Latest / Logic Library / 06 - Dwellings - The Conquest of Bread - Peter Kropotkin

Transcript

06 - Dwellings - The Conquest of Bread - Peter Kropotkin · Logic Library

0:00
Chapter six, Dwellings. Those who have closely watched the growth of certain ideas
0:08
among the workers must have noticed that on one momentous question the housing of the
0:13
people, namely, a definite conclusion, is being imperceptibly arrived at. It
0:18
is a known fact that in the large towns of France, and in many
0:22
of the smaller ones also, the workers are coming gradually to the conclusion that
0:26
dwelling houses are in no sense the property of those whom the state recognizes as
0:32
their owners. This idea has evolved naturally in the minds of the people,
0:38
and nothing will ever convince them again that the quote rights of property ought to
0:43
extend to houses. The house was not built by its owner. It was
0:48
erected, decorated, and furnished by innumerable workers in the timber yard, the
0:53
brickfield, and the workshop, toiling for dear life at a minimum wage.
0:58
The money spent by the own own was not the product of his own toil.
1:02
It was amassed, like all other riches, by paying the workers two
1:06
thirds or only half of what was their due. Moreover, and it is
1:11
here that the enormity of the whole proceeding becomes most glaring. The house owes
1:15
its actual value to the profit which the owner can make out of it.
1:19
Now. This profit results from the fact that his house is built in a
1:23
town possessing bridges, quays, and fine public buildings, and affording to its
1:27
inhabitants a thousand comforts and conveniences unknown in villages, a town well paved,
1:34
lighted with gas, in regular communication with other towns, and itself a center
1:40
of industry, commerce, science, and art. A town which the work
1:42
of twenty or thirty generations has gone to render habitable, healthy, and beautiful.
1:51
A house in certain parts of Paris may be valued at thousands of pounds
1:55
sterling, not because thousands of pounds worth of labor have been expended on that
1:59
particular house, but because it is in Paris. Because for centuries, workmen,
2:04
artists, thinkers, and men of learning and letters have contributed to make
2:07
Paris what it is today. A center of industry, commerce, politics,
2:12
art and science. Because Paris has a past, because thanks to literature,
2:16
the names of its streets are household words in foreign countries as well as at
2:20
home. Because it is the fruit of eighteen centuries of toil, the work
2:24
of fifty generations of the whole French nation, who then can appropriate to himself
2:31
the tiniest plot of ground or the meanest building without committing a flagrant injustice,
2:38
who then has the right to sell to any bidder the smallest portion of the
2:42
common heritage. On that point, as we have said, the workers are
2:46
agreed. The idea of free dwellings showed its existence very plainly during the Siege
2:52
of Paris, when the cry was for an abatement, pure and simple of
2:54
the terms demanded by the landlords. It appeared again during the Commune of Ais
3:00
eighteen seventy one, when the Paris workmen expected the communal Council to decide boldly
3:04
on the abolition of rent. And when the new revolution comes, it will
3:08
be the first question with which the poor will concern themselves, whether in time
3:15
of revolution or in time of peace. The worker must be housed somehow or
3:20
other. He must have some sort of roof over his head. But however
3:24
tumble down and squalid your dwelling may be, there is always a landlord who
3:29
can evict you. True during the revolution, he cannot find bailiffs and police
3:34
sergeants to throw your rags and chatels into the street. But who knows what
3:38
the new government will do tomorrow. Who can say that it will not call
3:42
in the aid of force again and set the police back upon you to hound
3:46
you out of your hovels. We have seen the Commune proclaim the remission of
3:52
rents do up to the first of April. Only after that rent had to
3:58
be paid, though Paris was in a state of care chaos, and industry
4:00
at a standstill, so that the revolutionist had absolutely nothing to depend upon but
4:04
his allowance of fifteen pence a day. Now, the worker must be made
4:10
to see clearly that in refusing to pay rent to a landlord or owner,
4:14
he is not simply profiting by the disorganization of authority. He must understand that
4:18
the abolition of rent is a recognized principle, sanctioned, so to speak,
4:24
by popular assent, that to be housed rent free is a right proclaimed allowed
4:30
by the people. Are we going to wait till this measure, which is
4:33
in harmony with every honest man's sense of justice, is taken up by the
4:38
few socialists scattered among the middle class elements of which the provisionary government will be
4:43
composed. We should have to wait long till the return of reaction. In
4:47
fact, this is why refusing uniforms and badges, those outward signs of authority
4:54
and servitude, and remaining people among the people, the earnest revolutionists will work
4:58
side by side with the mass that the abolition of rent the expropriation of houses
5:03
may become an accomplished fact. They will prepare the ground and encourage ideas to
5:09
grow in this direction, and when the fruit of their labors is ripe,
5:13
the people will proceed to expropriate the houses, without giving heed to the theories
5:17
which will certainly be thrust in their way. Theory is about paying compensation to
5:23
landlords and finding first the necessary funds. On the day that the expropriation of
5:29
houses takes place, On that day, the exploited workers will have realized that
5:32
the new times have come, that labour will no longer have to bear the
5:35
yoke of the rich and powerful, that equality has been openly proclaimed, that
5:41
this revolution is a real fact and not a theatrical make believe like so many
5:45
others preceding it. If the idea of expropriation be adopted by the people,
5:53
it will be carried into effect in spite of all the insurmountable obstacles with which
5:58
we are menaced. Of course, the good folk, in new uniforms,
6:02
seated in the official arm chairs of the Hotel de Ville, will be sure
6:06
to busy themselves in heaping up obstacles. They will talk of giving compensation to
6:12
the landlords, of preparing statistics and drawing up long reports. Yes, they
6:17
would be capable of drawing up reports long enough to outlast the hopes of the
6:21
people, who, after waiting and starving in enforced idleness, and seeing nothing
6:27
come of all these official researches, would lose heart and faith in the revolution
6:31
and abandon the field to the reactionaries. The new bureaucracy would end by making
6:36
expropriation hateful in the eyes of all. Here, indeed is a rock which
6:43
might shipwreck our hopes. But if the people turn a deaf ear to the
6:46
species arguments used to dazzle them, and realize that new life needs new conditions,
6:51
and if they undertake the task themselves, then expropriation can be effected without
6:57
any great difficulty. But how how can it be done, you ask us.
7:02
We shall try to reply to this question, but with a reservation,
7:06
we have no intention of tracing out the plans of expropriation in their smallest details.
7:13
We know beforehand that all that any man or group of men could suggest
7:16
to day would be far surpassed by the reality. When it comes, man
7:20
will accomplish greater things, and accomplish them better and by simpler methods than those
7:25
dictated to him beforehand. Thus we are content to indicate the manner by which
7:30
expropriation might be accomplished without the intervention of government. We do not propose to
7:36
go out of our way to answer those who declare that the thing is impossible.
7:41
We confine ourselves to replying that we are not the upholders of any particular
7:45
method of organization. We are only concerned to demonstrate that expropriation could be affected
7:50
by popular initiative, and could not be affected by any other means whatever.
7:58
It seems very likely that as soon as expropriation is fairly stated, groups of
8:03
volunteers will spring up in every district, street and block of houses, and
8:07
undertake to inquire into the number of flats and houses which are empty, and
8:11
of those which are overcrowded, the unwholesome slums, and the houses which are
8:15
too spacious for their occupants, and might well be used to house those who
8:18
are stifled in swarming tenements. In a few days, these volunteers would have
8:26
drawn up complete lists for the streets and district of all the flats, tenements,
8:30
family mansions, and villa residences, all the rooms and suites of rooms,
8:35
healthy and unhealthy, small and large, fetid dens, and homes of
8:39
luxury. Freely communicating with each other, these volunteers would soon have their statistics
8:46
complete. False statistics can be manufactured in board rooms and offices, but true
8:52
in exact statistics must begin with the individual and mount up from the simple to
8:58
the complex. Then, without waiting for any one's leave, those citizens will
9:03
probably go and find their comrades who are living in miserable garrets and hovels,
9:07
and will say to them, simply quote, it is a real revolution this
9:11
time, comrades, and no mistake about it. Come to such a place
9:16
this evening. All the neighborhood will be there. We are going to redistribute
9:20
the dwelling houses. If you are tired of your slum garret, come and
9:24
choose one of the flats of five rooms that are to be disposed of.
9:28
And when you have once moved in, you shall stay. Never fear the
9:31
people are up in arms, and he who would venture to evict you will
9:35
have to answer to them. But every one will want a fine house or
9:41
a spacious flat. We are told, no, you are mistaken. It
9:45
is not the people's way to clamor for the moon. On the contrary,
9:48
every time we have seen them set about repairing a wrong, we have been
9:50
struck by the good sense and instinct for justice which animates the masses. Have
9:56
we ever known them to demand the impossible? Have we ever seen the people
10:01
of Paris fighting amongst themselves while waiting for their rations of bread or firewood?
10:07
During the two sieges? The patience and resignation which prevailed among them was constantly
10:13
held up to admiration by the foreign press correspondents. And yet these patient waiters
10:20
knew full well that the last comers would have to pass the day without food
10:24
or fire. We do not deny that there are plenty of egotistic instincts in
10:31
isolated individuals in our societies. We are quite aware of it. But we
10:35
contend that the very way to revive and nourish these instincts would be to confine
10:39
such questions as the housing of the people to any board or committee, in
10:45
fact, to the tender mercies of officialism in any shape or form, then
10:50
indeed all the evil passions spring up, and it becomes a case of who
10:54
is the most influential person on the board. The least inequality causes wranglings and
11:00
recriminations. If the smallest advantage is given to any one, a tremendous hue
11:05
and cry is raised, and not without reason. But if the people themselves,
11:11
organized by streets, districts and parishes, undertake to move the inhabitants of
11:16
the slums into the half empty dwellings of the middle classes, the trifling inconveniences,
11:24
the little inequalities will be easily tided over. Rarely has appeal been made
11:30
to the good instincts of the masses, only as a last resort to save
11:33
the sinking ship in times of revolution. But never has such an appeal been
11:39
made in vain. The heroism, the self devotion of the toiler has never
11:43
failed to respond to it, and thus it will be in the coming revolution.
11:48
But when all is said and done, some inequalities, some inevitable injustices,
11:54
will remain. There are individuals in our societies whom no great crisis can
11:58
lift out of the deep rots of egoism in which they are sunk. The
12:01
question, however, is not whether there will be injustices or no, but
12:07
rather how to limit the number of them. Now, all history, all
12:11
the experience of the human race, and all social psychology unite in showing that
12:16
the best and fairest way is to trust the decision to those whom it concerns
12:22
most. Nearly it is they alone who can consider and allow for the hundred
12:26
and one details which must necessarily be overlooked in any merely official redistribution. Moreover,
12:35
it is by no means necessary to make straight away an absolutely equal redistribution
12:41
of the dwellings. There will, no doubt be some inconveniences at first,
12:46
but matters will soon be righted. In a society which has adopted expropriation,
12:52
when the masons and carpenters, and all who are concerned in house building know
12:56
that their daily bread is secured to them, they they will ask nothing better
13:01
than to work at their old trades a few hours a day. They will
13:05
adapt the fine houses which absorb the time of a whole staff of servants,
13:09
and in a few months, homes will have sprung up infinitely healthier and more
13:13
conveniently arranged than those of today, and to those who are not yet comfortably
13:18
housed, the anarchist commune will be able to say, patience comrades. Palaces
13:22
fairer and finer than any of the capitalists built for themselves will spring from the
13:26
ground of our enfranchised city. They will belong to those who have most need
13:31
of them. The anarchist commune does not build with an eye to revenues.
13:35
These monuments, erected to its citizens, products of the collective spirit, will
13:41
serve as models to all humanity. They will be yours. If the people
13:48
of the revolution expropriate the houses and proclaim free lodgings, the communalizing of houses,
13:54
and the right of each family to a decent dwelling, then the revolution
13:58
will have assumed a communistic care from the first and started on a course from
14:01
which it will be by no means easy to turn it. It will have
14:05
struck a fatal blow at individual property. For the expropriation of dwellings contains in
14:13
Germ the whole social revolution. On the manner of its accomplishments depends the character
14:18
of all that follows. Either we shall start on a good road leading straight
14:22
to anarchist communism, or we shall remain sticking in the mud of despotic individualism.
14:31
It is easy to see the numerous objections theoretic on the one hand,
14:35
practical on the other, with which we are sure to be met, As
14:39
it will be a question of maintaining iniquity at any price. Our opponents will
14:43
of course protest. Quote in the name of justice, Is it not a
14:46
crying shame that will exclaim that the people of parish should take possession of all
14:52
these fine houses, while the peasants in the country have only tumble down huts
14:56
to live in. But do not let us make a mistake. These enthusiasts
15:01
for justice forget, by lapse of memory to which they are subject, the
15:05
crying shame which they themselves are tacitly defending. They forget that in this same
15:11
city, the worker, with his wife and children suffocates in a noisome garret,
15:15
while from his window he sees the rich man's palace. They forget that
15:20
whole generations perish in crowded slums, starving for air and sunlight, and that
15:26
to redress this injustice ought to be the first task of the revolution. Do
15:31
not let these disingenuous protests hold us back. We know that any inequality which
15:37
may exist between town and country in the early days of the revolution will be
15:41
transitory and of a nature to right itself from day to day. For the
15:46
village will not fail to improve its dwellings as soon as the peasant has ceased
15:50
to be the beast of burden of the farmer, the merchant, the money
15:54
lender, and the state. In order to avoid an accidental and transitory inequality,
16:00
shall we stay our hand from writing an ancient wrong. The so called
16:06
practical objections are not very formidable either. We are bidden to consider the hard
16:11
case of some poor fellow who, by dint of privation, has contrived to
16:15
buy a house just large enough to hold his family. And we are going
16:18
to deprive him of his hard earned happiness, to turn him into the street.
16:23
Certainly, not if his house is only just large enough for his family.
16:27
By all means, let him stay there, Let him work in his
16:30
little garden too. Our boys will not hinder him, Nay, they will
16:34
lend him a helping hand if need be. But suppose he lets lodgings.
16:38
Suppose he has empty rooms in his house, Then the people will make the
16:42
lodger understand that he need not pay his former landlord any more rent. Stay
16:48
where you are, but rent free. No more duns and collectors. Socialism
16:52
has abolished all that. Or again, suppose that the landlord has a score
16:59
of rooms all to him, and some poor woman lives nearby with five children
17:03
in one room. In that case, the people would see whether, with
17:07
some alterations, these empty rooms could not be converted into a suitable home for
17:11
the poor woman and her five children. Would not that be more just and
17:15
fair than to leave the mother and her five little ones languishing in a garret
17:19
while Sir Gorgeous Midas sat at his ease in an empty mansion. Besides,
17:25
good, Sir Gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his own accord.
17:29
His wife will be delighted to be freed from half her big, unwieldy house
17:33
when there is no longer a staff of servants to keep it in order.
17:38
So you are going to turn everything upside down, say the defenders of law
17:41
and order. There will be no end to the evictions and removals. Would
17:47
it not be better to start fresh by turning everybody out of doors and redistributing
17:51
the houses by lot. Thus are critics, but we are firmly persuaded that
17:56
if no government interferes in the matter, if all the changes are in trust
18:00
to those free groups which have sprung up to undertake the work, the evictions
18:03
and removals will be less numerous than those which take place in one year under
18:08
the present system. Owing to the rapacity of landlords. In the first place,
18:14
there are in all large towns almost enough empty houses and flats to lodge
18:18
all the inhabitants of the slums. As to the palaces and suites of fine
18:22
apartments, many working people would not live in them if they could. One
18:27
could not keep up such houses without a large staff of servants. Their occupants
18:33
would soon find themselves forced to seek less luxurious dwellings. The fine ladies would
18:37
find that palaces were not well adapted to self help. In the kitchen.
18:41
Gradually people would shake down. There would be no need to conduct Dvays to
18:48
a garret at the bayonet's point, or install Lazarus and d'vay's palace by the
18:52
help of an armed escort. People would shake down amicably into the available dwellings
18:59
with the least possible and disturbance. Have we not the example of the village
19:03
commune's redistributing fields and disturbing the owners of the allotments so little that one can
19:08
only praise the intelligence and good sense of the methods they employ. Fewer fields
19:15
change hands under the management of the Russian commune than where personal property holds sway
19:21
and is forever carrying its quarrels into courts of law. And are we to
19:26
believe that the inhabitants of a great European city would be less intelligent and less
19:30
capable of organization than Russian or Hindu peasants. Moreover, we must not blink
19:37
the fact that every revolution means a certain disturbance to everyday life. And those
19:42
who expect this tremendous lift out of the old grooves to be accomplished without so
19:47
much as jarring the dishes on their dinner tables will find themselves mistaken. It
19:52
is true that governments can change without disturbing worthy citizens at dinner. But the
19:56
crimes of society towards those who have nourished and so reported it, are not
20:00
to be redressed by any such political slight of parties. Undoubtedly there will be
20:08
a disturbance, but it must not be of pure destruction. It must be
20:11
minimized. And again it is impossible to lay too much stress on this maxim
20:18
It will be by addressing ourselves to the interested parties, and not to boards
20:22
and committees, that we shall best succeed in reducing the sum of inconveniences for
20:26
everybody. The people commit blunder on blunder when they have to choose by ballots
20:32
some hare brained candidate who solicits the honor of representing them, and takes upon
20:37
himself to know all, to do all, and to organize all. But
20:41
when they take upon themselves to organize what they know, what touches them directly,
20:47
they do it better than all the talking shops put together. Is not
20:51
the Paris commune even instance in point and the great dockers strike. And have
20:56
we not constant evidence of this fact in every village commune? End of Chapter six