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04 - Expropiation - The Conquest of Bread - Peter Kropotkin · Logic Library

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Chapter four, Expropriation, Part one, it is told of Rothschild that,
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seeing his fortune threatened by the Revolution of eighteen forty eight, he hit upon
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the following stratagem. I am quite willing to admit, said he, that
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my fortune has been accumulated at the expense of others. But if it were
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divided tomorrow among the millions of Europe, the share of each would only amount
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to five shillings. Very well, then I undertake to render to each his
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five shillings if he asked me for it. Having given due publicity to his
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promise, our millionaire proceeded, as usual to stroll quietly through the streets of
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frankfort Three or four passive eyes asked for their five shillings, which he dispersed
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with a sardonic smile. His stratagem succeeded, and the family of the millionaire
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is still in possession of his wealth. It is in much the same fashion
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that the shrewd heads among the middle classes reason when they say, ah,
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expropriation, I know what that means. You take all the overcoats and lay
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them in a heap, and everyone is free to help himself and fight for
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the best. But such jests are irrelevant as well as flippant. What we
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want is not a redistribution of overcoats, although it must be said that even
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in such a case, the shivering folk would see advantage in it. Nor
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do we want to divide up the wealth of the Rothschilds. What we do
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want is so to arrange things, that every human being born into the world
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shall be insured the opportunity, in the first instance, of learning some useful
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occupation and of becoming skilled in it. Next, that he shall be free
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to work at his trade without asking leave of master or owner, and without
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handing over to landlord or capitalists the lion's share of what he produces, as
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to the wealth held by the Rothschilds or the Vanderbilts. It will serve us
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to organize our system of communal production. The day when the laborer may chill
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the ground without paying away half of what he produces. The day when the
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machines necessary to prepare the soil for rich harvests are at the free disposal of
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the cultivators. The day when the workers in the factories produces for the community
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and not the monopolist. That day will see the workers clothed and fed,
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and there will be no more Rothschilds or other exploiters. No one will then
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have to sell his working power for a wage that only represents a fraction of
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what he produces. So far, so good, say our critics. But
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you will have Rothschilds coming in from outside. How are you to prevent a
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person from amassing millions in China and then settling amongst you. How are you
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going to prevent such a one from surrounding himself with lackeys and wage slaves,
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from exploiting them and enriching himself at their expense. You cannot bring about a
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revolution all over the world at the same time. Well, then, are
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you going to establish custom houses on your frontiers to search all who enter your
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country and confiscate the money they bring with them? Anarchist policemen firing on travelers
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would be a fine spectacle. But at the root of this argument there is
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a great error. Those who propound it have never paused to inquire whence comes
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the fortune of the rich. A little thought would, however, suffice to
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show them that these fortunes have their beginning in the poverty of the poor.
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When there are no longer any destitute there will no longer be any rich to
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exploit them. Let us glance for a moment at the Middle Ages, when
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great fortunes began to spring up. A feutile baron seizes on a fertile valley.
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But as long as the fertile valley is empty of folk, our baron
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is not rich. His land brings him in nothing. He might as well
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possess a property on the moon. What does our baron due to enrich himself.
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He looks out for peasants for poor peasants. If every peasant farmer had
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a piece of land free from rent and taxes, if he had, in
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addition the tools and the stock necessary for farm labor, who would plow the
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land of the baron? Everyone would look after his own. But there are
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thousands of destitute persons, ruined by wars, or drought or pestilence. They
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have neither horse nor plow. Iron was costly in the Middle Ages, and
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a drought horse still more so. All these destitute creatures are trying to better
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their conditions. One day they see on the road at the confines of our
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baron's estate a notice board indicating by certain signs adapted to their comprehension that the
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laborer who is willing to settle on this estate will receive the tools and materials
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to build his cottage and sow his fields, and a portion of the land
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rent free for a certain number of years. The number of years is represented
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by so many crosses on the sign board, and the peasant understands the meaning
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of these crosses. So the poor wretches swarm over the baron's lands, making
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roads, draining marshes, building villages. In nine years he begins to tax
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them. Five years later he increases the rent, then he doubles it.
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The peasant accepts these new conditions because he cannot find better ones elsewhere, And
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little by little, the aid of laws made by the barons, the poverty
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of the peasant becomes the source of the landlord's wealth. And it is not
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only the lord of the manor who preys upon him. A whole host of
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usurers swooped down upon the villages, multiplying as the wretchedness of the peasants increases.
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That is how things went in the Middle Ages, And today is it
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not still the same thing? If there were free lands which the peasant could
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cultivate if he pleased would he pay for fifty pounds to some chapel of a
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duke for condescending to sell him a scrap? Would he burden himself with the
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lease which absorbed a third of the produce? Would he, on the mataie
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system, consent to give half of his harvest to the landowner? But he
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has nothing, so he will accept any conditions if only he can keep body
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and soul together while he tills the soil and enriches the landlord. So,
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in the nineteenth century, just as the Middle Ages, the poverty of the
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peasant is a source of wealth to the landed proprietor Part two. The landlord
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owes his riches to the poverty of the peasant, and the wealth of the
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capitalists comes from the same source. Take the case of a citizen of the
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middle class who somehow or other finds himself in possession of twenty thousand pounds.
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He could, of course spend his money at the rate of two thousand pounds
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a year, a mere bagatel in these days of fantastic senseless luxury, but
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then he would have nothing left at the end of ten years. So,
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being a practical person who prefers to keep his fortune intact and win for himself
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a snug little annual income as well. This is very easy in our society
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for the good reason that the towns and villages swarm with workers who have not
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the wherewithal to live for a month or even a fortnight. So our worthy
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citizen starts a factory, the banks hasten to lend him another twenty thousand pounds,
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especially if he has a reputation for business ability, and with his found
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sum he can command the labor of five hundred hands. If all the men
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and women in the countryside had their daily bread sure and their daily needs already
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satisfied, who would work for our capitalist at a wage of half a crown
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a day, while the commodities one produces in a day selling the market for
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a crown or more. Unhappily, we know it all too well. The
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poor quarters of our towns and the neighboring villages are full of needy wretches whose
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children clamor for bread. So before the factory is well finished, the workers
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hasten to often themselves. Where a hundred are required, three hundred besieged the
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doors. From the time his mill is started. The owner, if he
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only has average business capacity will clear forty towns a year out of each mill
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hand he employs. He is thus able to lay by a snug little fortune.
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And if he chooses a lucrative trade and has business talents, he will
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soon increase his income by doubling the number of men he exploits, and so
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he becomes a personage of importance. He can afford to give dinners to other
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persons, to the local magnets, the civic, legal, political dignitaries.
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With his money, he can marry money. By and by he may pick
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and use places for his children, and later on perhaps get something good from
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the government, a contract for the army or for the police. His gold
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breeds gold till at last a war, or even a rumor of a war,
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or a speculation on the stock exchange gives him great opportunity. Nine tenths
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of the great fortunes in the United States are as Henry George has shown in
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The Social Problems, the result of knavery on a large scale, assisted by
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the state. In Europe, nine tenths of the fortunes made in our monarchies
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and republics have the same origin. There are not two ways of becoming a
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millionaire. This is the secret of wealth. Find the starving and destitute,
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pay them half a crown, and make produce five shillings worth in a day
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a mass of fortune by these means, and then increase it by some lucky
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hit made with the help of the state. Need we go on to speak
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of small fortunes attributed by economists to forethought and frugality, when we know that
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mere saving in itself brings in nothing so long as the pence saved are not
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used to exploit the fabishing. Take a shoemaker, for instance. Grant that
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his work is well paid, that he has plenty of custom, and that
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by dint of strict frugality, he contrives to lay by from eighteen pence to
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two shillings a day, perhaps two pounds a month. Grant that our shoemaker
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is never ill, that he does not half starve himself in spite of his
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passion for economy, That he does not marry, or that he has no
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children, that he does not die of consumption. Suppose anything and everything you
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please well, at the age of fifty, he will not have scraped together
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eight hundred pounds, and he will not have enough to live on during his
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old age, when he is past work. Assuredly, this is not how
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great fortunes are made. But suppose our shoemaker, as soon as he is
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laid by a few pence fifthly conveys them to the savings bank, and that
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the savings bank lends them to the capitalist, who is just about to employ
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labor i e. To exploit the poor. Then our shoemaker takes an apprentice,
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the child of some poor wretch, who will think himself lucky. In
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five years time his son had learned the trade and is able to earn his
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living. Meanwhile, our shoemaker does not lose by him, and his trade
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is brisk. He soon takes a second, and then a third apprentice.
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By and by he will take two or three working men poor wretches, thankful
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to receive half a crown a day for work that is worth five shillings.
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And if our shoemaker is in luck, that is to say, if he
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is keen enough, mean enough, his working men and apprentices will bring him
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in nearly one pound a day over and above the product of his own toil.
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He can then enlarge his business. He will gradually become rich and no
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longer have any need to stint himself in the necessities of life, he will
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leave a snug little fortune to his son. That is what people call being
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economical and having frugal, temperate habits. At bottom, it is nothing more
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nor less than grinding the face of the poor. Commerce seems an exception to
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this rule. Such a man, we are told, buys tea in China,
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brings it to France, and realizes a prophet of thirty percent on his
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original outlay. He has exploited nobody. Nevertheless, the case is analogist.
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If our merchant has carried his bales on his back, well and good.
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In early medieval times, this was exactly how foreign trade was conducted, and
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so no one reached such giddy heights of fortune as in our days. Very
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few and very hardily earned were the gold coins which the medieval merchant gained from
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a long and dangerous voyage. It was less the love of money than the
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thirst of travel and adventure that inspired his undertakings. Nowadays, the method is
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simpler. A merchant who has some capital need not stir from his desk to
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become wealthy. He telegraphs to an agent telling him to buy a hundred tons
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of tea he freights a ship, and in a few weeks, in three
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months, if it is a shailing ship, the vessel brings him his cargo.
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He does not even take the risks of the voyage, for his tea
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and his vessel are insured. And if he has expended four thousand pounds,
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he will receive more than five thousand, that is to say, if he
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has not attempted to speculate in some novel commodities, in which case he runs
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a chance of either doubling his fortune or losing it altogether. Now, how
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could he find men willing to cross the sea to travel to China a bat,
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to endure hardship and slavish toil, and to risk their lives for a
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miserable pittance. How could he find doc laborers willing the load and unload his
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ships for starvation wages? How because they are needy and starving, go to
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the sea ports, visit the cook shops and taverns on the caves. Look
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at these men who have come to hire themselves, crowding round the dock gades,
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which they besiege from early dawn, hoping to be allowed to work on
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the vessel. Look at these sailors happy to be hired for a long voyage.
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After weeks and months of waiting all their lives long, they have gone
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to the sea in ships, and they will sail another still until they have
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perished in the waves. Enter their home. Look at their wives and children
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in rags living. One knows not how till the father returns, and you
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will have the answer to the question. Multiply examine, choose them. Where
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you will consider the origin of all fortunes, large or small, whether arising
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out of commerce, finance, manufactures, or the land. Everywhere you will
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find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty at the poor.
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This is why an anarchist society need not fear the advent of a rothschild,
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who would settle in its myth. If every member of the community knows that
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after a few hours of productive toil, he will have a right to all
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the pleasures as civilization procures into those deeper sources of enjoyment which art and science
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offer to all who seek them. He will not sell his strength for a
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starvation wage. Not one will volunteer to work for the enrichment of your rothschild.
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His guineas will be only so many pieces of metal useful for various purposes,
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but incapable of breeding more. In answering the above objection, we have
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at the same time indicated the scope of our experts. It must apply to
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everything that enables any man, be he financier, mill owner, or landlord,
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to appropriate the product of others toil. Our formula is simple and comprehensive.
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We do not want to rob any one of his coat, but we
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wish to give to the workers all those things the lack of which make them
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fall as easy prey to the exploiter. And we will do our utmost that
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none shall lack aught, and that not a single man shall be forced to
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sell the strength of his right arm to obtain a bare subsistence for himself and
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his babes. This is what we mean when we talk of expropriation. This
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will be our duty during the revolution for whose coming we look not two hundred
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years hence, but soon, very soon. Part three. The ideas of
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anarchism in general and of expropriation in particular, find much more soonpathy than we
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are apt to imagine, among mens of intelligent character, and those for whom
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idleness is not the supreme ideal. Still, our friends, offen Wana.
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Take care you do not go too far. Humanity cannot be changed in a
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day, so do not be in too great a hurry with your schemes of
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expropriation and anarchy, or you will be in danger of achieving no permanent results.
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Now, what we fear with regard to expropriation is exactly the contrary.
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We are afraid of not going far enough, of carrying out expropriation on too
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small a scale to be lasting. We would not have the revolutionary impulse arrested
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in big career to exhaust itself in half measures which would content no one,
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and, while producing a tremendous confusion in society, as stopping its customary activities,
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would have no vital power, would merely spread general discontent and inevitably prepare
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the way for the triumph of reaction. There are, in fact, in
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a modern state, established relations which it is practically impossible to modify if one
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attacks them only in detail. There are wheels within wheels in our economic organization.
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The machinery is so complex and interdependent that no one part can be modified
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without disturbing the whole. This becomes clear as soon as an attempt is made
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to expropriate anything. Let us suppose that in a certain country a limited form
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of expropriation is effected. For example, that, as it has been suggested
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more than once, only the property of the great landlords is socialized, whilst
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the factories are left untouched. Or that in a certain city, house property
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is taken over by the commune, but everything else is left in private ownership,
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Or that in some manufacturing center the factories are communalized the land is not
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interfered with the same result would follow in each case a terrible shattering of the
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industrial system. Without the means of reorganizing it on new lines, industry and
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finance would be at a dead lack. Yet a return to the first principles
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of justice would not have been achieved, and society would find itself powerless to
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construct a harmonious whole. If agriculture could free itself from great landowners, while
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industries still remained the bond slave of the capitalist, the merchant, and the
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banker, nothing would be accomplished. The peasant suffers to day not only in
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having to pay rent to the landlord. He is oppressed on all hands by
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existing conditions. He is exploited by the tradesman who makes him pay half a
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crown for a spade, which, measured by the labor spent on it,
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is not worth more than a sixpence. He is taxed by the state,
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who cannot do without its formidable hierarchy of officials, and finds it necessary to
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maintain an expensive army because the traders of all nations are perpetually fighting for the
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markets, and any day a little coral arising from the exploitation of some part
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of Asia or Africa may result in war. Then again, the peasants suffer
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from the dispopulation of country places. The young people are attracted to the large
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manufacturing towns by debate of high wages paid temporarily by the producers of articles of
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luxury, or by the attractions of more stirring life. The artificial protection of
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industry, the industrial exploitation of foreign countries, the prevalence of stock jobbing,
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the difficulty of improving the soil, and the machinery of production. All these
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agencies combine nowadays to work against agriculture, which is burdened not only by rent
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but by the whole complex of conditions in a society based on exploitation. Thus,
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even if the expropriation of land were accomplished, and everyone were free to
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till the soil and cultivated to the best advantage without paying rent. Agriculture,
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even though it should enjoy, which can by no means be taken for granted,
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a momentary prosperity, would soon fall back into the sloughs in which it
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would find itself today. The whole thing would have to be begun over again,
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with increased difficulties. The same holds true of industry. Take the converse
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case. Instead of turning the agricultural laborers into peasant proprietors, make over the
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factories to those who work in them. Abolish the master manufacturers, but leave
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the landlord his land, the banker his money, the merchant his exchange.
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Maintain the swarm of idlers who live on the toil of the workmen, the
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thousand and one middlemen, the state, with its numberless officials. An industry
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would come to a standstill, finding no purchaser in the mass of peasants who
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would remain poor, not possessing the raw material, and unable to export their
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produce, partly on to the stoppage of trade. Is still more so because
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industry spread all over the world, The manufacturers would feel unable to struggle,
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and thousands of workers would be thrown upon the street. These starving crowds would
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be ready and willing to submit to the first schemer who came to exploit them.
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They would even consent to return to the old slavery, if only under
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promise of work. Or finally, suppose you oust the landlords and hand over
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the mills and factories to the workers without interfering with the swarms of middle men
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who drained the product of our manufacturers and speculate in corn and flour, meat
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and groceries in our great centers of commerce. Then as soon as exchanges arrest
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it, the great cities are left without bread, and others find no buyers
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for their articles of luxury. A terrible counter revolution will take place, a
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counter revolution treading upon the slains, sweeping the town and villages were shot and
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shell there would be prescription, panic flight, tend all the terrors of the
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guillotine, as it was in France in eighteen fifteen, eighteen forty eight and
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eighteen seventy one. All is interdependent. In a civilized society. It is
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impossible to reform any one thing without altering the whole. Therefore, on the
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day we strike at private property, under any one of its forms, territorial
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or industrial, we shall be obligated to attack them all. The very success
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of the revolution will demand it. Besides, we could not if we would
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confine ourselves to a partial expropriation. Once the principle of the divine right of
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property is shaken, no amount of theorizing will prevent its overthrow. Here by
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the slaves of the toil, there by the slaves of the machine. If
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a great town, Paris, for example, were to confine itself to taking
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possession of the dwelling houses of the factories, it would be forced all so
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to deny the right of the bankers to levy upon the commune attacks amounting to
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two million pounds in the form of interest for former loans. The great city
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would be obliged to put it self in touch with the rural districts, and
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its influence would inevitably urge the peasants to free themselves from the landowner. It
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would be necessary to communalize the railways that the citizens might get food and work,
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and lastly, to prevent the waste of supplies and to guard against the
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trust of corn speculators, like those to whom the Commune of seventeen ninety three
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fell a prey. It would have to place in the hands of the city
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the works of stocking its warehouse with commodities and apportioning the produce. Nevertheless,
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some socialists still seek to establish a distinction. Of course, they say,
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the soil, the mines, the mills, and manufactures must be expropriated.
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These are the instruments of production, and it is right we should consider them
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public property. But articles of consumption, food, clothes, anddwellings should remain
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private property. Popular common sense has got the better of this subtle distinction.
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We are not savages who can live in the woods without other shelter than the
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branches. The civilized man needs a roof, a room, a hearth,
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and a bed. It is true that the bed, the room, and
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the house is a home of idleness for the non producer. But for the
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worker, a room properly heated and lighted is as much an instrument of production
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as the tool of the machine. It is the place where the nerves and
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sinews gather strength for the work of the morrow. The rest of the workmen
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is the daily repairing of the machine. The same argument applies even more obviously
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to food. The so called economists of whom we speak would hardly deny that
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the coal burnt in a machine is as necessary to produce as the raw material
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itself. How then, can food without which the human machine could do no
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work be excluded from the list of things indispensable to the producer? Can this
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be a relic of religious metaphysics. The rich man's feast is indeed a matter
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of luxury, but the food of the worker is just as much a part
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of production as the fuel burnt by the steam engine. The same with clothing.
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If the economist who draws this distinction between articles of production and of consumption
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dress themselves in the fashion of New Guinea, we could understand their objection.
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But men who could not write a word without a shirt on their back are
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not in a position to draw such a hard and fast line between their shirt
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and their pen. And though the dainty gowns of their dames must certainly rank
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as objects of luxury, there is nevertheless a certain quantity of linen, cotton,
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and woolen stuff which is a necessity of life to the producer. The
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shirt ensoes in which he goes to his work, his cap and the jacket
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he slips on after the day's toil is over. These are as necessary to
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him as a hammer to the anvil. Whether we like it or not,
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this is what the people mean by a revolution. As soon as they have
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made a clean sweep of the government, they will seek first of all to
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insure to themselves decent dwellings, in sufficient food and clothes, free of capitalist
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rent. And the people will be right. The method of the people will
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be much more in accordance with science than those of the economists, who draw
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so many distinctions between instruments of production and articles of consumption. The people who
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understand that this is just the point where the revolution ought to begin, and
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they will lay the foundations of the only economic science worthy of the name,
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a science which might be called the study of the need of humanity and of
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the economic means to satisfy them. End of Chapter four