuaded beforehand that a child will one day walk on

its two feet and not on all fours simply because it is born

of parents belonging to the genus Homo.

All we can do is to give advice. And again while

giving it we add: "This advice will be valueless if your

own experience and observation do not lead you to

recognize that it is worth following."

When we see a youth stooping and so contracting his

chest and lungs we advise him to straighten himself, hold

up his head and open his chest. We advise him to fill his

lungs and take long breaths, because this will be his best

safeguard against consumption. But at the same time we

teach him physiology that he may understand the

functions of his lungs, and himself choose the posture he

knows to be the best.

And this is all we can do in the case of morals. And

this is all we can do in the case of morals. We have only a

right to give advice, to which we add: "Follow it if it

seems good to you."

But while leaving to each the right to act as he

thinks best; while utterly denying the right of society to

punish one in any way for any anti-social act he may have

committed, we do not forego our own capacity to love

what seems to us good and to hate what seems to us bad.

Love and hate; for only those who know how to hate

know how to love. We keep this capacity; and as this

alone serves to maintain and develop the moral

sentiments in every animal society, so much the more will

it be enough for the human race.

We only ask one thing, to eliminate all that

impedes the free development of these two feelings in the

present society, all that perverts our judgment: --the

State, the church, exploitation; judges, priests,

governments, exploiters.

Today when we see a Jack the Ripper murder one

after another some of the poorest and most miserable of

women, our first feeling is one of hatred.

If we had met him the day when he murdered that

woman who asked him to pay her for her slum lodging,

we should have put a bullet through his head, without

reflecting that the bullet might have been better bestowed

in the brain of the owner of that wretched den.

But when we recall to mind all the infamies which

have brought him to this; when we think of the darkness

in which he prowls haunted by images drawn from

indecent books or thoughts suggested by stupid books,

our feeling is divided. And if some day we hear that Jack

is in the hands of some judge who has slain in cold blood

a far greater number of men, women and children than all

the Jacks together; if we see him in the hands of one of

those deliberate maniacs then all our hatred of Jack the

Ripper will vanish. It will be transformed into hatred of a

cowardly and hypocritical society and its recognized

representatives. All the infamies of a Ripper disappear

before that long series of infamies committed in the name

of law. It is these we hate.

At the present day our feelings are continually thus

divided. We feel that all of us are more or less,

voluntarily or involuntarily, abettors of this society. We

do not dare to hate. Do we even dare to love? In a society

based on exploitation and servitude human nature is

degraded.

But as servitude disappears we shall regain our

rights. We shall feel within ourselves strength to hate and

to love, even in such complicated cases as that we have

just cited.

In our daily life we do already give free scope to

our feelings of sympathy or antipathy; we are doing so

every moment. We all love moral strength we all despise

moral weakness and cowardice. Every moment our

words, looks, smiles express our joy in seeing actions

useful to the human race, those which we think good.

Every moment our looks and words show the repugnance

we feel towards cowardice, deceit, intrigue, want of

moral courage. We betray our disgust, even when under

the influence of a worldly education we try to hide our

contempt beneath those lying appearances which will

vanish as equal relations are established among us.

This alone is enough to keep the conception of

good and ill at a certain level and to communicate it one

to another.

It will be still more efficient when there is no longer

judge or priest in society, when moral principles have

lost their obligatory character and are considered merely

as relations between equals.

Moreover, in proportion to the establishment of

these relations, a loftier moral conception will arise in

society. It is this conception which we are about to

analyze.
Section VIII


Thus far our analysis has only set forth the simple

principles of equality. We have revolted and invited

others to revolt against those who assume the right to treat

their fellows otherwise than they would be treated

themselves; against those who, not themselves wishing to

be deceived, exploited, prostituted or ill-used, yet behave

thus to others. Lying, and brutality are repulsive, we have

said, not because they are disapproved by codes of

morality, but because such conduct revolts the sense of

equality in everyone to whom equality is not an empty

word. And above all does it revolt him who is a true

anarchist in his way of thinking and acting.

If nothing but this simple, natural, obvious

principle were generally applied in life, a very lofty

morality would be the result; a morality comprising all

that moralists have taught.

The principle of equality sums up the teachings of

moralists. But it also contains something more. This

something more is respect for the individual. By

proclaiming our morality of equality, or anarchism, we

refuse to assume a right which moralists have always

taken upon themselves to claim, that of mutilating the

individual in the name of some ideal. We do not

recognize this right at all, for ourselves or anyone else.

We recognize the full and complete liberty of the

individual; we desire for him plentitude of existence, the

free development of all his faculties. We wish to impose

nothing upon him; thus returning to the principle which

Fourier placed in opposition to religious morality when

he said:

"Leave men absolutely free. Do not mutilate them

as religions have done enough and to spare. Do not fear

even their passions. In a free society these are not

dangerous."

Provided that you yourself do not abdicate your

freedom, provided that you yourself do not allow others

to enslave you; and provided that to the violent and anti-

social passions of this or that person you oppose your

equally vigorous social passions, you have nothing to

fear from liberty.

We renounce the idea of mutilating the individual

in the name of any ideal whatsoever. All we reserve to

ourselves is the frank expression of our sympathies and

antipathies towards what seems to us good or bad. A man

deceives his friends. It is his bent, his character to do so.

Very well, it is our character, our bent to despise liars.

And as this is our character, let us be frank. Do not let us

rush and press him to our bosom or cordially shake

hands with him, as is sometimes done today. Let us

vigorously oppose our active passion to his.

This is all we have the right to do, this is all the

duty we have to perform to keep up the principle of

equality in society. It is the principle of equality in

practice.

But what of the murderer, the man who debauches chil-

dren? The murderer who kills from sheer thirst for blood

is excessively rare. He is a madman to be cured or

avoided. As for the debauchee, let us first of all look to it

that society does not pervert our children's feelings, then

we shall have little to fear from rakes.

All this it must be understood is not completely

applicable until the great sources of moral depravity--

capitalism, religion, justice, government--shall have

ceased to exist. But the greater part of it may be put in

practice from this day forth. It is in practice already.

And yet if societies knew only this principle of

equality; if each man practiced merely the equity of a

trader, taking care all day long not to give others anything

more than he was receiving from them, society would die

of it. The very principle of equality itself would

disappear from our relations. For, if it is to be maintained,

something grander, more lovely, more vigorous than

mere equity must perpetually find a place in life.

And this greater than justice is here.

Until now humanity has never been without large

natures overflowing with tenderness, with intelligence,

with goodwill, and using their feeling, their intellect, their

active force in the service of the human race without

asking anything in return.

This fertility of mind, of feeling or of goodwill

takes all possible forms. It is in the passionate seeker after

truth, who renounces all other pleasures to throw his

energy into the search for what he believes true and right

contrary to the affirmations of the ignoramuses around

him. It is in the inventor who lives from day to day

forgetting even his food, scarcely touching the bread with

which perhaps some woman devoted to him feeds him

like a child, while he follows out the intention he thinks

destined to change the face of the world. It is in the ardent

revolutionist to whom the joys of art, of science, even of

family life, seem bitter, so long as they cannot be shared

by all, and who works despite misery and persecution for

the regeneration of the world. It is in the youth who,

hearing of the atrocities of invasion, and taking literally

the heroic legends of patriotism, inscribes himself in a

volunteer corps and marches bravely through snow and

hunger until he falls beneath the bullets. It was in the

Paris street arab, with his quick intelligence and bright

choice of aversions and sympathies, who ran to the

ramparts with his little brother, stood steady amid the rain

of shells, and died murmuring: "Long live the Commune!"

It is in the man who is revolted at the sight of a wrong

without waiting to ask what will be its result to himself,

and when all backs are bent stands up to unmask the

iniquity and brand the exploiter, the petty despot of a

factory or great tyrant of an empire. Finally it is in all

those numberless acts of devotion less striking and

therefore unknown and almost always misprized, which

may be continually observed, especially among women,

if we will take the trouble to open our eyes and notice

what lies at the very foundation of human life, and

enables it to enfold itself one way or another in spite of

the exploitation and oppression it undergoes.

Such men and women as these, some in obscurity,

some within a larger arena, creates the progress of

mankind. And mankind is aware of it. This is why it

encompasses such lives with reverence, with myths. It

adorns them, makes them the subject of its stories, songs,

romances. It adores in them the courage, goodness, love

and devotion which are lacking in most of us. It transmits

their memory to the young. It recalls even those who have

acted only in the narrow circle of home and friends, and

reveres their memory in family tradition.

Such men and women as these make true morality,

the only morality worthy the name. All the rest is merely

equality in relations. Without their courage, their

devotion, humanity would remain besotted in the mire of

petty calculations. It is such men and women as these who

prepare the morality of the future, that which will come

when our children have ceased to reckon, and have

grown up to the idea that the best use for all energy,

courage and love is to expend it where the need of such a

force is most strongly felt.

Such courage, such devotion has existed in every

age. It is to be met with among sociable animals. It is to be

found among men, even during the most degraded

epochs.

And religions have always sought to appropriate

it, to turn it into current coin for their own benefit. In fact

if religions are still alive, it is because--ignorance apart--

they have always appealed to this very devotion and

courage. And it is to this that revolutionists appeal.

The moral sentiment of duty which each man has

felt in his life, and which it has been attempted to explain

by every sort of mysticism, the unconsciously anarchist

Guyau says, "is nothing but a superabundance of life,

which demands to be exercised, to give itself; at the same

time, it is the consciousness of a power."

All accumulated force creates a pressure upon the

obstacles placed before it. Power to act is duty to act. And

moral "obligation" of which so much has been said or

written is reduced to the conception: the condition of the

maintenance of life is its expansion.

"The plant cannot prevent itself from flowering.

Sometimes to flower means to die. Never mind, the sap

mounts the same," concludes the young anarchist

philosopher.

It is the same with the human being when he is full

of force and energy. Force accumulates in him. He

expands his life. He gives without calculation, otherwise

he could not live. If he must die like the flower when it

blooms, never mind. The sap rises, if sap there be.

Be strong. Overflow with emotional and

intellectual energy, and you will spread your intelligence,

your love, your energy of action broadcast among others!

This is what all moral teaching comes to.
Section IX


That which mankind admires in a truly moral man

is his energy, the exuberance of life which urges him to

give his intelligence, his feeling, his action, asking nothing

in return.

The strong thinker, the man overflowing with

intellectual life, naturally seeks to diffuse his ideas. There

is no pleasure in thinking unless the thought is

communicated to others. It is only the mentally poverty-

stricken man, who after he has painfully hunted up some

idea, carefully hides it that later on he may label it with his

own name. The man of powerful intellect runs over with

ideas; he scatters them by the handful. He is wretched if

he cannot share them with others, cannot scatter them to

the four winds, for in this is his life.

The same with regard to feeling. "We are not

enough for ourselves: we have more tears than our own

sufferings claim, more capacity for joy than our own

existence can justify," says Guyau, thus summing up the

whole question of morality in a few admirable lines,

caught from nature. The solitary being is wretched,

restless, because he cannot share his thoughts and feelings

with others. When we feel some great pleasure, we wish to

let others know that we exist, we feel, we love, we live, we

struggle, we fight.

At the same time, we feel the need to exercise our

will, our active energy. To act, to work has become a need

for the vast majority of mankind. So much so that when

absurd conditions divorce a man or woman from useful

work, they invent something to do, some futile and

senseless obligations whereby to open out a field for their

active energy. They invent a theory, a religion, a "social

duty"-- to persuade themselves that they are doing

something useful. When they dance, it is for a charity.

When they ruin themselves with expensive dresses, it is to

keep up the position of the aristocracy. When they do

nothing, it is on principle.

"We need to help our fellows, to lend a hand to the

coach laboriously dragged along by humanity; in any

case, we buzz round it," says Guyau. This need of lending

a hand is so great that it is found among all sociable

animals, however low in the scale. What is all the

enormous amount of activity spent uselessly in politics

every day but an expression of the need to lend a hand to

the coach of humanity, or at least to buzz around it .

Of course this "fecundity of will," this thirst for

action, when accompanied by poverty of feeling and an

intellect incapable of creation, will produce nothing but a

Napoleon I or a Bismarck, wiseacres who try to force the

world to progress backwards. While on the other hand,

mental fertility destitute of well developed sensibility

will bring forth such barren fruits as literary and scientific

pedants who only hinder the advance of knowledge.

Finally, sensibility unguided by large intelligence will

produce such persons as the woman ready to sacrifice

everything for some brute of a man, upon whom she

pours forth all her love.

If life to be really fruitful, it must be so at once in

intelligence, in feeling and in will. This fertility in every

direction is life; the only thing worthy the name. For one

moment of this life, those who have obtained a glimpse of

it give years of vegetative existence. Without this

overflowing life, a man is old before his time, an impotent

being, a plant that withers before it has ever flowered.

"Let us leave to latter-day corruption this life that

is no life," cries youth, the true youth full of sap that longs

to live and scatter life around. Every time a society falls

into decay, a thrust from such youth as this shatters

ancient economic, and political and moral forms to make

room for the up-springing of a new life. What matter if

one or another fall in the struggle! Still the sap rises. For

youth to live is to blossom whatever the consequences! It

does not regret them.

But without speaking of the heroic periods of

mankind, taking every-day existence, is it life to live in

disagreement with one's ideal ?

Now-a-days it is often said that men scoff at the

ideal. And it is easy to understand why. The word has so

often been used to cheat the simple-hearted that a

reaction is inevitable and healthy. We too should like to

replace the word "ideal," so often blotted and stained, by

a new word more in conformity with new ideas.

But whatever the word, the fact remains; every human

being has his ideal. Bismarck had his--however strange--;

a government of blood and iron. Even every philistine has

his ideal, however low.

But besides these, there is the human being who has con-

ceived a loftier ideal. The life of a beast cannot satisfy him.

Servility, lying, bad faith, intrigue, inequality in human

relations fill him with loathing. How can he in his turn

become servile, be a liar, and intriguer, lord it over

others? He catches a glimpse of how lovely life might be

if better relations existed among men; he feels in himself

the power to succeed in establishing these better relations

with those he may meet on his way. He conceives what is

called an ideal.

Whence comes this ideal? How is it fashioned by heredity

on one side and the impressions of life on the other? We

know not. At most we could tell the story of it more or

less truly in our own biographies. But it is an actual fact --

variable, progressive, open to outside influences but

always living. It is a largely unconscious feeling of what

would give the greatest amount of vitality, of the joy of

life.

Life is vigorous, fertile. rich in sensation only on

condition of answering to this feeling of the ideal. Act

against this feeling, and you feel your life bent back on

itself. It is no longer at one, it loses its vigor. Be untrue

often to your ideal and you will end by paralyzing your

will, your active energy. Soon you will no longer regain

the vigor, the spontaneity of decision you formerly knew.

You are a broken man.

Nothing mysterious in all this, once you look upon

a human being as a compound of nervous and cerebral

centers acting independently. Waver between the various

feelings striving within you, and you will soon end by

breaking the harmony of the organism; you will be a sick

person without will. The intensity of your life will

decrease. In vain will you seek for compromises. Never

more will you be the complete, strong, vigorous being

you were when your acts were in accordance with the

ideal conceptions of your brain.

There are epochs in which the moral conception

changes entirely. A man perceives that what he had

considered moral is the deepest immorality. In some

instances it is a custom, a venerated tradition, that is

fundamentally immoral. In others we find a moral system

framed in the interests of a single class. We cast them

overboard and raise the cry "Down with morality!" It

becomes a duty to act "immorally."

Let us welcome such epochs for they are epochs of

criticism. They are an infallible sign that thought is

working in society. A higher morality has begun to be

wrought out.

What this morality will be we have sought to

formulate, taking as our basis the study of man and

animal.

We have seen the kind of morality which is even

now shaping itself in the ideas of the masses and of the

thinkers. This morality will issue no commands. It will

refuse once and for all to model individuals according to

an abstract idea, as it will refuse to mutilate them by

religion, law or government. It will leave to the

individual man full and perfect liberty. It will be but a

simple record of facts, a science. And this science will say

to man: "If you are not conscious of strength within you, if

your energies are only just sufficient to maintain a

colorless, monotonous life, without strong impressions,

without deep joys, but also without deep sorrows, well

then, keep to the simple principles of a just equality. In

relations of equality you will find probably the maximum

of happiness possible to your feeble energies.

"But if you feel within you the strength of youth, if

you wish to live, if you wish to enjoy a perfect, full and

overflowing life --that is, know the highest pleasure which

a living being can desire-- be strong, be great, be vigorous

in all you do.

"Sow life around you. Take heed that if you

deceive, lie, intrigue, cheat, you thereby demean yourself.

belittle yourself, confess your own weakness beforehand,

play the part of the slave of the harem who feels himself

the inferior of his master. Do this if it so pleases you, but

know that humanity will regard you as petty,

contemptible and feeble, and treat you as such. Having no

evidence of your strength, it will act towards you as one

worthy of pity-- and pity only. Do not blame humanity if

of your own accord you thus paralyze your energies. Be

strong on the other hand, and once you have seen

unrighteousness and recognized it as such --inequity in

life, a lie in science, or suffering inflicted by another-- rise

in revolt against the iniquity, the lie or the injustice.

"Struggle! To struggle is to live, and the fiercer the

struggle the intenser the life. Then you will have lived;

and a few hours of such life are worth years spent

vegetating.

"Struggle so that all may live this rich, overflowing

life. And be sure that in this struggle you will find a joy

greater than anything else can give."

This is all that the science of morality can tell you.

Yours is the choice.




Communism and Anarchy
by Peter Kropotkin
Freedom: July (p30)/August (p38) 1901
Reprinted in Small Communal Experiments and Why They Fail
Jura Books
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Editor's Preface
Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) was one of the greatest anarchist theoreticians of his time. Although he admired the directly democratic and non-authoritarian practices of the traditional peasant village commune, he was never an advocate of small and isolated communal experimentalism. Many people, upon reading his works, have been inspired to found such communities, both in his own time as well as the hippies of the 1960s (a period when Kropotkin's major works were epublished and influential). Kropotkin did not consider such ventures were likely to be successful or useful in achieving wider revolutionary goals. His friend, Elisee Reclus, who had been involved in such a venture in South America in his youth, was even more hostile to small communal experiments. It is a pity that some of the founders of the many hippy communes in the 1960s (nearly all of which faded rather quickly) did not read Kropotkin more carefully. Unfortunately, they made the same mistakes as many anarchists, communists and socialists had made a century before them. In the anarchist press today one still finds adverts for prospective small and isolated anarchist colonies. Also, many commentaries about Kropotkin still misrepresent him as having had a vision of society consisting of unfederated and independent village-like settlements and of advocating small communal experiments as a means of achieving an anarchist society. The following speech and two 'open' letters, which have not been in print for a century, clearly show, that although not emotionally opposed to such ventures, he was highly sceptical about their chances of success and generally believed them to be a drain upon the energies of the anarchist movement. Despite his warnings, these articles also contain much good and practical advice to those who are still tempted to found small experimental communes in the wilderness, or perhaps, those tempted in some future era to colonise space.
- Graham Purchase

Many Anarchists and thinkers in general, whilst recognising the immense advantages which Communism may offer to society, yet consider this form of social organisation a danger to the liberty and free development of the individual. This danger is also recognised by many Communists, and, taken as a whole, the question is merged in that other vast problem which our century has laid bare to its fullest extent: the relation of the individual to society. The importance of this question need hardly be insisted upon.
The problem became obscured in various ways. When speaking of Communism, most people think of the more or less Christian and monastic and always authoritarian Communism advocated in the first half of this century and practised in certain communities. These communities took the family as a model and tried to constitute "the great Communist family" to "reform man,". To this end, in addition to working in common, they imposed the living closely together like a family, as well as the isolation or separation of the colony from present civilisation. This amounted to nothing less than the total interference of all 'brothers" and "sisters" with the entire private life of each member.
In addition to this, the difference was not sufficiently noted as between isolated communities, founded on various occasions during the last three or four centuries, and the numerous federated communes which are likely to spring up in a society about to inaugurate the social revolution. Five aspects of the subject thus require to be considered separately:
[1] Production and consumption in common,
[2] Domestic life in common (cohabitation: is it necessary to arrange it after the model of the present family?),
[3] The isolated communities of our times,
[4] The federated communes of the future, and
[5] Does Communism necessarily lessen individuality? In other words, the Individual in a Communist society.
An immense movement of ideas took place during this century under the name of Socialism in general, beginning with Babeuf, St. Simon, Fourier, Robert Owen and Proudhon who formulated the predominating currents of Socialism, and continued by their numerous successors (French) Considerant, Pierre Lerous, Louis Blanc; (German) Marx, Engels; (Russian) Chernychevski, Bakunin; etc, who worked either at popularising the ideas of the founders of modern Socialism or at establishing them on a scientific basis.
These ideas, on taking precise shape, gave birth to two principal currents: Authoritarian Communism and Anarchist Communism; also to a number of intermediary schools bent on finding a way between, such as State Capitalism, Collectivism, Co-operation; among the working masses they created a formidable workers' movement which strives to organise the whole mass of the workers by trades for the struggle against Capital, and which becomes more international with the frequent intercourse between workers of different nationalities. The following three essential points were gained by this immense movement of ideas and of action, and these have already widely penetrated the public conscience:
[1] The abolition of the wage system, the modern form of ancient serfdom,
[2] The abolition of individual property in the means of production, and
[3] The emancipation of the individual and of society from the political machinery, the State, which helps to maintain economic slavery.
On these three points all are agreed, and even those who advocate "labour notes" or who, like Brousse, wish all "to be functionaries," that is employees of the State or the commune, admit that if they advocate either of these proposals it is only because they do not see an immediate possibility for Communism. They accept this compromise as an expedient, but their aim always remains Communism. And, as to the State, even the bitterest partisans of the State, of authority, even of dictatorship, recognise that with the disappearance of the classes of today the State will also cease to exist.
Hence we may say without exaggerating the importance of our section of the Socialist movement - the Anarchist section - that in spite of all differences between the various sections of Socialism (which differences are, before all, based upon the more or less revolutionary character of the means of action of each section), we may affirm that all sections, by the voice of their thinkers, recognise the evolution towards Free Communism as the aim of Socialist evolution. All the rest, as they themselves confess, are only stepping-stones towards this end.
It would be idle to discuss these stepping-stones without an examination of the tendencies of development of modern society.
Of these different tendencies two, before all, merit our attention. One is the increasing difficulty of determining the share of each individual in modern production. Industry and agriculture have become so complicated, so riveted together, all industries are so dependent one upon the other that payment to the producer by results becomes impossible the more industry is developed, the more we see payment by piece replaced by wages. Wages, on the other hand, become more equal. The division of modern bourgeois society in classes certainly remains and there is a whole class of bourgeois who earn the more, the less they do. The working class itself is divided into four great divisions:
[1] women,
[2] agricultural labourers,
[3] unskilled workers, and
[4] skilled workers.
These divisions represent four degrees of exploitation and are but the result of bourgeois organisation.
In a society of equals, where all can learn a trade and where the exploitation of woman by man, of the peasant by the manufacturer, will cease, these classes will disappear. But, even today, wages within each of these classes tend to become more equal. This led to the statement: "that a navvy's day's work is worth that of a jeweller", and made Robert Owen conceive his "labour notes", paid to all who worked so many hours in the production of necessary commodities.
But if we look back on all attempts made in this direction, we find that with the exception of a few thousand farmers in the United States, labour notes have not spread since the end of the first quarter of the century when Owen tried to issue them. The reasons for this have been discussed elsewhere (see the chapter: The Wage System, in my book "The Conquest of Bread").
On the other hand, we see a great number of attempts at partial socialisation, tending in the direction of Communism. Hundreds of Communist communities have been founded during this century almost everywhere and at this very moment we are aware of more than a hundred of them, all being more or less Communistic. It is in the same direction of Communism - partial Communism, we mean to say - that nearly all the numerous attempts at socialisation we see in bourgeois society tend to be made, either between individuals or with regard to the socialisation of municipal matters.
Hotels, steamers, boarding houses, are all experiments in this direction undertaken by the bourgeois. For so much per day you have the choice between ten or fifty dishes placed at your disposal at the hotel or on the steamer, with nobody controlling the amount you have eaten of them. This organisation is even international and before leaving Paris or London you may buy bons (coupons for 10 francs a day) which enable you to stay at will in hundreds of hotels in France, Germany, Switzerland, etc., all belonging to an international society of hotels.
The bourgeois thoroughly understood the advantages of partial Communism combined with the almost unlimited freedom of the individual in respect to consumption, and in all these institutions for a fixed price per month you will be lodged and fed, with the single exception of costly extras (wine, special apartments) which are charged separately.
Fire, theft and accident insurance (especially in villages where equality of conditions permits the charge of an equal premium for all inhabitants), the arrangement by which great English stores will supply for 1s. per week all the fish which a small family may consume, clubs, the innumerable societies of insurance against sickness, etc., etc.. This mass of institutions, created during the 19th century, are an approach towards Communism with regard to part of our total consumption.
Finally, there exists a vast series of municipal institutions - water, gas, electricity, workmen's dwellings, trains with uniform fares, baths, washing houses, etc. - where similar attempts at socialising consumption are being made on an ever increasing scale.
All this is certainly not yet Communism. Far from it. But the principle of these institutions contains a part of the principle of Communism: for so much per day (in money today, in labour tomorrow) you are entitled to satisfy - luxury excepted - this or the other of your wants.
These forays into Communism differ from real Communism in many ways; and essentially in the two following; [1] payment in money instead of payment by labour; [2] the consumers have no voice in the administration of the business. If, however, the idea, the tendency of these institutions were well understood, it would not be difficult even today to start by private or public initiative a community carrying out the first principle mentioned. Let us suppose a territory of 500 hectares on which are built 200 cottages, each surrounded by a garden or an orchard of a quarter hectare. The management allows each family occupying a cottage, to choose out of fifty dishes per day what is desired, or it supplies bread, vegetables, meat, coffee as demanded for preparation at home. In return they demand either so much per annum in money or a certain number of hours of work given, at the consumers' choice, to one of the departments of the establishment: agriculture, cattle raising, cooking, cleaning. This may be put in practice tomorrow if required, and we must wonder that such a farm/hotel/garden has not yet been founded by an enterprising hotel proprietor.
It will be objected, no doubt, that it is just here, the introduction of labour in common, that Communists have generally experienced failure. Yet this objection cannot stand. The causes of failure have always to be sought elsewhere.
Firstly, nearly all communities were founded by an almost religious wave of enthusiasm. People were asked to become "pioneers of humanity;" to submit to the dictates of a punctilious morality, to become quite regenerated by Communist life, to give all their time, hours of work and of leisure, to the community, to live entirely for the community.
This meant acting simply like monks and to demand - without any necessity - men to be what they are not. It is only in quite recent days that communities have been founded by Anarchist working men without any such pretensions, for purely economic purposes - to free themselves from capitalist exploitation.
The second mistake lay in the desire to manage the community after the model of a family, to make it "the great family" They lived all in the same house and were thus forced to continuously meet the same "brethren and sisters." It is already difficult often for two real brothers to live together in the same house, and family life is not always harmonious; so it was a fundamental error to impose on all the "great family" instead of trying, on the contrary, to guarantee as much freedom and home life to each individual.
Besides, a small community cannot live long; "brethren and sisters" forced to meet continuously, amid a scarcity of new impressions, end by detesting each other. And if two persons through becoming rivals or simply not liking each other are able by their disagreement to bring about the dissolution of a community, the prolonged life of such communities would be a strange thing, especially since all communities founded up to now have isolated themselves. It is a foregone conclusion that a close association of 10, 20, or 100 persons cannot last longer than three or four years. It would be even regrettable if it lasted longer, because this would only prove either that all were brought under the influence of a single individual or that all lost their individuality. Well, since it is certain that in three, four or five years part of the members of a community would wish to leave, there ought to exist at least a dozen or more federated communities in order that those who, for one reason or other, wish to leave a community may enter another community, being replaced by new comers from other places. Otherwise, the Communist beehive must necessarily perish or (which nearly always happens) fall into the hands of one individual - generally the most cunning of the "brethren".
Finally, all communities founded up till now isolated themselves from society; but struggle, a life of struggle, is far more urgently needed by an active man than a well supplied table. This desire to see the world, to mix with its currents, to fight its battles is the imperative call to the young generation. Hence it comes (as Chaikovski remarked from his experience) that young people, at the age of 18 or 20, necessarily leave a community which does not comprehend the whole of society
We need not add that governments of all descriptions have always been the most serious stumbling blocks for all communities. Those which have seen least of this or none at all (like Young Icaria) succeed best. This is easily understood Political hatred is one of the most violent in character. We can live in the same town with our political adversaries if we are not forced to see them every moment. But how is life possible in a small community where we meet each other at every turn. Political dissent enters the study, the workshop, the place of rest, and life becomes impossible.
On the other hand, it has been proved to conviction that work in common, Communist production, succeeds marvellously. In no commercial enterprise has so much value been added to land by labor as in each of the communities founded in America and in Europe. faults of calculation may occur everywhere as they occur in all capitalist undertakings, but since it is known that during the first five years after their institution four out of every commercial undertakings become bankrupt, it must be admitted that nothing similar or even coming near to this has occurred in Communist communities. So, when the bourgeois press, wanting to be ingenious, speaks of offering an island to Anarchists on which to establish their community, relying on our experience we are ready to accept this proposal, provided only that this island be, for instance, the Isle de France (Paris) and that upon the valuation of the social wealth we receive our share of it. Only, since we know that neither Paris nor our share of social wealth will be given to us, we shall some day take one and the other ourselves by means of the Social Revolution. Paris and Barcelona in 1871 were not very far from doing so - and ideas have made headway since that time.
Progress permits us to see above all, that an isolated town, proclaiming the Commune, would have great difficulty to subsist. The experiment ought, therefore, to be made on a territory - eg, one of the Western States, Idaho or Ohio - as American Socialists suggest, and they are right. On a sufficiently large territory, not within the bounds of a single town we must someday begin to put in practice the Communism of the future.
We have so often demonstrated that State Communism is impossible, that it is useless to dwell on this subject. A proof of this, furthermore, lies in the fad that the believers in the State, the upholders of a Socialist State do not themselves believe in State Communism. A portion of them occupy themselves with the conquest of a share of the power in the State of today - the bourgeois State - and do not trouble themselves at all to explain that their idea of a Socialist State is different from a system of State capitalism under which everybody would be a functionary of the State. If we tell them that it is this they aim at, they are annoyed; yet they do not explain what other system of society they wish to establish. As they do not believe in the possibility of a social revolution in the near future, their aim is to become part of the government in the bourgeois State of today and they leave it to the future to decide where this will end.
As to those who have tried to sketch the outlines of a future Socialist State, they met our criticism by asserting that all they want are bureaus of statistics. But this is mere juggling with words. Besides, it is averred today that the only statistics of value are those recorded by each individual himself, giving age, occupation, social position, or the lists of what he sold or bought, produced and consumed.
The questions to be put are usually of voluntary elaboration (by scientists, statistical societies), and the work of statistical bureaus consists today in Distributing the questions, in arranging and mechanically summing up the replies. To reduce the State, the governments to this function and to say that, by "government", only this will be understood, means nothing else (if said sincerely) but an honourable retreat. And me must indeed admit that the Jacobins of thirty years ago have immensely gone back from their ideals of dictatorship and Socialist centralisation. No one would dare to say today that the production or consumption of potatoes or rice must be regulated by the parliament of the German People's State (Volksstaat) at Berlin. These insipid things are no longer said.
The Communist state is an Utopia given up already by its own adherents and it is time to proceed further. A far more important question to be examined, indeed, is this: whether Anarchist or Free Communism does not also imply a diminution of individual freedom?
As a matter of fact, in all discussions on freedom our ideas are obscured by the surviving influence of past centuries of serfdom and religious oppression.
Economists represented the enforced contract (under the threat of hunger) between master and workingman as a state of freedom. Politicians, again, so called the present state of the citizen who has become a serf and a taxpayer of the State. The most advanced moralists, like Mill and his numerous disciples, defined liberty as the right to do everything with the exception of encroachments on the equal liberty of all others. Apart from the fact that the word "right" is a very confused term handed down from past ages, meaning nothing at all or too much, the definition of Mill enabled the philosopher Spencer, numerous authors and even some Individualist Anarchists to reconstruct tribunals and legal punishments, even to the penalty of death - that is, to reintroduce, necessarily, in the end the State itself which they had admirably criticised themselves. The idea of free will is also hidden behind all these reasonings.
If we put aside all unconscious actions and consider only premeditated actions (being those which the law, religious and penal systems alone try to influence) we find that each action of this kind is preceded by some discussion in the human brain; for instance, "I shall go out and take a walk," somebody thinks, "No, I have an appointment with a friend," or "I promised to finish some work" or "My wife and children will I be sorry to remain at home," or "I shall lose my employment if I do not go to work."
The last reflection implies the fear of punishment. In the first three instances this man has to face only himself, his habit of loyalty, his sympathies. And there lies all the difference. We say that a man forced to reason that he must give up such and such an engagement from fear of punishment, is not a free man. And we affirm that humanity can and must free itself from the fear of punishment, and that it can constitute an Anarchist society in which the fear of punishment and even the unwillingness to be blamed shall disappear. Towards this ideal we march. But we know that we can free ourselves neither from our habit of loyalty (keeping our word) nor from our sympathies (fear of giving pain to those whom we love and whom we do not wish to afflict on or even to disappoint). In this last respect man is never free. Crusoe, on his island, was not free. The moment he began to construct his ship, to cultivate his garden or to lay in provisions for the winter, he was already captured, absorbed by his work. If he felt lazy and would have preferred to remain lying at ease in his cave, he hesitated for a moment and nevertheless went forth to his work. The moment he had the company of a dog, of two or three goats and, above all, after he had met with Friday, he was no longer absolutely free in the sense in which these words are sometimes used in discussions. He had obligations, he had to think of the interests of others, he was no longer the perfect individualist whom we are sometimes expected to see in him. The moment he has a wife or children, educated by himself or confided to others (society), the moment he has a domestic animal, or even only an orchard which requires to be watered at certain hours - from that moment he is no longer the "care for nothing," the "egoist", the individualist" who is sometimes represented as the type of a free man. Neither on Crusoe's island, far less in society of whatever kind it be, does this type exist. Man takes, and will always take into consideration the interests of other men in proportion to the establishment of relations of mutual interest between them, and the more so the more these others affirm their own sentiments and desires.
Thus we find no other definition of liberty than the following one: the possibility of action without being influenced in those actions by the fear of punishment by society (bodily constraint, the threat of hunger or even censure, except when it comes from a friend).
Understanding liberty in this sense - and we doubt whether a larger and at the same time a more real definition of it can be found - we may say that Communism can diminish, even annihilate, all individual liberty and in many Communist communities this was attempted; but it can also enhance this liberty to its utmost limits.
All depends on the fundamental ideas on which the association is based. It is not the form of an association which involves slavery; it is the ideas of individual liberty which we bring with us to an association which determine the more or less libertarian character of that association.
This applies to all forms of association. Cohabitation of two individuals under the same roof may lead to the enslavement of one by the will of the other, as it may also lead to liberty for both. The same applies to the family or to the co-operation of two persons in gardening or in bringing out a paper. The same with regard to large or small associations, to each social institution. Thus, in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, we find communes of equals, men equally free - and four centuries later we see the same commune calling for the dictatorship of a priest. Judges and laws had remained; the idea of the Roman law, of the State had become dominant, whilst those of freedom, of settling disputes by arbitration and of applying federalism to its fullest extent had disappeared; hence arose slavery. Well, of all institutions or forms of social organisation that have been tried until this day, Communism is the one which guarantees the greatest amount of individual liberty - provided that the idea that begets the community be Liberty, Anarchy.
Communism is capable of assuming all forms of freedom or of oppression which other institutions are unable to do. It may produce a monastery where all implicitly obey the orders of their superior, and it may produce an absolutely free organisation, leaving his full freedom to the individual, existing only as long as the associates wish to remain together, imposing nothing on anybody, being anxious rather to defend, enlarge, extend in all directions the liberty of the individual. Communism may be authoritarian (in which case the community will soon decay) or it may be Anarchist. The State, on the contrary, cannot be this. It is authoritarian or it ceases to be the State.
Communism guarantees economic freedom better than any other form of association, because it can guarantee wellbeing, even luxury, in return for a few hours of work instead of a day's work. Now, to give ten or eleven hours of leisure per day out of the sixteen during which we lead a conscious life (sleeping eight hours), means to enlarge individual liberty to a point which for thousands of years has been one of the ideals of humanity.
This can be done today in a Communist society man can dispose of at least ten hours of leisure. This means emancipation from one of the heaviest burdens of slavery on man. It is an increase of liberty.
To recognise all men as equal and to renounce government of man by man is another increase of individual liberty in a degree which no other form of association has ever admitted even as a dream. It becomes possible only after the first step has been taken: when man has his means of existence guaranteed and is not forced to sell his muscle and his brain to those who condescend to exploit him.
Lastly, to recognise a variety of occupations as the basis of all progress and to organise in such a way that man may be absolutely free during his leisure time, whilst he may also vary his work, a change for which his early education and instruction will have prepared him - this can easily be put in practice in a Communist society - this, again, means the emancipation of the individual, who will find doors open in every direction for his complete development.
As for the rest, all depends upon the ideas on which the community is founded. We know a religious community in which members who felt unhappy, and showed signs of this on their faces, used to be addressed by a "brother": "You are sad. Nevertheless, put on a happy look, otherwise you will afflict our brethren and sisters." And we know of communities of seven members, one of whom moved the nomination of four committees: gardening, ways and means, housekeeping, and exportation, with absolute rights for the chairman of each committee. There certainly existed communities founded or invaded by "criminals of authority" (a special type recommended to the attention of Mr. Lombrose) and quite a number of communities were founded by mad upholders of the absorption of the individual by society. But these men were not the product of Communism, but of Christianity (eminently authoritarian in its essence) and of Roman law, the State.
The fundamental idea of these men who hold that society cannot exist without police and judges, the idea of the State, is a permanent danger to all liberty, and not the fundamental idea of Communism - which consists in consuming and producing without calculating the exact share of each individual. This idea, on the contrary, is an idea of freedom, of emancipation.
Thus we have arrived at the following conclusions: Attempts at Communism have hitherto failed because:
[1] They were based on an impetus of a religious character instead of considering a community simply as a means of economic consumption and production,
[2] They isolated themselves from society,
[3] They were imbued with an authoritarian spirit,
[41 They were isolated instead of federated,
[5] They required of their members so much labour as to leave them no leisure time, and
[6] They were modelled on the form of the patriarchal family instead of having for an aim the fullest possible emancipation of the individual.
Communism, being an eminently economic institution, does not in any way prejudice the amount of liberty guaranteed to the individual, the initiator, the rebel against crystallising customs. It may be authoritarian, which necessarily leads to the death of the community, and it may be libertarian, which in the twelfth century even under the partial communism of the young cities of that age, led to the creation of a young civilisation full of vigour, a new springtide of Europe.
The only durable form of Communism, however, is one under which, seeing the close contact between fellow men it brings about, every effort would be made to extend the liberty of the individual in all directions.
Under such conditions, under the influence of this idea, the liberty of the individual, increased already by the amount of leisure secured to him, will be curtailed in no other way than occurs today by municipal gas, the house to house delivery of food by great stores, modern hotels, or by the fact that during working hours we work side by side with thousands of fellow labourers.
With Anarchy as an aim and as a means, Communism becomes possible. Without it, it necessarily becomes slavery and cannot exist.

posted by Alternativa.Obstaja at 11:16 AM | 0 comments
Sunday, June 04, 2006

Prologue to Post-Left Anarchy

Author: Jason McQuinn
Publishing date: 10.11.2003 13:18


It is now nearly a decade and a half since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is seven years since Bob Black first sent me the manu­script for his book, Anarchy after Leftism, published in 1997. It's over four years since I asked Anarchy magazine Contributing Editors to participate in a discussion of “post-left anarchy” which ultimately appeared in the Fall/Winter 1999-2000 issue of the magazine (#48). And it's also one year since I first wrote and published “Post-Left Anarchy: Rejecting the Reification of Revolt,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2002-2003 issue (#54) of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed.

Jason McQuinn became an anarchist after encountering the writings of Paul Goodman in the late '60s while living in St. Louis. Since that time he has dedicated himself to encouraging the growth of a self-critical anarchist milieu through development of various radical media projects, most notably Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, the North American Anarchist Review, Modern Slavery and the Alternative Press Review, along with the C.A.L. Press book publishing project. Anarchy magazine, started in 1980, is one of the most widely read anarchist periodicals in North America. The Alternative Press Review has an even larger circulation, primarily aiming to reach those outside the anarchist milieu. Over the years Jason McQuinn has also been involved in a wide range of other radical projects: numerous interventions, protests, collectives, co-operatives and other groups. He has been especially influenced by Paul Goodman, Max Stirner, Raoul Vaneigem and Fredy Perlman. And he remains committed, as the cover of each Anarchy magazine issue declares, to working "Towards a society based on mutual aid, voluntary cooperation and the liberation of desire."

Aside from creating a hot new topic for debate in anarchist and leftist periodicals, web sites and e-mail lists, one can legitimately ask what has been accomplished by introducing the term and the debate to the anarchist, and more generally radical, milieu? In response I'd say that the reaction continues to grow, and the promise of post-left anarchy primarily lies in what appears to be a continually brightening future.
One of the most troubling problems of the contemporary anarchist milieu has been the frequent fixation on attempts to recreate the struggles of the past as though nothing significant has changed since 1919, 1936, or at best 1968. Partly this is a function of the long-prevalent anti-intellectualism amongst many anarchists. Partly it's a result of the historical eclipse of the anarchist movement following the victory of Bolshevik state communism and the (self‑) defeat of the Spanish Revolution. And partly it is because the vast majority of the most important anarchist theorists—like Godwin, Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Malatesta—come from the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The void in the development of anarchist theory since the rebirth of the milieu in the 1960s has yet to be filled by any adequate new formulation of theory and practice powerful enough to end the impasse and catch the imaginations of the majority of contemporary anarchists in a similar manner to Bakunin's or Kropotkin's formulations in the nineteenth century.
Since the 1960s the originally minuscule—but since that time, ever-growing—anarchist milieu has been influenced (at least in passing) by the Civil Rights Movement, Paul Goodman, SDS, the Yippies, the anti-Vietnam War movement, Fred Woodworth, the Marxist New Left, the Situationist International, Sam Dolgoff and Murray Bookchin, the single-issue movements (anti-racist, feminist, anti-nuclear, anti-imperialist, environmental/ecological, animal rights, etc.), Noam Chomsky, Freddie Perlman, George Bradford/David Watson, Bob Black, Hakim Bey, Earth First! and Deep Ecology, neo-Paganism and New Ageism, the anti-globalization movement, and many others. Yet these various influences over the last forty years, both non-anarchist and anarchist alike, have failed to bring to the fore any inspiring new synthesis of critical and practical theory. A few anarchists, most notably Murray Bookchin and the Love & Rage project, have tried and failed miserably in attempting to meld the extremely diverse and idiosyncratic anarchist milieu into a genuinely new movement with a commonly-held theory. I would argue that in our current situation this is a project guaranteed to fail no matter who attempts it.
The alternative argued for by the post-left anarchist synthesis is still being created. It cannot be claimed by any single theorist or activist because it's a project that was in the air long before it started becoming a concrete set of proposals, texts and interventions. Those seeking to promote the synthesis have been primarily influenced by both the classical anarchist movement up to the Spanish Revolution on the one hand, and several of the most promising critiques and modes of intervention developed since the 60s. The most important critiques involved include those of everyday life and the spectacle, of ideology and morality, of industrial technology, of work and of civilization. Modes of intervention focus on the concrete deployment of direct action in all facets of life. Rather than aiming at the construction of institutional or bureaucratic structures, these interventions aim at maximal critical effectiveness with minimal compromise in constantly changing networks of action.
Clearly these new critiques and modes of intervention are largely incompatible with both the old left of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and most of the New Left of the 60s and 70s. And just as clearly they are engaging a growing number of anar­chists who gravitate to them because they seem to be much more congruent with the global situation we find ourselves in today than the old theories and tactics of leftism. If anarchism doesn't change to address the lived realities of the twenty-first century—by leaving the outmoded politics and organizational fetishism of leftism behind—its relevance will dissipate and the opportunities for radical contestation now so apparent will slowly vanish. Post-left anarchy is most simply a rubric through which many thoughtful contemporary anarchists would like to see the most vital of the new critiques and modes of intervention coalesce in an increasingly coherent and effective movement, which genuinely promotes unity in diversity, the complete autonomy of individuals and local groups in struggle, and the organic growth of levels of organization which don't hold back our collective energies, spontaneity and creativity.
Introduction
Anarchist critiques of leftism have a history nearly as long as the term “left” has had a political meaning. The early anarchist movement emerged from many of the same struggles as other socialist movements (which made up a major part of the political left), from which it eventually differentiated itself. The anarchist movement and other socialist movements were primarily a product of the social ferment which gave rise to the Age of Revolutions—intro­duced by the English, American and French Revolutions. This was the historical period in which early capitalism was developing through the enclosure of commons to destroy community self-sufficiency, the industrialization of production with a factory system based on scientific techniques, and the aggressive expansion of the commodity market economy throughout the world. But the anarchist idea has always had deeper, more radical and more holistic implications than mere socialist criticism of the exploitation of labor under capitalism. This is because the anarchist idea springs from both the social ferment of the Age of Revolutions and the critical imagination of individuals seeking the abolition of every form of social alienation and domination.
The anarchist idea has an indelibly individualist foundation upon which its social critiques stand, always and everywhere proclaiming that only free individuals can create a free, unalienated society. Just as importantly, this individualist foundation has included the idea that the exploitation or oppression of any individual diminishes the freedom and integrity of all. This is quite unlike the collectivist ideologies of the political left, in which the individual is persistently devalued, denigrated or denied in both theory and practice—though not always in the ideological window dressing that is meant only to fool the naive. It is also what prevents genuine anarchists from taking the path of authoritarians of the left, right and center who casually employ mass exploita­tion, mass oppression and frequently mass imprisonment or murder to capture, protect and expand their holds on political and economic power.
Because anarchists understand that only people freely organizing themselves can create free communities, they refuse to sacrifice individuals or communities in pursuit of the kinds of power that would inevitably prevent the emergence of a free society. But given the almost mutual origins of the anarchist movement and the socialist left, as well as their historical battles to seduce or capture the support of the international workers movement by various means, it isn't surprising that over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries socialists have often adopted aspects of anarchist theory or practice as their own, while even more anarchists have adopted aspects of leftist theory and practice into various left-anarchist syntheses. This is despite the fact that in the worldwide struggles for individual and social freedom the political left has everywhere proven itself either a fraud or a failure in practice. Wherever the socialist left has been success­ful in organizing and taking power it has at best reformed (and rehabilitated) capitalism or at worst instituted new tyrannies, many with murderous policies—some of genocidal proportions.
Thus, with the stunning international disintegration of the political left following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the time is now past due for all anarchists to reevaluate every compromise that has been or continues to be made with the fading remnants of leftism. Whatever usefulness there might have been in the past for anarchists to make compromises with leftism is evaporating with the progressive disappearance of the left from even token opposition to the fundamental institutions of capitalism: wage labor, market production, and the rule of value.
Leftists in the Anarchist Milieu
The rapid slide of the political left from the stage of history has increasingly left the international anarchist milieu as the only revolutionary anti-capitalist game in town. As the anarchist milieu has mushroomed in the last decade, most of its growth has come from disaffected youth attracted to its increasingly visible, lively and iconoclastic activities and media. But a significant minority of that growth has also come from former leftists who have—sometimes slowly and sometimes suspiciously swiftly—decided that anarchists might have been right in their critiques of political authority and the state all along. Unfortunately, not all leftists just fade away—or change their spots—overnight. Most of the former leftists entering the anarchist milieu inevitably bring with them many of the conscious and unconscious leftist attitudes, prejudices, habits and assumptions that structured their old political milieus. Certainly, not all of these attitudes, habits and assumptions are necessarily authoritarian or anti-anarchist, but just as clearly many are.
Part of the problem is that many former leftists tend to misunder­stand anarchism only as a form of anti-statist leftism, ignoring or downplaying its indelibly individualist foundation as irrelevant to social struggles. Many simply don't understand the huge divide between a self-organizing movement seeking to abolish every form of social alienation and a merely political movement seeking to reorganize production in a more egalitarian form. While others do understand the divide quite well, but seek to re-form the anarchist milieu into a political movement anyway, for various reasons. Some former leftists do this because they consider the abolition of social alienation unlikely or impossible; some because they remain fundamentally opposed to any individualist (or sexual, or cultural, etc.) component of social theory and practice. Some cynically realize that they will never achieve any position of power in a genuinely anarchist movement and opt for building more narrowly political organizations with more room for manipulation. Still others, unused to autonomous thinking and practice, simply feel anxious and uncomfortable with many aspects of the anarchist tradition and wish to push those aspects of leftism within the anarchist milieu that help them feel less threatened and more secure—so that they can continue to play their former roles of cadre or militant, just without an explicitly authoritarian ideology to guide them.
In order to understand current controversies within the anarchist milieu, anarchists need to remain constantly aware—and carefully critical—of all this. Ad hominem attacks within the anarchist milieu are nothing new, and most often a waste of time, because they substitute for rational criticism of people's actual posi­tions. (Too often rational criticism of positions is simply ignored by those unable to argue for their own positions, whose only recourse is to wild or irrelevant accusations or attempted smears.) But there remains an important place for ad hominem criticism addressed to people's chosen identities, especially when these identities are so strong that they include sedimented, often unconscious, layers of habits, prejudices and dependencies. These habits, prejudices and dependencies—leftist or otherwise—all constitute highly appropriate targets for anarchist criticism.
Recuperation and the Left-Wing of Capital
Historically, the vast majority of leftist theory and practice has functioned as a loyal opposition to capitalism. Leftists have been (often vociferously) critical of particular aspects of capitalism, but always ready to reconcile themselves with the broader interna­tional capitalist system whenever they've been able to extract a bit of power, partial reforms—or sometimes, just the vague promise of partial reforms. For this reason leftists have often been quite justifiably criticized (by both ultra-leftists and by anarchists) as the left wing of capital.
It's not just a problem that those leftists who claim to be anti-capitalist don't really mean it, although some have consciously used such lies to gain positions of power for themselves in opposition movements. The major problem is that leftists have incomplete, self-contradictory theories about capitalism and social change. As a result their practice always tends towards the recuperation (or co-optation and reintegration) of social rebel­lion. Always with a focus on organization, leftists use a variety of tactics in their attempts to reify and mediate social struggles—representation and substitution, imposition of collectivist ideologies, collectivist moralism, and ultimately repressive violence in one form or another. Typically, leftists have employed all of these tactics in the most unrepentently heavy-handed and explicitly authoritarian of ways. But these tactics (except for the last) can also be—and have often been—employed in more subtle, less-overtly authoritarian ways as well, the most important examples for our purposes being the historical and present practices of many (but not all) left anarchists.
Reification is often most generally described as “thingification.” It's the reduction of a complex, living process to a frozen, dead or mechanical collection of objects or actions. Political mediation (a form of practical reification) is the attempt to intervene in conflicts as a third-party arbiter or representative. Ultimately these are the definitive characteristics of all leftist theory and practice. Leftism always involves the reification and mediation of social revolt, while consistent anarchists reject this reification of revolt. The formulation of post-left anarchy is an attempt to help make this rejection of the reification of revolt more consistent, widespread and self-aware than it already is.
Anarchy as a Theory & Critique of Organization
One of the most fundamental principles of anarchism is that social organization must serve free individuals and free groups, not vice versa. Anarchy cannot exist when individuals or social groups are dominated—whether that domination is facilitated and enforced by outside forces or by their own organization.
For anarchists the central strategy of would-be revolutionaries has been the non-mediating (anti-authoritarian, often informal or minimalist) self-organization of radicals (based on affinity and/or specific theoretical/practical activities) in order to encourage and participate in the self-organization of popular rebellion and insurrection against capital and state in all their forms. Even among most left anarchists there has always been at least some level of understanding that mediating organizations are at best highly unstable and unavoidably open to recuperation, requiring constant vigilance and struggle to avoid their complete recupera­tion.
But for all leftists (including left anarchists), on the other hand, the central strategy is always expressly focused on creating mediating organizations between capital & state on the one side and the mass of disaffected, relatively powerless people on the other. Usually these organizations have been focused on mediating between capitalists and workers or between the state and the working class. But many other mediations involving opposition to particular institutions or involving interventions among particular groups (social minorities, subgroups of the working class, etc.) have been common.
These mediating organizations have included political parties, syndicalist unions, mass political organizations, front groups, single-issue campaign groups, etc. Their goals are always to crystallize and congeal certain aspects of the more general social revolt into set forms of ideology and congruent forms of activity. The construction of formal, mediating organizations always and necessarily involves at least some levels of:
• Reductionism (Only particular aspects of the social struggle are included in these organizations. Other aspects are ignored, invalidated or repressed, leading to further and further compartmentalization of the struggle. Which in turn facilitates manipulation by elites and their eventual transformation into purely reformist lobbying societies with all generalized, radical critique emptied out.)
• Specialization or Professionalism (Those most involved in the day-to-day operation of the organization are selected—or self-selected—to perform increasingly specialized roles within the organization, often leading to an official division between leaders and led, with gradations of power and influence intro­duced in the form of intermediary roles in the evolving organi­zational hierarchy.)
• Substitutionism (The formal organization increasingly becomes the focus of strategy and tactics rather than the people-in-revolt. In theory and practice, the organization tends to be progressively substituted for the people, the organization's leadership—especially if it has become formal—tends to substi­tute itself for the organization as a whole, and eventually a maximal leader often emerges who ends up embodying and control­ling the organization.)
• Ideology (The organization becomes the primary subject of theory with individuals assigned roles to play, rather than people constructing their own self-theories. All but the most self-consciously anarchistic formal organizations tend to adapt some form of collectivist ideology, in which the social group at some level is acceded to have more political reality than the free individual. Wherever sovereignty lies, there lies political authority; if sovereignty is not dissolved into each and every person it always requires the subjugation of individuals to a group in some form.)
All anarchist theories of self-organization, on the contrary, call for (in various ways and with different emphases):
• Individual and Group Autonomy with Free Initiative (The autono­mous individual is the fundamental basis of all genuinely anarchistic theories of organization, for without the autonomous individual, any other level of autonomy is impossible. Freedom of initiative is likewise fundamental for both individuals and groups. With no higher powers comes the ability and necessity for all decisions to be made at their point of immediate impact. As a side note, post-structuralists or postmodernists who deny the existence of the autonomous anarchist individual most often mistake the valid critique of the metaphysical subject to imply that even the process of lived subjectivity is a complete fiction—a self-deluded perspective which would make social theory impossible and unnecessary.)
• Free Association (Association is never free if it is forced. This means that people are free to associate with anyone in any combination they wish, and to dissociate or refuse association as well.)
• Refusal of Political Authority, and thus of Ideology (The word “anarchy” literally means no rule or no ruler. No rule and no ruler both mean there is no political authority above people themselves, who can and should make all of their own decisions however they see fit. Most forms of ideology function to legitimate the authority of one or another elite or institution to make decisions for people, or else they serve to delegitimate people's own decision-making for themselves.)
• Small, Simple, Informal, Transparent and Temporary Organization (Most anarchists agree that small face-to-face groups allow the most complete participation with the least amount of unnecessary specialization. The most simply structured and least complex organizations leave the least opportunity for the development of hierarchy and bureaucracy. Informal organization is the most protean and most able to continually adapt itself to new conditions. Open and transparent organization is the most easily understood and controlled by its members. The longer organiza­tions exist the more susceptible they usually become to the development of rigidity, specialization and eventually hierar­chy. Organizations have life spans, and it is rare that any anarchist organization will be important enough that it should exist over generations.)
• Decentralized, Federal Organization with Direct Decision-Making and Respect for Minorities (When they are necessary larger, more complex and formal organizations can only remain self-manageable by their participants if they are decentralized and federal. When face-to-face groups—with the possibility for full partici­pation and convivial discussion and decision-making—become impossible due to size, the best course is to decentralize the organization with many smaller groups in a federal structure. Or when smaller groups need to organize with peer groups to better address larger-scale problems, free federation is preferred—with absolute self-determination at every level beginning with the base. As long as groups remain of manageable size, assemblies of all concerned must be able to directly make decisions according to whatever methods they find agreeable. However, minorities can never be forced into agreement with majorities on the basis of any fictitious conception of group sovereignty. Anarchy is not direct democracy, though anarchists may certainly choose to use democratic methods of decision-making when and where they wish. The only real respect for minority opinions involves accepting that minorities have the same powers as majorities, requiring negotiation and the greatest level of mutual agreement for stable, effective group decision-making)
In the end, the biggest difference is that anarchists advocate self-organization while leftists want to organize you. For leftists, the emphasis is always on recruiting to their organiza­tions, so that you can adopt the role of a cadre serving their goals. They don't want to see you adopt your own self-determined theory and activities because then you wouldn't be allowing them to manipulate you. Anarchists want you to determine your own theory and activity and self-organize your activity with like-minded others. Leftists want to create ideological, strategic and tactical unity through “self-discipline” (your self-repression) when possible, or organizational discipline (threat of sanctions) when necessary. Either way, you are expected to give up your autonomy to follow their heteronomous path that has already been marked out for you.
Anarchy as a Theory & Critique of Ideology
The anarchist critique of ideology dates from the work of Max Stirner, though he did not use the term himself to describe his critique. Ideology is the means by which alienation, domination and exploitation are all rationalized and justified through the deformation of human thought and communication. All ideology in essence involves the substitution of alien (or incomplete) concepts or images for human subjectivity. Ideologies are systems of false consciousness in which people no longer see themselves directly as subjects in their relation to their world. Instead they conceive of themselves in some manner as subordinate to one type or another of abstract entity or entities which are mistaken as the real subjects or actors in their world.
Whenever any system of ideas and duties is structured with an abstraction at its center—assigning people roles or duties for its own sake—such a system is always an ideology. All the various forms of ideology are structured around different abstractions, yet they all always serve the interests of hierarchical and alienating social structures, since they are hierarchy and alienation in the realm of thought and communication. Even if an ideology rhetori­cally opposes hierarchy or alienation in its content, its form still remains consistent with what is ostensibly being opposed, and this form will always tend to undermine the apparent content of the ideology. Whether the abstraction is God, the State, the Party, the Organization, Technology, the Family, Humanity, Peace, Ecology, Nature, Work, Love, or even Freedom; if it is conceived and presented as if it is an active subject with a being of its own which makes demands of us, then it is the center of an ideology. Capitalism, Individualism, Communism, Socialism, and Pacifism are each ideological in important respects as they are usually conceived. Religion and Morality are always ideological by their very definitions. Even resistance, revolution and anarchy often take on ideological dimensions when we are not careful to maintain a critical awareness of how we are thinking and what the actual purposes of our thoughts are. Ideology is nearly ubiquitous. From advertisements and commercials, to academic treatises and scien­tific studies, almost every aspect of contemporary thinking and communication is ideological, and its real meaning for human subjects is lost under layers of mystification and confusion.
Leftism, as the reification and mediation of social rebellion, is always ideological because it always demands that people conceive of themselves first of all in terms of their roles within and relationships to leftist organizations and oppressed groups, which are in turn considered more real than the individuals who combine to create them. For leftists history is never made by individuals, but rather by organizations, social groups, and—above all, for Marxists—social classes. Each major leftist organization usually molds its own ideological legitimation whose major points all members are expected to learn and defend, if not proselytize. To seriously criticize or question this ideology is always to risk expulsion from the organization.
Post-left anarchists reject all ideologies in favor of the individual and communal construction of self-theory. Individual self-theory is theory in which the integral individual-in-context (in all her or his relationships, with all her or his history, desires, and projects, etc.) is always the subjective center of perception, understanding and action. Communal self-theory is similarly based on the group as subject, but always with an underlying awareness of the individuals (and their own self-theories) which make up the group or organization. Non-ideological, anarchist organizations (or informal groups) are always explicitly based upon the autonomy of the individuals who construct them, quite unlike leftist organizations which require the surrender of personal autonomy as a prerequisite for membership.
Neither God, nor Master, nor Moral Order:
Anarchy as Critique of Morality and Moralism
The anarchist critique of morality also dates from Stirner's master work, The Ego and Its Own (1844). Morality is a system of reified values—abstract values which are taken out of any context, set in stone, and converted into unquestionable beliefs to be applied regardless of a person's actual desires, thoughts or goals, and regardless of the situation in which a person finds him- or herself. Moralism is the practice of not only reducing living values to reified morals, but of considering oneself better than others because one has subjected oneself to morality (self-righteousness), and of proselytizing for the adoption of morality as a tool of social change.
Often, when people's eyes are opened by scandals or disillusion­ment and they start to dig down under the surface of the ideologies and received ideas they have taken for granted all their lives, the apparent coherence and power of the new answer they find (whether in religion, leftism or even anarchism) can lead them to believe that they have now found the Truth (with a capital ‘T'). Once this begins to happen people too often turn onto the road of moralism, with its attendant problems of elitism and ideology. Once people succumb to the illusion that they have found the one Truth that would fix everything—if only enough other people also understood, the temptation is then to view this one Truth as the solution to the implied Problem around which everything must be theorized, which leads them to build an absolute value system in defense of their magic Solution to the Problem this Truth points them to. At this point moralism takes over the place of critical thinking.
The various forms of leftism encourage different types of morality and moralism, but most generally within leftism the Problem is that people are exploited by capitalists (or dominated by them, or alienated from society or from the productive process. etc.). The Truth is that the People need to take control of the Economy (and/or Society) into their own hands. The biggest Obstacle to this is the Ownership and Control of the Means of Production by the Capitalist Class backed up by its monopoly over the use of legalized violence through its control of the political State. To overcome this people must be approached with evangelical fervor to convince them to reject all aspects, ideas and values of Capitalism and adopt the culture, ideas and values of an idealized notion of the Working Class in order to take over the Means of Production by breaking the power of the Capitalist Class and constituting the power of the Working Class (or its representative institutions, if not their Central Committees or its Supreme Leader) over all of Society.... This often leads to some form of Workerism (usually including the adoption of the dominant image of the culture of the working class, in other words, working-class lifestyles), a belief in (usually Scientific) Organizational Salvation, belief in the Science of (the inevitable victory of the Proletariat in) Class Struggle, etc. And therefore tactics consistent with building the fetishized One True Organization of the Working Class to contest for Economic and Political Power. An entire value system is built around a particular, highly oversimplified conception of the world, and moral categories of good and evil are substituted for critical evaluation in terms of individual and communal subjectivity.
The descent into moralism is never an automatic process. It is a tendency which naturally manifests itself whenever people start down the path of reified social critique. Morality always involves derailing the development of a consistent critical theory of self and society. It short-circuits the development of strategy and tactics appropriate for this critical theory, and encourages an emphasis on personal and collective salvation through living up to the ideals of this morality, by idealizing a culture or lifestyle as virtuous and sublime, while demonizing everything else as being either the temptations or perversions of evil. One inevitable emphasis then becomes the petty, continuous attempt to enforce the boundaries of virtue and evil by policing the lives of anyone who claims to be a member of the in-group sect, while self-righteously denouncing out-groups. In the workerist milieu, for example, this means attacking anyone who doesn't sing paeans to the virtues of working class organization (and especially to the virtues of the One True form of Organization), or to the virtues of the dominant image of Working Class culture or lifestyles (whether it be beer drinking instead of drinking wine, rejecting hip subcultures, or driving a Ford or Chevy instead of BMWs or Volvos). The goal, of course, is to maintain the lines of inclusion and exclusion between the in-group and the out-group (the out-group being variously portrayed in highly industrialized countries as the Middle and Upper Classes, or the Petty Bourgeois and Bourgeois, or the Managers and Capitalists big and small).
Living up to morality means sacrificing certain desires and temptations (regardless of the actual situation you might find yourself in) in favor of the rewards of virtue. Don't ever eat meat. Don't ever drive SUVs. Don't ever work 9-5. Don't ever scab. Don't ever vote. Don't ever talk to a cop. Don't ever take money from the government. Don't ever pay taxes. Don't ever etc., etc. Not a very attractive way to go about living your life for anyone interested in critically thinking about the world and evaluating what to do for oneself.
Rejecting Morality involves constructing a critical theory of one's self and society (always self-critical, provisional and never totalistic) in which a clear goal of ending one's social alienation is never confused with reified partial goals. It involves emphasiz­ing what people have to gain from radical critique and solidarity rather than what people must sacrifice or give up in order to live virtuous lives of politically correct morality.
Post-Left Anarchy:
Neither Left, nor Right, but Autonomous
Post-left anarchy is not something new and different. It's neither a political program nor an ideology. It's not meant in any way to constitute some sort of faction or sect within the more general anarchist milieu. It's in no way an opening to the political right; the right and left have always had much more in common with each other than either has in common with anarchism. And it's certainly not intended as a new commodity in the already crowded marketplace of pseudo-radical ideas. It is simply intended as a restatement of the most fundamental and important anarchist positions within the context of a disintegrating international political left.
If we want to avoid being taken down with the wreckage of leftism as it crumbles, we need to fully, consciously and explicitly dissociate ourselves from its manifold failures—and especially from the invalid presuppositions of leftism which led to these failures. This doesn't mean that it's impossible for anarchists to also consider themselves leftists—there has been a long, most often honorable, history of anarchist and left syntheses. But it does mean that in our contemporary situation it is not possible for anyone—even left-anarchists—to avoid confronting the fact that the failures of leftism in practice require a complete critique of leftism and an explicit break with every aspect of leftism implicated in its failures.
Left anarchists can no longer avoid subjecting their own leftism to intensive critique. From this point on it is simply not sufficient (not that it really ever has been) to project all the failures of leftism onto the most explicitly obnoxious varieties and episodes of leftist practice, like Leninism, Trotskyism and Stalinism. The critiques of leftist statism and leftist party organization have always been only the tip of a critique that must now explicitly encompass the entire iceberg of leftism, including those aspects often long incorporated into the traditions of anarchist practice. Any refusal to broaden and deepen the criticism of leftism constitutes a refusal to engage in the self-examination necessary for genuine self-understanding. And stubborn avoidance of self-understanding can never be justified for anyone seeking radical social change.
We now have the unprecedented historical opportunity, along with a plenitude of critical means, to recreate an international anarchist movement that can stand on its own and bow to no other movements. All that remains is for all of us to take this opportu­nity to critically reformulate our anarchist theories and reinvent our anarchist practices in light of our most fundamental desires and goals.
Reject the reification of revolt. Leftism is dead! Long live anarchy!

posted by Alternativa.Obstaja at 5:31 PM | 0 comments
Bakunin, Chomsky, Ema Goldman, Kropotkin

Stateless Socialism: Anarchism
by Mikhail Bakunin 1814-1876

From "The Political Philosophy of Bakunin"
by G.P. Maximoff
1953, The Free Press, NY

Effect of the Great Principles Proclaimed by the French Revolution. From the time when the Revolution brought down to the masses its Gospel - not the mystic but the rational, not the heavenly but the earthly, not the divine but the human Gospel, the Gospel of the Rights of Man - ever since it proclaimed that all men are equal, that all men are entitled to liberty and equality, the masses of all European countries, of all the civilized world, awakening gradually from the sleep which had kept them in bondage ever since Christianity drugged them with its opium, began to ask themselves whether they too, had the right to equality, freedom, and humanity.
As soon as this question was posed, the people, guided by their admirable sound sense as well as by their instincts, realized that the first condition of their real emancipation, or of their humanization, was above all a radical change in their economic situation. The question of daily bread is to them justly the first question, for as it was noted by Aristotle, man, in order to think, in order to feel himself free, in order to become man, must be freed from the material cares of daily life. For that matter, the bourgeois, who are so vociferous in their outcries against the materialism of the people and who preach to the latter the abstinences of idealism, know it very well, for they themselves preach it only by word and not by example.
The second question arising before the people - that of leisure after work - is the indispensable condition of humanity. But bread and leisure can never be obtained apart from a radical transformation of existing society, and that explains why the Revolution, impelled by the implications of its own principles, gave birth to Socialism.
Socialism Is Justice...Socialism is justice. When we speak of justice, we understand thereby not the justice contained in the Codes and in Roman jurisprudence - which were based to a great extent upon facts of violence achieved by force, violence consecrated by time and by the benedictions of some church or other (Christian or pagan), and as such accepted as absolute principles, from which all law is to be deduced by a process of logical reasoning - no, we speak of that justice which is based solely upon human conscience, the justice to be found in the consciousness of every man - even in that of children - and which can be expressed in a single word: equity.
This universal justice which, owing to conquests by force and religious influences, has never yet prevailed in the political or juridical or economic worlds, should become the basis of the new world. Without it there can be neither liberty, nor republic, nor prosperity, nor peace. It then must govern our resolutions in order that we work effectively toward the establishment of peace. And this justice urges us to take upon ourselves the defense of the interests of the terribly maltreated people and demand their economic and social emancipation along with political freedom.
The Basic Principle of Socialism. We do not propose here, gentlemen, this or any other socialist system. What we demand now is the proclaiming anew of the great principle of the French Revolution: that every human being should have the material and moral means to develop all his humanity, a principle which, in our opinion, is to be translated into the following problem:
To organize society in such a manner that every individual, man or woman, should find, upon entering life, approximately equal means for the development of his or her diverse faculties and their utilization in his or her work. And to organize such a society that, rendering impossible the exploitation of anyone's labor, will enable every individual to enjoy the social wealth, which in reality is produced only by collective labor, but to enjoy it only in so far as he contributes directly toward the creation of that wealth.
State Socialism Rejected. The carrying out of this task will of course take centuries of development. But history has already brought it forth and henceforth we cannot ignore it without condemning ourselves to utter impotence. We hasten to add here that we vigorously reject any attempt at social organization which would not admit the fullest liberty of individuals and organizations, or which would require the setting up of any regimenting power whatever. In the name of freedom, which we recognize as the only foundation and the only creative principle of organization, economic or political, we shall protest against anything remotely resembling State Communism, or State Socialism.
Abolition of the Inheritance Law. The only thing which, in opinion, the State can and should do, is first to modify little by little inheritance law so as to arrive as soon as possible at its complete abolition. That law being purely a creation of the State, and one of the conditions of the very existence of the authoritarian and divine State can and should be abolished by freedom in the State. In other words, State should dissolve itself into a society freely organized in accord with the principles of justice. Inheritance right, in our opinion, should abolished, for so long as it exists there will be hereditary economic inequality, not the natural inequality of individuals, but the artificial man inequality of classes - and the latter will always beget hereditary equality in the development and shaping of minds, continuing to be source and consecration of all political and social inequalities. The task of justice is to establish equality for everyone, inasmuch that equality will depend upon the economic and political organization society - an equality with which everyone is going to begin his life, that everyone, guided by his own nature, will be the product of his own efforts. In our opinion, the property of the deceased should accrue to social fund for the instruction and education of children of both sexes including their maintenance from birth until they come of age. As Slavs and as Russians, we shall add that with us the fundamental social idea, bas upon the general and traditional instinct of our populations, is that las the property of all the people, should be owned only by those who cultivate it with their own hands.
We are convinced gentlemen, that this principle is just, that it is essential and inevitable condition of all serious social reform, and consequently Western Europe in turn will not fail to recognize and accept this principle, notwithstanding the difficulties of its realization in countries as in France, for instance where the majority of peasants own the land which they cultivate, but where most of those very peasants will soon end up by owning next to nothing, owing to the parceling out of land coming as the inevitable result of the political and economic system now prevailing in France. We shall, however, refrain from offering any proposals on the land question...We shall confine ourselves now to proposing the following declaration:
The Declaration of Socialism. "Convinced that the serious realization of liberty, justice, and peace will be impossible so long as the majority of the population remains dispossessed of elementary needs, so long as it is deprived of education and is condemned to political and social insignificance and slavery - in fact if not by law - by poverty as well as by the necessity of working without rest or leisure, producing all the wealth upon which the world now prides itself, and receiving in return only such a small pan thereof that it hardly suffices to assure its livelihood for the next day;
"Convinced that for all that mass of population, terribly maltreated for centuries, the problem of bread is the problem of mental emancipation, of freedom and humanity;
"Convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality;
"The League [for Peace and Freedom] loudly proclaims the necessity of a radical social and economic reconstruction, having for its aim the emancipation of people's labor from the yoke of capital and property owners, a reconstruction based upon strict justice - neither juridical nor theological nor metaphysical justice, but simply human justice - upon positive science and upon the widest freedom."
Organization of Productive Forces in Place of Political Power. It is necessary to abolish completely, both in principle and in fact, all that which is called political power; for, so long as political power exists, there will be ruler and ruled, masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited. Once abolished, political power should be replaced by an organization of productive forces and economic service.
Notwithstanding the enormous development of modern states - a development which in its ultimate phase is quite logically reducing the State to an absurdity - it is becoming evident that the days of the State and the State principle are numbered. Already we can see approaching the full emancipation of the toiling masses and their free social organization, free from governmental intervention, formed by economic associations of the people and brushing aside all the old State frontiers and national distinctions, and having as its basis only productive labor, humanized labor, having one common interest in spite of its diversity.
The Ideal of the People. This ideal of course appears to the people as signifying first of all the end of want, the end of poverty, and the full satisfaction of all material needs by means of collective labor, equal and obligatory for all, and then, as the end of domination and the free organization of the people's lives in accordance with their needs - not from the top down, as we have it in the State, but from the bottom up, an organization formed by the people themselves, apart from all governments and parliaments, a free union of associations of agricultural and factory workers, of communes, regions, and nations, and finally, in the more remote future; the universal human brotherhood, triumphing above the ruins of all States.
The Program of a Free Society. Outside of the Mazzinian system which is the system of the republic in the form of a State, there is no other system but that of the republic as a commune, the republic as a federation, a Socialist and a genuine people's republic - the system of Anarchism. It is the politics of the Social Revolution, which aims at the abolition of the State, and the economic, altogether free organization of the people, an organization from below upward, by means of a federation.
...There will be no possibility of the existence of a political government, for this government will be transformed into a simple administration of common affairs.
Our program can be summed up in a few words:
Peace, emancipation, and the happiness of the oppressed.
War upon all oppressors and all despoilers.
Full restitution to workers: all the capital, the factories, and all instruments of work and raw materials to go to the associations, and the land to those who cultivate it with their own hands.
Liberty, justice, and fraternity in regard to all human beings upon the earth.
Equality for all.
To all, with no distinction whatever, all the means of development, education, and upbringing, and the equal possibility of living while working.
Organizing of a society by means of a free federation from below upward, of workers associations, industrial as well as a agricultural, scientific as well as literary associations - first into a commune, then a federation communes into regions, of regions into nations, and of nations into international fraternal association.
Correct Tactics During a Revolution. In a social revolution, which in everything is diametrically opposed to a political revolution, the a of individuals hardly count at all, whereas the spontaneous action of masses is everything. All that individuals can do is to clarify, propagate, and work out ideas corresponding to the popular instinct, and, what is more, to contribute their incessant efforts to revolutionary organization of the natural power of the masses - but nothing else beyond that; the rest can and should be done by the people themselves. Any other method would lead to political dictatorship, to the re-emergence of the State, of privileges of inequalities of all the oppressions of the State - that is, it would lead in a roundabout but logical way toward re-establishment of political, social, and economic slavery of the masses of people.
Varlin and all his friends, like all sincere Socialists, and in general like all workers born and brought up among the people, shared to a high degree this perfectly legitimate bias against the initiative coming from isolated individuals, against the domination exercised by superior individuals, and being above all consistent, they extended the same prejudice and distrust to their own persons.
Revolution by Decrees Is Doomed to Failure. Contrary to the ideas of the authoritarian Communists, altogether fallacious ideas in my opinion, that the Social Revolution can be decreed and organized by means of a dictatorship or a Constituent Assembly - our friends, the Parisian Social-Socialists, held the opinion that that revolution can be waged and brought to fits full development only through the spontaneous and continued mass action of groups and associations of the people.
Our Parisian friends were a thousand times right. For, indeed, there is no mind, much as it may be endowed with the quality of a genius; or if we speak of a collective dictatorship consisting of several hundred supremely endowed individuals - there is no combination of intellects so vast as to be able to embrace all the infinite multiplicity and diversity of the real interests, aspirations, wills, and needs constituting in their totality the collective will of the people; there is no intellect that can devise a social organization capable of satisfying each and all.
Such an organization would ever be a Procrustean bed into which violence, more or less sanctioned by the State, would force the unfortunate society. But it is this old system of organization based upon force that the Social Revolution should put an end to by giving full liberty to the masses, groups, communes, associations, and even individuals, and by destroying once and for all the historic cause of all violence - the very existence of the State, the fall of which will entail the destruction of all the iniquities of juridical right and all the falsehood of various cults, that right and those cults having ever been simply the complaisant consecration, ideal as well as real, of all violence represented, guaranteed, and authorized by the State.
It is evident that only when the State has ceased to exist humanity will obtain its freedom, and the true interests of society, of all groups, of all local organizations, and likewise of all the individuals forming such organization, will find their real satisfaction.
Free Organization to Follow Abolition of the State. Abolition of the State and the Church should be the first and indispensable condition of the real enfranchisement of society. It will be only after this that society can and should begin its own reorganization; that, however, should take place not from the top down, not according to an ideal plan mapped by a few sages or savants, and not by means of decrees issued by some dictatorial power or even by a National Assembly elected by universal suffrage. Such a system, as I have already said, inevitably would lead to the formation of a governmental aristocracy, that is, a class of persons which has nothing in common with the masses of people; and, to be sure, this class would again turn to exploiting and enthralling the masses under the pretext of common welfare or of the salvation of the State.
Freedom Must Go Hand-in-Hand With Equality. I am a convinced partisan of economic and social equality, for I know that outside of this equality, freedom, justice, human dignity, morality, and the well-being of individuals as well as the prosperity of nations are all nothing but so many falsehoods. But being at the same time a partisan of freedom - the first condition of humanity - I believe that equality should be established in the world by a spontaneous organization of labor and collective property, by the free organization of producers' associations into communes, and free federation of communes - but nowise by means of the supreme tutelary action of the State.
The Difference Between Authoritarian and Libertarian Revolution. It is this point which mainly divides the Socialists or revolutionary collectivists from the authoritarian Communists, the partisans of the absolute initiative of the State. The goal of both is the same: both parties want the creation of a new social order based exclusively upon collective labor, under economic conditions that are equal for all - that is, under conditions of collective ownership of the tools of production.
Only the Communists imagine that they can attain through development and organization of the political power of the working classes, and chiefly of the city proletariat, aided by bourgeois radicalism - whereas the revolutionary Socialists, the enemies of all ambiguous alliances, believe, on the contrary, that this common goal can be attained not through the political but through the social (and therefore anti-political) organization and power of the working masses of the cities and villages, including all those who, though belonging by birth to the higher classes, have broken with their past of their own free will, and have openly joined the proletariat and accepted its program.
The Methods of the Communists and the Anarchists. Hence the two different methods. The Communists believe that it is necessary to organize the forces of the workers in order to take possession of the political might of the State. The revolutionary Socialists organize with the view of destroying, or if you prefer a more refined expression, of liquidating the State. The Communists are the partisans of the principle and practice of authority, while revolutionary Socialists place their faith only in freedom. Both are equally the partisans of science, which is to destroy superstition and take the place of faith; but the first want to impose science upon the people, while the revolutionary collectivists try to diffuse science and knowledge among the people, so that the various groups of human society, when convinced by propaganda, may organize and spontaneously combine into federations, in accordance with their natural tendencies and their real interests, but never according to a plan traced in advance and imposed upon the ignorant masses by a few "superior" minds.
Revolutionary Socialists believe that there is much more of practical reason and intelligence in the instinctive aspirations and real needs of the masses of people than in the profound minds of all these learned doctors and self-appointed tutors of humanity, who, having before them the sorry examples of so many abortive attempts to make humanity happy, still intend to keep on working in the same direction. But revolutionary Socialists believe, on the contrary, that humanity has permitted itself to be ruled for a long time, much too long, and that the source of its misfortune lies not in this nor in any other form of government but in the principle and the very existence of the government, whatever its nature may be.
It is this difference of opinion, which already has become historic, that now exists between the scientific Communism, developed by the German school and partly accepted by American and English Socialists, and Proudhonism, extensively developed and pushed to its ultimate conclusions, and by now accepted by the proletariat of the Latin countries. Revolutionary Socialism has made its first brilliant and practical appearance in the Paris Commune.
On the Pan-German banner is written: Retention and strengthening of the State at any cost. On our banner, the social-revolutionary banner, on the contrary, are inscribed, in fiery and bloody letters: the destruction of all States, the annihilation of bourgeois civilization, free and spontaneous organization from below upward, by means of free associations, the organization of the unbridled rabble of toilers, of all emancipated humanity, and the creation of a new universally human world.
Before creating, or rather aiding the people to create, this new organization, it is necessary to achieve a victory. It is necessary to overthrow that which is, in order to be able to establish that which should be...



THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM
by Michael Bakunin
This pamphlet is an excerpt from The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution and included in The Complete Works of Michael Bakunin under the title "Fragment." Parts of the text were originally translated into English by G.P. Maximoff for his anthology of Bakunin's writings, with missing paragraphs translated by Jeff Stein from the Spanish edition, Diego Abad de Santillan, trans. (Buenos Aires 1926) vol. III, pp. 181-196.
Is it necessary to repeat here the irrefutable arguments of Socialism which no bourgeois economist has yet succeeded in disproving? What is property, what is capital in their present form? For the capitalist and the property owner they mean the power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to live without working. And since neither property nor capital produces anything when not fertilized by labor - that means the power and the right to live by exploiting the work of someone else, the right to exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both. Note that I have left out of account altogether the following question: In what way did property and capital ever fall into the hands of their present owners? This is a question which, when envisaged from the points of view of history, logic, and justice, cannot be answered in any other way but one which would serve as an indictment against the present owners. I shall therefore confine myself here to the statement that property owners and capitalists, inasmuch as they live not by their own productive labor but by getting land rent, house rent, interest upon their capital, or by speculation on land, buildings, and capital, or by the commercial and industrial exploitation of the manual labor of the proletariat, all live at the expense of the proletariat. (Speculation and exploitation no doubt also constitute a sort of labor, but altogether non-productive labor.)
I know only too well that this mode of life is highly esteemed in all civilized countries, that it is expressly and tenderly protected by all the States, and that the States, religions, and all the juridical laws, both criminal and civil, and all the political governments, monarchies and republican - with their immense judicial and police apparatuses and their standing armies - have no other mission but to consecrate and protect such practices. In the presence of these powerful and respectable authorities I cannot even permit myself to ask whether this mode of life is legitimate from the point of view of human justice, liberty, human equality, and fraternity. I simply ask myself: Under such conditions, are fraternity and equality possible between the exploiter and the exploited, are justice and freedom possible for the exploited?
Let us even suppose, as it is being maintained by the bourgeois economists and with them all the lawyers, all the worshippers and believers in the juridical right, all the priests of the civil and criminal code - let us suppose that this economic relationship between the exploiter and the exploited is altogether legitimate, that it is the inevitable consequence, the product of an eternal, indestructible social law, yet still it will always be true that exploitation precludes brotherhood and equality. It goes without saying that it precludes economic equality. Suppose I am your worker and you are my employer. If I offer my labor at the lowest price, if I consent to have you live off my labor, it is certainly not because of devotion or brotherly love for you. And no bourgeois economist would dare to say that it was, however idyllic and naive their reasoning becomes when they begin to speak about reciprocal affections and mutual relations which should exist between employers and employees. No, I do it because my family and I would starve to death if I did not work for an employer. Thus I am forced to sell you my labor at the lowest possible price, and I am forced to do it by the threat of hunger.
But - the economists tell us - the property owners, the capitalists, the employers, are likewise forced to seek out and purchase the labor of the proletariat. Yes, it is true, they are forced to do it, but not in the same measure. Had there been equality between those who offer their labor and those who purchase it, between the necessity of selling one's labor and the necessity of buying it, the slavery and misery of the proletariat would not exist. But then there would be neither capitalists, nor property owners, nor the proletariat, nor rich, nor poor: there would only be workers. It is precisely because such equality does not exist that we have and are bound to have exploiters.
This equality does not exist because in modern society where wealth is produced by the intervention of capital paying wages to labor, the growth of the population outstrips the growth of production, which results in the supply of labor necessarily surpassing the demand and leading to a relative sinking of the level of wages. Production thus constituted, monopolized, exploited by bourgeois capital, is pushed on the one hand by the mutual competition of the capitalists to concentrate evermore in the hands of an ever diminishing number of powerful capitalists, or in the hands of joint-stock companies which, owing to the merging of their capital, are more powerful than the biggest isolated capitalists. (And the small and medium-sized capitalists, not being able to produce at the same price as the big capitalists, naturally succumb in the deadly struggle.) On the other hand, all enterprises are forced by the same competition to sell their products at the lowest possible price. It [capitalist monopoly] can attain this two-fold result only by forcing out an ever-growing number of small or medium-sized capitalists, speculators, merchants, or industrialists, from the world of exploiters into the world of the exploited proletariat, and at the same time squeezing out ever greater savings from the wages of the same proletariat.
On the other hand, the mass of the proletariat, growing as a result of the general increase of the population - which, as we know, not even poverty can stop effectively - and through the increasing proletarianization of the petty-bourgeoisie, ex-owners, capitalists, merchants, and industrialists - growing, as I have said, at a much more rapid rate than the productive capacities of an economy that is exploited by bourgeois capital - this growing mass of the proletariat is placed in a condition wherein the workers are forced into disastrous competition against one another.
For since they possess no other means of existence but their own manual labor, they are driven, by the fear of seeing themselves replaced by others, to sell it at the lowest price. This tendency of the workers, or rather the necessity to which they are condemned by their own poverty, combined with the tendency of the employers to sell the products of their workers, and consequently buy their labor, at the lowest price, constantly reproduces and consolidates the poverty of the proletariat. Since he finds himself in a state of poverty, the worker is compelled to sell his labor for almost nothing, and because he sells that product for almost nothing, he sinks into ever greater poverty.
Yes, greater misery, indeed! For in this galley-slave labor the productive force of the workers, abused, ruthlessly exploited, excessively wasted and underfed, is rapidly used up. And once used up, what can be its value on the market, of what worth is this sole commodity which he possesses and upon the daily sale of which he depends for a livelihood? Nothing! And then? Then nothing is left for the worker but to die.
What, in a given country, is the lowest possible wage? It is the price of that which is considered by the proletarians of that country as absolutely necessary to keep oneself alive. All the bourgeois economists are in agreement on this point. Turgot, who saw fit to call himself the `virtuous minister' of Louis XVI, and really was an honest man, said:
"The simple worker who owns nothing more than his hands, has nothing else to sell than his labor. He sells it more or less expensively; but its price whether high or low, does not depend on him alone: it depends on an agreement with whoever will pay for his labor. The employer pays as little as possible; when given the choice between a great number of workers, the employer prefers the one who works cheap. The workers are, then, forced to lower their price in competition each against the other. In all types of labor, it necessarily follows that the salary of the worker is limited to what is necessary for survival." (Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses)
J.B. Say, the true father of bourgeois economists in France also said: "Wages are much higher when more demand exists for labor and less if offered, and are lowered accordingly when more labor is offered and less demanded. It is the relation between supply and demand which regulates the price of this merchandise called the workers' labor, as are regulated all other public services. When wages rise a little higher than the price necessary for the workers' families to maintain themselves, their children multiply and a larger supply soon develops in proportion with the greater demand. When, on the contrary, the demand for workers is less than the quantity of people offering to work, their gains decline back to the price necessary for the class to maintain itself at the same number. The families more burdened with children disappear; from them forward the supply of labor declines, and with less labor being offered, the price rises... In such a way it is difficult for the wages of the laborer to rise above or fall below the price necessary to maintain the class (the workers, the proletariat) in the number required." (Cours complet d' economie politique)
After citing Turgot and J.B. Say, Proudhon cries: "The price, as compared to the value (in real social economy) is something essentially mobile, consequently, essentially variable, and that in its variations, it is not regulated more than by the concurrence, concurrence, let us not forget, that as Turgot and Say agree, has the necessary effect not to give to wages to the worker more than enough to barely prevent death by starvation, and maintain the class in the numbers needed."1
The current price of primary necessities constitutes the prevailing constant level above which workers' wages can never rise for a very long time, but beneath which they drop very often, which constantly results in inanition, sickness, and death, until a sufficient number of workers disappear to equalize again the supply of and demand for labor. What the economists call equalized supply and demand does not constitute real equality between those who offer their labor for sale and those who purchase it. Suppose that I, a manufacturer, need a hundred workers and that exactly a hundred workers present themselves in the market - only one hundred, for if more came, the supply would exceed demand, resulting in lowered wages. But since only one hundred appear, and since I, the manufacturer, need only that number - neither more nor less - it would seem at first that complete equality was established; that supply and demand being equal in number, they should likewise be equal in other respects. Does it follow that the workers can demand from me a wage and conditions of work assuring them of a truly free, dignified, and human existence? Not at all! If I grant them those conditions and those wages, I, the capitalist, shall not gain thereby any more than they will. But then, why should I have to plague myself and become ruined by offering them the profits of my capital? If I want to work myself as workers do, I will invest my capital somewhere else, wherever I can get the highest interest, and will offer my labor for sale to some capitalist just as my workers do.
If, profiting by the powerful initiative afforded me by my capital, I ask those hundred workers to fertilize that capital with their labor, it is not because of my sympathy for their sufferings, nor because of a spirit of justice, nor because of love for humanity. The capitalists are by no means philanthropists; they would be ruined if they practiced philanthropy. It is because I hope to draw from the labor of the workers sufficient profit to be able to live comfortably, even richly, while at the same time increasing my capital - and all that without having to work myself. Of course I shall work too, but my work will be of an altogether different kind and I will be remunerated at a much higher rate than the workers. It will not be the work of production but that of administration and exploitation.
But isn't administrative work also productive work? No doubt it is, for lacking a good and an intelligent administration, manual labor will not produce anything or it will produce very little and very badly. But from the point of view of justice and the needs of production itself, it is not at all necessary that this work should be monopolized in my hands, nor, above all, that I should be compensated at a rate so much higher than manual labor. The co-operative associations already have proven that workers are quite capable of administering industrial enterprises, that it can be done by workers elected from their midst and who receive the same wage. Therefore if I concentrate in my hands the administrative power, it is not because the interests of production demand it, but in order to serve my own ends, the ends of exploitation. As the absolute boss of my establishment I get for my labor ten or twenty times more than my workers get for theirs, and this is true despite the fact that my labor is incomparably less painful than theirs.
But the capitalist, the business owner, runs risks, they say, while the worker risks nothing. This is not true, because when seen from his side, all the disadvantages are on the part of the worker. The business owner can conduct his affairs poorly, he can be wiped out in a bad deal, or be a victim of a commercial crisis, or by an unforeseen catastrophe; in a word he can ruin himself. This is true. But does ruin mean from the bourgeois point of view to be reduced to the same level of misery as those who die of hunger, or to be forced among the ranks of the common laborers? This so rarely happens, that we might as well say never. Afterwards it is rare that the capitalist does not retain something, despite the appearance of ruin. Nowadays all bankruptcies are more or less fraudulent. But if absolutely nothing is saved, there are always family ties, and social relations, who, with help from the business skills learned which they pass to their children, permit them to get positions for themselves and their children in the higher ranks of labor, in management; to be a state functionary, to be an executive in a commercial or industrial business, to end up, although dependent, with an income superior to what they paid their former workers.
The risks of the worker are infinitely greater. After all, if the establishment in which he is employed goes bankrupt, he must go several days and sometimes several weeks without work, and for him it is more than ruin, it is death; because he eats everyday what he earns. The savings of workers are fairy tales invented by bourgeois economists to lull their weak sentiment of justice, the remorse that is awakened by chance in the bosom of their class. This ridiculous and hateful myth will never soothe the anguish of the worker. He knows the expense of satisfying the daily needs of his large family. If he had savings, he would not send his poor children, from the age of six, to wither away, to grow weak, to be murdered physically and morally in the factories, where they are forced to work night and day, a working day of twelve and fourteen hours.
If it happens sometimes that the worker makes a small savings, it is quickly consumed by the inevitable periods of unemployment which often cruelly interrupt his work, as well as by the unforeseen accidents and illnesses which befall his family. The accidents and illnesses that can overtake him constitute a risk that makes all the risks of the employer nothing in comparison: because for the worker debilitating illness can destroy his productive ability, his labor power. Over all, prolonged illness is the most terrible bankruptcy, a bankruptcy that means for him and his children, hunger and death.
I know full well that under these conditions that if I were a capitalist, who needs a hundred workers to fertilize my capital, that on employing these workers, all the advantages are for me, all the disadvantages for them. I propose nothing more nor less than to exploit them, and if you wish me to be sincere about it, and promise to guard me well, I will tell them:
"Look, my children, I have some capital which by itself cannot produce anything, because a dead thing cannot produce anything. I have nothing productive without labor. As it goes, I cannot benefit from consuming it unproductively, since having consumed it, I would be left with nothing. But thanks to the social and political institutions which rule over us and are all in my favor, in the existing economy my capital is supposed to be a producer as well: it earns me interest. From whom this interest must be taken - and it must be from someone, since in reality by itself it produces absolutely nothing - this does not concern you. It is enough for you to know that it renders interest. Alone this interest is insufficient to cover my expenses. I am not an ordinary man as you. I cannot be, nor do I want to be, content with little. I want to live, to inhabit a beautiful house, to eat and drink well, to ride in a carriage, to maintain a good appearance, in short, to have all the good things in life. I also want to give a good education to my children, to make them into gentlemen, and send them away to study, and afterwards, having become much more educated than you, they can dominate you one day as I dominate you today. And as education alone is not enough, I want to give them a grand inheritance, so that divided between them they will be left almost as rich as I. Consequently, besides all the good things in life I want to give myself, I also want to increase my capital. How will I achieve this goal? Armed with this capital I propose to exploit you, and I propose that you permit me to exploit you. You will work and I will collect and appropriate and sell for my own behalf the product of your labor, without giving you more than a portion which is absolutely necessary to keep you from dying of hunger today, so that at the end of tomorrow you will still work for me in the same conditions; and when you have been exhausted, I will throw you out, and replace you with others. Know it well, I will pay you a salary as small, and impose on you a working day as long, working conditions as severe, as despotic, as harsh as possible; not from wickedness - not from a motive of hatred towards you, nor an intent to do you harm - but from the love of wealth and to get rich quick; because the less I pay you and the more you work, the more I will gain."
This is what is said implicitly by every capitalist, every industrialist, every business owner, every employer who demands the labor power of the workers they hire.
But since supply and demand are equal, why do the workers accept the conditions laid down by the employer? If the capitalist stands in just as great a need of employing the workers as the one hundred workers do of being employed by him, does it not follow that both sides are in an equal position? Do not both meet at the market as two equal merchants - from the juridical point of view at least - one bringing a commodity called a daily wage, to be exchanged for the daily labor of the worker on the basis of so many hours per day; and the other bringing his own labor as his commodity to be exchanged for the wage offered by the capitalist? Since, in our supposition, the demand is for a hundred workers and the supply is likewise that of a hundred persons, it may seem that both sides are in an equal position.
Of course nothing of the kind is true. What is it that brings the capitalist to the market? It is the urge to get rich, to increase his capital, to gratify his ambitions and social vanities, to be able to indulge in all conceivable pleasures. And what brings the worker to the market? Hunger, the necessity of eating today and tomorrow. Thus, while being equal from the point of juridical fiction, the capitalist and the worker are anything but equal from the point of view of the economic situation, which is the real situation. The capitalist is not threatened with hunger when he comes to the market; he knows very well that if he does not find today the workers for whom he is looking, he will still have enough to eat for quite a long time, owing to the capital of which he is the happy possessor. If the workers whom he meets in the market present demands which seem excessive to him, because, far from enabling him to increase his wealth and improve even more his economic position, those proposals and conditions might, I do not say equalize, but bring the economic position of the workers somewhat close to his own - what does he do in that case? He turns down those proposals and waits. After all, he was not impelled by an urgent necessity, but by a desire to improve his position, which, compared to that of the workers, is already quite comfortable, and so he can wait. And he will wait, for his business experience has taught him that the resistance of workers who, possessing neither capital, nor comfort, nor any savings to speak of, are pressed by a relentless necessity, by hunger, that this resistance cannot last very long, and that finally he will be able to find the hundred workers for whom he is looking - for they will be forced to accept the conditions which he finds it profitable to impose upon them. If they refuse, others will come who will be only too happy to accept such conditions. That is how things are done daily with the knowledge and in full view of everyone.
If, as a consequence of the particular circumstances that constantly influence the market, the branch of industry in which he planned at first to employ his capital does not offer all the advantages that he had hoped, then he will shift his capital elsewhere; thus the bourgeois capitalist is not tied by nature to any specific industry, but tends to invest (as it is called by the economists - exploit is what we say) indifferently in all possible industries. Let's suppose, finally, that learning of some industrial incapacity or misfortune, he decides not to invest in any industry; well, he will buy stocks and annuities; and if the interest and dividends seem insufficient, then he will engage in some occupation, or shall we say, sell his labor for a time, but in conditions much more lucrative than he had offered to his own workers.
The capitalist then comes to the market in the capacity, if not of an absolutely free agent, at least that of an infinitely freer agent than the worker. What happens in the market is a meeting between a drive for lucre and starvation, between master and slave. Juridically they are both equal; but economically the worker is the serf of the capitalist, even before the market transaction has been concluded whereby the worker sells his person and his liberty for a given time. The worker is in the position of a serf because this terrible threat of starvation which daily hangs over his head and over his family, will force him to accept any conditions imposed by the gainful calculations of the capitalist, the industrialist, the employer.
And once the contract has been negotiated, the serfdom of the workers is doubly increased; or to put it better, before the contract has been negotiated, goaded by hunger, he is only potentially a serf; after it is negotiated he becomes a serf in fact. Because what merchandise has he sold to his employer? It is his labor, his personal services, the productive forces of his body, mind, and spirit that are found in him and are inseparable from his person - it is therefore himself. From then on, the employer will watch over him, either directly or by means of overseers; everyday during working hours and under controlled conditions, the employer will be the owner of his actions and movements. When he is told: "Do this," the worker is obligated to do it; or he is told: "Go there," he must go. Is this not what is called a serf?
M. Karl Marx, the illustrious leader of German Communism, justly observed in his magnificent work Das Kapital2 that if the contract freely entered into by the vendors of money -in the form of wages - and the vendors of their own labor -that is, between the employer and the workers - were concluded not for a definite and limited term only, but for one's whole life, it would constitute real slavery. Concluded for a term only and reserving to the worker the right to quit his employer, this contract constitutes a sort of voluntary and transitory serfdom. Yes, transitory and voluntary from the juridical point of view, but nowise from the point of view of economic possibility. The worker always has the right to leave his employer, but has he the means to do so? And if he does quit him, is it in order to lead a free existence, in which he will have no master but himself? No, he does it in order to sell himself to another employer. He is driven to it by the same hunger which forced him to sell himself to the first employer. Thus the worker's liberty, so much exalted by the economists, jurists, and bourgeois republicans, is only a theoretical freedom, lacking any means for its possible realization, and consequently it is only a fictitious liberty, an utter falsehood. The truth is that the whole life of the worker is simply a continuous and dismaying succession of terms of serfdom -voluntary from the juridical point of view but compulsory in the economic sense - broken up by momentarily brief interludes of freedom accompanied by starvation; in other words, it is real slavery.
This slavery manifests itself daily in all kinds of ways. Apart from the vexations and oppressive conditions of the contract which turn the worker into a subordinate, a passive and obedient servant, and the employer into a nearly absolute master - apart from all that, it is well known that there is hardly an industrial enterprise wherein the owner, impelled on the one hand by the two-fold instinct of an unappeasable lust for profits and absolute power, and on the other hand, profiting by the economic dependence of the worker, does not set aside the terms stipulated in the contract and wring some additional concessions in his own favor. Now he will demand more hours of work, that is, over and above those stipulated in the contract; now he will cut down wages on some pretext; now he will impose arbitrary fines, or he will treat the workers harshly, rudely, and insolently.
But, one may say, in that case the worker can quit. Easier said than done. At times the worker receives part of his wages in advance, or his wife or children may be sick, or perhaps his work is poorly paid throughout this particular industry. Other employers may be paying even less than his own employer, and after quitting this job he may not even be able to find another one. And to remain without a job spells death for him and his family. In addition, there is an understanding among all employers, and all of them resemble one another. All are almost equally irritating, unjust, and harsh.
Is this calumny? No, it is in the nature of things, and in the logical necessity of the relationship existing between the employers and their workers.

NOTES:
1. Not having to hand the works mentioned, I took these quotes from la Histoire de la Revolution de 1848, by Louis Blanc. Mr. Blanc continues with these words: "We have been well alerted. Now we know, without room for doubt, that according to all the doctrines of the old political economy, wages cannot have any other basis than the regulation between supply and demand, although the result is that the remuneration of labor is reduced to what is strictly necessary to not perish by starvation. Very well, and let us do no more than repeat the words inadvertently spoken in sincerity by Adam Smith, the head of this school: It is small consolation for individuals who have no other means for existence than their labor." (Bakunin)
2. Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, by Karl Marx; Erster Band. This work will need to be translated into French, because nothing, that I know of, contains an analysis so profound, so luminous, so scientific, so decisive, and if I can express it thus, so merciless an expose of the formation of bourgeois capital and the systematic and cruel exploitation that capital continues exercising over the work of the proletariat. The only defect of this work... positivist in direction, based on a profound study of economic works, without admitting any logic other than the logic of the facts - the only defect, say, is that it has been written, in part, but only in part, in a style excessively metaphysical and abstract... which makes it difficult to explain and nearly unapproachable for the majority of workers, and it is principally the workers who must read it nevertheless. The bourgeois will never read it or, if they read it, they will never want to comprehend it, and if they comprehend it they will never say anything about it; this work being nothing other than a sentence of death, scientifically motivated and irrevocably pronounced, not against them as individuals, but against their class. (Bakunin)


"Notes on Anarchism" in For Reasons of State
Noam Chomsky, 1970
Transcribed by rael@ll.mit.edu (Bill Lear)
A French writer, sympathetic to anarchism, wrote in the 1890s that "anarchism has a broad back, like paper it endures anything"---including, he noted those whose acts are such that "a mortal enemy of anarchism could not have done better."[1] There have been many styles of thought and action that have been referred to as "anarchist." It would be hopeless to try to encompass all of these conflicting tendencies in some general theory or ideology. And even if we proceed to extract from the history of libertarian thought a living, evolving tradition, as Daniel Guérin does in Anarchism, it remains difficult to formulate its doctrines as a specific and determinate theory of society and social change. The anarchist historian Rudolph Rocker, who presents a systematic conception of the development of anarchist thought towards anarchosyndicalism, along lines that bear comparison to Guérins work, puts the matter well when he writes that anarchism is not
a fixed, self-enclosed social system but rather a definite trend in the historic development of mankind, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. Even freedom is only a relative, not an absolute concept, since it tends constantly to become broader and to affect wider circles in more manifold ways. For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.[2]
One might ask what value there is in studying a "definite trend in the historic development of mankind" that does not articulate a specific and detailed social theory. Indeed, many commentators dismiss anarchism as utopian, formless, primitive, or otherwise incompatible with the realities of a complex society. One might, however, argue rather differently: that at every stage of history our concern must be to dismantle those forms of authority and oppression that survive from an era when they might have been justified in terms of the need for security or survival or economic development, but that now contribute to---rather than alleviate---material and cultural deficit. If so, there will be no doctrine of social change fixed for the present and future, nor even, necessarily, a specific and unchanging concept of the goals towards which social change should tend. Surely our understanding of the nature of man or of the range of viable social forms is so rudimentary that any far-reaching doctrine must be treated with great skepticism, just as skepticism is in order when we hear that "human nature" or "the demands of efficiency" or "the complexity of modern life" requires this or that form of oppression and autocratic rule.
Nevertheless, at a particular time there is every reason to develop, insofar as our understanding permits, a specific realization of this definite trend in the historic development of mankind, appropriate to the tasks of the moment. For Rocker, "the problem that is set for our time is that of freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement"; and the method is not the conquest and exercise of state power, nor stultifying parliamentarianism, but rather "to reconstruct the economic life of the peoples from the ground up and build it up in the spirit of Socialism."
But only the producers themselves are fitted for this task, since they are the only value-creating element in society out of which a new future can arise. Theirs must be the task of freeing labor from all the fetters which economic exploitation has fastened on it, of freeing society from all the institutions and procedure of political power, and of opening the way to an alliance of free groups of men and women based on co-operative labor and a planned administration of things in the interest of the community. To prepare the toiling masses in the city and country for this great goal and to bind them together as a militant force is the objective of modern Anarcho-syndicalism, and in this its whole purpose is exhausted. [P. 108]
As a socialist, Rocker would take for granted "that the serious, final, complete liberation of the workers is possible only upon one condition: that of the appropriation of capital, that is, of raw material and all the tools of labor, including land, by the whole body of the workers."[3] As an anarchosyndicalist, he insists, further, that the workers' organizations create "not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself" in the prerevolutionary period, that they embody in themselves the structure of the future society---and he looks forward to a social revolution that will dismantle the state apparatus as well as expropriate the expropriators. "What we put in place of the government is industrial organization."
Anarcho-syndicalists are convinced that a Socialist economic order cannot be created by the decrees and statutes of a government, but only by the solidaric collaboration of the workers with hand and brain in each special branch of production; that is, through the taking over of the management of all plants by the producers themselves under such form that the separate groups, plants, and branches of industry are independent members of the general economic organism and systematically carry on production and the distribution of the products in the interest of the community on the basis of free mutual agreements. [p. 94]
Rocker was writing at a moment when such ideas had been put into practice in a dramatic way in the Spanish Revolution. Just prior to the outbreak of the revolution, the anarchosyndicalist economist Diego Abad de Santillan had written:
...in facing the problem of social transformation, the Revolution cannot consider the state as a medium, but must depend on the organization of producers.
We have followed this norm and we find no need for the hypothesis of a superior power to organized labor, in order to establish a new order of things. We would thank anyone to point out to us what function, if any, the State can have in an economic organization, where private property has been abolished and in which parasitism and special privilege have no place. The suppression of the State cannot be a languid affair; it must be the task of the Revolution to finish with the State. Either the Revolution gives social wealth to the producers in which case the producers organize themselves for due collective distribution and the State has nothing to do; or the Revolution does not give social wealth to the producers, in which case the Revolution has been a lie and the State would continue.
Our federal council of economy is not a political power but an economic and administrative regulating power. It receives its orientation from below and operates in accordance with the resolutions of the regional and national assemblies. It is a liaison corps and nothing else.[4]
Engels, in a letter of 1883, expressed his disagreement with this conception as follows:
The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organization of the state....But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries, and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris commune.[5]
In contrast, the anarchists---most eloquently Bakunin---warned of the dangers of the "red bureaucracy," which would prove to be "the most vile and terrible lie that our century has created."[6] The anarchosyndicalist Fernand Pelloutier asked: "Must even the transitory state to which we have to submit necessarily and fatally be a collectivist jail? Can't it consist in a free organization limited exclusively by the needs of production and consumption, all political institutions having disappeared?"[7]
I do not pretend to know the answers to this question. But it seems clear that unless there is, in some form, a positive answer, the chances for a truly democratic revolution that will achieve the humanistic ideals of the left are not great. Martin Buber put the problem succinctly when he wrote: "One cannot in the nature of things expect a little tree that has been turned into a club to put forth leaves."[8] The question of conquest or destruction of state power is what Bakunin regarded as the primary issue dividing him from Marx.[9] In one form or another, the problem has arisen repeatedly in the century since, dividing "libertarian" from "authoritarian" socialists.
Despite Bakunin's warnings about the red bureaucracy, and their fulfillment under Stalin's dictatorship, it would obviously be a gross error in interpreting the debates of a century ago to rely on the claims of contemporary social movements as to their historical origins. In particular, it is perverse to regard Bolshevism as "Marxism in practice." Rather, the left-wing critique of Bolshevism, taking account of the historical circumstances surrounding the Russian Revolution, is far more to the point.[10]
The anti-Bolshevik, left-wing labor movement opposed the Leninists because they did not go far enough in exploiting the Russian upheavals for strictly proletarian ends. They became prisoners of their environment and used the international radical movement to satisfy specifically Russian needs, which soon became synonymous with the needs of the Bolshevik Party-State. The "bourgeois" aspects of the Russian Revolution were now discovered in Bolshevism itself: Leninism was adjudged a part of international social-democracy, differing from the latter only on tactical issues.[11]
If one were to seek a single leading idea within the anarchist tradition, it should, I believe, be that expressed by Bakunin when, in writing on the Paris Commune, he identified himself as follows:
I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; not the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by the School of J.-J. Rousseau and other schools of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of each---an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero. No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being---they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.[12]
These ideas grew out of the Enlightenment; their roots are in Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, Humboldt's Limits of State Action, Kant's insistence, in his defense of the French Revolution, that freedom is the precondition for acquiring the maturity for freedom, not a gift to be granted when such maturity is achieved. With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. In fact, on the very same assumptions that led classical liberalism to oppose the intervention of the state in social life, capitalist social relations are also intolerable. This is clear, for example, from the classic work of Humboldt, The Limits of State Action, which anticipated and perhaps inspired Mill. This classic of liberal thought, completed in 1792, is in its essence profoundly, though prematurely, anticapitalist. Its ideas must be attenuated beyond recognition to be transmuted into an ideology of industrial capitalism.
Humboldt's vision of a society in which social fetters are replaced by social bonds and labor is freely undertaken suggests the early Marx., with his discussion of the "alienation of labor when work is external to the worker...not part of his nature...[so that] he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself...[and is] physically exhausted and mentally debased," alienated labor that "casts some of the workers back into a barbarous kind of work and turns others into machines," thus depriving man of his "species character" of "free conscious activity" and "productive life." Similarly, Marx conceives of "a new type of human being who needs his fellow men....[The workers' association becomes] the real constructive effort to create the social texture of future human relations."[13] It is true that classical libertarian thought is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty, diversity, and free association. On the same assumptions, capitalist relations of production, wage labor, competitiveness, the ideology of "possessive individualism"---all must be regarded as fundamentally antihuman. Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.
Rudolf Rocker describes modern anarchism as "the confluence of the two great currents which during and since the French revolution have found such characteristic expression in the intellectual life of Europe: Socialism and Liberalism." The classical liberal ideals, he argues, were wrecked on the realities of capitalist economic forms. Anarchism is necessarily anticapitalist in that it "opposes the exploitation of man by man." But anarchism also opposes "the dominion of man over man." It insists that "socialism will be free or it will not be at all. In its recognition of this lies the genuine and profound justification for the existence of anarchism."[14] From this point of view, anarchism may be regarded as the libertarian wing of socialism. It is in this spirit that Daniel Guérin has approached the study of anarchism in Anarchism and other works.[15] Guérin quotes Adolph Fischer, who said that "every anarchist is a socialist but not every socialist is necessarily an anarchist." Similarly Bakunin, in his "anarchist manifesto" of 1865, the program of his projected international revolutionary fraternity, laid down the principle that each member must be, to begin with, a socialist.
A consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production and the wage slavery which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer. As Marx put it, socialists look forward to a society in which labor will "become not only a means of life, but also the highest want in life,"[16] an impossibility when the worker is driven by external authority or need rather than inner impulse: "no form of wage-labor, even though one may be less obnoxious that another, can do away with the misery of wage-labor itself."[17] A consistent anarchist must oppose not only alienated labor but also the stupefying specialization of labor that takes place when the means for developing production
mutilate the worker into a fragment of a human being, degrade him to become a mere appurtenance of the machine, make his work such a torment that its essential meaning is destroyed; estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labor process in very proportion to the extent to which science is incorporated into it as an independent power...[18]
Marx saw this not as an inevitable concomitant of industrialization, but rather as a feature of capitalist relations of production. The society of the future must be concerned to "replace the detail-worker of today...reduced to a mere fragment of a man, by the fully developed individual, fit for a variety of labours...to whom the different social functions...are but so many modes of giving free scope to his own natural powers."[19] The prerequisite is the abolition of capital and wage labor as social categories (not to speak of the industrial armies of the "labor state" or the various modern forms of totalitarianism since capitalism). The reduction of man to an appurtenance of the machine, a specialized tool of production, might in principle be overcome, rather than enhanced, with the proper development and use of technology, but not under the conditions of autocratic control of production by those who make man an instrument to serve their ends, overlooking his individual purposes, in Humboldt's phrase.
Anarchosyndicalists sought, even under capitalism, to create "free associations of free producers" that would engage in militant struggle and prepare to take over the organization of production on a democratic basis. These associations would serve as "a practical school of anarchism."[20] If private ownership of the means of production is, in Proudhon's often quoted phrase, merely a form of "theft"---"the exploitation of the weak by the strong"[21]---control of production by a state bureaucracy, no matter how benevolent its intentions, also does not create the conditions under which labor, manual and intellectual, can become the highest want in life. Both, then, must be overcome.
In his attack on the right of private or bureaucratic control over the means of production,, the anarchist takes his stand with those who struggle to bring about "the third and last emancipatory phase of history," the first having made serfs out of slaves, the second having made wage earners out of serfs, and the third which abolishes the proletariat in a final act of liberation that places control over the economy in the hands of free and voluntary associations of producers (Fourier, 1848).[22] The imminent danger to "civilization" was noted by de Tocqueville, also in 1848:
As long as the right of property was the origin and groundwork of many other rights, it was easily defended---or rather it was not attacked; it was then the citadel of society while all the other rights were its outworks; it did not bear the brunt of attack and, indeed, there was no serious attempt to assail it. but today, when the right of property is regarded as the last undestroyed remnant of the aristocratic world, when it alone is left standing, the sole privilege in an equalized society, it is a different matter. Consider what is happening in the hearts of the working-classes, although I admit they are quiet as yet. It is true that they are less inflamed than formerly by political passions properly speaking; but do you not see that their passions, far from being political, have become social? Do you not see that, little by little, ideas and opinions are spreading amongst them which aim not merely at removing such and such laws, such a ministry or such a government, but at breaking up the very foundations of society itself?[23]
The workers of Paris, in 1871, broke the silence, and proceeded
to abolish property, the basis of all civilization! Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intended to abolish that class property which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriators. It wanted to make individual property a truth by transforming the means of production, land and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving and exploiting labor, into mere instruments of free and associated labor.[24]
The Commune, of course, was drowned in blood. The nature of the "civilization" that the workers of Paris sought to overcome in their attack on "the very foundations of society itself" was revealed, once again, when the troops of the Versailles government reconquered Paris from its population. As Marx wrote, bitterly but accurately:
The civilization and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its lurid light whenever the slaves and drudges of that order rise against their masters. Then this civilization and justice stand forth as undisguised savagery and lawless revenge...the infernal deeds of the soldiery reflect the innate spirit of that civilization of which they are the mercenary vindicators....The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the destruction of brick and mortar. [Ibid., pp. 74, 77]
Despite the violent destruction of the Commune, Bakunin wrote that Paris opens a new era, "that of the definitive and complete emancipation of the popular masses and their future true solidarity, across and despite state boundaries...the next revolution of man, international in solidarity, will be the resurrection of Paris"---a revolution that the world still awaits.
The consistent anarchist, then, should be a socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not only oppose alienated and specialized labor and look forward to the appropriation of capital by the whole body of workers, but he will also insist that this appropriation be direct, not exercised by some elite force acting in the name of the proletariat. He will, in short, oppose
the organization of production by the Government. It means State-socialism, the command of the State officials over production and the command of managers, scientists, shop-officials in the shop....The goal of the working class is liberation from exploitation. This goal is not reached and cannot be reached by a new directing and governing class substituting itself for the bourgeoisie. It is only realized by the workers themselves being master over production.
These remarks are taken from "Five Theses on the Class Struggle" by the left-wing Marxist Anton Pannekoek, one of the outstanding left theorists of the council communist movement. And in fact, radical Marxism merges with anarchist currents.
As a further illustration, consider the following characterization of "revolutionary Socialism":
The revolutionary Socialist denies that State ownership can end in anything other than a bureaucratic despotism. We have seen why the State cannot democratically control industry. Industry can only be democratically owned and controlled by the workers electing directly from their own ranks industrial administrative committees. Socialism will be fundamentally an industrial system; its constituencies will be of an industrial character. Thus those carrying on the social activities and industries of society will be directly represented in the local and central councils of social administration. In this way the powers of such delegates will flow upwards from those carrying on the work and conversant with the needs of the community. When the central administrative industrial committee meets it will represent every phase of social activity. Hence the capitalist political or geographical state will be replaced by the industrial administrative committee of Socialism. The transition from the one social system to the other will be the social revolution. The political State throughout history has meant the government of men by ruling classes; the Republic of Socialism will be the government of industry administered on behalf of the whole community. The former meant the economic and political subjection of the many; the latter will mean the economic freedom of all---it will be, therefore, a true democracy.
This programmatic statement appears in William Paul's The State, its Origins and Functions, written in early 1917---shortly before Lenin's State and Revolution, perhaps his most libertarian work (see note 9). Paul was a member of the Marxist-De Leonist Socialist Labor Party and later one of the founders of the British Communist Party.[25] His critique of state socialism resembles the libertarian doctrine of the anarchists in its principle that since state ownership and management will lead to bureaucratic despotism, the social revolution must replace it by the industrial organization of society with direct workers' control. Many similar statements can be cited.
What is far more important is that these ideas have been realized in spontaneous revolutionary action, for example in Germany and Italy after World War I and in Spain (not only in the agricultural countryside, but also in industrial Barcelona) in 1936. One might argue that some form of council communism is the natural form of revolutionary socialism in an industrial society. It reflects the intuitive understanding that democracy is severely limited when the industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether of owners, managers and technocrats, a "vanguard" party, or a state bureaucracy. Under these conditions of authoritarian domination the classical libertarian ideals developed further by Marx and Bakunin and all true revolutionaries cannot be realized; man will not be free to develop his own potentialities to their fullest, and the producer will remain "a fragment of a human being," degraded, a tool in the productive process directed from above.
The phrase "spontaneous revolutionary action" can be misleading. The anarchosyndicalists, at least, took very seriously Bakunin's remark that the workers' organizations must create "not only the ideas but also the facts of the future itself" in the prerevolutionary period. The accomplishments of the popular revolution in Spain, in particular, were based on the patient work of many years of organization and education, one component of a long tradition of commitment and militancy. The resolutions of the Madrid Congress of June 1931 and the Saragossa Congress in May 1936 foreshadowed in many ways the acts of the revolution, as did the somewhat different ideas sketched by Santillan (see note 4) in his fairly specific account of the social and economic organization to be instituted by the revolution. Guérin writes "The Spanish revolution was relatively mature in the minds of libertarian thinkers, as in the popular consciousness." And workers' organizations existed with the structure, the experience, and the understanding to undertake the task of social reconstruction when, with the Franco coup, the turmoil of early 1936 exploded into social revolution. In his introduction to a collection of documents on collectivization in Spain, the anarchist Augustin Souchy writes:
For many years, the anarchists and the syndicalists of Spain considered their supreme task to be the social transformation of the society. In their assemblies of Syndicates and groups, in their journals, their brochures and books, the problem of the social revolution was discussed incessantly and in a systematic fashion.[26]
All of this lies behind the spontaneous achievements, the constructive work of the Spanish Revolution.
The ideas of libertarian socialism, in the sense described, have been submerged in the industrial societies of the past half-century. The dominant ideologies have been those of state socialism or state capitalism (of increasingly militarized character in the United States, for reasons that are not obscure).[27] But there has been a rekindling of interest in the past few years. The theses I quoted by Anton Pannekoek were taken from a recent pamphlet of a radical French workers' group (Informations Correspondance Ouvrière). The remarks by William Paul on revolutionary socialism are cited in a paper by Walter Kendall given at the National Conference on Workers' Control in Sheffield, England, in March 1969. The workers' control movement has become a significant force in England in the past few years. It has organized several conferences and has produced a substantial pamphlet literature, and counts among its active adherents representatives of some of the most important trade unions. The Amalgamated Engineering and Foundryworkers' Union, for example, has adopted, as official policy, the program of nationalization of basic industries under "workers' control at all levels."[28] On the Continent, there are similar developments. May 1968 of course accelerated the growing interest in council communism and related ideas in France and Germany, as it did in England.
Given the highly conservative cast of our highly ideological society, it is not too surprising that the United States has been relatively untouched by these developments. But that too may change. The erosion of cold-war mythology at least makes it possible to raise these questions in fairly broad circles. If the present wave of repression can be beaten back, if the left can overcome its more suicidal tendencies and build upon what has been accomplished in the past decade, then the problem of how to organize industrial society on truly democratic lines, with democratic control in the workplace and in the community, should become a dominant intellectual issue for those who are alive to the problems of contemporary society, and, as a mass movement for libertarian socialism develops, speculation should proceed to action.
In his manifesto of 1865, Bakunin predicted that one element in the social revolution will be "that intelligent and truly noble part of youth which, though belonging by birth to the privileged classes, in its generous convictions and ardent aspirations, adopts the cause of the people." Perhaps in the rise of the student movement of the 1960s one sees steps towards a fulfillment of this prophecy.
Daniel Guérin has undertaken what he has described as a "process of rehabilitation" of anarchism. He argues, convincingly I believe, that "the constructive ideas of anarchism retain their vitality, that they may, when re-examined and sifted, assist contemporary socialist thought to undertake a new departure...[and] contribute to enriching Marxism."[29]
From the "broad back" of anarchism he has selected for more intensive scrutiny those ideas and actions that can be described as libertarian socialist. This is natural and proper. This framework accommodates the major anarchist spokesmen as well as the mass actions that have been animated by anarchist sentiments and ideals. Guérin is concerned not only with anarchist thought but also with the spontaneous actions of popular revolutionary struggle. He is concerned with social as well as intellectual creativity. Furthermore, he attempts to draw from the constructive achievements of the past lessons that will enrich the theory of social liberation. For those who wish not only to understand the world, but also to change it, this is the proper way to study the history of anarchism.
Guérin describes the anarchism of the nineteenth century as essentially doctrinal, while the twentieth century, for the anarchists, has been a time of "revolutionary practice."[30] Anarchism reflects that judgment. His interpretation of anarchism consciously points toward the future. Arthur Rosenberg once pointed out that popular revolutions characteristically seek to replace "a feudal or centralized authority ruling by force" with some form of communal system which "implies the destruction and disappearance of the old form of State." Such a system will be either socialist or an "extreme form of democracy...[which is] the preliminary condition for Socialism inasmuch as Socialism can only be realized in a world enjoying the highest possible measure of individual freedom." This ideal, he notes, was common to Marx and the anarchists.[31] This natural struggle for liberation runs counter to the prevailing tendency towards centralization in economic and political life.
A century ago Marx wrote that the workers of Paris "felt there was but one alternative---the Commune, or the empire---under whatever name it might reappear."
The empire had ruined them economically by the havoc it made of public wealth, by the wholesale financial swindling it fostered, by the props it lent to the artificially accelerated centralization of capital, and the concomitant expropriation of their own ranks. It had suppressed them politically, it had shocked them morally by its orgies, it had insulted their Voltairianism by handing over the education of their children to the frères Ignorantins, it had revolted their national feeling as Frenchmen by precipitating them headlong into a war which left only one equivalent for the ruins it made---the disappearance of the empire.[32]
The miserable Second Empire "was the only form of government possible at a time when the bourgeoisie had already lost, and the working class had not yet acquired, the faculty of ruling the nation."
It is not very difficult to rephrase these remarks so that they become appropriate to the imperial systems of 1970. The problem of "freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement" remains the problem of our time. As long as this is so, the doctrines and the revolutionary practice of libertarian socialism will serve as an inspiration and guide.
******************NOTES***************
This essay is a revised version of the introduction to Daniel Guérin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. In a slightly different version, it appeared in the New York Review of Books, May 21, 1970.
[1] Octave Mirbeau, quoted in James Joll, The Anarchists, pp. 145--6.
[2] Rudolf Rocker, Anarchosyndicalism, p. 31.
[3] Cited by Rocker, ibid., p. 77. This quotation and that in the next sentence are from Michael Bakunin, "The Program of the Alliance," in Sam Dolgoff, ed. and trans., Bakunin on Anarchy, p. 255.
[4] Diego Abad de Santillan, After the Revolution, p. 86. In the last chapter, written several months after the revolution had begun, he expresses his dissatisfaction with what had so far been achieved along these lines. On the accomplishments of the social revolution in Spain, see my American Power and the New Mandarins, chap. 1, and references cited there; the important study by Broué and Témime has since been translated into English. Several other important studies have appeared since, in particular: Frank Mintz, L'Autogestion dans l'Espagne révolutionaire (Paris: Editions Bélibaste, 1971); César M. Lorenzo, Les Anarchistes espagnols et le pouvoir, 1868--1969 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1969); Gaston Leval, Espagne libertaire, 1936--1939: L'Oeuvre constructive de la Révolution espagnole (Paris: Editions du Cercle, 1971). See also Vernon Richards, Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, enlarged 1972 edition.
[5] Cited by Robert C. Tucker, The Marxian Revolutionary Idea, in his discussion of Marxism and anarchism.
[6] Bakunin, in a letter to Herzen and Ogareff, 1866. Cited by Daniel Guérin, Jeunesse du socialisme libertaire, p. 119.
[7] Fernand Pelloutier, cited in Joll, Anarchists. The source is "L'Anarchisme et les syndicats ouvriers," Les Temps nouveaux, 1895. The full text appears in Daniel Guérin, ed., Ni Dieu, ni Maítre, an excellent historical anthology of anarchism.
[8] Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia, p. 127.
[9] "No state, however democratic," Bakunin wrote, "not even the reddest republic---can ever give the people what they really want, i.e., the free self-organization and administration of their own affairs from the bottom upward, without any interference or violence from above, because every state, even the pseudo-People's State concocted by Mr. Marx, is in essence only a machine ruling the masses from above, from a privileged minority of conceited intellectuals, who imagine that they know what the people need and want better than do the people themselves...." "But the people will feel no better if the stick with which they are being beaten is labeled 'the people's stick' " (Statism and Anarchy [1873], in Dolgoff, Bakunin on Anarchy, p. 338)---"the people's stick" being the democratic Republic.
Marx, of course, saw the matter differently.
For discussion of the impact of the Paris Commune on this dispute, see Daniel Guérin's comments in Ni Dieu, ni Maítre; these also appear, slightly extended, in his Pour un marxisme libertaire. See also note 24.
[10] On Lenin's "intellectual deviation" to the left during 1917, see Robert Vincent Daniels, "The State and Revolution: a Case Study in the Genesis and Transformation of Communist Ideology," American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (1953).
[11] Paul Mattick, Marx and Keynes, p. 295.
[12] Michael Bakunin, "La Commune de Paris et la notion de l'état," reprinted in Guérin, Ni Dieu, ni Maítre. Bakunin's final remark on the laws of individual nature as the condition of freedom can be compared to the creative thought developed in the rationalist and romantic traditions. See my Cartesian Linguistics and Language and Mind.
[13] Shlomo Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, p. 142, referring to comments in The Holy Family. Avineri states that within the socialist movement only the Israeli kibbutzim "have perceived that the modes and forms of present social organization will determine the structure of future society." This, however, was a characteristic position of anarchosyndicalism, as noted earlier.
[14] Rocker, Anarchosyndicalism, p. 28.
[15] See Guérin's works cited earlier.
[16] Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme.
[17] Karl Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie, cited by Mattick, Marx and Keynes, p. 306. In this connection, see also Mattick's essay "Workers' Control," in Priscilla Long, ed., The New Left; and Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Marx.
[18] Karl Marx, Capital, quoted by Robert Tucker, who rightly emphasizes that Marx sees the revolutionary more as a "frustrated producer" than a "dissatisfied consumer" (The Marxian Revolutionary Idea). This more radical critique of capitalist relations of production is a direct outgrowth of the libertarian thought of the Enlightenment.
[19] Marx, Capital, cited by Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Marx, p. 83.
[20] Pelloutier, "L'Anarchisme."
[21] "Qu'est-ce que la propriété?" The phrase "property is theft" displeased Marx, who saw in its use a logical problem, theft presupposing the legitimate existence of property. See Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Marx.
[22] Cited in Buber's Paths in Utopia, p. 19.
[23] Cited in J. Hampden Jackson, Marx, Proudhon and European Socialism, p. 60.
[24] Karl Marx, The Civil War in France, p. 24. Avineri observes that this and other comments of Marx about the Commune refer pointedly to intentions and plans. As Marx made plain elsewhere, his considered assessment was more critical than in this address.
[25] For some background, see Walter Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain.
[26] Collectivisations: L'Oeuvre constructive de la Révolution espagnole, p. 8.
[27] For discussion, see Mattick, Marx and Keynes, and Michael Kidron, Western Capitalism Since the War. See also discussion and references cited in my At War With Asia, chap. 1, pp. 23--6.
[28] See Hugh Scanlon, The Way Forward for Workers' Control. Scanlon is the president of the AEF, one of Britain's largest trade unions. The institute was established as a result of the sixth Conference on Workers' Control, March 1968, and serves as a center for disseminating information and encouraging research.
[29] Guérin, Ni Dieu, ni Maítre, introduction.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Arthur Rosenberg, A History of Bolshevism, p. 88.
[32] Marx, Civil War in France, pp. 62--3.
*************BIBLIOGRAPHY*************
Avineri, Shlomo. The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx. London: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Bakunin, Michael. Bakunin on Anarchy. Edited and translated by Sam Dolgoff. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.
Buber, Martin. Paths in Utopia. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958.
Chomsky, Noam. Cartesian Linguistics. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
------. American Power and the New Mandarins. New York: Pantheon Books, 1969.
------. At War with Asia. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970.
Collectivisations: L'Oeuvre constructive de la Révolution espagnole. 2nd ed. Toulouse: Editions C.N.T., 1965. First edition, Barcelona, 1937.
Daniels, Robert Vincent. "The State and Revolution: a Case Study in the Genesis and Transformation of Communist Ideology." American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (1953).
Guérin, Daniel. Jeunesse du socialisme libertaire. Paris: Librairie Marcel Rivière, 1959.
------. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, translated by Mary Klopper. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970.
------. Pour un marxisme libertaire. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1969.
------, ed. Ni Dieu, ni Maítre. Lausanne: La Cité Editeur, n.d.
Jackson, J. Hampden. Marx, Proudhon and European Socialism. New York: Collier Books, 1962.
Joll, James. The Anarchists. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1964.
Kendall, Walter. The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900--1921. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969.
Kidron, Michael Western Capitalism Since the War. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968.
Mattick, Paul. Marx and Keynes: The Limits of Mixed Economy. Extending Horizons Series. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969.
------. "Workers' Control." In The New Left: A Collection of Essays, edited by Priscilla Long. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969.
Marx, Karl. The Civil War in France, 1871. New York: International Publishers, 1941.
Pelloutier, Fernand. "L'Anarchisme et les syndicats ouvriers." Les Temps nouveaux, 1895. Reprinted in Ni Dieu, ni Maítre, edited by Daniel Guérin. Lausanne: La Cité Editeur, n.d.
Richards, Vernon. Lessons of the Spanish Revolution (1936--1939). Enlarged ed. London: Freedom Press, 1972.
Rocker, Rudolf. Anarchosyndicalism. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938.
Rosenberg, Arthur. A History of Bolshevism from Marx to the First Five Years' Plan. Translated by Ian F. Morrow. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965.
Santillan, Diego Abad de. After the Revolution. New York: Greenberg Publishers, 1937.
Scanlon, Hugh. The Way Forward for Workers' Control. Institute for Workers' Control Pamphlet Series, no. 1, Nottingham, England, 1968.
Tucker, Robert C. The Marxian Revolutionary Idea. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1969.


Noam Chomsky on
Anarchism
Tom Lane
December 23, 1996
Introduction
Though Chomsky has written a considerable amount about anarchism in the past three decades, people often ask him for a more tangible, detailed vision of social change. His political analysis never fails to instill outrage and anger with the way the world works, but many readers are left uncertain about what exactly Chomsky would do to change it. Perhaps because they regard his analytical work with such respect, they anticipate he will lay out his goals and strategy with similar precision and clarity, only to be disappointed with his generalized statements of libertarian socialist values. Or perhaps many look to a great intellectual to provide a "master plan" for them to follow step-by-step into a bright shining future.
Yet Chomsky shys away from such pronouncements. He cautions that it is difficult to predict what particular forms a more just social organization will take, or even to know for sure what alternatives to the current system are ideal. Only experience can show us the best answers to these questions, he says. What should guide us along the way are a general set of principles which will underly whatever specific forms our future society will take. For Chomsky, those principles arise from the historical trend of thought and action known as anarchism.
Chomsky warns that little can be said about anarchism on a very general level. "I haven't tried to write anything systematic about these topics, nor do I know of anything by others that I could recommend," he wrote to me in reply to a set of questions on the subject. He's written here and there about it, notably in the recent Powers and Prospects, but there just isn't a lot to say in general terms. "The interest lies in the applications," he thinks, "but these are specific to time and place.
"In Latin America," Chomsky says, "I talked about many of these topics, and far more important, learned about them from people who are actually doing things, a good deal of which had an anarchist flavor. Also had a chance to meet with lively and interesting groups of anarchists, from Buenos Aires to Belem at the mouth of the Amazon (the latter I didn't know about at all -- amazing where our friends show up). But the discussions were much more focused and specific than I often see here; and rightly, I think."
As such, Chomsky's responses to these questions are general and terse. However, as a brief introduction to some of his thoughts on anarchism, perhaps they may inspire the reader to pursue other writings on the subject (a list appears at the end of the questions), and more importantly, to develop the concept of anarchism through the process of working for a more free and democratic society.
Tom Lane

Answers from Chomsky to eight questions on anarchism
General comment on all the questions:
No one owns the term "anarchism." It is used for a wide range of different currents of thought and action, varying widely. There are many self-styled anarchists who insist, often with great passion, that theirs is the only right way, and that others do not merit the term (and maybe are criminals of one or another sort). A look at the contemporary anarchist literature, particularly in the West and in intellectual circles (they may not like the term), will quickly show that a large part of it is denunciation of others for their deviations, rather as in the Marxist-Leninist sectarian literature. The ratio of such material to constructive work is depressingly high.
Personally, I have no confidence in my own views about the "right way," and am unimpressed with the confident pronouncements of others, including good friends. I feel that far too little is understood to be able to say very much with any confidence. We can try to formulate our long-term visions, our goals, our ideals; and we can (and should) dedicate ourselves to working on issues of human significance. But the gap between the two is often considerable, and I rarely see any way to bridge it except at a very vague and general level. These qualities of mine (perhaps defects, perhaps not) will show up in the (very brief) responses I will make to your questions.
1. What are the intellectual roots of anarchist thought, and what movements have developed and animated it throughout history?
The currents of anarchist thought that interest me (there are many) have their roots, I think, in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, and even trace back in interesting ways to the scientific revolution of the 17th century, including aspects that are often considered reactionary, like Cartesian rationalism. There's literature on the topic (historian of ideas Harry Bracken, for one; I've written about it too). Won't try to recapitulate here, except to say that I tend to agree with the important anarchosyndicalist writer and activist Rudolf Rocker that classical liberal ideas were wrecked on the shoals of industrial capitalism, never to recover (I'm referring to Rocker in the 1930s; decades later, he thought differently). The ideas have been reinvented continually; in my opinion, because they reflect real human needs and perceptions. The Spanish Civil War is perhaps the most important case, though we should recall that the anarchist revolution that swept over a good part of Spain in 1936, taking various forms, was not a spontaneous upsurge, but had been prepared in many decades of education, organization, struggle, defeat, and sometimes victories. It was very significant. Sufficiently so as to call down the wrath of every major power system: Stalinism, fascism, western liberalism, most intellectual currents and their doctrinal institutions -- all combined to condemn and destroy the anarchist revolution, as they did; a sign of its significance, in my opinion.
2. Critics complain that anarchism is "formless, utopian." You counter that each stage of history has its own forms of authority and oppression which must be challenged, therefore no fixed doctrine can apply. In your opinion, what specific realization of anarchism is appropriate in this epoch?
I tend to agree that anarchism is formless and utopian, though hardly more so than the inane doctrines of neoliberalism, Marxism-Leninism, and other ideologies that have appealed to the powerful and their intellectual servants over the years, for reasons that are all too easy to explain. The reason for the general formlessness and intellectual vacuity (often disguised in big words, but that is again in the self-interest of intellectuals) is that we do not understand very much about complex systems, such as human societies; and have only intuitions of limited validity as to the ways they should be reshaped and constructed.
Anarchism, in my view, is an expression of the idea that the burden of proof is always on those who argue that authority and domination are necessary. They have to demonstrate, with powerful argument, that that conclusion is correct. If they cannot, then the institutions they defend should be considered illegitimate. How one should react to illegitimate authority depends on circumstances and conditions: there are no formulas.
In the present period, the issues arise across the board, as they commonly do: from personal relations in the family and elsewhere, to the international political/economic order. And anarchist ideas -- challenging authority and insisting that it justify itself -- are appropriate at all levels.
3. What sort of conception of human nature is anarchism predicated on? Would people have less incentive to work in an egalitarian society? Would an absence of government allow the strong to dominate the weak? Would democratic decision-making result in excessive conflict, indecision and "mob rule"?
As I understand the term "anarchism," it is based on the hope (in our state of ignorance, we cannot go beyond that) that core elements of human nature include sentiments of solidarity, mutual support, sympathy, concern for others, and so on.
Would people work less in an egalitarian society? Yes, insofar as they are driven to work by the need for survival; or by material reward, a kind of pathology, I believe, like the kind of pathology that leads some to take pleasure from torturing others. Those who find reasonable the classical liberal doctrine that the impulse to engage in creative work is at the core of human nature -- something we see constantly, I think, from children to the elderly, when circumstances allow -- will be very suspicious of these doctrines, which are highly serviceable to power and authority, but seem to have no other merits.
Would an absence of government allow the strong to dominate the weak? We don't know. If so, then forms of social organization would have to be constructed -- there are many possibilities -- to overcome this crime.
What would be the consequences of democratic decision-making? The answers are unknown. We would have to learn by trial. Let's try it and find out.
4. Anarchism is sometimes called libertarian socialism -- How does it differ from other ideologies that are often associated with socialism, such as Leninism?
Leninist doctrine holds that a vanguard Party should assume state power and drive the population to economic development, and, by some miracle that is unexplained, to freedom and justice. It is an ideology that naturally appeals greatly to the radical intelligentsia, to whom it affords a justification for their role as state managers. I can't see any reason -- either in logic or history -- to take it seriously. Libertarian socialism (including a substantial mainstream of Marxism) dismissed all of this with contempt, quite rightly.
5. Many "anarcho-capitalists" claim that anarchism means the freedom to do what you want with your property and engage in free contract with others. Is capitalism in any way compatible with anarchism as you see it?
Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of "free contract" between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.
I should add, however, that I find myself in substantial agreement with people who consider themselves anarcho-capitalists on a whole range of issues; and for some years, was able to write only in their journals. And I also admire their commitment to rationality -- which is rare -- though I do not think they see the consequences of the doctrines they espouse, or their profound moral failings.
6. How do anarchist principles apply to education? Are grades, requirements and exams good things? What sort of environment is most conducive to free thought and intellectual development?
My feeling, based in part on personal experience in this case, is that a decent education should seek to provide a thread along which a person will travel in his or her own way; good teaching is more a matter of providing water for a plant, to enable it to grow under its own powers, than of filling a vessel with water (highly unoriginal thoughts I should add, paraphrased from writings of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism). These are general principles, which I think are generally valid. How they apply in particular circumstances has to be evaluated case by case, with due humility, and recognition of how little we really understand.
7. Depict, if you can, how an ideal anarchist society would function day-to-day. What sorts of economic and political institutions would exist, and how would they function? Would we have money? Would we shop in stores? Would we own our own homes? Would we have laws? How would we prevent crime?
I wouldn't dream of trying to do this. These are matters about which we have to learn, by struggle and experiment.
8. What are the prospects for realizing anarchism in our society? What steps should we take?
Prospects for freedom and justice are limitless. The steps we should take depend on what we are trying to achieve. There are, and can be, no general answers. The questions are wrongly put. I am reminded of a nice slogan of the rural workers' movement in Brazil (from which I have just returned): they say that they must expand the floor of the cage, until the point when they can break the bars. At times, that even requires defense of the cage against even worse predators outside: defense of illegitimate state power against predatory private tyranny in the United States today, for example, a point that should be obvious to any person committed to justice and freedom -- anyone, for example, who thinks that children should have food to eat -- but that seems difficult for many people who regard themselves as libertarians and anarchists to comprehend. That is one of the self-destructive and irrational impulses of decent people who consider themselves to be on the left, in my opinion, separating them in practice from the lives and legitimate aspirations of suffering people.
So it seems to me. I'm happy to discuss the point, and listen to counter-argument, but only in a context that allows us to go beyond shouting of slogans -- which, I'm afraid, excludes a good deal of what passes for debate on the left, more's the pity.
Noam

In another letter, Chomsky offered this expansion on his thoughts regarding a future society:
About a future society, I...may be repeating, but it's something I've been concerned with every since I was a kid. I recall, about 1940, reading Diego Abad de Santillan's interesting book After the Revolution, criticizing his anarchist comrades and sketching in some detail how an anarchosyndicalist Spain would work (these are >50 year old memories, so don't take it too literally). My feeling then was that it looked good, but do we understand enough to answer questions about a society in such detail? Over the years, naturally I've learned more, but it has only deepened my skepticism about whether we understand enough. In recent years, I've discussed this a good deal with Mike Albert, who has been encouraging me to spell out in detail how I think society should work, or at least react to his "participatory democracy" conception. I've backed off, in both cases, for the same reasons. It seems to me that answers to most such questions have to be learned by experiment. Take markets (to the extent that they could function in any viable society -- limited, if the historical record is any guide, not to speak of logic). I understand well enough what's wrong with them, but that's not sufficient to demonstrate that a system that eliminates market operations is preferable; simply a point of logic, and I don't think we know the answer. Same with everything else.


ANARCHISM:
Its Philosophy and ldeal.
BY
PETER KROPOTKIN. ANARCHY.
______
(Translated from the German by Harry Lyman Koopman.)
______
Ever reviled, accursed,-n'er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."
O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven,
The truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word's right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
That sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! -Thine secure
When each at last unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
I cannot tell......but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!
-John Henry Mackay.

IT is not without a certain hesitation that I have decided to take the philosophy and ideal of Anarchy as the subject of this lecture.
Those who are persuaded that Anarchy is a collection of visions relating to the future, and an unconscious striving toward the destruction of all present civilization, are still very numerous; and to clear the ground of such prejudices of our education as maintain this view we should have, perhaps, to enter into many details which it would be difficult to embody in a single lecture. Did not the Parisian press, only two or three years ago, maintain that the whole philosophy of Anarchy consisted in destruction, and that its only argument was violence?
Nevertheless Anarchists have been spoken of so much lately, that part of the public has at last taken to reading and discussing our doctrines. Sometimes men have even given themselves trouble to reflect, and at the present moment we have at least gained a point: it is willingly admitted that Anarchists have an ideal. Their ideal is even found too beautiful, too lofty for a society not composed of superior beings.
But is it not pretentious on my part to speak of a philosophy, when, according to our critics, our ideas are but dim visions of a distant future? Can Anarchy pretend to possess a philosophy, when it is denied that Socialism has one?
This is what I am about to answer with all possible precision and clearness, only asking you to excuse me beforehand if I repeat an example or two which I have already given at a London lecture, and which seem to be best fitted to explain what is meant by the philosophy of Anarchism.

You will not bear me any ill-will if I begin by taking a few elementary illustrations borrowed from natural sciences. Not for the purpose of deducing our social ideas from them-far from it; but simply the better to set off certain relations, which are easier grasped in phenomena verified by the exact sciences than in examples only taken from the complex facts of human societies.
Well, then, what especially strikes us at present in exact sciences, is the profound modification which they are undergoing now, in the whole of their conceptions and interpretations of the facts of the universe.
There was a time, you know, when man imagined the earth placed in the center of the universe. Sun, moon, planets and stars seemed to roll round our globe; and this globe, inhabited by man, represented for him the center of creation. He himself-the superior being on his planet-was the elected of his Creator. The sun, the moon, the stars were but made for him; toward him was directed all the attention of a God, who watched the least of his actions, arrested the sun's course for him, wafted in the clouds, launching his showers or his thunder-bolts on fields and cities, to recompense the virtue or punish the crimes of mankind. For thousands of years man thus conceived the universe.
You know also what an immense change was produced in the sixteenth century in all conceptions of the civilized part of mankind, when it was demonstrated that, far from being the centre of the universe, the earth was only a grain of sand in the solar system-a ball, much smaller even than the other planets; that the sun itself-though immense in comparison to our little earth, was but a star among many other countless stars which we see shining in the skies and swarming in the milky-way. How small man appeared in comparison to this immensity without limits, how ridiculous his pretensions! All the philosophy of that epoch, all social and religious conceptions, felt the effects of this transformation in cosmogony. Natural science, whose present development we are so proud of, only dates from that time.
But a change, much more profound, and with far wider reaching results, is being effected at the present time in the whole of the sciences, and Anarchy, you will see, is but one of the many manifestations of this evolution.
Take any work on astronomy of the last century, or the beginning of ours. You will no longer find in it, it goes without saying, our tiny planet placed in the center of the universe. But you will meet at every step the idea of a central luminary-the sun-which by its powerful attraction governs our planetary world. From this central body radiates a force guiding the course of the planets, and maintaining the harmony of the system. Issued from a central agglomeration, planets have, so to say, budded from it; they owe their birth to this agglomeration; they owe everything to the radiant star that represents it still: the rhythm of their movements, their orbits set at wisely regulated distances, the life that animates them and adorns their surfaces. And when any perturbation disturbs their course and makes them deviate from their orbits, the central body re-establishes order in the system; it assures and perpetuates its existence.
This conception, however, is also disappearing as the other one did. After having fixed all their attention on the sun and the large planets, astronomers are beginning to study now the infinitely small ones that people the universe. And they discover that the interplanetary and interstellar spaces are peopled and crossed in all imaginable directions by little swarms of matter, invisible, infinitely small when taken separately, but all-powerful in their numbers. Among those masses, some, like the bolide that fell in Spain some time ago, are still rather big; others weigh but a few ounces or grains, while around them is wafted dust, almost microscopic, filling up the spaces.
It is to this dust, to these infinitely tiny bodies that dash through space in all directions with giddy swiftness, that clash with one another, agglomerate, disintegrate, everywhere and always, it is to them that today astronomers look for an explanation of the origin of our solar system, the movements that animate its parts, and the harmony of their whole. Yet another step, and soon universal gravitation itself will be but the result of all the disordered and incoherent movements of these infinitely small bodies-of oscillations of atoms that manifest themselves in all possible directions. Thus the center, the origin of force, formerly transfered from the earth to the sun, now turns out to be scattered and disseminated: it is everywhere and nowhere. With the astronomer, we perceive that solar systems are the work of infinitely small bodies; that the power which was supposed to govern the system is itself but the result of the collisions among those infinitely tiny clusters of matter, that the harmony of stellar systems is harmony only because it is an adaptation, a resultant of all these numberless movements uniting, completing, equilibrating one another.
The whole aspect of the universe changes with this new conception. The idea of force governing the world, of pre- established law, preconceived harmony, disappears to make room for the harmony that Fourier had caught a glimpse of: the one which results from the disorderly and incoherent movements of numberless hosts of matter, each of which goes its own way and all of which hold each other in equilibrium.

If it were only astronomy that were undergoing this change! But no; the same modification takes place in the philosophy of all sciences without exception; those which study nature as well as those which study human relations.
In physical sciences, the entities of heat, magnetism, and electricity disappear. When a physicist speaks today of a heated or electrified body, he no longer sees an inanimate mass, to which an unknown force should be added. He strives to recognize in this body and in the surrounding space, the course, the vibrations of infinitely small atoms which dash in all directions, vibrate, move, live, and by their vibrations, their shocks, their life, produce the phenomena of heat, light, magnetism or electricity.
In sciences that treat of organic life, the notion of species and its variations is being substituted by a notion of the variations of the individual. The botanist and zoologist study the individual-his life, his adaptations to his surroundings. Changes produced in him by the action of drought or damp, heat or cold, abundance or poverty of nourishment, of his more or less sensitiveness to the action of exterior surroundings will originate species; and the variations of species are now for the biologist but resultants-a given sum of variations that have been produced in each individual separately. A species will be what the individuals are, each undergoing numberless influences from the surroundings in which they live, and to which they correspond each in his own way.
And when a physiologist speaks now of the life of a plant or of an animal, he sees rather an agglomeration, a colony of millions of separate individuals than a personality one and indivisible. He speaks of a federation of digestive, sensual, nervous organs, all very intimately connected with one another, each feeling the consequence of the well-being or indisposition of each, but each living its own life. Each organ, each part of an organ in its turn is composed of independent cellules which associate to struggle against conditions unfavorable to their existence. The individual is quite a world of federations, a whole universe in himself.
And in this world of aggregated beings the physiologist sees the autonomous cells of blood, of the tissues, of the nerve-centers; he recognizes the millions of white corpuscles-the phagocytes-who wend their way to the parts of the body infected by microbes in order to give battle to the invaders. More than that: in each microscopic cell he discovers today a world of autonomous organisms, each of which lives its own life, looks for well-being for itself and attains it by grouping and associating itself with others. In short, each individual is a cosmos of organs, each organ is a cosmos of cells, each cell is a cosmos of infinitely small ones; and in this complex world, the well-being of the whole depends entirely on the sum of well-being enjoyed by each of the least microscopic particles of organized matter. A whole revolution is thus produced in the philosophy of life.

But it is especially in psychology that this revolution leads to consequences of great importance.
Quite recently the psychologist spoke of man as an entire being, one and indivisible. Remaining faithful to religious tradition, he used to class men as good and bad, intelligent and stupid, egotists and altruists. Even with materialists of the eighteenth century, the idea of a soul, of an indivisible entity, was still upheld.
But what would we think today of a psychologist who would still speak like this! The modern psychologist sees in man a multitude of separate faculties, autonomous tendencies, equal among themselves, performing their functions independently, balancing, opposing one another continually. Taken as a whole, man is nothing but a resultant, always changeable, of all his divers faculties, of all his autonomous tendencies, of brain cells and nerve centers. All are related so closely to one another that they each react on all the others, but they lead their own life without being subordinated to a central organ-the soul.

Without entering into further details you thus see that a profound modification is being produced at this moment in the whole of natural sciences. Not that this analysis is extended to details formerly neglected. No! the facts are not new, but the way of looking at them is in course of evolution; and if we had to characterize this tendency in a few words, we might say that if formerly science strove to study the results and the great sums (integrals, as mathematicians say), today it strives to study the infinitely small ones-the individuals of which those sums are composed and in which it now recognizes independence and individuality at the same time as this intimate aggregation.
As to the harmony that the human mind discovers in Nature, and which harmony is, on the whole, but the verification of a certain stability of phenomena, the modern man of science no doubt recognizes it more than ever. But he no longer tries to explain it by the action of laws conceived according to a certain plan preestablished by an intelligent will.
What used to be called "natural law" is nothing but a certain relation among phenomena which we dimly see, and each "law" takes a temporary character of causality; that is to say: If such a phenomenon is produced under such conditions, such another phenomenon will follow. No law placed outside the phenomena: each phenomenon governs that which follows it-not law.
Nothing preconceived in what we call harmony in Nature. The chance of collisions and encounters has sufficed to establish it. Such a phenomenon will last for centuries because the adaption, the equilibrium it represents has taken centuries to be established; while such another will last but an instant if that form of momentary equilibrium was born in an instant. If the planets of our solar system do not collide with one another and do not destroy one another every day, if they last millions of years, it is because they represent an equilibrium that has taken millions of centuries to establish as a resultant of millions of blind forces. If continents are not continually destroyed by volcanic shocks, it is because they have taken thousands and thousands of centuries to build up, molecule by molecule, and to take their present shape. But lightning will only last an instant; because it represents a momentary rupture of the equilibrium, a sudden redistribution of force.
Harmony thus appears as a temporary adjustment, established among all forces acting upon a given spot-a provisory adaptation; and that adjustment will only last under one condition: that of being continually modified; of representing every moment the resultant of all conflicting actions. Let but one of those forces be hampered in its action for some time and harmony disappears. Force will accumulate its effect; it must come to light, it must exercise its action, and if other forces hinder its manifestation it will not be annihilated by that, but will end by upsetting the present adjustment, by destroying harmony, in order to find a new form of equilibrium and to work to form a new adaptation. Such is the eruption of a volcano, whose imprisoned force ends by breaking the petrified lavas which hindered them to pour forth the gases, the molten lavas, and the incandescent ashes. Such, also, are the revolutions of mankind.

An analogous transformation is being produced at the same time in the sciences that treat of man. Thus we see that history, after having been the history of kingdoms, tends to become the history of nations and then the study of individuals. The historian wants to know how the members, of which such a nation was composed, lived at such a time, what their beliefs were, their means of existence, what ideal of society was visible to them, and what means they possessed to march toward this ideal. And by the action of all those forces, formerly neglected, he interprets the great historical phenomena.
So the man of science who studies jurisprudence is no longer content with such or such a code. Like the ethnologist he wants to know the genesis of the institution that succeed one another; he follows their evolution through ages, and in this study he applies himself far less to written law than to local customs-to the "customary law" in which the constructive genius of the unknown masses has found expression in all times. A wholly new science is being elaborated in this direction and promises to upset established conceptions we learned at school, succeeding in interpreting history in the same manner as natural sciences interpret the phenomena of Nature.
And, finally, political economy, which was at the beginning a study of the wealth of nations, becomes today a study of the wealth of individuals. It cares less to know if such a nation has or has not a large foreign trade; it wants to be assured that bread is not wanting in the peasant's or worker's cottage. It knocks at all doors-at that of the palace as well as that of the hovel-and asks the rich as well as the poor: Up to what point are your needs satisfied both for necessaries and luxuries?
And as it discovers that the most pressing needs of nine-tenths of each nation are not satisfied, it asks itself the question that a physiologist would ask himself about a plant or an animal:-" Which are the means to satisfy the needs of all with the least lose of power? How can a society guarantee to each, and consequently to all, the greatest sum of satisfaction?" It is in this direction that economic science is being transformed; and after having been so long a simple statement of phenomena interpreted in the interest of a rich minority, it tends to become (or rather it elaborates the elements to become) a science in the true sense of the word--a physiology of human societies.

While a new philosophy-a new view of knowledge taken as a whole-is thus being worked out, we may observe that a different conception of society, very different from that which now prevails, is in process of formation. Under the name of Anarchy, a new interpretation of the past and present life of society arises, giving at the same time a forecast as regards its future, both conceived in the same spirit as the above-mentioned interpretation in natural sciences. Anarchy, therefore, appears as a constituent part of the new philosophy, and that is why Anarchists come in contact, on so many points, with the greatest thinkers and poets of the present day.
In fact, it is certain that in proportion as the human mind frees itself from ideas inculcated by minorities of priests, military chiefs and judges, all striving to establish their domination, and of scientists paid to perpetuate it, a conception of society arises, in which conception there is no longer room for those dominating minorities. A society entering into possession of the social capital accumulated by the labor of preceding generations, organizing itself so as to make use of this capital in the interests of all, and constituting itself without reconstituting the power of the ruling minorities. It comprises in its midst an infinite variety of capacities, temperaments and individual energies: it excludes none. It even calls for struggles and contentions; because we know that periods of contests, so long as they were freely fought out, without the weight of constituted authority being thrown on the one side of the balance, were periods when human genius took its mightiest flight and achieved the greatest aims. Acknowledging, as a fact, the equal rights of all its members to the treasures accumulated in the past, it no longer recognizes a division between exploited and exploiters, governed and governors, dominated and dominators, and it seeks to establish a certain harmonious compatibility in its midst-not by subjecting all its members to an -authority that is fictitiously supposed to represent society, not by trying to establish uniformity, but by urging all men to develop free initiative, free action, free association.
It seeks the most complete development of individuality combined with the highest development of voluntary association in all its aspects, in all possible degrees, for all imaginable aims; ever changing, ever modified associations which carry in themselves the elements of their durability and constantly assume new forms, which answer best to the multiple aspirations of all.
A society to which preestablished forms, crytalized by law, are repugnant; which looks for harmony in an ever-changing and fugitive equilibrium between a multitude of varied forces and influences of every kind, following their own course,-these forces promoting themselves the energies which are favorable to their march toward progress, toward the liberty of developing in broad daylight and counter-balancing one another.
This conception and ideal of society is certainly not new. On the contrary, when we analyze the history of popular institutions-the clan, the village community, the guild and even the urban commune of the Middle Ages in their first stages,-we find the same popular tendency to constitute a society according to this idea; a tendency, however, always trammelled by domineering minorities. All popular movements bore this stamp more or less, and with the Anabaptists and their forerunners in the ninth century we already find the same ideas clearly expressed in the religious language which was in use at that time. Unfortunately, till the end of the last century, this ideal was always tainted by a theocratic spirit; and it is only nowadays that the conception of society deduced from the observation of social phenomena is rid of its swaddling-clothes.
It is only today that the ideal of a society where each governs himself according to his own will (which is evidently a result of the social influences borne by each) is affirmed in its economic, political and moral aspects at one and the same time, and that this ideal presents itself based on the necessity of Communism, imposed on our modern societies by the eminently social character of our present production.
In fact, we know full well today that it is futile to speak of liberty as long as economic slavery exists.
"Speak not of liberty-poverty is slavery!" is not a vain formula; it has penetrated into the ideas of the great working-class masses; it filters through all the present literature; it even carries those along who live on the poverty of others, and takes from them the arrogance with which they formerly asserted their rights to exploitation.
Millions of Socialists of both hemispheres already agree that the present form of capitalistic appropriation cannot last much longer. Capitalists themselves feel that it must go and dare not defend it with their former assurance. Their only argument is reduced to saying to us: "You have invented nothing better!" But as to denying the fatal consequences of the present forms of property, as to justifying their right to property, they cannot do it. They will practice this right as long as freedom of action is left to them, but without trying to base it on an idea. This is easily understood.
For instance, take the town of Paris-a creation of so many centuries, a product of the genius of a whole nation, a result of the labor of twenty or thirty generations. How could one maintain to an inhabitant of that town who works every day to embellish it, to purify it, to nourish it, to make it a centre of thought and art-how could one assert before one who produces this wealth that the palaces adorning the streets of Paris belong in all justice to those who are the legal proprietors today, when we are all creating their value, which would be nil without us?
Such a fiction can be kept up for some time by the skill of the people's educators. The great battalions Of workers may not even reflect about it; but from the moment a minority of thinking men agitate the question and submit it to all, there can be no doubt of the result. Popular opinion answers: "It is by spoliation that they hold these riches!"
Likewise, how can the peasant be made to believe that the bourgeois or manorial land belongs to the proprietor who has a legal claim, when a peasant can tell us the history of each bit of land for ten leagues around? Above all, how make him believe that it is useful for the nation that Mr. So-and-So keeps a piece of land for his park when so many neighboring peasants would be only too glad to cultivate it ?
And, lastly, how make the worker in a factory, or the miner in a mine, believe that factory and mine equitably belong to their present masters, when worker and even miner are beginning to see clearly through Panama scandals, bribery, French, Turkish or other railways, pillage of the State and legal theft, from which great commercial and industrial property are derived ?
In fact the masses have never believed in sophisms taught by economists, uttered more to confirm exploiters in their rights than to convert exploited! Peasants and workers, crushed by misery and finding no support in the well-to-do classes, have let things go, save from time to time when they have affirmed their rights by insurrection. And if workers ever thought that the day would come when personal appropriation of capital would profit all by turning it into a stock of wealth to be shared by all, this illusion is vanishing like so many others. The worker perceives that he has been disinherited, and that disinherited he will remain, unless he has recourse to strikes or revolts to tear from his masters the smallest part of riches built up by his own efforts; that is to say, in order to get that little, he already must impose on himself the pangs of hunger and face imprisonment, if not exposure to Imperial, Royal, or Republican fusillades.

But a greater evil of the present system becomes more and more marked; namely, that in a system based on private appropriation, all that is necessary to life and to production-land, housing, food and tools-having once passed into the hands of a few, the production of necessities that would give well-being to all is continually hampered. The worker feels vaguely that our present technical power could give abundance to all, but he also perceives how the capitalistic system and the State hinder the conquest of this well-being in every way.
Far from producing more than is needed to assure material riches, we do not produce enough. When a peasant covets the parks and gardens of industrial filibusters and Panamists, round which judges and police mount guard-when he dreams of covering them with crops which, he knows, would carry abundance to the villages whose inhabitants feed on bread hardly washed down with sloe wine-he understands this.
The miner, forced to be idle three days a week, thinks of the tons of coal he might extract, and which are sorely Deeded in poor households.
The worker whose factory is closed, and who tramps the streets in search of work, sees bricklayers out of work like himself, while one-fifth of the population of Paris live in insanitary hovels; he hears shoe-makers complain of want of work, while so many people need shoes-and so on.

In short, if certain economists delight in writing treatises on over-production, and in explaining each industrial crisis by this cause, they would be much at a loss if called upon to name a single article produced by France in greater quantities than are necessary to satisfy the needs of the whole population. It is certainly not corn: the country is obliged to import it. It is not wine either: peasants drink but little wine, and substitute sloe wine in its stead, and the inhabitants of towns have to be content with adulterated stuff. It is evidently not houses: millions still live in cottages of the most wretched description, with one or two apertures. It is not even good or bad books, for they are still objects of luxury in the villages. Only one thing is produced in quantities greater than needed,-it is the budget-devouring individual; but such merchandise is not mentioned in lectures by political economists, although those individuals possess all the attributes of merchandise, being ever ready to sell themselves to the highest bidder.
What economists call over-production is but a production that is above the purchasing power of the worker, who is reduced to poverty by Capital and State. Now, this sort of over-production remains fatally characteristic of the present capitalist production, because-Proudhon has already shown it-workers cannot buy with their salaries what they have produced and at the same time copiously nourish the swarm of idlers who live upon their work.
The very essence of the present economic system is, that the worker can never enjoy the well-being he has produced, and that the number of those who live at his expense will always augment. The more a country is advanced in industry, the more this number grows. Inevitably, industry is directed, and will have to be directed, not towards what is needed to satisfy the needs of all, but towards that which, at a given moment, brings in the greatest temporary profit to a few. Of necessity, the abundance of some will be based on the poverty of others, and the straitened circumstances of the greater number will have to be maintained at all costs, that there may be hands to sell themselves for a part only of that which they are capable of producing; without which, private accumulation of capital is impossible!
These characteristics of our economical system are its very essence. Without them, it cannot exist; for, who would sell his labor power for less than it is capable of bringing in, if he were not forced thereto by the threat of hunger?
And those essential traits of the system are also its most crushing condemnation.

As long as England and France were pioneers of industry, in the midst of nations backward in their technical development, and as long as neighbors purchased their wools, their cotton goods, their silks, their iron and machines, as well as a whole range of articles of luxury, at a price that allowed them to enrich themselves at the expense of their clients,- the worker could be buoyed up by hope that he, too, would be called upon to appropriate an ever and ever larger share of the booty to himself. But these conditions are disappearing. In their turn, the backward nations of thirty years ago have become great producers of cotton goods, wools, silks, machines and articles of luxury. In certain branches of industry they have even taken the lead, and not only do they struggle with the pioneers of industry and commerce in distant lands, but they even compete with those pioneers in their own countries. In a few years Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the United States, Russia and Japan have become great industrial countries. Mexico, the Indies, even Servia, are on the march-and what will it be when China begins to imitate Japan in manufacturing for the world's market?
The result is, that industrial crises, the frequency and duration of which are always augmenting, have passed into a chronic state in many industries. Likewise, wars for Oriental and African markets have become the order of the day since several years; it is now twenty-five years that the sword of war has been suspended over European states. And if war has not burst forth, it is especially due to influential financiers who find it advantageous that States should become more and more indebted. But the day on which Money will find its interest in fomenting war, human flocks will be driven against other human flocks, and will butcher one another to settle the affairs of the world's master-financiers.
All is linked, all holds together under the present economic system, and all tends to make the fall of the industrial and mercantile system under which we live inevitable. Its duration is but a question of time that may already be counted by years and no longer by centuries. A question of time-and energetic attack on our part! Idlers do not make history: they suffer it!

That is why such powerful minorities constitute themselves in the midst of civilized nations, and loudly ask for the return to the community of all riches accumulated by the work of preceding generations. The holding in common of land, mines, factories, inhabited houses, and means of transport is already the watch-word of these imposing fractions, and repression-the favorite weapon of the rich and powerful-can no longer do anything to arrest the triumphal march of the spirit of revolt. And if millions of workers do not rise to seize the land and factories from the monopolists by force, be sure it is not for want of desire. They but wait for a favorable opportunity-a chance, such as presented itself in 1848, when they will be able to start the destruction of the present economic system, with the hope of being supported by an International movement.
That time cannot be long in coming; for since the International was crushed by governments in 1872-especially since then-it has made immense progress of which its most ardent partisans are hardly aware. It is, in fact, constituted-in ideas, in sentiments, in the establishment of constant intercommunication. It is true the French, English, Italian and German plutocrats are so many rivals, and at any moment can even cause nations to war with one another. Nevertheless, be sure when the Communist and Social Revolution does take place in France, France will find the same sympathies as formerly among the nations of the world, including Germans, Italians and English. And when Germany, which, by the way, is nearer a revolution than is thought, will plant the flag-unfortunately a Jacobin one-of this revolution, when it will throw itself into the revolution with all the ardor of youth in an ascendant period, such as it is traversing today, it will find on this side of the Rhine all the sympathies and all the support of a nation that loves the audacity of revolutionists and hates the arrogance of plutocracy.

Divers causes have up till now delayed the bursting forth of this inevitable revolution. The possibility of a great European war is no doubt partly answerable for it. But there is, it seems to me, another cause, a deeper-rooted one, to which I would call your attention. There is going on just now among the Socialists-many tokens lead us to believe it-a great transformation in ideas, like the one I sketched at the beginning of this lecture in speaking of general sciences. And the uncertainty of Socialists themselves concerning the organization of the society they are wishing for, paralyses their energy up to a certain point.
At the beginning, in the forties, Socialism presented itself as Communism, as a republic one and indivisible, as a governmental and Jacobin dictatorship, in its application to economics. Such was the ideal of that time. Religious and freethinking Socialists were equally ready to submit to any strong government, even an imperial one, if that government would only remodel economic relations to the worker's advantage.
A profound revolution has since been accomplished, especially among Latin and English peoples. Governmental Communism, like theocratic Communism, is repugnant to the worker. And this repugnance gave rise to a new conception or doctrine-that of Collectivism-in the International. This doctrine at first signified the collective possession of the instruments of production (not including what is necessary to live), and the right of each group to accept such method of remuneration, whether communistic or individualistic, as pleased its members. Little by little, however, this system was transformed into a sort of compromise between communistic and individualistic wage remuneration. Today the Collectivist wants all that belongs to production to become common property, but that each should be individually remunerated by labor checks, according to the number of hours he has spent in production. These checks would serve to buy all merchandise in the Socialist stores at cost price, which price would also be estimated in hours of labor.
But if you analyze this idea you will own that its essence, as summed up by one of our friends, is reduced to this:
Partial Communism in the possession of instruments of production and education. Competition among individuals and groups for bread, housing and clothing. Individualism for works of art and thought. The Socialistic State's aid for children, invalids and old people.
In a word-a struggle for the means of existence mitigated by charity. Always the Christian maxim: "Wound to heal afterwards!" And always the door open to inquisition, in order to know if you are a man who must be left to struggle, or a man the State must succor.
The idea of labor checks, you know, is old. It dates from Robert Owen; Proudhon commended it in 1848; Marxists have made "Scientific Socialism" of it today.
We must say, however, that this system seems to have little hold on the minds of the masses; it would seem they foresaw its drawbacks, not to say its impossibility. Firstly, the duration of time given to any work does not give the measure of social utility of the work accomplished, and the theories of value that economists have endeavored to base, from Adam Smith to Marx, only on the cost of production, valued in labor time, have not solved the question of value. As soon as there is exchange, the value of an article becomes a complex quantity, and depends also on the degree of satisfaction which it brings to the needs-not of the individual, as certain economists stated formerly, but of the whole of society, taken in its entirety. Value is a social fact. Being the result of an exchange, it has a double aspect: that of labor, and that of satisfaction of needs, both evidently conceived in their social and not individual aspect.
On the other hand, when we analyze the evils of the present economic system, we see-and the worker knows it full well-that their essence lies in the forced necessity of the worker to sell his labor power. Not having the wherewithal to live for the next fortnight, and being prevented by the State from using his labor power without selling it to someone, the worker sells himself to the one who undertakes to give him work; he renounces the benefits his labor might bring him in; he abandons the lion's share of what he produces to his employer; he even abdicates his liberty; he renounces his right to make his opinion heard on the utility of what he is about to produce and on the way of producing it.
Thus results the accumulation of capital, not in its faculty of absorbing surplus-value but in the forced position the worker is placed to sell his labor power: -the seller being sure in advance that he will not receive all that his strength can produce, of being wounded in his interests, and of becoming the inferior of the buyer. Without this the capitalist would never have tried to buy him; which proves that to change the system it must be attacked in its essence: in its cause-sale and purchase,-not in its effect-Capitalism.
Workers themselves have a vague intuition of this, and we hear them say oftener and oftener that nothing will be done if the Social Revolution does not begin with the distribution of products, if it does not guarantee the necessities of life to all-that is to say, housing, food and clothing. And we know that to do this is quite impossible, with the powerful means of production at our disposal.
If the worker continues to be paid in wages, lie necessarily will remain the slave or the subordinate of the one to whom he is forced to sell his labor force-be the buyer a private individual or the State. In the popular mind-in that sum total of thousands of opinions crossing the human brain-it is felt that if the State were to be substituted for the employer, in his role of buyer and overseer of labor, it would still be an odious tyranny. A man of the people does not reason about abstractions, he thinks in concrete terms, and that is why he feels that the abstraction, the State, would for him assume the form of numberless functionaries, taken from among his factory and workshop comrades, and he knows what importance he can attach to their virtues: excellent comrades today, they become unbearable foremen tomorrow. And he looks for a social constitution that will eliminate the present evils without creating new ones.
That is why Collectivism has never taken hold of the masses, who always come back to Communism-but a Communism more and more stripped of the Jacobin theocracy and authoritarianism of the forties - to Free Communism - Anarchy.
Nay more: in calling to mind all we have seen during this quarter of a century in the European Socialist movement, I cannot help believing that modern Socialism is forced to make a step towards Free Communism; and that so long as that step is not taken, the incertitude in the popular mind that I have just pointed out will paralyze the efforts of Socialist propaganda.
Socialists seem to me to be brought, by force of circumstances, to recognize that the material guarantee of existence of all the members of the community shall be the first act of the Social Revolution.
But they are also driven to take another step. They are obliged to recognize that this guarantee must come, not from the State, but independently of the State, and without its intervention.
We have already obtained the unanimous assent of those who have studied the subject, that a society, having recovered the possession of all riches accumulated in its midst, can liberally assure abundance to all in return for four or five hours effective and manual work a day, as far as regards production. If everybody, from childhood, learned whence came the bread he eats, the house he dwells in, the book he studies, and so on; and if each one accustomed himself to complete mental work by manual labor in some branch of manufacture,-society could easily perform this task, to say nothing of the further simplification of production which a more or less near future has in store for us.
In fact, it suffices to recall for a moment the present terrible waste, to conceive what a civilized society can produce with but a small quantity of labor if all share in it, and what grand works might be undertaken that are out of the question today. Unfortunately, the metaphysics called political economy has never troubled about that which should have been its essence-economy of labor.
There is no longer any doubt as regards the possibility of wealth in a Communist society, armed with our present machinery and tools. Doubts only arise when the question at issue is, whether a society can exist in which man's actions are not subject to State control; whether, to reach well-being, it is not necessary for European communities to sacrifice the little personal liberty they have reconquered at the cost of so many sacrifices during this century? A section of Socialists believe that it is impossible to attain such a result without sacrificing personal liberty on the altar of the State. Another section, to which we belong, believes, on the contrary, that it is only by the abolition of the State, by the conquest of perfect liberty by the individual, by free agreement, association, and absolute free federation that we can reach Communism-the possession in common of our social inheritance, and the production in common of all riches.
That is the question outweighing all others at present, and Socialism must solve it, on pain of seeing all its efforts endangered and all its ulterior development paralysed.
Let us, therefore, analyse it with all the attention it deserves.

If every Socialist will carry his thoughts back to an earlier date, he will no doubt remember the host of prejudices aroused in him when, for the first time, he came to the idea that abolishing the capitalist system and private appropriation of land and capital had become an historical necessity.
The same feelings are today produced in the man who for the first time hears that the abolition of the State, its laws, its entire system of management, governmentalism and centralization, also becomes an historical necessity: that the abolition of the one without the abolition of the other is materially impossible. Our whole education-made, be it noted, by Church and State, in the interests of both-revolts at this conception.
Is it lass true for that? And shall we allow our belief in the State to survive the host of prejudices we have already sacrificed for our emancipation?
It is not my intention to criticise tonight the State. That has been done and redone so often, and I am obliged to put off to another lecture the analysis of the historical part played by the State. A few general remarks will suffice.
To begin with, if man, since his origin, has always lived in societies, the State is but one of the forms of social life, quite recent as far as regards European societies. Men lived thousands of years before the first States were constituted; Greece and Rome existed for centuries before the Macedonian and Roman Empires were built up, and for us modern Europeans the centralized States date but from the sixteenth century. It was only then, after the defeat of the free mediæval Communes had been completed that the mutual insurance company between military, judicial, landlord, and capitalist authority which we call "State," could be fully established.
It was only in the sixteenth century that a mortal blow was dealt to ideas of local independence, to free union and organization, to federation of all degrees among sovereign groups, possessing all functions now seized upon by the State. It was only then that the alliance between Church and the nascent power of Royalty put an end to an organization, based on the principle of federation, which had existed from the ninth to the fifteenth century, and which had produced in Europe the great period of free cities of the middle ages, whose character has been so well understood in France by Sismondi and Augustin Thierry-two historians unfortunately too little read now-a-days.
We know well the means by which this association of the lord, priest, merchant, judge, soldier, and king founded its domination. It was by the annihilation of all free unions: of village communities, guilds, trades unions, fraternities, and mediæval cities. It was by confiscating the land of the communes and the riches of the guilds; it was by the absolute and ferocious prohibition of all kinds of free agreement between men; it was by massacre, the wheel, the gibbet, the sword, and the fire that Church and State established their domination, and that they succeeded henceforth to reign over an incoherent agglomeration of subjects, who had no direct union more among themselves.

It is now hardly thirty or forty years ago that we began to reconquer, by struggle, by revolt, the first steps of the right of association, that was freely practised by the artisans and the tillers of the soil through the whole of the middle ages.
And, already now, Europe is covered by thousands of voluntary associations for study and teaching, for industry, commerce, science, art, literature, exploitation, resistance to exploitation, amusement, serious work, gratification and self-denial, for all that makes up the life of an active and thinking being. We see
these societies rising in all nooks and corners of all domains: political, economic, artistic, intellectual. Some are as shortlived as roses, some hold their own since several decades, and all strive-while maintaining the independence of each group, circle, branch, or section-to federate, to unite, across frontiers as well as among each nation; to cover all the life of civilized men with a net, meshes of which are intersected and interwoven. Their numbers can already be reckoned by tens of thousands, they comprise millions of adherents-although less than fifty years have elapsed since Church and State began to tolerate a few of them-very few, indeed.
These societies already begin to encroach everywhere on the functions of the State, and strive to substitute free action of volunteers for that of a centralized State. In England we see arise insurance companies against theft; societies for coast defense, volunteer societies for land defense, which the State endeavors to got under its thumb, thereby making them instruments of domination, although their original aim was to do without the State. Were it not for Church and State, free societies would have already conquered the whole of the immense domain of education. And, in spite of all difficulties, they begin to invade this domain as well, and make their influence already felt.
And when we mark the progress already accomplished in that direction, in spite of and against the State, which tries by all means to maintain its supremacy of recent origin; when we see how voluntary societies invade everything and are only impeded in their development by the State, we are forced to recognize a powerful tendency, a latent force in modern society. And we ask ourselves this question: If, five, ten, or twenty years hence-it matters little-the workers succeed by revolt in destroying the said mutual insurance society of landlords, bankers, priests, judges, and soldiers; if the people become masters of their destiny for a few months, and lay hands on the riches they have created, and which belong to them by right-will they really begin to reconstitute that blood-sucker, the State? Or will they not rather try to organize from the simple to the complex, according to mutual agreement and to the infinitely varied, ever-changing needs of each locality, in order to secure the possession of those riches for themselves, to mutually guarantee one another's life, and to produce what will be found necessary for life?
Will they follow the dominant tendency of the century, towards decentralization, home rule and free agreement; or will they march contrary to this tendency and strive to reconstitute demolished authority?

Educated men-"civilized," as Fourier used to say with disdain-tremble at the idea that society might some day be without judges, police, or gaolers.
But, frankly, do you need them as much as you have been told in musty books ? Books written, be it noted, by scientists who generally know well what has been written before them, but, for the most part, absolutely ignore the people and their every-day life.
If we can wander, without fear, not only in the streets of Paris, which bristle with police, but especially in rustic walks where you rarely meet passers by, is it to the police that we owe this security? or rather to the absence of people who care to rob or murder us? I am evidently not speaking of the one who carries millions about him. That one-a recent trial tells us-is soon robbed, by preference in places where there are as many policemen as lamp posts. No, I speak of the man who fears for his life and not for his purse filled with ill-gotten sovereigns. Are his fears real?
Besides, has not experience demonstrated quite recently that Jack the Ripper performed hie exploits under the eye of the London police-a most active force-and that he only left off killing when the population of Whitechapel itself began to give chase to him?
And in our every-day relations with our fellow-citizens, do you think that it is really judges, gaolers, and police that hinder anti-social acts from multiplying? The judge, ever ferocious, because he is a maniac of law, the accuser, the informer, the police spy, all those interlopers that live from hand to mouth around the Law Courts, do they not scatter demoralization far and wide into society? Read the trials, glance behind the scenes, push your analysis further than the exterior facade of law courts, and you will come out sickened.
Have not prisons-which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any other spot of the globe-always been universities of crime? Is not the court of a tribunal a school of ferocity? And so on.
When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions!
Once a German jurist of great renown, Ihering, wanted to sum up the scientific work of his life and write a treatise, in which he proposed to analyze the factors that preserve social life in society. "Purpose in Law" (Der Zweck im Rechte), such is the title of that book, which enjoys a well-deserved reputation.
He made an elaborate plan of his treatise, and, with much erudition, discussed both coercive factors which are used to maintain society: wagedom and the different forms of coercion which are sanctioned by law. At the end of his work he reserved two paragraphs only to mention the two non-coercive factors-the feeling of duty and the feeling of mutual sympathy-to which lie attached little importance, as might be expected from a writer in law.
But what happened? As he went on analyzing the coercive factors he realized their insufficiency. He consecrated a whole volume to their analysis, and the result was to lessen their importance! When he began the last two paragraphs, when he began to reflect upon the non-coercive factors of society, he perceived, on the contrary, their immense, outweighing importance; and instead of two paragraphs, he found himself obliged to write a second volume, twice as large as the first, on these two factors: voluntary restraint and mutual help; and yet, he analyzed but an infinitesimal part of these latter-those which result from personal sympathy-and hardly touched free agreement, which results from social institutions.
Well, then, leave off repeating the formulæ which you have learned at school; meditate on this subject; and the same thing that happened to Ihering will happen to you: you will recognize the infinitesimal importance of coersion, as compared to the voluntary assent, in society.
On the other hand, if by following the very old advice given by Bentham yon begin to think of the fatal consequences-direct, and especially indirect-of legal coersion, like Tolstoy, like us, you will begin to hate use of coersion, and you will begin to say that society possesses a thousand other means for preventing antisocial acts. If it neglects those means today, it is because, being educated by Church and State, our cowardice and apathy of spirit hinder us seeing clearly on this point. When a child has committed a fault, it is so easy to hang a man-especially when there is an executioner who is paid so much for each execution-and it dispenses us from thinking of the cause of crimes.

It is often said that Anarchists live in a world of dreams to come, and do not see the things which happen today. We do see them only too well, and in their true colors, and that is what makes us carry the hatchet into the forest of prejudice that besets us.
Far from living in a world of visions and imagining men better than they are, we see them as they are; and that is why we affirm that the best of men is made essentially bad by the exercise of authority, and that the theory of the "balancing of powers" and "control of authorities" is a hypocritical formula, invented by those who have seized power, to make the "sovereign people," whom they despise, believe that the people themselves are governing. It is because we know men that we say to those who imagine that men would devour one another without those governors: "You reason like the king, who, being sent across the frontier, called out, 'What will become of my poor subjects without me?'"
Ah, if men were those superior beings that the utopians of authority like to speak to us of, if we could close our eyes to reality, and live, like them, in a world of dreams and illusions as to the superiority of those who think themselves called to power, perhaps we also should do like them; perhaps we also should believe in the virtues of those who govern.
With virtuous masters, what dangers could slavery offer? Do you remember the Slave-owner of whom we heard so often, hardly thirty years ago? Was he not supposed to take paternal care of his slaves? "He alone," we were told, "could hinder these lazy, indolent, improvident children dying of hunger. How could he crush his slaves through hard labor, or mutilate them by blows, when his own interest lay in feeding them well, in taking care of them as much as of his own children! And then, did not 'the law' see to it that the least swerving of a slave-owner from the path of duty was punished?" How many times have we not been told so! But the reality was such that, having returned from a voyage to Brazil, Darwin was haunted all his life by the cries of agony of mutilated slaves, by the sobs of moaning women whose fingers were crushed in thumbserews!
If the gentlemen in power were really so intelligent and so devoted to the public cause, as panegyrists of authority love to represent, what a pretty government and paternal utopia we should be able to construct! The employer would never be the tyrant of the worker; he would be the father! The factory would be a palace of delight, and never would masses of workers be doomed to physical deterioration. The State would not poison its workers by making matches with white phosphorus, for which it is so easy to substitute red phosphorus.* A judge would not have the ferocity to condemn the wife and children of the one whom he sends to prison to suffer years of hunger and misery and to die some day of anemia; never would a public prosecutor ask for the head of the accused for the unique pleasure of showing off his oratorical talent; and nowhere would we find a gaoler or an executioner to do the bidding of judges, who have not the courage to carry out their sentences themselves. What do I say! We should never have enough Plutarchs to praise the virtues of Members of Parliament who would all hold Panama checks in horror! Biribi** would become an austere nursery of virtue, and permanent armies would be the joy of citizens, as soldiers would only take up arms to parade before nursemaids, and to carry nosegays on the point of their bayonets!
Oh, the beautiful utopia, the lovely Christmas dream we can make as soon as we admit that those who govern represent a superior caste, and have hardly any or no knowledge of simple mortals' weaknesses! It would then suffice to make them control one another in hierarchical fashion, to let them exchange fifty papers, at most, among different administrators, when the wind blows down a tree on the national road. Or, if need be, they would have only to be valued at their proper worth, during elections, by those same masses of mortals which are supposed to be endowed with all stupidity in their mutual relations but become wisdom itself when they have to elect their masters.
All the science of government, imagined by those who govern, is imbibed with these utopias. But we know men too well to dream such dreams. We have not two measures for the virtues of the governed and those of the governors; we know that we ourselves are not without faults and that the best of us would soon be corrupted by the exercise of power. We take men for what they are worth-and that is why we hate the government of man by man, and that we work with all our might-perhaps not strong enough-to put an end to it.

But it is not enough to destroy. We must also know how to build, and it is owing to not having thought about it that the masses have always been led astray in all their revolutions. After having demolished they abandoned the care of reconstruction to the middle class people, who possessed a more or less precise conception of what they wished to realize, and who consequently reconstituted authority to their own advantage.
That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement-at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist. Only, instead of demanding that those social customs should be maintained through the authority of a few, it demands it from the continued action of all.
Communist customs and institutions are of absolute necessity for society, not only to solve economic difficulties, but also to maintain and develop social customs that bring men in contact with one another; they must be looked to for establishing such relations between men that the interest of each should be the interest of all; and this alone can unite men instead of dividing them.
In fact, when we ask ourselves by what means a certain moral level can be maintained in a human or animal society, we find only three such means: the repression of anti-social acts; moral teaching; and the practice of mutual help itself. And as all three have already been put to the test of practice, we can judge them by their effects.
As to the impotence of repression-it is sufficiently demonstrated by the disorder of present society and by the necessity of a revolution that we all desire or feel inevitable. In the domain of economy, coercion has led us to industrial servitude; in the domain of politics-to the State, that is to say, to the destruction of all ties that formerly existed among citizens, and to the nation becoming nothing but an incoherent mass of obedient subjects of a central authority.
Not only has a coercive system contributed and powerfully aided to create all the present economical, political and social evils, but it has given proof of its absolute impotence to raise the moral level of societies; it has not been even able to maintain it at the level it had already reached. If a benevolent fairy could only reveal to our eyes all the crimes that are committed every day, every minute, in a civilized society under cover of the unknown, or the protection of law itself,-society would shudder at that terrible state of affairs. The authors of the greatest political crimes, like those of Napoleon III. coup d'etat, or the bloody week in May after the fall of the Commune of 1871, never are arraigned ; and as a poet said; "the small miscreants are punished for the satisfaction of the great ones." More than that, when authority takes the moralization of society in hand, by "punishing criminals" it only heaps up now crimes!
Practised for centuries, repression has so badly succeeded that it has but led us into a blind alley from which we can only issue by carrying torch and hatchet into the institutions of our authoritarian past.

Far be it from us not to recognize the importance of the second factor, moral teaching-especially that which is unconsciously transmitted in society and results from the whole of the ideas and comments emitted by each of us on facts and events of every-day life. But this force can only act on society under one condition, that of not being crossed by a mass of contradictory immoral teachings resulting from the practice of insitutions.
In that case its influence is nil or baneful. Take Christian morality: what other teaching could have had more hold on minds than that spoken in the name of a crucified God, and could have acted with all its mystical force, all its poetry of martyrdom, its grandeur in forgiving executioners? And yet the institution was more powerful than the religion: soon Christianity-a revolt against imperial Rome-was conquered by that same Rome; it accepted its maxims, customs, and language. The Chriatian church accepted the Roman law as its own, and as such-allied to the State-it became in history the most furious enemy of all semi-communist institutions, to which Christianity appealed at Its origin.
Can we for a moment believe that moral teaching, patronized by circulars from ministers of public instruction, would have the creative force that Christianity has not had? And what could the verbal teaching of truly social men do, if it were counteracted by the whole teaching derived from institutions based, as our present institutions of property and State are, upon unsocial principles?
The third element alone remains-the institution itself, acting in such a way as to make social acts a state of habit and instinct. This element-history proves it-has never missed its aim, never has it acted as a double-bladed sword; and its influence has only been weakened when custom strove to become immovable, crystallized, to become in its turn a religion not to be questioned when it endeavored to absorb the individual, taking all freedom of action from him and compelling him to revolt against that which had become, through its crystallization, an enemy to progress.
In fact, all that was an element of progress in the past or an instrument of moral and intellectual improvement of the human race is due to the practice of mutual aid, to the customs that recognized the equality of men and brought them to ally, to unite, to associate for the purpose of producing and consuming, to unite for purpose of defence to federate and to recognize no other judges in fighting out their differences than the arbitrators they took from their own midst.
Each time these institutions, issued from popular genius, when it had reconquered its liberty for a moment,-each time these institutions developed in a new direction, the moral level of society, its material well-being, its liberty, its intellectual progress, and the affirmation of individual originality made a step in advance. And, on the contrary, each time that in the course of history, whether following upon a foreign conquest, or whether by developing authoritarian prejudices men become more and more divided into governors and governed, exploiters and exploited, the moral level fell, the well-being of the masses decreased in order to insure riches to a few, and the spirit of the age declined.
History teaches us this, and from this lesson we have learned to have confidence in free Communist institutions to raise the moral level of societies, debased by the practice of authority.

Today we live side by side without knowing one another. We come together at meetings on an election day: we listen to the lying or fanciful professions of faith of a candidate, and we return home. The State has the care of all questions of public interest; the State alone has the function of seeing that we do not harm the interests of our neighbor, and, if it fails in this, of punishing us in order to repair the evil.
Our neighbor may die of bringer or murder his children,-it is no business of ours; it is the business of the policeman. You hardly know one another, nothing unites you, everything tends to alienate you from one another, and finding no better way, you ask the Almighty (formerly it was a God, now it is the State) to do all that lies within his power to stop anti-social passions from reaching their highest climax.
In a Communist society such estrangement, such confidence in an outside force could not exist. Communist organization cannot be left to be constructed by legislative bodies called parliaments, municipal or communal council. It must be the work of all, a natural growth, a product of the constructive genius of the great mass. Communism cannot be imposed from above; it could not live even for a few months if the constant and daily co-operation of all did not uphold it. It must be free.
It cannot exist without creating a continual contact between all for the thousands and thousands of common transactions; it cannot exist without creating local life, independent in the smallest unities-the block of houses, the street, the district, the commune. It would not answer its purpose if it did not cover society with a network of thousands of associations to satisfy its thousand needs: the necessaries of life, articles of luxury, of study, enjoyment, amusements. And such associations cannot remain narrow and local; they must necessarily tend (as is already the case with learned societies, cyclist clubs, humanitarian societies and the like) to become international.
And the sociable customs that Communism-were it only partial at its origin-must inevitably engender in life, would already be a force incomparably more powerful to maintain and develop the kernel of sociable customs than all repressive machinery.
This, then, is the form-sociable institution-of which we ask the development of the spirit of harmony that Church and State had undertaken to impose on us-with the sad result we know only too well. And these remarks contain our answer to those who affirm that Communism and Anarchy cannot go together. They are, you see, a necessary complement to one another. The most powerful development of individuality, or individual originality-as one of our comrades has so well said,- can only be produced when the first needs of food and shelter are satisfied; when the struggle for existence against the forces of nature has been simplified; when man's time is no longer taken up entirely by the meaner side of daily subsistence,-then only, his intelligence, his artistic taste, his inventive spirit, his genius, can develop freely and ever strive to greater achievements.
Communism is the best basis for individual development and freedom; not that individualism which drives man to the war of each against all-this is the only one known up till now,-but that which represents the full expansion of man's faculties, the superior development of what is original in him, the greatest fruitfulness of intelligence, feeling and will.

Such being our ideal, what does it matter to us that it cannot be realized at once!
Our first duty is to find out, by an analysis of society, its characteristic tendencies at a given moment of evolution and to state them clearly. Then, to act according to those tendencies in our relations with all those who think as we do. And, finally, from to-day and especially daring a revolutionary period, work for the destruction of the institutions, as, weII as the prejudices, that impede the development of such tendencies.
That is all we can do by peaceable or revolutionary methods, and we know that by favoring those tendencies we contribute to progress, while who resist them impede the march of progress.
Nevertheless, men often speak of stages to be travelled through, and they propose to work to reach what they consider to be the nearest station and only then to take the high road leading to what they recognize to be a still higher ideal.
But reasoning like this seems to me to misunderstand the true character of human progress and to make use of a badly chosen military comparison. Humanity is not a rolling ball, nor even a marching column. It is a whole that evolves simultaneously in the mulitude of millions of which it Is composed; and if you wish for a comparison, you must rather take it in the laws of organic evolution than In those of an inorganic moving body.
The fact is that each phase of development of a society is a resultant of all the activities of the Intellects which compose that society; it bears the imprint of all those millions of wills. Consequently, whatever may be the stage of development that the twentieth century is preparing for us, this future state of society will show the effects of the awakening of libertarian ideas which is now taking place. And the depth with which this movement will be impressed upon the coming twentieth century institutions will depend upon the number of men who will have broken to-day with authoritarian prejudices, on the energy they will have used in attacking old institutions, on the impression they will make on the masses, on the clearness with which the ideal of a free society will have been impressed on the minds of the masses. But, to-day, we can say in full confidence, that in France the awakening of libertarian ideas had already put its stamp on society; and that the next revolution will not be the Jacobin revolution which it would have been had it buret out twenty years ago.
And as these ideas are neither the invention of a man nor a group, but result from the whole of the movement of ideas of the time, we can be sure that, whatever comes out of the next revolution, it will not be the dictatorial and centralized Communism which was so much in vogue forty years ago, nor the authoritarian Collectivism to which we were quite recently invited to ally ourselves, and which its advocates dare only defend very feebly at present.
The "first stage," it is certain, will then be quite different from what was described under that name hardly twenty years ago. The latest developments of the libertarian ideas have already modified it beforehand in an Anarchist sense.
I have already mentioned that the great all-dominating question now is for the Socialist party, taken as a whole, to harmonize its ideal of society with the libertarian movement that germinates, in the spirit of the masses, in literature, in science, in philosophy. It is also, it is especially so, to rouse the spirit of popular initiative.
Now, it is precisely the workers' and peasants' initiative that all parties-the Socialist authoritarian party included-have always stifled, wittingly or not, by party discipline. Committees, centers, ordering everything; local organs having but to obey, "so as not to put the unity of the organization in danger." A whole teaching, in a word; a whole false history, written to serve that purpose, a whole incomprehensible pseudo-science of economics, elaborated to this end.
Well, then, those who will work to break up these superannuated tactics, those who will know how to rouse the spirit of initiative in individuals and in groups, those who will be able to create in their mutual relations a movement and a life based on the principles of free understanding-those that will understand that variety, conflict even, is life, and that uniformity is death,-they will work, not for future centuries, but in good earnest for the next revolution, for our own times.

We need not fear the dangers and "abuses" of liberty. It is only those who do nothing who make no mistakes. As to those who only know how to obey, they make just as many, and more, mistakes than those who strike out their own path in trying to act in the direction their intelligence and their social education suggest to them. The ideal of liberty of the individual-if it is incorrectly understood owing to surroundings where the notion of solidarity is insufficiently accentuated by institutions-can certainly lead isolated men to acts that are repugnant to the social sentiments of humanity. Let us admit that it does happen: is it, however, a reason for throwing the principle of liberty overboard? Is it a reason for accepting the teaching of those masters who, in order to prevent "digressions," reestablish the censure of an enfranchised press and guillotine advanced parties to maintain uniformity and discipline-that which, when all is said, was in 1793 the best means of insuring the triumph of reaction?
The only thing to be done when we see anti-social acts committed in the name of liberty of the individual, is to repudiate the principle of "each for himself and God for all," and to have the courage to say aloud in any one's presence what we think of such acts. This can perhaps bring about a conflict; but conflict is life itself. And from the conflict will arise an appreciation of those acts far more just than all those appreciations which could have been produced under the influence of old-established ideas.
When the moral level of a society descends to the point it has reached today we must expect beforehand that a revolt against such a society will sometimes assume forms that will make us shudder. No doubt, heads paraded on pikes disgust us; but the high and low gibbets of the old regime in France, and the iron cages Victor Hugo has told us of, were they not the origin of this bloody exhibition? Let us hope that the coldblooded massacre of thirty-five thousand Parisians in May, 1871, after the fall of the Commune, and the bombardment of, Paris by Thiers will have passed over the French nation without leaving too great a fund of ferocity. Let us hope that. Let us also hope that the corruption of the swell mob, which is continually brought to light in recent trials, will not yet have ruined the heart of the nation. Lot us hope it! Let us help that it be so! But if our hopes are not fulfilled-you, young Socialists, will you then turn your backs on the people in revolt, because the ferocity of the rulers of today will have left its furrow in the people's minds; because the mud from above has splashed far and wide?

It is evident that so profound a revolution producing itself in people's minds cannot be confined to the domain of ideas without expanding to the sphere of action. As was so well expressed by the sympathetic young philosopher, too early snatched by death from our midst, Mark Guyau,*** in one of the most beautiful books published for thirty years, there is no abyss between thought and action, at least for those who are not used to modern sophistry. Conception is already a beginning of action.
Consequently, the new ideas have provoked a multitude of acts of revolt in all countries, under all possible conditions: first, individual revolt against Capital and State; then collective revolt-strikes and working class insurrections-both preparing, in men's minds as in actions, a revolt of the masses, a revolution. In this, Socialism and Anarchism have only followed the course of evolution, which is always accomplished by force-ideas at the approach of great popular risings.
That is why it would be wrong to attribute the monopoly of acts of revolt to Anarchism. And, in fact, when we pass in review the acts of revolt of the last quarter of a century, we see them proceeding from all parties.
In all Europe we see a multitude of risings of working masses and peasants. Strikes, which were once "a war of folded arms," today easily turning to revolt, and sometimes taking-in the United States, in Belgium, in Andalusia-the proportions of vast insurrections. In the new and old worlds it is by the dozen that we count the risings of strikers having turned to revolts.
On the other hand, the individual act of revolt takes all possible characters, and all advanced parties contribute to it. We pass before us the rebel young woman Vera Zassulitch shooting a satrap of Alexander II.; the Social Democrat Hœdel and the Republican Nobiling shooting at the Emperor of Germany; the cooper Otero shooting at the King of Spain, and the religious Mazzmian, Passanante, striking at the King of Italy. We see agrarian murders in Ireland and explosions in London, organized by Irish Nationalists who have a horror of Socialism and Anarchism. We see a whole generation of young Russians-Socialists, Constitutionalists and Jacobins- declare war to the knife against Alexander II., and pay for that revolt against autocracy by thirty-five executions and swarms of exiles. Numerous acts of personal revenge take place among Belgian, English and American miners; and it is only at the end of this long series that we see the Anarchists appear with their acts of revolt in Spain and France.
And, during this same period, massacres, wholesale and retail, organized by governments, follow their regular course. To the applause of the European bourgeoisie, the Versailles Assembly causes thirty-five thousand Parisian workmen to be butchered-for the most part prisoners of the vanquished Commune. "Pinkerton thugs"-that private army of the rich American capitalists-massacre strikers according to the rules of that art. Priests incite an idiot to shoot at Louise Michel, who-as a true Anarchist-snatches her would-be murderer from his judges by pleading for him. Outside Europe the Indians of Canada are massacred and Riel is strangled, the Matabele are exterminated, Alexandria is bombarded, without saying more of the butcheries in Madagascar, in Tonkin , in Turkoman's land everywhere, to which is given the name of war. And, finally, each year hundreds and even thousands of years of imprisonment are distributed among the rebellious workers of the two continents, and the wives and children, who are thus condemned to expiate the so-called crimes of their fathers, are doomed to the darkest misery.-The rebels are transported to Siberia, to Biribi, to Noumea and to Guiana; and in those places of exile the convicts are shot down like dogs for the least act of insubordination. What a terrible indictment the balance sheet of the sufferings endured by workers and their friends, during this last quarter of a century, would be! What a multitude of horrible details that are unknown to the public at large and that would haunt you like a nightmare if I ventured to tell you them tonight! What a fit of passion each page would provoke if the martyrology of the modern forerunners of the great Social Revolution were written!-Well, then, we have lived through such a history, and each one of us has read whole pages from that book of blood and misery.
And, in the face of those sufferings, those executions, those Guianas, Siberias, Noumeas and Biribis, they have the insolence to reproach the rebel worker with want of respect for human life!!!
But the whole of our present life extinguishes the respect for human life! The judge who sentences to death, and his lieutenant, the executioner, who garrots in broad daylight in Madrid, or guillotines in the mists of Paris amid the jeers of the degraded members of high and low society; the general who massacres at Bac-leh, and the newspaper correspondent who strives to cover the assassins with glory; the employer who poisons his workmen with white lead, because-he answers-"it would cost so much more to substitute oxide of zinc for it;" the so-called English geographer who kills an old women lest she should awake a hostile village by her sobs, and the German geographer who causes the girl he had taken as a mistress to be hanged with her lover, the court-martial that is content with fifteen days arrest for the Biribi gaoler convicted of murder....all, all, all in the present society teaches absolute contempt for human life-for that flesh that costs so little in the market! And those who garrot, assassinate, who kill depreciated human merchandise, they who have made a religion of the maxim that for the safety of the public you must garrot, shoot and kill, they complain that human life is not sufficiently respected!!!
No, citizens, as long as society accepts the law of retaliation, as long as religion and law, the barrack and the law-courts, the prison and industrial penal servitude, the press and the school continue to teach supreme contempt for the life of the individual,-do not ask the rebels against that society to respect it. It would be exacting a degree of gentleness and magnanimity from them, infinitely superior to that of the whole society.
If you wish, like us, that the entire liberty of the individual and, consequently, his life be respected, you are necessarily brought to repudiate the government of man by man, whatever shape it assumes; you are forced to accept the principles of Anarchy that you have spurned so long. You must then search with us the forms of society that can best realize that ideal and put an end to all the violence that rouses your indignation.
* The making of matches is a State's monopoly in France.
** Biribi is the name given in France to the punishment battalions in Algeria. Every young man who has been in prison before he begins his military service, is sent to such a battalion. Many soldiers, for want of discipline, undergo the same punishment. The treatment in these places is so horrid that no Englishman would believe it possible. A very few years ago, the pear shaped hole in the ground, where men were left for weeks, and some were actually devoured by vermin, was an habitual punishment. At the present time, it is quite habitual to let a man, handcuffed and chained, lay for a fortnight on the ground, covered by a bit of cloth, under the scorching sun of Algeria and through the bitterly cold nights, compelled to eat his food and to lap his water like a dog. Scores of the most terrible facts became known lately, since Georges Darien published his book "Biribi" (Paris, 1890, Savine publisher) based on actual experience, and full of the most horrible revelations. One of my Clairvaux companions had to spend two years of military service in such a battalion-his condemnation at Lyons, as the editor of an Anarchist paper, being already a reason to be transported to Algeria. He fully confirmed, on his release. all that was written by Darien.
*** La morale sans obligation ni sanction, par M. Guyau.






Note For "Anarchist Morality"

This study of the origin and function of what we

call "morality" was written for pamphlet publication as a

result of an amusing situation. An anarchist who ran a

store in England found that his comrades in the

movement regarded it as perfectly right to take his goods

without paying for them. "To each according to his need"

seemed to them to justify letting those who were best able

foot the bills. Kropotkin was appealed to, with the result

that he not only condemned such doctrine, but was

moved to write the comrades this sermon.

Its conception of morality is based on the ideas set

forth in Mutual Aid and later developed in his Ethics.

Here they are given special application to "right

and wrong" in the business of social living. The job is

done with fine feeling and with acute shafts at the shams

of current morality.

Kropotkin sees the source of all so-called moral

ideas in primitive superstitions. The real moral sense

which guides our social behavior is instinctive, based on

the sympathy and unity inherent in group life. Mutual

aid is the condition of successful social living. The moral

base is therefore the good old golden rule "Do to others as

you would have others do to you in the same

circumstances," --which disposed of the ethics of the

shopkeeper's anarchist customers.

This natural moral sense was perverted, Kropotkin

says, by the superstitions surrounding law, religion and

authority, deliberately cultivated by conquerors,

exploiters and priests for their own benefit. Morality has

therefore become the instrument of ruling classes to

protect their privileges.

He defends the morality of killing for the benefit of

mankind --as in the assassination of tyrants--- but never

for self. Love and hate he regards as greater social forces

for controlling wrong-doing than punishment, which he

rejects as useless and evil. Account-book morality --doing

right only to receive a benefit-- he scores roundly, urging

instead the satisfactions and joy of "sowing life around

you" by giving yourself to the uttermost to your fellow-

men. Not of course to do them good, in the spirit of

philanthropy, but to be one with them, equal and sharing.

Anarchist Morality by Peter Kropotkin



The history of human thought recalls the swinging

of a pendulum which takes centuries to swing. After a

long period of slumber comes a moment of awakening.

Then thought frees herself from the chains with which

those interested --rulers, lawyers, clerics-- have carefully

enwound her.

She shatters the chains. She subjects to severe

criticism all that has been taught her, and lays bare the

emptiness of the religious political, legal, and social

prejudices amid which she has vegetated. She starts

research in new paths, enriches our knowledge with new

discoveries, creates new sciences.

But the inveterate enemies of thought --the

government, the lawgiver, and the priest-- soon recover

from their defeat. By degrees they gather together their

scattered forces, and remodel their faith and their code of

laws to adapt them to the new needs. Then, profiting by

the servility of thought and of character, which they

themselves have so effectually cultivated; profiting, too,

by the momentary disorganization of society, taking

advantage of the laziness of some, the greed of others, the

best hopes of many, they softly creep back to their work

by first of all taking possession of childhood through

education.

A child's spirit is weak. It is so easy to coerce it by

fear. This they do. They make the child timid, and then

they talk to him of the torments of hell. They conjure up

before him the sufferings of the condemned, the

vengeance of an implacable god. The next minute they

will be chattering of the horrors of revolution, and using

some excess of the revolutionists to make the child "a

friend of order." The priest accustoms the child to the

idea of law, to make it obey better what he calls the

"divine law," and the lawyer prates of divine law, that the

civil law may be the better obeyed.

And by that habit of submission, with which we are

only too familiar, the thought of the next generation

retains this religious twist, which is at once servile and

authoritative, for authority and servility walk ever hand in

hand.

During these slumbrous interludes, morals are rarely dis-

cussed. Religious practices and judicial hypocrisy take

their place. People do not criticize, they let themselves be

drawn by habit, or indifference.They do not put

themselves out for or against the established morality.

They do their best to make their actions appear to accord

with their professions.

All that was good, great, generous or independent

in man, little by little becomes moss-grown; rusts like a

disused knife. A lie becomes a virtue, a platitude a duty.

To enrich oneself, to seize one's opportunities, to exhaust

one's intelligence, zeal and energy, no matter how,

become the watchwords of the comfortable classes, as

well as of the crowd of poor folk whose ideal is to appear

bourgeois. Then the degradation of the ruler and of the

judge, of the clergy and of the more or less comfortable

classes becomes so revolting that the pendulum begins to

swing the other way.

Little by little, youth frees itself. It flings overboard

its prejudices, and it begins to criticize. Thought

reawakens, at first among the few; but insensibly the

awakening reaches the majority. The impulse is given, the

revolution follows.

And each time the question of morality comes up again.

"Why should I follow the principles of this hypocritical

morality?" asks the brain, released from religious terrors.

Why should any morality be obligatory?"

Then people try to account for the moral sentiment

that they meet at every turn without having explained it

to themselves. And they will never explain it so long as

they believe it a privilege of human nature, so long as

they do not descend to animals, plants and rocks to

understand it. They seek the answer, however, in the

science of the hour.

And, if we may venture to say so, the more the basis

of conventional morality, or rather of the hypocrisy that

fills its place is sapped, the more the moral plane of

society is raised. It is above all at such times precisely

when folks are criticizing and denying it, that moral

sentiment makes the most progress. It is then that it grows,

that it is raised and refined.

Years ago the youth of Russia were passionately

agitated by this very question. "I will be immoral!" a

young nihilist came and said to his friend, thus

translating into action the thoughts that gave him no rest.

"I will be immoral, and why should I not? Because the

Bible wills it? But the Bible is only a collection of

Babylonian and Hebrew traditions, traditions collected

and put together like the Homeric poems, or as is being

done still with Basque poems and Mongolian legends.

Must I then go back to the state of mind of the half-

civilized peoples of the East?

"Must I be moral because Kant tells me of a

categoric imperative, of a mysterious command which

comes to me from the depths of my own being and bids

me be moral? But why should this 'categoric imperative'

exercise a greater authority over my actions than that

other imperative, which at times may command me to get

drunk. A word, nothing but a word, like the words

'Providence,' or 'Destiny,' invented to conceal our

ignorance.

"Or perhaps I am to be moral to oblige Bentham,

who wants me to believe that I shall be happier if I drown

to save a passerby who has fallen into the river than if I

watched him drown?

"Or perhaps because such has been my education?

Because my mother taught me morality? Shall I then go

and kneel down in a church, honor the Queen, bow before

the judge I know for a scoundrel, simply because our

mothers, our good ignorant mothers, have taught us such

a pack of nonsense ?

"I am prejudiced, --like everyone else. I will try to rid

myself of prejudice! Even though immorality be distaste-

ful, I will yet force myself to be immoral, as when I was a

boy I forced myself to give up fearing the dark, the church-

yard, ghosts and dead people --all of which I had been

taught to fear.

"It will be immoral to snap a weapon abused by

religion; I will do it, were it only to protect against the

hypocrisy imposed on us in the name of a word to which

the name morality has been given!"

Such was the way in which the youth of Russia

reasoned when they broke with old-world prejudices,

and unfurled this banner of nihilist or rather of anarchist

philosophy: to bend the knee to no authority whatsoever,

however respected; to accept no principle so long as it is

unestablished by reason.

Need we add, that after pitching into the waste-

paper basket the teachings of their fathers, and burning all

systems of morality, the nihilist youth developed in their

midst a nucleus of moral customs, infinitely superior to

anything that their fathers had practiced under the

control of the "Gospel," of the "Conscience," of the

"Categoric Imperative," or of the "Recognized

Advantage" of the utilitarian. But before answering the

question, "Why am I to be moral ?" let us see if the

question is well put; let us analyze the motives of human

action.

Section II


When our ancestors wished to account for what led

men to act in one way or another, they did so in a very

simple fashion. Down to the present day, certain catholic

images may be seen that represent this explanation. A man

is going on his way, and without being in the least aware

of it, carries a devil on his left shoulder and an angel on

his right. The devil prompts him to do evil, the angel tries

to keep him back. And if the angel gets the best of it and

the man remains virtuous, three other angels catch him up

and carry him to heaven. In this way everything is explained

wondrously well.

Old Russian nurses full of such lore will tell you never

to put a child to bed without unbuttoning the collar of its

shirt. A warm spot at the bottom of the neck should be left

bare, where the guardian angel may nestle. Otherwise the

devil will worry the child even in its sleep.

These artless conceptions are passing away. But

though the old words disappear, the essential idea

remains the same.

Well brought up folks no longer believe in the devil, but

as their ideas are no more rational than those of our

nurses, they do but disguise devil and angel under a

pedantic wordiness honored with the name of philosophy.

They do not say "devil" nowadays, but "the flesh," or "the

passions." The"angel" is replaced by the words

"conscience" or "soul," by "reflection of the thought of a

divine creator" or "the Great Architect," as the Free-

Masons say. But man's action is still represented as the

result of a struggle between two hostile elements. And a

man is always considered virtuous just in the degree to

which one of these two elements --the soul or

conscience-- is victorious over the other --the flesh or

passions.

It is easy to understand the astonishment of our

great-grandfathers when the English philosophers, and

later the Encyclopedists, began to affirm in opposition to

these primitive ideas that the devil and the angel had

nothing to do with human action, but that all acts of man,

good or bad, useful or baneful, arise from a single motive:

the lust for pleasure.

The whole religious confraternity, and, above all,

the numerous sects of the pharisees shouted "immorality."

They covered the thinkers with insult, they

excommunicated them. And when later on in the course

of the century the same ideas were again taken up by

Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Tchernischevsky, and a host of

others, and when these thinkers began to affirm and prove

that egoism, or the lust for pleasure, is the true motive of

all our actions, the maledictions redoubled. The books

were banned by a conspiracy of silence; the authors were

treated as dunces.

And yet what can be more true than the assertion

they made?

Here is a man who snatches its last mouthful of

bread from a child. Every one agrees in saying that he is a

horrible egoist, that he is guided solely by self-love.

But now here is another man, whom every one

agrees to recognize as virtuous. He shares his last bit of

bread with the hungry, and strips off his coat to clothe the

naked. And the moralists, sticking to their religious

jargon, hasten to say that this man carries the love of his

neighbor to the point of self-abnegation, that he obeys a

wholly different passion from that of the egoist. And yet

with a little reflection we soon discover that however

great the difference between the two actions in their result

for humanity, the motive has still been the same. It is the

quest of pleasure.

If the man who gives away his last shirt found no

pleasure in doing so, he would not do it. If he found

pleasure in taking bread from a child, he would do that

but this is distasteful to him. He finds pleasure in giving,

and so he gives. If it were not inconvenient to cause

confusion by employing in a new sense words that have a

recognized meaning, it might be said that in both cases

the men acted under the impulse of their egoism. Some

have actually said this, to give prominence to the thought

and precision to the idea by presenting it in a form that

strikes the imagination, and at the same time to destroy

the myth which asserts that these two acts have two

different motives. They have the same motive, the quest of

pleasure, or the avoidance of pain, which comes to the

same thing.

Take for example the worst of scoundrels: a Thiers,

who massacres thirty-five thousand Parisians, or an

assassin who butchers a whole family in order that he may

wallow in debauchery. They do it because for the moment

the desire of glory or of money gains in their minds the

upper hand of every other desire. Even pity and

compassion are extinguished for the moment by this other

desire, this other thirst. They act almost automatically to

satisfy a craving of their nature. Or again, putting aside

the stronger passions, take the petty man who deceives his

friends, who lies at every step to get out of somebody the

price of a pot of beer, or from sheer love of brag, or from

cunning. Take the employer who cheats his workmen to

buy jewels for his wife or his mistress. Take any petty

scoundrel you like. He again only obeys an impulse. He

seeks the satisfaction of a craving, or he seeks to escape

what would give him trouble.

We are almost ashamed to compare such petty

scoundrels with one who sacrifices his whole existence to

free the oppressed, and like a Russian nihilist mounts the

scaffold. So vastly different for humanity are the results of

these two lives; so much do we feel ourselves drawn

towards the one and repelled by the other.

And yet were you to talk to such a martyr, to the

woman who is about to be hanged, even just as she nears

the gallows, she would tell you that she would not

exchange either her life or her death for the life of the

petty scoundrel who lives on the money stolen from his

work-people. In her life, in the struggle against monstrous

might, she finds her highest joys. Everything else outside

the struggle, all the little joys of the bourgeois and his

little troubles seem to her so contemptible, so tiresome, so

pitiable! "You do not live, you vegetate," she would

reply; "I have lived."

We are speaking of course of the deliberate,

conscious acts of men, reserving for the present what we

have to say about that immense series of unconscious, all

but mechanical acts, which occupy so large a portion of

our life. In his deliberate, conscious acts man always seeks

what will give him pleasure.

One man gets drunk, and every day lowers himself

to the condition of a brute because he seeks in liquor the

nervous excitement that he cannot obtain from his own

nervous system. Another does not get drunk; he takes no

liquor, even though he finds it pleasant, because he wants

to keep the freshness of his thoughts and the plentitude of

his powers, that he may be able to taste other pleasures

which he prefers to drink. But how does he act if not like

the judge of good living who, after glancing at the menu

of an elaborate dinner rejects one dish that he likes very

well to eat his fill of another that he likes better.

When a woman deprives herself of her last piece of

bread to give it to the first comer, when she takes off her

own scanty rags to cover another woman who is cold,

while she herself shivers on the deck of a vessel, she does

so because she would suffer infinitely more in seeing a

hungry man, or a woman starved with cold, than in

shivering or feeling hungry herself. She escapes a pain of

which only those who have felt it know the intensity.

When the Australian, quoted by Guyau, wasted

away beneath the idea that he has not yet revenged his

kinsman's death; when he grows thin and pale, a prey to

the consciousness of his cowardice, and does not return to

life till he has done the deed of vengeance, he performs

this action, a heroic one sometimes, to free himself of a

feeling which possesses him, to regain that inward peace

which is the highest of pleasures.

When a troupe of monkeys has seen one of its

members fall in consequence of a hunter's shot, and

comes to besiege his tent and claim the body despite the

threatening gun; when at length the Elder of the band

goes right in, first threatens the hunter, then implores him,

and finally by his lamentations induces him to give up the

corpse, which the groaning troupe carry off into the

forest, these monkeys obey a feeling of compassion

stronger than all considerations of personal security. This

feeling in them exceeds all others. Life itself loses its

attraction for them while they are not sure whether they

can restore life to their comrade or not. This feeling

becomes so oppressive that the poor brutes do everything

to get rid of it.

When the ants rush by thousands into the flames of

the burning ant-hill, which that evil beast, man, has set on

fire, and perish by hundreds to rescue their larvae, they

again obey a craving to save their offspring. They risk

everything for the sake of bringing away the larvae that

they have brought up with more care than many women

bestow on their children.

To seek pleasure, to avoid pain, is the general line

of action (some would say law) of the organic world.

Without this quest of the agreeable, life itself

would be impossible. Organisms would disintegrate, life

cease.

Thus whatever a man's actions and line of conduct

may be, he does what he does in obedience to a craving of

his nature. The most repulsive actions, no less than

actions which are indifferent or most attractive, are all

equally dictated by a need of the individual who

performs them. Let him act as he may, the individual acts

as he does because he finds a pleasure in it, or avoids, or

thinks he avoids, a pain.

Here we have a well-established fact. Here we have

the essence of what has been called the egoistic theory.

Very well, are we any better off for having reached

this general conclusion?

Yes, certainly we are. We have conquered a truth

and destroyed a prejudice which lies at the root of all

prejudices. All materialist philosophy in its relation to

man is implied in this conclusion. But does it follow that

all the actions of the individual are indifferent, as some

have hastened to conclude? This is what we have now to

see

Section III


We have seen that men's actions (their deliberate

and conscious actions, for we will speak afterwards of

unconscious habits) all have the same origin. Those that

are called virtuous and those that are designated as

vicious, great devotions and petty knaveries, acts that

attract and acts that repel, all spring from a common

source. All are performed in answer to some need of the

individual's nature. all have for their end the quest of

pleasure, the desire to avoid pain.

We have seen this in the last section, which is but a

very succinct summary of a mass of facts that might be

brought forward in support of this view.

It is easy to understand how this explanation makes those

still imbued with religious principles cry out. It leaves no

room for the supernatural. It throws over the idea of an

immortal soul. If man only acts in obedience to the needs

of his nature, if he is, so to say, but a "conscious

automaton," what becomes of the immortal soul? What of

immortality, that last refuge of those who have known too

few pleasures and too many sufferings, and who dream of

finding some compensation in another world?

It is easy to understand how people who have

grown up in prejudice and with but little confidence in

science, which has so often deceived them, people who

are led by feeling rather than thought, reject an

explanation which takes from them their last hope.

Section IV


Mosaic, Buddhist, Christian and Mussulman theologians

have had recourse to divine inspiration to distinguish

between good and evil. They have seen that man, be he

savage or civilized, ignorant or learned, perverse or

kindly and honest, always knows if he is acting well or ill,

especially always knows if he is acting ill. And as they

have found no explanation of this general fact, they have

put it down to divine inspiration. Metaphysical

philosophers, on their side, have told us of conscience, of

a mystic "imperative," and, after all, have changed nothing

but the phrases.

But neither have known how to estimate the very

simple and very striking fact that animals living in

societies are also able to distinguish between good and

evil, just as man does. Moreover, their conceptions of

good and evil are of the same nature as those of man.

Among the best developed representatives of each

separate class, --fish, insects, birds, mammals,-- they are

even identical.

Forel, that inimitable observer of ants, has shown by

a mass of observations and facts that when an ant who has

her crop well filled with honey meets other ants with

empty stomachs, the latter immediately ask her for food.

And amongst these little insects it is the duty of the

satisfied ant to disgorge the honey that her hungry friends

may also be satisfied. Ask the ants if it would be right to

refuse food to other ants of the same anthill when one has

had oneUs share. They will answer, by actions impossible

to mistake, that it would be extremely wrong. So selfish

an ant would be more harshly treated than enemies of

another species. If such a thing happens during a battle

between two different species, the ants would stop

fighting to fall upon their selfish comrade. This fact has

been proved by experiments which exclude all doubt.

Or again, ask the sparrows living in your garden if

it is right not to give notice to all the little society when

some crumbs are thrown out, so that all may come and

share in the meal. Ask them if that hedge sparrow has

done right in stealing from his neighbor's nest those

straws he had picked up, straws which the thief was too

lazy to go and collect himself. The sparrows will answer

that he is very wrong, by flying at the robber and pecking

him.

Or ask the marmots if it is right for one to refuse

access to his underground storehouse to other marmots of

the same colony. they will answer that it is very wrong, by

quarrelling in all sorts of ways with the miser.

Finally, ask primitive man if it is right to take food

in the tent of a member of the tribe during his absence. He

will answer that, if the man could get his food for himself,

it was very wrong. On the other hand, if he was weary or

in want, he ought to take food where he finds it; but in

such a case, he will do well to leave his cap or his knife, or

even a bit of knotted string, so that the absent hunter may

know on his return that a friend has been there, not a

robber. Such a precaution will save him the anxiety

caused by the possible presence of a marauder near his

tent.

Thousands of similar facts might be quoted, whole

books might be written, to show how identical are the

conceptions of good and evil amongst men and the other

animals.

The ant, the bird, the marmot, the savage have read neither

Kant nor the fathers of the Church nor even Moses. And

yet all have the same idea of good and evil. And if you re-

flect for a moment on what lies at the bottom of this idea,

you will see directly that what is considered good among

ants, marmots, and Christian or atheist moralists is that

which is useful for the preservation of the race; and that

which is considered evil is that which is hurtful for race

preservation. Not for the individual, as Bentham and Mill

put it, but fair and good for the whole race.

The idea of good and evil has thus nothing to do

with religion or a mystic conscience. It is a natural need of

animal races. And when founders of religions,

philosophers, and moralists tell us of divine or

metaphysical entities, they are only recasting what each

ant, each sparrow practices in its little society.

Is this useful to society? Then it is good. Is this

hurtful? Then it is bad.

This idea may be extremely restricted among

inferior animals, it may be enlarged among the more

advanced animals; but its essence always remains the

same.

Among ants it does not extend beyond the anthill.

All sociable customs, all rules of good behavior are

applicable only to the individuals in that one anthill, not

to any others. One anthill will not consider another as

belonging to the same family, unless under some

exceptional circumstances, such as a common distress

falling upon both. In the same way the sparrows in the

Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, though they will mutually

aid one another in a striking manner, will fight to the

death with another sparrow from the Monge Square who

may dare to venture into the Luxembourg. And the

savage will look upon a savage of another tribe as a person

to whom the usages of his own tribe do not apply. It is

even allowable to sell to him, and to sell is always to rob

the buyer more or less; buyer or seller, one or other is

always "sold." A Tchoutche would think it a crime to sell

to the members of his tribe: to them he gives without any

reckoning. And civilized man, when at last he

understands the relations between himself Ind the

simplest Papuan, close relations, though imperceptible at

the first glance, will extend his principles of solidarity to

the whole human race, and even to the animals. The idea

enlarges, but its foundation remains the same.

On the other hand, the conception of good or evil

varies according to the degree of intelligence or of

knowledge acquired. There is nothing unchangeable

about it.

Primitive man may have thought it very right --that is,

useful to the race-- to eat his aged parents when they

became a charge upon the community-- a very heavy

charge in the main. He may have also thought it useful to

the community to kill his new-born children, and only

keep two or three in each family, so that the mother could

suckle them until they were three years old and lavish

more of her tenderness upon them.

In our days ideas have changed, but the means of

subsistence are no longer what they were in the Stone Age.

Civilized man is not in the position of the savage family

who have to choose between two evils: either to eat the

aged parents or else all to get insufficient nourishment

and soon find themselves unable to feed both the aged

parents and the young children. We must transport

ourselves into those ages, which we can scarcely call up

in our mind, before we can understand that in the

circumstances then existing, half-savage man may have

reasoned rightly enough.

Ways of thinking may change. The estimate of what

is useful or hurtful to the race changes, but the

foundation remains the same. And if we wished to sum

up the whole philosophy of the animal kingdom in a

single phrase, we should see that ants, birds, marmots,

and men are agreed on one point.

The morality which emerges from the observation

of the whole animal kingdom may be summed up in the

words: "Do to others what you would have them do to

you in the same circumstances.

And it adds: "Take note that this is merely a piece

of advice; but this advice is the fruit of the long experience

of animals in society. And among the great mass of social

animals, man included, it has become habitual to act on

this principle. Indeed without this no society could exist,

no race could have vanquished the natural obstacles

against which it must struggle."

Is it really this very simple principle which

emerges from the observation of social animals and

human societies? Is it applicable? And how does this

principle pass into a habit and continually develop? This

is what we are now going to see.

Section V


The idea of good and evil exists within humanity

itself. Man, whatever degree of intellectual development

he may have attained, however his ideas may be obscured

by prejudices and personal interest in general, considers

as good that which is useful to the society wherein he

lives, and as evil that which is hurtful to it.

But whence comes this conception, often so vague

that it can scarcely be distinguished from a feeling? There

are millions and millions of human beings who have

never reflected about the human race. They know for the

most part only the clan or family, rarely the nation, still

more rarely mankind. How can it be that they should

consider what is useful for the human race as good, or

even attain a feeling of solidarity with their clan, in spite

of all their narrow, selfish interests?

This fact has greatly occupied thinkers at all times,

and it continues to occupy them still. We are going in our

turn to give our view of the matter. But let us remark in

passing that though the explanations of the fact may vary,

the fact itself remains none the less incontestable. And

should our explanation not be the true one, or should it

be incomplete, the fact with its consequences to humanity

will still remain. We may not be able fully to explain the

origin of the planets revolving round the sun, but the

planets revolve none the less, and one of them carries us

with it in space.

We have already spoken of the religious

explanation. If man distinguishes between good and evil,

say theologians, it is God who has inspired him with this

idea. Useful or hurtful is not for him to inquire; he must

merely obey the fiat of his creator. We will not stop at this

explanation, fruit of the ignorance and terrors of the

savage. We pass on.

Others have tried to explain the fact by law. It must

have been law that developed in man the sense of just and

unjust, right and wrong. Our readers may judge of this

explanation for themselves. They know that law has

merely utilized the social feelings of man, to slip in,

among the moral precepts he accepts, various mandates

useful to an exploiting minority, to which his nature

refuses obedience. Law has perverted the feeling of

justice instead of developing it. Again let us pass on.

Neither let us pause at the explanation of the

Utilitarians. They will have it that man acts morally from

self-interest, and they forget his feelings of solidarity with

the whole race, which exist, whatever be their origin.

There is some truth in the Utilitarian explanation. But it is

not the whole truth. Therefore, let us go further.

It is again to the thinkers of the eighteenth century

that we are indebted for having guessed, in part at all

events, the origin of the moral sentiment.

In a fine work, The Theory of Moral Sentiment, left

to slumber in silence by religious prejudice, and indeed

but little known even among anti-religious thinkers,

Adam Smith has laid his finger on the true origin of the

moral sentiment. He does not seek it in mystic religious

feelings; he finds it simply in the feeling of sympathy.

You see a man beat a child. You know that the

beaten child suffers. Your imagination causes you

yourself to suffer the pain inflicted upon the child; or

perhaps its tears, its little suffering face tell you. And if

you are not a coward, you rush at the brute who is

beating it and rescue it from him.

This example by itself explains almost all the moral

sentiments. The more powerful your imagination, the

better you can picture to yourself what any being feels

when it is made to suffer, and the more intense and

delicate will your moral sense be. The more you are

drawn to put yourself in the place of the other person, the

more you feel the pain inflicted upon him, the insult

offered him, the injustice of which he is a victim, the more

will you be urged to act so that you may prevent the pain,

insult, or injustice. And the more you are accustomed by

circumstances, by those surrounding you, or by the

intensity of your own thought and your own imagination,

to act as your thought and imagination urge, the more will

the moral sentiment grow in you, the more will it become

habitual.

This is what Adam Smith develops with a wealth of

examples. He was young when he wrote this book which is

far superior to the work of his old age upon political econ-

omy. Free from religious prejudice, he sought the

explanation of morality in a physical fact of human nature,

and this is why official and non-official theological

prejudice has put the treatise on the Black List for a

century.

Adam Smith's only mistake was not to have

understood that this same feeling of sympathy in its

habitual stage exists among animals as well as among

men.

The feeling of solidarity is the leading

characteristic of all animals living in society. The eagle

devours the sparrow, the wolf devours the marmot. But

the eagles and the wolves respectively aid each other in

hunting, the sparrow and the marmot unite among

themselves against the beasts and birds of prey so

effectually that only the very clumsy ones are caught. In

all animal societies solidarity is a natural law of far greater

importance than that struggle for existence, the virtue of

which is sung by the ruling classes in every strain that may

best serve to stultify us.

When we study the animal world and try to explain

to ourselves that struggle for existence maintained by

each living being against adverse circumstances and

against its enemies, we realize that the more the principles

of solidarity and equality are developed in an animal

society and have become habitual to it, the more chance

has it of surviving and coming triumphantly out of the

struggle against hardships and foes. The more thoroughly

each member of the society feels his solidarity with each

other member of the society, the more completely are

developed in all of them those two qualities which are the

main factors of all progress: courage on the one hand, md

on the other, free individual initiative. And on the

contrary, the more any animal society or little group of

animals loses this feeling of solidarity --which may chance

as the result of exceptional scarcity or else of exceptional

plenty-- the more do the two other factors of progress

courage and individual initiative, diminish. In the end

they disappear, and the society falls into decay and sinks

before its foes. Without mutual confidence no struggle is

possible; there is no courage, no initiative, no solidarity--

and no victory! Defeat is certain.

We can prove with a wealth of examples how in the

animal and human worlds the law of mutual aid is the

law of progress, and how mutual aid with the courage

and individual initiative which follow from it secures

victory to the species most capable of practicing it.

Now let us imagine this feeling of solidarity acting dur-

ing the millions of ages which have succeeded one another

since the first beginnings of animal life appeared upon the

globe. Let us imagine how this feeling little by little

became a habit, and was transmitted by heredity from the

simplest microscopic organism to its descendants --

insects, birds, reptiles, mammals, man-- and we shall

comprehend the origin of the moral sentiment, which is a

necessity to the animal like food or the organ for

digesting it.

Without going further back and speaking of

complex animals springing from colonies of extremely

simple little beings, here is the origin of the moral

sentiment. We have been obliged to be extremely brief in

order to compress this great question within the limits of

a few pages, but enough has already been said to show

that there is nothing mysterious or sentimental about it.

Without this solidarity of the individual with the species,

the animal kingdom would never have developed or

reached its present perfection. The most advanced being

upon the earth would still be one of those tiny specks

swimming in the water and scarcely perceptible under a

microscope. Would even this exist? For are not the

earliest aggregations of cellules themselves an instance of

association in the struggle?

Section VI


Thus by an unprejudiced observation of the animal

kingdom, we reach the conclusion that wherever society

exists at all, this principle may be found: Treat others as

you would like them to treat you under similar

circumstances.

And when we study closely the evolution of the

animal world, we discover that the aforesaid principle,

translated by the one word Solidarity, has played an

infinitely larger part in the development of the animal

kingdom than all the adaptations that have resulted from

a struggle between individuals to acquire personal

advantages.

It is evident that in human societies a still greater

degree of solidarity is to be met with. Even the societies of

monkeys highest in the animal scale offer a striking

example of practical solidarity, and man has taken a step

further in the same direction. This and this alone has

enabled him to preserve his puny race amid the obstacles

cast by nature in his way, and to develop his intelligence.

A careful observation of those primitive societies

still remaining at the level of the Stone Age shows to what

a great extent the members of the same community

practice solidarity among themselves.

This is the reason why practical solidarity never

ceases; not even during the worst periods of history. Even

when temporary circumstances of domination, servitude,

exploitation cause the principle to be disowned, it still

lives deep in the thoughts of the many, ready to bring

about a strong recoil against evil institutions, a

revolution. If it were otherwise society would perish.

For the vast majority of animals and men this feeling re-

mains, and must remain an acquired habit, a principle

always present to the mind even when it is continually

ignored in action.

It is the whole evolution of the animal kingdom

speaking in us. And this evolution has lasted long, very

long. It counts by hundreds of millions of years.

Even if we wished to get rid of it we could not. It

would be easier for a man to accustom himself to walk on

fours than to get rid of the moral sentiment. It is anterior

in-- animal evolution to the upright posture of man.

The moral sense is a natural faculty in us like the

sense of smell or of touch.

As for law and religion, which also have preached

this principle, they have simply filched it to cloak their

own wares, their injunctions for the benefit of the

conqueror, the exploiter, the priest. Without this principle

of solidarity, the justice of which is so generally

recognized, how could they have laid hold on men's

minds?

Each of them covered themselves with it as with a garment;

like authority which made good its position by posing as the

protector of the weak against the strong.

By flinging overboard law, religion and authority, mankind

can regain possession of the moral principle which

has been taken from them. Regain that they may criticize

it, and purge it from the adulterations wherewith priest,

judge and ruler have poisoned it and are poisoning it yet.

Besides this principle of treating others as one

wishes to be treated oneself, what is it but the very same

principle as equality, the fundamental principle of

anarchism? And how can any one manage to believe

himself an anarchist unless he practices it?

We do not wish to be ruled. And by this very fact,

do we not declare that we ourselves wish to rule nobody?

We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told

nothing but the truth. And by this very fact, do we not de-

clare that we ourselves do not wish to deceive anybody,

that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the

truth, the whole truth? We do not wish to have the fruits

of our labor stolen from us. And by that very fact, do we

not declare that we respect the fruits of others' labor?

By what right indeed can we demand that we

should be treated in one fashion, reserving it to ourselves

to treat others in a fashion entirely different? Our sense of

equality revolts at such an idea.

Equality in mutual relations with the solidarity

arising from it, this is the most powerful weapon of the

animal world in the struggle for existence. And equality

is equity.

By proclaiming ourselves anarchists, we proclaim before-

hand that we disavow any way of treating others in which

we should not like them to treat us; that we will no longer

tolerate the inequality that has allowed some among us to

use their strength, their cunning or their ability after a

fashion in which it would annoy us to have such qualities

used against ourselves. Equality in all things, the

synonym of equity, this is anarchism in very deed. It is not

only against the abstract trinity of law, religion, and

authority that we declare war. By becoming anarchists we

declare war against all this wave of deceit, cunning,

exploitation, depravity, vice --in a word, inequality--

which they have poured into all our hearts. We declare

war against their way of acting, against their way of

thinking. The governed, the deceived, the exploited, the

prostitute, wound above all else our sense of equality. It

is in the name of equality that we are determined to have

no more prostituted, exploited, deceived and governed

men and women.

Perhaps it may be said --it has been said sometimes

"But if you think that you must always treat others as you

would be treated yourself, what right have you to use

force under any circumstances whatever? What right have

you to level a cannon at any barbarous or civilized

invaders of your country? What right have you to

dispossess the exploiter? What right to kill not only a

tyrant but a mere viper?"

What right? What do you mean by that singular

word, borrowed from the law? Do you wish to know if I

shall feel conscious of having acted well in doing this ? If

those I esteem will think I have done well? Is this what you

ask? If so the answer is simple.

Yes, certainly! Because we ourselves should ask to

be killed like venomous beasts if we went to invade

Burmese or Zulus who have done us no harm. We should

say to our son or our friend: "Kill me, if I ever take part in

the invasion!"

Yes, certainly! Because we ourselves should ask to

be dispossessed, if giving the lie to our principles, we

seized upon an inheritance, did it fall from on high, to use

it for the exploitation of others.

Yes, certainly! Because any man with a heart asks be-

forehand that he may be slain if ever he becomes

venomous; that a dagger may be plunged into his heart if

ever he should take the place of a dethroned tyrant.

Ninety-nine men out of a hundred who have a wife

and children would try to commit suicide for fear they

should do harm to those they love, if they felt themselves

going mad. Whenever a good-hearted man feels himself

becoming dangerous to those he loves, he wishes to die

before he is so.

Perovskaya and her comrades killed the Russian

Czar. And all mankind, despite the repugnance to the

spilling of blood, despite the sympathy for one who had

allowed the serfs to be liberated, recognized their right to

do as they did. Why? Not because the act was generally

recognized as useful; two out of three still doubt if it were

so. But because it was felt that not for all the gold in the

world would Perovskaya and her comrades have

consented to become tyrants themselves. Even those who

know nothing of the drama are certain that it was no

youthful bravado, no palace conspiracy, no attempt to

gain power. It was hatred of tyranny, even to the scorn of

self, even to the death.

"These men and women," it was said, "had

conquered the right to kill"; as it was said of Louise

Michel, "She had the right to rob." Or again, "They have

the right to steal," in speaking of those terrorists who

lived on dry bread, and stole a million or two of the

Kishineff treasure.

Mankind has never refused the right to use force on

those who have conquered that right, be it exercised upon

the barricades or in the shadow of a cross-way. But if such

an act is to produce a deep impression upon men's

minds, the right must be conquered. Without this, such an

act whether useful or not will remain merely a brutal fact,

of no importance in the progress of ideas. People will see

in it nothing but a displacement of force, simply the

substitution of one exploiter for another.

Section VII


We have hitherto been speaking of the conscious,

deliberate actions of man, those performed intentionally.

But side by side with our conscious life we have an

unconscious life which is very much wider. Yet we have

only to notice how we dress in the morning, trying to

fasten a button that we know we lost last night, or

stretching out our hand to take something that we

ourselves have moved away, to obtain an idea of this

unconscious life and realize the enormous part it plays in

our existence.

It makes up three-fourths of our relations with

others. Our ways of speaking, smiling, frowning, getting

heated or keeping cool in a discussion, are unintentional,

the result of habits, inherited from our human or pre-

human ancestors (only notice the likeness in expression

between an angry man and an angry beast), or else

consciously or unconsciously acquired.

Our manner of acting towards others thus tends to

become habitual. To treat others as he would wish to be

treated himself becomes with man and all sociable

animals, simply a habit. So much so that a person does

not generally even ask himself how he must act under

such and such circumstances. It is only when the

circumstances are exceptional, in some complex case or

under the impulse of strong passion that he hesitates, and

a struggle takes place between the various portions of his

brain --for the brain is a very complex organ, the various

portions of which act to a certain degree independently.

When this happens, the man substitutes himself in

imagination for the person opposed to him; he asks

himself if he would like to be treated in such a way, and

the better he has identified himself with the person whose

dignity or interests he has been on the point of injuring,

the more moral will his decision be. Or maybe a friend

steps in and says to him: "Fancy yourself in his place;

should you have suffered from being treated by him as he

has been treated by you? And this is enough.

Thus we only appeal to the principle of equality in

moments of hesitation, and in ninety-nine cases out of a

hundred act morally from habit.

It must have been obvious that in all we have hitherto

said, we have not attempted to enjoin anything,we have

only set forth the manner in which things happen in the

animal world and amongst mankind.

Formerly the church threatened men with hell to

moralize them, and she succeeded in demoralizing them

instead. The judge threatens with imprisonment, flogging,

the gallows, in the name of those social principles he has

filched from society; and he demoralizes them. And yet

the very idea that the judge may disappear from the earth

at the same time as the priest causes authoritarians of

every shade to cry out about peril to society.

But we are not afraid to forego judges and their

sentences. We forego sanctions of all kinds, even

obligations to morality. We are not afraid to say: "Do what

you will; act as you will"; because we are persuaded that

the great majority of mankind, in proportion to their

degree of enlightenment and the completeness with which

they free themselves from existing fetters will behave and

act always in a direction useful to society just as we are

persuaded beforehand that a child will one day walk on

its two feet and not on all fours simply because it is born

of parents belonging to the genus Homo.

All we can do is to give advice. And again while

giving it we add: "This advice will be valueless if your

own experience and observation do not lead you to

recognize that it is worth following."

When we see a youth stooping and so contracting his

chest and lungs we advise him to straighten himself, hold

up his head and open his chest. We advise him to fill his

lungs and take long breaths, because this will be his best

safeguard against consumption. But at the same time we

teach him physiology that he may understand the

functions of his lungs, and himself choose the posture he

knows to be the best.

And this is all we can do in the case of morals. And

this is all we can do in the case of morals. We have only a

right to give advice, to which we add: "Follow it if it

seems good to you."

But while leaving to each the right to act as he

thinks best; while utterly denying the right of society to

punish one in any way for any anti-social act he may have

committed, we do not forego our own capacity to love

what seems to us good and to hate what seems to us bad.

Love and hate; for only those who know how to hate

know how to love. We keep this capacity; and as this

alone serves to maintain and develop the moral

sentiments in every animal society, so much the more will

it be enough for the human race.

We only ask one thing, to eliminate all that

impedes the free development of these two feelings in the

present society, all that perverts our judgment: --the

State, the church, exploitation; judges, priests,

governments, exploiters.

Today when we see a Jack the Ripper murder one

after another some of the poorest and most miserable of

women, our first feeling is one of hatred.

If we had met him the day when he murdered that

woman who asked him to pay her for her slum lodging,

we should have put a bullet through his head, without

reflecting that the bullet might have been better bestowed

in the brain of the owner of that wretched den.

But when we recall to mind all the infamies which

have brought him to this; when we think of the darkness

in which he prowls haunted by images drawn from

indecent books or thoughts suggested by stupid books,

our feeling is divided. And if some day we hear that Jack

is in the hands of some judge who has slain in cold blood

a far greater number of men, women and children than all

the Jacks together; if we see him in the hands of one of

those deliberate maniacs then all our hatred of Jack the

Ripper will vanish. It will be transformed into hatred of a

cowardly and hypocritical society and its recognized

representatives. All the infamies of a Ripper disappear

before that long series of infamies committed in the name

of law. It is these we hate.

At the present day our feelings are continually thus

divided. We feel that all of us are more or less,

voluntarily or involuntarily, abettors of this society. We

do not dare to hate. Do we even dare to love? In a society

based on exploitation and servitude human nature is

degraded.

But as servitude disappears we shall regain our

rights. We shall feel within ourselves strength to hate and

to love, even in such complicated cases as that we have

just cited.

In our daily life we do already give free scope to

our feelings of sympathy or antipathy; we are doing so

every moment. We all love moral strength we all despise

moral weakness and cowardice. Every moment our

words, looks, smiles express our joy in seeing actions

useful to the human race, those which we think good.

Every moment our looks and words show the repugnance

we feel towards cowardice, deceit, intrigue, want of

moral courage. We betray our disgust, even when under

the influence of a worldly education we try to hide our

contempt beneath those lying appearances which will

vanish as equal relations are established among us.

This alone is enough to keep the conception of

good and ill at a certain level and to communicate it one

to another.

It will be still more efficient when there is no longer

judge or priest in society, when moral principles have

lost their obligatory character and are considered merely

as relations between equals.

Moreover, in proportion to the establishment of

these relations, a loftier moral conception will arise in

society. It is this conception which we are about to

analyze.
Section VIII


Thus far our analysis has only set forth the simple

principles of equality. We have revolted and invited

others to revolt against those who assume the right to treat

their fellows otherwise than they would be treated

themselves; against those who, not themselves wishing to

be deceived, exploited, prostituted or ill-used, yet behave

thus to others. Lying, and brutality are repulsive, we have

said, not because they are disapproved by codes of

morality, but because such conduct revolts the sense of

equality in everyone to whom equality is not an empty

word. And above all does it revolt him who is a true

anarchist in his way of thinking and acting.

If nothing but this simple, natural, obvious

principle were generally applied in life, a very lofty

morality would be the result; a morality comprising all

that moralists have taught.

The principle of equality sums up the teachings of

moralists. But it also contains something more. This

something more is respect for the individual. By

proclaiming our morality of equality, or anarchism, we

refuse to assume a right which moralists have always

taken upon themselves to claim, that of mutilating the

individual in the name of some ideal. We do not

recognize this right at all, for ourselves or anyone else.

We recognize the full and complete liberty of the

individual; we desire for him plentitude of existence, the

free development of all his faculties. We wish to impose

nothing upon him; thus returning to the principle which

Fourier placed in opposition to religious morality when

he said:

"Leave men absolutely free. Do not mutilate them

as religions have done enough and to spare. Do not fear

even their passions. In a free society these are not

dangerous."

Provided that you yourself do not abdicate your

freedom, provided that you yourself do not allow others

to enslave you; and provided that to the violent and anti-

social passions of this or that person you oppose your

equally vigorous social passions, you have nothing to

fear from liberty.

We renounce the idea of mutilating the individual

in the name of any ideal whatsoever. All we reserve to

ourselves is the frank expression of our sympathies and

antipathies towards what seems to us good or bad. A man

deceives his friends. It is his bent, his character to do so.

Very well, it is our character, our bent to despise liars.

And as this is our character, let us be frank. Do not let us

rush and press him to our bosom or cordially shake

hands with him, as is sometimes done today. Let us

vigorously oppose our active passion to his.

This is all we have the right to do, this is all the

duty we have to perform to keep up the principle of

equality in society. It is the principle of equality in

practice.

But what of the murderer, the man who debauches chil-

dren? The murderer who kills from sheer thirst for blood

is excessively rare. He is a madman to be cured or

avoided. As for the debauchee, let us first of all look to it

that society does not pervert our children's feelings, then

we shall have little to fear from rakes.

All this it must be understood is not completely

applicable until the great sources of moral depravity--

capitalism, religion, justice, government--shall have

ceased to exist. But the greater part of it may be put in

practice from this day forth. It is in practice already.

And yet if societies knew only this principle of

equality; if each man practiced merely the equity of a

trader, taking care all day long not to give others anything

more than he was receiving from them, society would die

of it. The very principle of equality itself would

disappear from our relations. For, if it is to be maintained,

something grander, more lovely, more vigorous than

mere equity must perpetually find a place in life.

And this greater than justice is here.

Until now humanity has never been without large

natures overflowing with tenderness, with intelligence,

with goodwill, and using their feeling, their intellect, their

active force in the service of the human race without

asking anything in return.

This fertility of mind, of feeling or of goodwill

takes all possible forms. It is in the passionate seeker after

truth, who renounces all other pleasures to throw his

energy into the search for what he believes true and right

contrary to the affirmations of the ignoramuses around

him. It is in the inventor who lives from day to day

forgetting even his food, scarcely touching the bread with

which perhaps some woman devoted to him feeds him

like a child, while he follows out the intention he thinks

destined to change the face of the world. It is in the ardent

revolutionist to whom the joys of art, of science, even of

family life, seem bitter, so long as they cannot be shared

by all, and who works despite misery and persecution for

the regeneration of the world. It is in the youth who,

hearing of the atrocities of invasion, and taking literally

the heroic legends of patriotism, inscribes himself in a

volunteer corps and marches bravely through snow and

hunger until he falls beneath the bullets. It was in the

Paris street arab, with his quick intelligence and bright

choice of aversions and sympathies, who ran to the

ramparts with his little brother, stood steady amid the rain

of shells, and died murmuring: "Long live the Commune!"

It is in the man who is revolted at the sight of a wrong

without waiting to ask what will be its result to himself,

and when all backs are bent stands up to unmask the

iniquity and brand the exploiter, the petty despot of a

factory or great tyrant of an empire. Finally it is in all

those numberless acts of devotion less striking and

therefore unknown and almost always misprized, which

may be continually observed, especially among women,

if we will take the trouble to open our eyes and notice

what lies at the very foundation of human life, and

enables it to enfold itself one way or another in spite of

the exploitation and oppression it undergoes.

Such men and women as these, some in obscurity,

some within a larger arena, creates the progress of

mankind. And mankind is aware of it. This is why it

encompasses such lives with reverence, with myths. It

adorns them, makes them the subject of its stories, songs,

romances. It adores in them the courage, goodness, love

and devotion which are lacking in most of us. It transmits

their memory to the young. It recalls even those who have

acted only in the narrow circle of home and friends, and

reveres their memory in family tradition.

Such men and women as these make true morality,

the only morality worthy the name. All the rest is merely

equality in relations. Without their courage, their

devotion, humanity would remain besotted in the mire of

petty calculations. It is such men and women as these who

prepare the morality of the future, that which will come

when our children have ceased to reckon, and have

grown up to the idea that the best use for all energy,

courage and love is to expend it where the need of such a

force is most strongly felt.

Such courage, such devotion has existed in every

age. It is to be met with among sociable animals. It is to be

found among men, even during the most degraded

epochs.

And religions have always sought to appropriate

it, to turn it into current coin for their own benefit. In fact

if religions are still alive, it is because--ignorance apart--

they have always appealed to this very devotion and

courage. And it is to this that revolutionists appeal.

The moral sentiment of duty which each man has

felt in his life, and which it has been attempted to explain

by every sort of mysticism, the unconsciously anarchist

Guyau says, "is nothing but a superabundance of life,

which demands to be exercised, to give itself; at the same

time, it is the consciousness of a power."

All accumulated force creates a pressure upon the

obstacles placed before it. Power to act is duty to act. And

moral "obligation" of which so much has been said or

written is reduced to the conception: the condition of the

maintenance of life is its expansion.

"The plant cannot prevent itself from flowering.

Sometimes to flower means to die. Never mind, the sap

mounts the same," concludes the young anarchist

philosopher.

It is the same with the human being when he is full

of force and energy. Force accumulates in him. He

expands his life. He gives without calculation, otherwise

he could not live. If he must die like the flower when it

blooms, never mind. The sap rises, if sap there be.

Be strong. Overflow with emotional and

intellectual energy, and you will spread your intelligence,

your love, your energy of action broadcast among others!

This is what all moral teaching comes to.
Section IX


That which mankind admires in a truly moral man

is his energy, the exuberance of life which urges him to

give his intelligence, his feeling, his action, asking nothing

in return.

The strong thinker, the man overflowing with

intellectual life, naturally seeks to diffuse his ideas. There

is no pleasure in thinking unless the thought is

communicated to others. It is only the mentally poverty-

stricken man, who after he has painfully hunted up some

idea, carefully hides it that later on he may label it with his

own name. The man of powerful intellect runs over with

ideas; he scatters them by the handful. He is wretched if

he cannot share them with others, cannot scatter them to

the four winds, for in this is his life.

The same with regard to feeling. "We are not

enough for ourselves: we have more tears than our own

sufferings claim, more capacity for joy than our own

existence can justify," says Guyau, thus summing up the

whole question of morality in a few admirable lines,

caught from nature. The solitary being is wretched,

restless, because he cannot share his thoughts and feelings

with others. When we feel some great pleasure, we wish to

let others know that we exist, we feel, we love, we live, we

struggle, we fight.

At the same time, we feel the need to exercise our

will, our active energy. To act, to work has become a need

for the vast majority of mankind. So much so that when

absurd conditions divorce a man or woman from useful

work, they invent something to do, some futile and

senseless obligations whereby to open out a field for their

active energy. They invent a theory, a religion, a "social

duty"-- to persuade themselves that they are doing

something useful. When they dance, it is for a charity.

When they ruin themselves with expensive dresses, it is to

keep up the position of the aristocracy. When they do

nothing, it is on principle.

"We need to help our fellows, to lend a hand to the

coach laboriously dragged along by humanity; in any

case, we buzz round it," says Guyau. This need of lending

a hand is so great that it is found among all sociable

animals, however low in the scale. What is all the

enormous amount of activity spent uselessly in politics

every day but an expression of the need to lend a hand to

the coach of humanity, or at least to buzz around it .

Of course this "fecundity of will," this thirst for

action, when accompanied by poverty of feeling and an

intellect incapable of creation, will produce nothing but a

Napoleon I or a Bismarck, wiseacres who try to force the

world to progress backwards. While on the other hand,

mental fertility destitute of well developed sensibility

will bring forth such barren fruits as literary and scientific

pedants who only hinder the advance of knowledge.

Finally, sensibility unguided by large intelligence will

produce such persons as the woman ready to sacrifice

everything for some brute of a man, upon whom she

pours forth all her love.

If life to be really fruitful, it must be so at once in

intelligence, in feeling and in will. This fertility in every

direction is life; the only thing worthy the name. For one

moment of this life, those who have obtained a glimpse of

it give years of vegetative existence. Without this

overflowing life, a man is old before his time, an impotent

being, a plant that withers before it has ever flowered.

"Let us leave to latter-day corruption this life that

is no life," cries youth, the true youth full of sap that longs

to live and scatter life around. Every time a society falls

into decay, a thrust from such youth as this shatters

ancient economic, and political and moral forms to make

room for the up-springing of a new life. What matter if

one or another fall in the struggle! Still the sap rises. For

youth to live is to blossom whatever the consequences! It

does not regret them.

But without speaking of the heroic periods of

mankind, taking every-day existence, is it life to live in

disagreement with one's ideal ?

Now-a-days it is often said that men scoff at the

ideal. And it is easy to understand why. The word has so

often been used to cheat the simple-hearted that a

reaction is inevitable and healthy. We too should like to

replace the word "ideal," so often blotted and stained, by

a new word more in conformity with new ideas.

But whatever the word, the fact remains; every human

being has his ideal. Bismarck had his--however strange--;

a government of blood and iron. Even every philistine has

his ideal, however low.

But besides these, there is the human being who has con-

ceived a loftier ideal. The life of a beast cannot satisfy him.

Servility, lying, bad faith, intrigue, inequality in human

relations fill him with loathing. How can he in his turn

become servile, be a liar, and intriguer, lord it over

others? He catches a glimpse of how lovely life might be

if better relations existed among men; he feels in himself

the power to succeed in establishing these better relations

with those he may meet on his way. He conceives what is

called an ideal.

Whence comes this ideal? How is it fashioned by heredity

on one side and the impressions of life on the other? We

know not. At most we could tell the story of it more or

less truly in our own biographies. But it is an actual fact --

variable, progressive, open to outside influences but

always living. It is a largely unconscious feeling of what

would give the greatest amount of vitality, of the joy of

life.

Life is vigorous, fertile. rich in sensation only on

condition of answering to this feeling of the ideal. Act

against this feeling, and you feel your life bent back on

itself. It is no longer at one, it loses its vigor. Be untrue

often to your ideal and you will end by paralyzing your

will, your active energy. Soon you will no longer regain

the vigor, the spontaneity of decision you formerly knew.

You are a broken man.

Nothing mysterious in all this, once you look upon

a human being as a compound of nervous and cerebral

centers acting independently. Waver between the various

feelings striving within you, and you will soon end by

breaking the harmony of the organism; you will be a sick

person without will. The intensity of your life will

decrease. In vain will you seek for compromises. Never

more will you be the complete, strong, vigorous being

you were when your acts were in accordance with the

ideal conceptions of your brain.

There are epochs in which the moral conception

changes entirely. A man perceives that what he had

considered moral is the deepest immorality. In some

instances it is a custom, a venerated tradition, that is

fundamentally immoral. In others we find a moral system

framed in the interests of a single class. We cast them

overboard and raise the cry "Down with morality!" It

becomes a duty to act "immorally."

Let us welcome such epochs for they are epochs of

criticism. They are an infallible sign that thought is

working in society. A higher morality has begun to be

wrought out.

What this morality will be we have sought to

formulate, taking as our basis the study of man and

animal.

We have seen the kind of morality which is even

now shaping itself in the ideas of the masses and of the

thinkers. This morality will issue no commands. It will

refuse once and for all to model individuals according to

an abstract idea, as it will refuse to mutilate them by

religion, law or government. It will leave to the

individual man full and perfect liberty. It will be but a

simple record of facts, a science. And this science will say

to man: "If you are not conscious of strength within you, if

your energies are only just sufficient to maintain a

colorless, monotonous life, without strong impressions,

without deep joys, but also without deep sorrows, well

then, keep to the simple principles of a just equality. In

relations of equality you will find probably the maximum

of happiness possible to your feeble energies.

"But if you feel within you the strength of youth, if

you wish to live, if you wish to enjoy a perfect, full and

overflowing life --that is, know the highest pleasure which

a living being can desire-- be strong, be great, be vigorous

in all you do.

"Sow life around you. Take heed that if you

deceive, lie, intrigue, cheat, you thereby demean yourself.

belittle yourself, confess your own weakness beforehand,

play the part of the slave of the harem who feels himself

the inferior of his master. Do this if it so pleases you, but

know that humanity will regard you as petty,

contemptible and feeble, and treat you as such. Having no

evidence of your strength, it will act towards you as one

worthy of pity-- and pity only. Do not blame humanity if

of your own accord you thus paralyze your energies. Be

strong on the other hand, and once you have seen

unrighteousness and recognized it as such --inequity in

life, a lie in science, or suffering inflicted by another-- rise

in revolt against the iniquity, the lie or the injustice.

"Struggle! To struggle is to live, and the fiercer the

struggle the intenser the life. Then you will have lived;

and a few hours of such life are worth years spent

vegetating.

"Struggle so that all may live this rich, overflowing

life. And be sure that in this struggle you will find a joy

greater than anything else can give."

This is all that the science of morality can tell you.

Yours is the choice.




Communism and Anarchy
by Peter Kropotkin
Freedom: July (p30)/August (p38) 1901
Reprinted in Small Communal Experiments and Why They Fail
Jura Books
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Editor's Preface
Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) was one of the greatest anarchist theoreticians of his time. Although he admired the directly democratic and non-authoritarian practices of the traditional peasant village commune, he was never an advocate of small and isolated communal experimentalism. Many people, upon reading his works, have been inspired to found such communities, both in his own time as well as the hippies of the 1960s (a period when Kropotkin's major works were epublished and influential). Kropotkin did not consider such ventures were likely to be successful or useful in achieving wider revolutionary goals. His friend, Elisee Reclus, who had been involved in such a venture in South America in his youth, was even more hostile to small communal experiments. It is a pity that some of the founders of the many hippy communes in the 1960s (nearly all of which faded rather quickly) did not read Kropotkin more carefully. Unfortunately, they made the same mistakes as many anarchists, communists and socialists had made a century before them. In the anarchist press today one still finds adverts for prospective small and isolated anarchist colonies. Also, many commentaries about Kropotkin still misrepresent him as having had a vision of society consisting of unfederated and independent village-like settlements and of advocating small communal experiments as a means of achieving an anarchist society. The following speech and two 'open' letters, which have not been in print for a century, clearly show, that although not emotionally opposed to such ventures, he was highly sceptical about their chances of success and generally believed them to be a drain upon the energies of the anarchist movement. Despite his warnings, these articles also contain much good and practical advice to those who are still tempted to found small experimental communes in the wilderness, or perhaps, those tempted in some future era to colonise space.
- Graham Purchase

Many Anarchists and thinkers in general, whilst recognising the immense advantages which Communism may offer to society, yet consider this form of social organisation a danger to the liberty and free development of the individual. This danger is also recognised by many Communists, and, taken as a whole, the question is merged in that other vast problem which our century has laid bare to its fullest extent: the relation of the individual to society. The importance of this question need hardly be insisted upon.
The problem became obscured in various ways. When speaking of Communism, most people think of the more or less Christian and monastic and always authoritarian Communism advocated in the first half of this century and practised in certain communities. These communities took the family as a model and tried to constitute "the great Communist family" to "reform man,". To this end, in addition to working in common, they imposed the living closely together like a family, as well as the isolation or separation of the colony from present civilisation. This amounted to nothing less than the total interference of all 'brothers" and "sisters" with the entire private life of each member.
In addition to this, the difference was not sufficiently noted as between isolated communities, founded on various occasions during the last three or four centuries, and the numerous federated communes which are likely to spring up in a society about to inaugurate the social revolution. Five aspects of the subject thus require to be considered separately:
[1] Production and consumption in common,
[2] Domestic life in common (cohabitation: is it necessary to arrange it after the model of the present family?),
[3] The isolated communities of our times,
[4] The federated communes of the future, and
[5] Does Communism necessarily lessen individuality? In other words, the Individual in a Communist society.
An immense movement of ideas took place during this century under the name of Socialism in general, beginning with Babeuf, St. Simon, Fourier, Robert Owen and Proudhon who formulated the predominating currents of Socialism, and continued by their numerous successors (French) Considerant, Pierre Lerous, Louis Blanc; (German) Marx, Engels; (Russian) Chernychevski, Bakunin; etc, who worked either at popularising the ideas of the founders of modern Socialism or at establishing them on a scientific basis.
These ideas, on taking precise shape, gave birth to two principal currents: Authoritarian Communism and Anarchist Communism; also to a number of intermediary schools bent on finding a way between, such as State Capitalism, Collectivism, Co-operation; among the working masses they created a formidable workers' movement which strives to organise the whole mass of the workers by trades for the struggle against Capital, and which becomes more international with the frequent intercourse between workers of different nationalities. The following three essential points were gained by this immense movement of ideas and of action, and these have already widely penetrated the public conscience:
[1] The abolition of the wage system, the modern form of ancient serfdom,
[2] The abolition of individual property in the means of production, and
[3] The emancipation of the individual and of society from the political machinery, the State, which helps to maintain economic slavery.
On these three points all are agreed, and even those who advocate "labour notes" or who, like Brousse, wish all "to be functionaries," that is employees of the State or the commune, admit that if they advocate either of these proposals it is only because they do not see an immediate possibility for Communism. They accept this compromise as an expedient, but their aim always remains Communism. And, as to the State, even the bitterest partisans of the State, of authority, even of dictatorship, recognise that with the disappearance of the classes of today the State will also cease to exist.
Hence we may say without exaggerating the importance of our section of the Socialist movement - the Anarchist section - that in spite of all differences between the various sections of Socialism (which differences are, before all, based upon the more or less revolutionary character of the means of action of each section), we may affirm that all sections, by the voice of their thinkers, recognise the evolution towards Free Communism as the aim of Socialist evolution. All the rest, as they themselves confess, are only stepping-stones towards this end.
It would be idle to discuss these stepping-stones without an examination of the tendencies of development of modern society.
Of these different tendencies two, before all, merit our attention. One is the increasing difficulty of determining the share of each individual in modern production. Industry and agriculture have become so complicated, so riveted together, all industries are so dependent one upon the other that payment to the producer by results becomes impossible the more industry is developed, the more we see payment by piece replaced by wages. Wages, on the other hand, become more equal. The division of modern bourgeois society in classes certainly remains and there is a whole class of bourgeois who earn the more, the less they do. The working class itself is divided into four great divisions:
[1] women,
[2] agricultural labourers,
[3] unskilled workers, and
[4] skilled workers.
These divisions represent four degrees of exploitation and are but the result of bourgeois organisation.
In a society of equals, where all can learn a trade and where the exploitation of woman by man, of the peasant by the manufacturer, will cease, these classes will disappear. But, even today, wages within each of these classes tend to become more equal. This led to the statement: "that a navvy's day's work is worth that of a jeweller", and made Robert Owen conceive his "labour notes", paid to all who worked so many hours in the production of necessary commodities.
But if we look back on all attempts made in this direction, we find that with the exception of a few thousand farmers in the United States, labour notes have not spread since the end of the first quarter of the century when Owen tried to issue them. The reasons for this have been discussed elsewhere (see the chapter: The Wage System, in my book "The Conquest of Bread").
On the other hand, we see a great number of attempts at partial socialisation, tending in the direction of Communism. Hundreds of Communist communities have been founded during this century almost everywhere and at this very moment we are aware of more than a hundred of them, all being more or less Communistic. It is in the same direction of Communism - partial Communism, we mean to say - that nearly all the numerous attempts at socialisation we see in bourgeois society tend to be made, either between individuals or with regard to the socialisation of municipal matters.
Hotels, steamers, boarding houses, are all experiments in this direction undertaken by the bourgeois. For so much per day you have the choice between ten or fifty dishes placed at your disposal at the hotel or on the steamer, with nobody controlling the amount you have eaten of them. This organisation is even international and before leaving Paris or London you may buy bons (coupons for 10 francs a day) which enable you to stay at will in hundreds of hotels in France, Germany, Switzerland, etc., all belonging to an international society of hotels.
The bourgeois thoroughly understood the advantages of partial Communism combined with the almost unlimited freedom of the individual in respect to consumption, and in all these institutions for a fixed price per month you will be lodged and fed, with the single exception of costly extras (wine, special apartments) which are charged separately.
Fire, theft and accident insurance (especially in villages where equality of conditions permits the charge of an equal premium for all inhabitants), the arrangement by which great English stores will supply for 1s. per week all the fish which a small family may consume, clubs, the innumerable societies of insurance against sickness, etc., etc.. This mass of institutions, created during the 19th century, are an approach towards Communism with regard to part of our total consumption.
Finally, there exists a vast series of municipal institutions - water, gas, electricity, workmen's dwellings, trains with uniform fares, baths, washing houses, etc. - where similar attempts at socialising consumption are being made on an ever increasing scale.
All this is certainly not yet Communism. Far from it. But the principle of these institutions contains a part of the principle of Communism: for so much per day (in money today, in labour tomorrow) you are entitled to satisfy - luxury excepted - this or the other of your wants.
These forays into Communism differ from real Communism in many ways; and essentially in the two following; [1] payment in money instead of payment by labour; [2] the consumers have no voice in the administration of the business. If, however, the idea, the tendency of these institutions were well understood, it would not be difficult even today to start by private or public initiative a community carrying out the first principle mentioned. Let us suppose a territory of 500 hectares on which are built 200 cottages, each surrounded by a garden or an orchard of a quarter hectare. The management allows each family occupying a cottage, to choose out of fifty dishes per day what is desired, or it supplies bread, vegetables, meat, coffee as demanded for preparation at home. In return they demand either so much per annum in money or a certain number of hours of work given, at the consumers' choice, to one of the departments of the establishment: agriculture, cattle raising, cooking, cleaning. This may be put in practice tomorrow if required, and we must wonder that such a farm/hotel/garden has not yet been founded by an enterprising hotel proprietor.
It will be objected, no doubt, that it is just here, the introduction of labour in common, that Communists have generally experienced failure. Yet this objection cannot stand. The causes of failure have always to be sought elsewhere.
Firstly, nearly all communities were founded by an almost religious wave of enthusiasm. People were asked to become "pioneers of humanity;" to submit to the dictates of a punctilious morality, to become quite regenerated by Communist life, to give all their time, hours of work and of leisure, to the community, to live entirely for the community.
This meant acting simply like monks and to demand - without any necessity - men to be what they are not. It is only in quite recent days that communities have been founded by Anarchist working men without any such pretensions, for purely economic purposes - to free themselves from capitalist exploitation.
The second mistake lay in the desire to manage the community after the model of a family, to make it "the great family" They lived all in the same house and were thus forced to continuously meet the same "brethren and sisters." It is already difficult often for two real brothers to live together in the same house, and family life is not always harmonious; so it was a fundamental error to impose on all the "great family" instead of trying, on the contrary, to guarantee as much freedom and home life to each individual.
Besides, a small community cannot live long; "brethren and sisters" forced to meet continuously, amid a scarcity of new impressions, end by detesting each other. And if two persons through becoming rivals or simply not liking each other are able by their disagreement to bring about the dissolution of a community, the prolonged life of such communities would be a strange thing, especially since all communities founded up to now have isolated themselves. It is a foregone conclusion that a close association of 10, 20, or 100 persons cannot last longer than three or four years. It would be even regrettable if it lasted longer, because this would only prove either that all were brought under the influence of a single individual or that all lost their individuality. Well, since it is certain that in three, four or five years part of the members of a community would wish to leave, there ought to exist at least a dozen or more federated communities in order that those who, for one reason or other, wish to leave a community may enter another community, being replaced by new comers from other places. Otherwise, the Communist beehive must necessarily perish or (which nearly always happens) fall into the hands of one individual - generally the most cunning of the "brethren".
Finally, all communities founded up till now isolated themselves from society; but struggle, a life of struggle, is far more urgently needed by an active man than a well supplied table. This desire to see the world, to mix with its currents, to fight its battles is the imperative call to the young generation. Hence it comes (as Chaikovski remarked from his experience) that young people, at the age of 18 or 20, necessarily leave a community which does not comprehend the whole of society
We need not add that governments of all descriptions have always been the most serious stumbling blocks for all communities. Those which have seen least of this or none at all (like Young Icaria) succeed best. This is easily understood Political hatred is one of the most violent in character. We can live in the same town with our political adversaries if we are not forced to see them every moment. But how is life possible in a small community where we meet each other at every turn. Political dissent enters the study, the workshop, the place of rest, and life becomes impossible.
On the other hand, it has been proved to conviction that work in common, Communist production, succeeds marvellously. In no commercial enterprise has so much value been added to land by labor as in each of the communities founded in America and in Europe. faults of calculation may occur everywhere as they occur in all capitalist undertakings, but since it is known that during the first five years after their institution four out of every commercial undertakings become bankrupt, it must be admitted that nothing similar or even coming near to this has occurred in Communist communities. So, when the bourgeois press, wanting to be ingenious, speaks of offering an island to Anarchists on which to establish their community, relying on our experience we are ready to accept this proposal, provided only that this island be, for instance, the Isle de France (Paris) and that upon the valuation of the social wealth we receive our share of it. Only, since we know that neither Paris nor our share of social wealth will be given to us, we shall some day take one and the other ourselves by means of the Social Revolution. Paris and Barcelona in 1871 were not very far from doing so - and ideas have made headway since that time.
Progress permits us to see above all, that an isolated town, proclaiming the Commune, would have great difficulty to subsist. The experiment ought, therefore, to be made on a territory - eg, one of the Western States, Idaho or Ohio - as American Socialists suggest, and they are right. On a sufficiently large territory, not within the bounds of a single town we must someday begin to put in practice the Communism of the future.
We have so often demonstrated that State Communism is impossible, that it is useless to dwell on this subject. A proof of this, furthermore, lies in the fad that the believers in the State, the upholders of a Socialist State do not themselves believe in State Communism. A portion of them occupy themselves with the conquest of a share of the power in the State of today - the bourgeois State - and do not trouble themselves at all to explain that their idea of a Socialist State is different from a system of State capitalism under which everybody would be a functionary of the State. If we tell them that it is this they aim at, they are annoyed; yet they do not explain what other system of society they wish to establish. As they do not believe in the possibility of a social revolution in the near future, their aim is to become part of the government in the bourgeois State of today and they leave it to the future to decide where this will end.
As to those who have tried to sketch the outlines of a future Socialist State, they met our criticism by asserting that all they want are bureaus of statistics. But this is mere juggling with words. Besides, it is averred today that the only statistics of value are those recorded by each individual himself, giving age, occupation, social position, or the lists of what he sold or bought, produced and consumed.
The questions to be put are usually of voluntary elaboration (by scientists, statistical societies), and the work of statistical bureaus consists today in Distributing the questions, in arranging and mechanically summing up the replies. To reduce the State, the governments to this function and to say that, by "government", only this will be understood, means nothing else (if said sincerely) but an honourable retreat. And me must indeed admit that the Jacobins of thirty years ago have immensely gone back from their ideals of dictatorship and Socialist centralisation. No one would dare to say today that the production or consumption of potatoes or rice must be regulated by the parliament of the German People's State (Volksstaat) at Berlin. These insipid things are no longer said.
The Communist state is an Utopia given up already by its own adherents and it is time to proceed further. A far more important question to be examined, indeed, is this: whether Anarchist or Free Communism does not also imply a diminution of individual freedom?
As a matter of fact, in all discussions on freedom our ideas are obscured by the surviving influence of past centuries of serfdom and religious oppression.
Economists represented the enforced contract (under the threat of hunger) between master and workingman as a state of freedom. Politicians, again, so called the present state of the citizen who has become a serf and a taxpayer of the State. The most advanced moralists, like Mill and his numerous disciples, defined liberty as the right to do everything with the exception of encroachments on the equal liberty of all others. Apart from the fact that the word "right" is a very confused term handed down from past ages, meaning nothing at all or too much, the definition of Mill enabled the philosopher Spencer, numerous authors and even some Individualist Anarchists to reconstruct tribunals and legal punishments, even to the penalty of death - that is, to reintroduce, necessarily, in the end the State itself which they had admirably criticised themselves. The idea of free will is also hidden behind all these reasonings.
If we put aside all unconscious actions and consider only premeditated actions (being those which the law, religious and penal systems alone try to influence) we find that each action of this kind is preceded by some discussion in the human brain; for instance, "I shall go out and take a walk," somebody thinks, "No, I have an appointment with a friend," or "I promised to finish some work" or "My wife and children will I be sorry to remain at home," or "I shall lose my employment if I do not go to work."
The last reflection implies the fear of punishment. In the first three instances this man has to face only himself, his habit of loyalty, his sympathies. And there lies all the difference. We say that a man forced to reason that he must give up such and such an engagement from fear of punishment, is not a free man. And we affirm that humanity can and must free itself from the fear of punishment, and that it can constitute an Anarchist society in which the fear of punishment and even the unwillingness to be blamed shall disappear. Towards this ideal we march. But we know that we can free ourselves neither from our habit of loyalty (keeping our word) nor from our sympathies (fear of giving pain to those whom we love and whom we do not wish to afflict on or even to disappoint). In this last respect man is never free. Crusoe, on his island, was not free. The moment he began to construct his ship, to cultivate his garden or to lay in provisions for the winter, he was already captured, absorbed by his work. If he felt lazy and would have preferred to remain lying at ease in his cave, he hesitated for a moment and nevertheless went forth to his work. The moment he had the company of a dog, of two or three goats and, above all, after he had met with Friday, he was no longer absolutely free in the sense in which these words are sometimes used in discussions. He had obligations, he had to think of the interests of others, he was no longer the perfect individualist whom we are sometimes expected to see in him. The moment he has a wife or children, educated by himself or confided to others (society), the moment he has a domestic animal, or even only an orchard which requires to be watered at certain hours - from that moment he is no longer the "care for nothing," the "egoist", the individualist" who is sometimes represented as the type of a free man. Neither on Crusoe's island, far less in society of whatever kind it be, does this type exist. Man takes, and will always take into consideration the interests of other men in proportion to the establishment of relations of mutual interest between them, and the more so the more these others affirm their own sentiments and desires.
Thus we find no other definition of liberty than the following one: the possibility of action without being influenced in those actions by the fear of punishment by society (bodily constraint, the threat of hunger or even censure, except when it comes from a friend).
Understanding liberty in this sense - and we doubt whether a larger and at the same time a more real definition of it can be found - we may say that Communism can diminish, even annihilate, all individual liberty and in many Communist communities this was attempted; but it can also enhance this liberty to its utmost limits.
All depends on the fundamental ideas on which the association is based. It is not the form of an association which involves slavery; it is the ideas of individual liberty which we bring with us to an association which determine the more or less libertarian character of that association.
This applies to all forms of association. Cohabitation of two individuals under the same roof may lead to the enslavement of one by the will of the other, as it may also lead to liberty for both. The same applies to the family or to the co-operation of two persons in gardening or in bringing out a paper. The same with regard to large or small associations, to each social institution. Thus, in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, we find communes of equals, men equally free - and four centuries later we see the same commune calling for the dictatorship of a priest. Judges and laws had remained; the idea of the Roman law, of the State had become dominant, whilst those of freedom, of settling disputes by arbitration and of applying federalism to its fullest extent had disappeared; hence arose slavery. Well, of all institutions or forms of social organisation that have been tried until this day, Communism is the one which guarantees the greatest amount of individual liberty - provided that the idea that begets the community be Liberty, Anarchy.
Communism is capable of assuming all forms of freedom or of oppression which other institutions are unable to do. It may produce a monastery where all implicitly obey the orders of their superior, and it may produce an absolutely free organisation, leaving his full freedom to the individual, existing only as long as the associates wish to remain together, imposing nothing on anybody, being anxious rather to defend, enlarge, extend in all directions the liberty of the individual. Communism may be authoritarian (in which case the community will soon decay) or it may be Anarchist. The State, on the contrary, cannot be this. It is authoritarian or it ceases to be the State.
Communism guarantees economic freedom better than any other form of association, because it can guarantee wellbeing, even luxury, in return for a few hours of work instead of a day's work. Now, to give ten or eleven hours of leisure per day out of the sixteen during which we lead a conscious life (sleeping eight hours), means to enlarge individual liberty to a point which for thousands of years has been one of the ideals of humanity.
This can be done today in a Communist society man can dispose of at least ten hours of leisure. This means emancipation from one of the heaviest burdens of slavery on man. It is an increase of liberty.
To recognise all men as equal and to renounce government of man by man is another increase of individual liberty in a degree which no other form of association has ever admitted even as a dream. It becomes possible only after the first step has been taken: when man has his means of existence guaranteed and is not forced to sell his muscle and his brain to those who condescend to exploit him.
Lastly, to recognise a variety of occupations as the basis of all progress and to organise in such a way that man may be absolutely free during his leisure time, whilst he may also vary his work, a change for which his early education and instruction will have prepared him - this can easily be put in practice in a Communist society - this, again, means the emancipation of the individual, who will find doors open in every direction for his complete development.
As for the rest, all depends upon the ideas on which the community is founded. We know a religious community in which members who felt unhappy, and showed signs of this on their faces, used to be addressed by a "brother": "You are sad. Nevertheless, put on a happy look, otherwise you will afflict our brethren and sisters." And we know of communities of seven members, one of whom moved the nomination of four committees: gardening, ways and means, housekeeping, and exportation, with absolute rights for the chairman of each committee. There certainly existed communities founded or invaded by "criminals of authority" (a special type recommended to the attention of Mr. Lombrose) and quite a number of communities were founded by mad upholders of the absorption of the individual by society. But these men were not the product of Communism, but of Christianity (eminently authoritarian in its essence) and of Roman law, the State.
The fundamental idea of these men who hold that society cannot exist without police and judges, the idea of the State, is a permanent danger to all liberty, and not the fundamental idea of Communism - which consists in consuming and producing without calculating the exact share of each individual. This idea, on the contrary, is an idea of freedom, of emancipation.
Thus we have arrived at the following conclusions: Attempts at Communism have hitherto failed because:
[1] They were based on an impetus of a religious character instead of considering a community simply as a means of economic consumption and production,
[2] They isolated themselves from society,
[3] They were imbued with an authoritarian spirit,
[41 They were isolated instead of federated,
[5] They required of their members so much labour as to leave them no leisure time, and
[6] They were modelled on the form of the patriarchal family instead of having for an aim the fullest possible emancipation of the individual.
Communism, being an eminently economic institution, does not in any way prejudice the amount of liberty guaranteed to the individual, the initiator, the rebel against crystallising customs. It may be authoritarian, which necessarily leads to the death of the community, and it may be libertarian, which in the twelfth century even under the partial communism of the young cities of that age, led to the creation of a young civilisation full of vigour, a new springtide of Europe.
The only durable form of Communism, however, is one under which, seeing the close contact between fellow men it brings about, every effort would be made to extend the liberty of the individual in all directions.
Under such conditions, under the influence of this idea, the liberty of the individual, increased already by the amount of leisure secured to him, will be curtailed in no other way than occurs today by municipal gas, the house to house delivery of food by great stores, modern hotels, or by the fact that during working hours we work side by side with thousands of fellow labourers.
With Anarchy as an aim and as a means, Communism becomes possible. Without it, it necessarily becomes slavery and cannot exist.

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