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03 - Anarchist Communism - The Conquest of Bread · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three, anarchist communism. Every society, on abolishing private property,
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  Speaker 1: will be forced, we maintain, to organize itself on the
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  Speaker 1: lines of communist anarchy. Anarchy leads to communism and communism
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  Speaker 1: to anarchy, both alike being expressions of the predominant tendency
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  Speaker 1: in modern societies. The pursuit of equality. Time was when
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  Speaker 1: a peasant family could consider the corn it sowed and reoped,
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  Speaker 1: or the wood and garments woven in the cottage, as
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  Speaker 1: the products of its own toil. But even then this
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  Speaker 1: way of looking at things was not quite correct. There
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  Speaker 1: were the roads and the bridges made in common, the
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  Speaker 1: swamps drained by common toil, the communal pastures enclosed by hedges,
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  Speaker 1: which were kept in repair by each and all. If
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  Speaker 1: the looms for weaving or the dyes for coloring fabrics
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  Speaker 1: were improved by somebody, all profited. And even in those
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  Speaker 1: days a peasant family could not live alone, but was
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  Speaker 1: dependent in a thousand ways on the village of the commune.
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  Speaker 1: But nowadays, in the present state of industry, when everything
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  Speaker 1: is interdependent, when every branch of production is knit up
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  Speaker 1: with all the rest, the attempt to claim an individualist
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  Speaker 1: origin for the products of industry is absolutely untenable. The
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  Speaker 1: astonishing perfection attained by the textile or mining industries in
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  Speaker 1: civilized countries is due to the simultaneous development of a
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  Speaker 1: thousand other industries, great and small. To the extension of
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  Speaker 1: the railroad system, to inter oceanic navigation, to the manual
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  Speaker 1: scale of thousands of workers, to a certain standard of
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  Speaker 1: culture reached by the working classes as a whole, to
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  Speaker 1: the laborers in short of men in every corner of
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  Speaker 1: the globe. The Italians who died of cholera while making
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  Speaker 1: the Suez Canal, or of anchiolysis in the sent Gothard Tunnel,
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  Speaker 1: and the Americans mowed down by shot and shell or
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  Speaker 1: fighting for the abolition of slavery, have helped to develop
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  Speaker 1: the cotton industry in France and England, as well well
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  Speaker 1: as the work girls who languish in the factories of
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  Speaker 1: Manchester and Rouen, and the inventor who, following the suggestion
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  Speaker 1: of some workers, succeeds in improving the looms. How then,
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  Speaker 1: shall we estimate the share of each in the riches
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  Speaker 1: which all contribute to a mass. Looking at production from
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  Speaker 1: this general synthetic point of view, we cannot hold with
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  Speaker 1: the collectivists, that payment proportionate to the hours of labour
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  Speaker 1: rendered by each would be an ideal arrangement, or even
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  Speaker 1: a step in the right direction, without discussing whether exchange
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  Speaker 1: value of goods is really measured in existing societies by
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  Speaker 1: the amount of work necessary to produce it. According to
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  Speaker 1: the teaching of Adam Smith and Ricardo, in whose footsteps
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  Speaker 1: marks has followed, suffice it to say here, leaving ourselves
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  Speaker 1: free to return to the subject later, that the collectivist
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  Speaker 1: ideal appears to us untenable in a society which considers
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  Speaker 1: the instruments of labour as a common inheritance. Starting from
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  Speaker 1: this principle, such a society would find itself forced from
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  Speaker 1: the very outsets to abandon all forms of wages. The
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  Speaker 1: mitigated individualism of the collectivist system certainly cannot maintain itself
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  Speaker 1: alongside a partial communism. The socialization of land and the
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  Speaker 1: instruments of production. A new form of property requires a
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  Speaker 1: new form of remuneration. A new method of production cannot
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  Speaker 1: exist side by side with the old forms of consumption
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  Speaker 1: any more than it can adapt itself to the old
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  Speaker 1: forms of political organization. The wage system arises out of
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  Speaker 1: the individual ownership of the land and the instruments of labour.
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  Speaker 1: It was the necessary condition for the development of capitalist production,
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  Speaker 1: and will perish with it in spite of the attempt
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  Speaker 1: to disguise it as profit sharing. The common possession of
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  Speaker 1: the instruments of labor must necessarily bring with it the
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  Speaker 1: enjoyment in common of the fruits of common labor. We
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  Speaker 1: hold further that communism is not only desirable, but that
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  Speaker 1: exists in societies founded on individualism are inevitably impelled in
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  Speaker 1: a direction of communism. The development of individualism during the
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  Speaker 1: last three centuries is explained by the efforts of the
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  Speaker 1: individual to protect himself from the tyranny of capital and
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  Speaker 1: of the state. For a time, he imagined, and those
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  Speaker 1: who expressed his thought for him, declared that he could
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  Speaker 1: free himself entirely from the state and from society by
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  Speaker 1: means of money. He said, I can buy all that
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  Speaker 1: I need. But the individual was on a wrong track,
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  Speaker 1: and modern history has taught him to recognize that without
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  Speaker 1: the help of all he can do nothing, although his
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  Speaker 1: strong boxes are full of gold. In fact, along with
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  Speaker 1: the current of individualism, we find in all modern history
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  Speaker 1: a tendency on the one hand, to retain all that
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  Speaker 1: remains of the partial communism of antiquity, and on the
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  Speaker 1: other to establish the communist principle in the thousand developments
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  Speaker 1: of modern mind. As soon as the communes of the tenth, eleventh,
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  Speaker 1: and twelfth centuries had succeeded in emancipating themselves from their lords,
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  Speaker 1: ecclesiastical or lay, their communal labour and communal consumption began
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  Speaker 1: to extend and develop rapidly. The township, and not private persons,
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  Speaker 1: freighted ships and equipped expeditions for the experts of their manufacture,
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  Speaker 1: and the benefit arising from the foreign trade did not
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  Speaker 1: accrue to individuals, but was shared by all At the outset.
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  Speaker 1: The township also brought provisions for all their citizens. Traces
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  Speaker 1: of these institutions have lingered on into the nineteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: and the people piously cherished the memory of them in
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  Speaker 1: their legends. All that has disappeared, but the rural township
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  Speaker 1: still struggles to preserve the last traces of this communism,
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  Speaker 1: and it succeeds except when the state throws its heavy
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  Speaker 1: sword into the balance. Meanwhile, new organizations based on the
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  Speaker 1: same principle to every man according to his needs sprung
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  Speaker 1: up under a thousand different forms. For without a certain
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  Speaker 1: level of communism, the present societies could not exist. In
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  Speaker 1: spite of the narrowly egotistic turn given to men's minds
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  Speaker 1: by the commercial system, the tendency towards communism is constantly appearing,
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  Speaker 1: and it influences our activities in a variety of ways.
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  Speaker 1: The bridges for the use of which a toll was
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  Speaker 1: levied in the old days, have become public property and
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  Speaker 1: are free to all, and so are the high roads,
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  Speaker 1: except in the East, where a toll is still extracted
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  Speaker 1: from the traveler for every mile of his journey. Museums,
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  Speaker 1: free libraries, free schools, free mills for children, parks and
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  Speaker 1: gardens open to all, streets paved and lighted, free to all,
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  Speaker 1: water supply to every house without measure or stint. All
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  Speaker 1: such arrangements are founded on the principle take what you need.
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  Speaker 1: The tramways and railways have already introduced monthly and annual
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  Speaker 1: season tickets without limiting the number of journeys taken, and
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  Speaker 1: two nations, Hungary and Russia, have introduced on their railway
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  Speaker 1: as the zone system, which permits the holder to travel
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  Speaker 1: five hundred or eight hundred miles for the same price.
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  Speaker 1: It is but a short step from that to a
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  Speaker 1: uniform charge, such as already prevails in the postal service.
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  Speaker 1: In all these innovations, and in a thousand others, the
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  Speaker 1: tendency is not to measure the individual consumption. One man
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  Speaker 1: was to travel eight hundred miles, another five hundred. These
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  Speaker 1: are personal requirements. There is no sufficient reason why one
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  Speaker 1: should pay twice as much as the other, because his
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  Speaker 1: need is twice as great. Such are the signs which
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  Speaker 1: appear even now in our individualist societies. Moreover, there is
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  Speaker 1: a tendency, though still a feeble one, to consider the
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  Speaker 1: needs of the individual, irrespective of his past or possible
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  Speaker 1: services to the community. We are beginning to think of
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  Speaker 1: society as a whole, each part of which is so
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  Speaker 1: intimately bound up with the others that a service rendered
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  Speaker 1: to one is a service rendered to all. We go
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  Speaker 1: into a public library, not indeed the National Library of Paris,
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  Speaker 1: but say into the British Museum or the Berlin Library.
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  Speaker 1: The librarian does not ask what services you have rendered
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  Speaker 1: to society before giving you the book or the fifty
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  Speaker 1: books which you require. He even comes to your assistance
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  Speaker 1: if you do not know how to manage the catalog
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  Speaker 1: by means of uniform credentials, and very often a contribution
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  Speaker 1: of work is preferred. The Scientific Society opens its museums,
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  Speaker 1: its gardens, its libraries, its laboratories, and its annual conversations
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  Speaker 1: to each of its members, whether he be a Darwin
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  Speaker 1: or a simple amateur. At Saint Petersburg, if you are
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  Speaker 1: elaborating an invention, you go into a special laboratory where
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  Speaker 1: you are given a place, a carpenter's bench, a turning lathe,
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  Speaker 1: all the necessary tools and scientific instruments, provided only you
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  Speaker 1: know how to use them, and you are allowed to
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  Speaker 1: work there as long as you please. There are the
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  Speaker 1: tools interest others in your idea. Join the fellow workers
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  Speaker 1: skilled in various crafts, or work a line if you
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  Speaker 1: prefer it, invent a flying machine, or invent nothing that
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  Speaker 1: is your own affair. You are pursuing an idea that
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  Speaker 1: is enough. In the same way, those who manned the
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  Speaker 1: lifeboat do not ask credentials from the crew of a
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  Speaker 1: sinking ship. They launch their boats, risk their lives in
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  Speaker 1: the raging waves, and sometimes perish, or to save men
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  Speaker 1: whom they do not even know and what need to
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  Speaker 1: note them. They are human beings, and they need our aid.
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  Speaker 1: That is enough that establishes their right to the rescue.
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  Speaker 1: Thus we find a tendency eminently communistic, springing up on
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  Speaker 1: all sides and in various guises, in the very heart
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  Speaker 1: of theoretical individualist societies. Suppose that one of our great cities,
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  Speaker 1: so egotistic in ordinary times were visited tomorrow by some calamity,
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  Speaker 1: a siege, for instance, that same selfish city would decide
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  Speaker 1: that the first needs to satisfy were those of the
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  Speaker 1: children aged, without asking what services they had rendered or
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  Speaker 1: were likely to render in society. It would first of
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  Speaker 1: all feed them. Then the combatants would be cared for,
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  Speaker 1: irrespective of the courage or the intelligence that each had displayed,
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  Speaker 1: and thousands of men and women would outfy each other
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  Speaker 1: in unselfish devotion to the wounded. This tendency exists, and
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  Speaker 1: it is felt as soon as the most pressing needs
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  Speaker 1: of each are satisfied, and in proportion to the productive
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  Speaker 1: power of the race increases, it becomes an active force
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  Speaker 1: every time a great idea comes to oust the mean
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  Speaker 1: preoccupations of everyday life. How can we doubt then, that
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  Speaker 1: when the instruments of production are placed at the service
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  Speaker 1: of all, when business is conducted on communist principles, When labour,
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  Speaker 1: having recovered its place of honor in society, produces much
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  Speaker 1: more than is necessary to all, how can we doubt
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  Speaker 1: that this force, already so powerful, will enlarge its sphere
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  Speaker 1: of action till it becomes the ruling principle of social life.
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  Speaker 1: Following these indications, and considering further the practical side of expropriation,
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  Speaker 1: of which we shall speak in the following chapters, we
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  Speaker 1: are convinced that our first obligation, when the revolution shall
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  Speaker 1: have broken the power upholding the present system, will be
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  Speaker 1: to realize communism without delay. But ours is neither the
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  Speaker 1: communism of Fourier and the Thansterians, nor of the German
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  Speaker 1: state socialists. It is anarchist communism, communism without government, the
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  Speaker 1: communists of the free. It is the synthesis of two
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  Speaker 1: ideals pursued by humanity throughout the ages, economic and political liberty.
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  Speaker 1: In taking anarchy for our ideal of political organization, we
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  Speaker 1: are only given expression to another marked tendency of human progress.
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  Speaker 1: Whenever European societies have developed up to a certain point,
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  Speaker 1: they have shaken off the yoke of authority and substituted
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  Speaker 1: a system founded more or less on the principles of
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  Speaker 1: individual liberty. And history shows us that these periods of
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  Speaker 1: partial or general revolution, when the old governments were overthrown,
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  Speaker 1: were also periods of sudden progress in both the economic
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  Speaker 1: and the intellectual field. So it was after the enfranchisement
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  Speaker 1: of the communes, whose monuments produced by the free labour
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  Speaker 1: of the guilds have never been surpassed. So it was
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  Speaker 1: after the great peasant uprising, which brought about the Reformation
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  Speaker 1: and imperiled the papacy. And so it was again with
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  Speaker 1: the society free for a brief space which was created
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  Speaker 1: on the other side of the Atlantic by the malcontents
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  Speaker 1: from the old world. And if we observe the present
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  Speaker 1: development of civilized nations, we see most unmistakably a movement
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  Speaker 1: ever more and more marked, tending to limit the sphere
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  Speaker 1: of action of the government and to allow more and
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  Speaker 1: more liberty to the individual. This evolution is going on
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  Speaker 1: before our eyes, though cumbered by the ruins and rubbish
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  Speaker 1: of old institutions and old superstitions. Like all evolutions, it
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  Speaker 1: only awaits a revolution to overthrow the old obstacles which
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  Speaker 1: block the way that it may find a free scope
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  Speaker 1: in a regenerated society. After having striven long in vain
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  Speaker 1: to solve the insoluble problem, the problem of constructing a
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  Speaker 1: government which will not constrain the individual to obedience, without
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  Speaker 1: itself ceasing to be the servant of society, men at
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  Speaker 1: last attempt to free themselves from every form of government
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  Speaker 1: and to satisfy their need for organization by free contracts
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  Speaker 1: between individuals and groups. Pursuing the same aim, the independence
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  Speaker 1: of each small territorial unit becomes a pressing need. Mutual
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: agreement replaces law in order to regulate individual interests in
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  Speaker 1: view of a common object, very often disregarding the frontiers
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  Speaker 1: of the present. All that was once looked on as
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  Speaker 1: a function of the government is to day called in question.
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  Speaker 1: Things are arranged more easily and more satisfactory without the
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  Speaker 1: intervention of the state. And in studying the progress made
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  Speaker 1: in this direction, we are led to conclude that the
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  Speaker 1: tendency of the human race is to reduce government interference
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  Speaker 1: to zero, in fact, to abolish the state, the personification
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  Speaker 1: of injustice, oppression, and monopoly. We can already catch glimpses
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  Speaker 1: of a world in which the bonds which bind the
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  Speaker 1: individual are no longer laws, but social habits, the result
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  Speaker 1: of the need felt by each of us to seek
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  Speaker 1: the supports, the cooperation, the sympathy of his neighbors. Assuredly,
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  Speaker 1: the idea of a society without a state will give
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: rise to at least as many objections as the political
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: economy of society without private capital. We have all been
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: brought up from our childhood to regard the state as
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: a sort of providence. All our education, the Roman history
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: we learned at school, the Byzantine Code, which we studied
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: later under the name of Roman law, and the various
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: sciences taught at the universities. A custom ERUs to believe
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: in government and in the virtues of state providential. To
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: maintain this superstition, whole systems of philosophy have been elaborated
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  Speaker 1: and taught. All politics are based on this principle, and
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  Speaker 1: each politician, whatever his colors, comes forward and says to
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  Speaker 1: the people, give my party the power we can, and
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  Speaker 1: we will free you from your miseries which press so
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  Speaker 1: heavily upon you from the cradle to the grave. All
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: our actions are guided by this principle. Open any book
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: on sociology, or jurisprudence, and you will find there the government,
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  Speaker 1: its organization, its acts, feeling so large a place that
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: we come to believe that there is nothing outside the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: government and the world of statesmen. The press teaches us
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the same in every conceivable way. Whole columns are devoted
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to parliamentary debates and to political intrigues, while the vast
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: everyday life of the nation appears only in the columns
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  Speaker 1: given to economic subjects, or in the pages devoted to
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: reports of police and law cases. And when you read
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  Speaker 1: the newspapers, you hardly think of the incalculable numbers of beings,
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  Speaker 1: All humanity, so to say, who grow up and die,
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  Speaker 1: who know sorrow, who work and consume, think, can create
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  Speaker 1: outside the few encumbering personages, who have been so magnified
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  Speaker 1: that humanity is hidden by the shadows enlarged by our ignorance.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And yet as soon as we pass from printed matter
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  Speaker 1: to life itself, as soon as we throw a glass
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  Speaker 1: at society, we are struck by this infinitesimal part played
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  Speaker 1: by the government. Balzac already remarked how millions of peasants
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: spend the whole of their lives without knowing anything about
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the state, save the heavy taxes they are compelled to pay.
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  Speaker 1: Every day, millions of transactions are made without government intervention,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and the greaters of them, Thosese of commerce and of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the exchange, are carried on in such a way that
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the government could not be appealed to if one of
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  Speaker 1: the contracting parties had the intention of not fulfilling his agreement.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Should you speak to a man who understands commerce, he
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: will tell you that the everyday business transacted by merchants
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: would be absolutely impossible were it not based on mutual confidence,
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  Speaker 1: the habit of keeping his word, the desire not to
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  Speaker 1: lose his credit, and please suffice to maintain this relative honesty.
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  Speaker 1: The man who does not feel the slightest remorse when
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: poisoning his customers with noxious drugs covered with pompous labels,
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  Speaker 1: thinks he is in honour bound to keep his engagements.
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  Speaker 1: But if this relative morality has developed under present conditions,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: when enrichment is the only incentive and the only aim,
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  Speaker 1: can we doubt its rapid progress. When appropriation of the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: fruits of others, labour will no longer be the basis
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: of society. Another striking fact which especially characterizes our generation
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: speaks still more in favor of our ideas. It is
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the continual extension of the field of enterprise due to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: private initiative and the prodigious development of free organizations of
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: all kinds. We shall discuss this more at length in
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  Speaker 1: the chapter devoted to free agreement. Suffice it to mention
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that the facts are so numerous and so customary that
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: they are the essence of the second half of the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Even no political and socialist writers ignore them,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: always preferring to talk to us about the functions of
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the government. These organizations, free and infinitely varied, are so
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  Speaker 1: natural an outcome of our civilization. They expand so rapidly,
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  Speaker 1: confederate with so much ease, They are so necessary a
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: result of continual growth of the needs of civilized man.
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  Speaker 1: And lastly, they so advantageously replace governmental interference that we
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: must recognize in them a factor of growing importance in
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the life of societies. If they do not yet spread
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: over the whole world of the manifestation of life, it
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  Speaker 1: is that they find an insurmountable obstacle in the poverty
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: of the worker, in the divisions of present society, in
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the private appropriation of capital, and in the state. Abolish
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: these obstacles, and you will see them covering the immense
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: field of civilized man's activity. The history of the last
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: fifty years furnishes a living proof that representative government is
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  Speaker 1: impotent to discharge all the functions we have sought to
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: assign to it. In days to come, the nineteenth century
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: will be quoted as having witnessed the failure of parliamentarianism.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: This impotence is becoming so evident at all. The thoughts
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: of parliamentarianism and the inherent vices of the representative principle
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: are so self evident that the few fingers who have
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: made a critical study of them did but give literary
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: form to the popular dissatisfaction. It is not difficult, indeed,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to see the absurdity of naming a few men and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: saying to them make laws regulating all our spheres of activity,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: although not one of you knows anything about them. We
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: are beginning to see that government by majorities means abandoning
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: all the affairs of the country to the tide waiters
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: who make up the majorities in the House and in
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the election committees, to those, in a word, who have
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: no opinion of their own mankind is seeking and already
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: finding new issues. The International Postal Union, the railway unions,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: and the learned societies give us examples of solutions based
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: on free agreement in place instead of law. Today, when
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: groups scattered foreign wide wish to organize themselves for some
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: object or other, they no longer elect to international parliament
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: of jack of all trades. They proceed in a different way,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: where it is not possible to meet directly or come
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: to an agreement by correspondents. Delegates first in the question
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: at issues are sent and they are told endeavor to
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: come to an agreement on such or such question, and
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: then return not with a law in your pocket, but
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: with a proposition of agreement which we may or may
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: not accept. Such is the method of the great industrial companies,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the learned societies, and numerous associations of everyday description, which
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: will already cover Europe and the United States, and such
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: will be the method of a free society. A society
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: funded on serfdom is in keeping with absolute monarchy. A
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: society based on the wage system and the exploitation of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: the masses by the capitalists find his political expression in parliamentarianism.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: But a free society regaining possession of the common inheritance
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: must seek, in free groups and free federations of groups,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: a new organization in harmony with the new economic phase
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: of history. Every economic phase has a political phase corresponding
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to it, and it would be impossible to touch private
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: property unless a new mode of political life be found
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: at the same time. End of Chapter three.