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06 - Dwellings - The Conquest of Bread · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter six, Dwellings. Those who have closely watched the growth
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  Speaker 1: of certain ideas among the workers must have noticed that
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  Speaker 1: on one momentous question the housing of the people, namely,
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  Speaker 1: a definite conclusion, is being imperceptibly arrived at. It is
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  Speaker 1: a known fact that in the large towns of France,
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  Speaker 1: and in many of the smaller ones also, the workers
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  Speaker 1: are coming gradually to the conclusion that dwelling houses are
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  Speaker 1: in no sense the property of those whom the state
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  Speaker 1: recognizes as their owners. This idea has evolved naturally in
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  Speaker 1: the minds of the people, and nothing will ever convince
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  Speaker 1: them again that the quote rights of property ought to
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  Speaker 1: extend to houses. The house was not built by its owner.
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  Speaker 1: It was erected, decorated, and furnished by innumerable workers in
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  Speaker 1: the timber yard, the brickfield, and the workshop, toiling for
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  Speaker 1: dear life at a minimum wage. The money spent by
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  Speaker 1: the own own was not the product of his own toil.
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  Speaker 1: It was amassed, like all other riches, by paying the
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  Speaker 1: workers two thirds or only half of what was their due. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: and it is here that the enormity of the whole
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  Speaker 1: proceeding becomes most glaring. The house owes its actual value
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  Speaker 1: to the profit which the owner can make out of it. Now.
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  Speaker 1: This profit results from the fact that his house is
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  Speaker 1: built in a town possessing bridges, quays, and fine public buildings,
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  Speaker 1: and affording to its inhabitants a thousand comforts and conveniences
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  Speaker 1: unknown in villages, a town well paved, lighted with gas,
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  Speaker 1: in regular communication with other towns, and itself a center
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  Speaker 1: of industry, commerce, science, and art. A town which the
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  Speaker 1: work of twenty or thirty generations has gone to render habitable, healthy,
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  Speaker 1: and beautiful. A house in certain parts of Paris may
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  Speaker 1: be valued at thousands of pounds sterling, not because thousands
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  Speaker 1: of pounds worth of labor have been expended on that
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  Speaker 1: particular house, but because it is in Paris. Because for centuries, workmen, artists, thinkers,
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  Speaker 1: and men of learning and letters have contributed to make
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  Speaker 1: Paris what it is today. A center of industry, commerce, politics,
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  Speaker 1: art and science. Because Paris has a past, because thanks
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  Speaker 1: to literature, the names of its streets are household words
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  Speaker 1: in foreign countries as well as at home. Because it
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  Speaker 1: is the fruit of eighteen centuries of toil, the work
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  Speaker 1: of fifty generations of the whole French nation, who then
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  Speaker 1: can appropriate to himself the tiniest plot of ground or
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  Speaker 1: the meanest building without committing a flagrant injustice, who then
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  Speaker 1: has the right to sell to any bidder the smallest
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  Speaker 1: portion of the common heritage. On that point, as we
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  Speaker 1: have said, the workers are agreed. The idea of free
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  Speaker 1: dwellings showed its existence very plainly during the Siege of Paris,
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  Speaker 1: when the cry was for an abatement, pure and simple
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  Speaker 1: of the terms demanded by the landlords. It appeared again
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  Speaker 1: during the Commune of Ais eighteen seventy one, when the
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  Speaker 1: Paris workmen expected the communal Council to decide boldly on
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  Speaker 1: the abolition of rent. And when the new revolution comes,
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  Speaker 1: it will be the first question with which the poor
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  Speaker 1: will concern themselves, whether in time of revolution or in
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  Speaker 1: time of peace. The worker must be housed somehow or other.
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  Speaker 1: He must have some sort of roof over his head.
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  Speaker 1: But however tumble down and squalid your dwelling may be,
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  Speaker 1: there is always a landlord who can evict you. True
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  Speaker 1: during the revolution, he cannot find bailiffs and police sergeants
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  Speaker 1: to throw your rags and chatels into the street. But
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  Speaker 1: who knows what the new government will do tomorrow. Who
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  Speaker 1: can say that it will not call in the aid
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  Speaker 1: of force again and set the police back upon you
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  Speaker 1: to hound you out of your hovels. We have seen
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  Speaker 1: the Commune proclaim the remission of rents do up to
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  Speaker 1: the first of April. Only after that rent had to
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  Speaker 1: be paid, though Paris was in a state of care chaos,
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  Speaker 1: and industry at a standstill, so that the revolutionist had
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  Speaker 1: absolutely nothing to depend upon but his allowance of fifteen
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  Speaker 1: pence a day. Now, the worker must be made to
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  Speaker 1: see clearly that in refusing to pay rent to a
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  Speaker 1: landlord or owner, he is not simply profiting by the
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  Speaker 1: disorganization of authority. He must understand that the abolition of
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  Speaker 1: rent is a recognized principle, sanctioned, so to speak, by
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  Speaker 1: popular assent, that to be housed rent free is a
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  Speaker 1: right proclaimed allowed by the people. Are we going to
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  Speaker 1: wait till this measure, which is in harmony with every
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  Speaker 1: honest man's sense of justice, is taken up by the
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  Speaker 1: few socialists scattered among the middle class elements of which
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  Speaker 1: the provisionary government will be composed. We should have to
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  Speaker 1: wait long till the return of reaction. In fact, this
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  Speaker 1: is why refusing uniforms and badges, those outward signs of
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  Speaker 1: authority and servitude, and remaining people among the people, the
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  Speaker 1: earnest revolutionists will work side by side with the mass
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  Speaker 1: that the abolition of rent the expropriation of houses may
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  Speaker 1: become an accomplished fact. They will prepare the ground and
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  Speaker 1: encourage ideas to grow in this direction, and when the
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  Speaker 1: fruit of their labors is ripe, the people will proceed
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  Speaker 1: to expropriate the houses, without giving heed to the theories
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  Speaker 1: which will certainly be thrust in their way. Theory is
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  Speaker 1: about paying compensation to landlords and finding first the necessary funds.
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  Speaker 1: On the day that the expropriation of houses takes place,
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  Speaker 1: On that day, the exploited workers will have realized that
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  Speaker 1: the new times have come, that labour will no longer
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  Speaker 1: have to bear the yoke of the rich and powerful,
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  Speaker 1: that equality has been openly proclaimed, that this revolution is
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  Speaker 1: a real fact and not a theatrical make believe like
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  Speaker 1: so many others preceding it. If the idea of expropriation
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  Speaker 1: be adopted by the people, it will be carried into
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  Speaker 1: effect in spite of all the insurmountable obstacles with which
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  Speaker 1: we are menaced. Of course, the good folk, in new uniforms,
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  Speaker 1: seated in the official arm chairs of the Hotel de Ville,
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  Speaker 1: will be sure to busy themselves in heaping up obstacles.
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  Speaker 1: They will talk of giving compensation to the landlords, of
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  Speaker 1: preparing statistics and drawing up long reports. Yes, they would
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  Speaker 1: be capable of drawing up reports long enough to outlast
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  Speaker 1: the hopes of the people, who, after waiting and starving
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  Speaker 1: in enforced idleness, and seeing nothing come of all these
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  Speaker 1: official researches, would lose heart and faith in the revolution
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  Speaker 1: and abandon the field to the reactionaries. The new bureaucracy
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  Speaker 1: would end by making expropriation hateful in the eyes of all. Here,
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  Speaker 1: indeed is a rock which might shipwreck our hopes. But
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  Speaker 1: if the people turn a deaf ear to the species
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  Speaker 1: arguments used to dazzle them, and realize that new life
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  Speaker 1: needs new conditions, and if they undertake the task themselves,
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  Speaker 1: then expropriation can be effected without any great difficulty. But
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  Speaker 1: how how can it be done, you ask us. We
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  Speaker 1: shall try to reply to this question, but with a reservation,
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  Speaker 1: we have no intention of tracing out the plans of
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  Speaker 1: expropriation in their smallest details. We know beforehand that all
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  Speaker 1: that any man or group of men could suggest to
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  Speaker 1: day would be far surpassed by the reality. When it comes,
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  Speaker 1: man will accomplish greater things, and accomplish them better and
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  Speaker 1: by simpler methods than those dictated to him beforehand. Thus
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  Speaker 1: we are content to indicate the manner by which expropriation
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  Speaker 1: might be accomplished without the intervention of government. We do
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  Speaker 1: not propose to go out of our way to answer
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  Speaker 1: those who declare that the thing is impossible. We confine
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  Speaker 1: ourselves to replying that we are not the upholders of
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  Speaker 1: any particular method of organization. We are only concerned to
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  Speaker 1: demonstrate that expropriation could be affected by popular initiative, and
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  Speaker 1: could not be affected by any other means whatever. It
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  Speaker 1: seems very likely that as soon as expropriation is fairly stated,
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  Speaker 1: groups of volunteers will spring up in every district, street
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  Speaker 1: and block of houses, and undertake to inquire into the
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  Speaker 1: number of flats and houses which are empty, and of
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  Speaker 1: those which are overcrowded, the unwholesome slums, and the houses
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  Speaker 1: which are too spacious for their occupants, and might well
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  Speaker 1: be used to house those who are stifled in swarming tenements.
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  Speaker 1: In a few days, these volunteers would have drawn up
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  Speaker 1: complete lists for the streets and district of all the flats, tenements,
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  Speaker 1: family mansions, and villa residences, all the rooms and suites
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  Speaker 1: of rooms, healthy and unhealthy, small and large, fetid dens,
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  Speaker 1: and homes of luxury. Freely communicating with each other, these
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  Speaker 1: volunteers would soon have their statistics complete. False statistics can
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  Speaker 1: be manufactured in board rooms and offices, but true in
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  Speaker 1: exact statistics must begin with the individual and mount up
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  Speaker 1: from the simple to the complex. Then, without waiting for
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  Speaker 1: any one's leave, those citizens will probably go and find
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  Speaker 1: their comrades who are living in miserable garrets and hovels,
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  Speaker 1: and will say to them, simply quote, it is a
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  Speaker 1: real revolution this time, comrades, and no mistake about it.
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  Speaker 1: Come to such a place this evening. All the neighborhood
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  Speaker 1: will be there. We are going to redistribute the dwelling houses.
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  Speaker 1: If you are tired of your slum garret, come and
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  Speaker 1: choose one of the flats of five rooms that are
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  Speaker 1: to be disposed of. And when you have once moved in,
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  Speaker 1: you shall stay. Never fear the people are up in arms,
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  Speaker 1: and he who would venture to evict you will have
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  Speaker 1: to answer to them. But every one will want a
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  Speaker 1: fine house or a spacious flat. We are told, no,
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  Speaker 1: you are mistaken. It is not the people's way to
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  Speaker 1: clamor for the moon. On the contrary, every time we
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  Speaker 1: have seen them set about repairing a wrong, we have
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  Speaker 1: been struck by the good sense and instinct for justice
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  Speaker 1: which animates the masses. Have we ever known them to
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  Speaker 1: demand the impossible? Have we ever seen the people of
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  Speaker 1: Paris fighting amongst themselves while waiting for their rations of
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  Speaker 1: bread or firewood? During the two sieges? The patience and
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  Speaker 1: resignation which prevailed among them was constantly held up to
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  Speaker 1: admiration by the foreign press correspondents. And yet these patient
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  Speaker 1: waiters knew full well that the last comers would have
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  Speaker 1: to pass the day without food or fire. We do
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  Speaker 1: not deny that there are plenty of egotistic instincts in
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  Speaker 1: isolated individuals in our societies. We are quite aware of it.
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  Speaker 1: But we contend that the very way to revive and
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  Speaker 1: nourish these instincts would be to confine such questions as
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  Speaker 1: the housing of the people to any board or committee,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, to the tender mercies of officialism in any
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  Speaker 1: shape or form, then indeed all the evil passions spring up,
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  Speaker 1: and it becomes a case of who is the most
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  Speaker 1: influential person on the board. The least inequality causes wranglings
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  Speaker 1: and recriminations. If the smallest advantage is given to any one,
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  Speaker 1: a tremendous hue and cry is raised, and not without reason.
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  Speaker 1: But if the people themselves, organized by streets, districts and parishes,
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  Speaker 1: undertake to move the inhabitants of the slums into the
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  Speaker 1: half empty dwellings of the middle classes, the trifling inconveniences,
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  Speaker 1: the little inequalities will be easily tided over. Rarely has
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  Speaker 1: appeal been made to the good instincts of the masses,
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  Speaker 1: only as a last resort to save the sinking ship
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  Speaker 1: in times of revolution. But never has such an appeal
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  Speaker 1: been made in vain. The heroism, the self devotion of
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  Speaker 1: the toiler has never failed to respond to it, and
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  Speaker 1: thus it will be in the coming revolution. But when
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  Speaker 1: all is said and done, some inequalities, some inevitable injustices,
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  Speaker 1: will remain. There are individuals in our societies whom no
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  Speaker 1: great crisis can lift out of the deep rots of
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  Speaker 1: egoism in which they are sunk. The question, however, is
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  Speaker 1: not whether there will be injustices or no, but rather
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  Speaker 1: how to limit the number of them. Now, all history,
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  Speaker 1: all the experience of the human race, and all social
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  Speaker 1: psychology unite in showing that the best and fairest way
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  Speaker 1: is to trust the decision to those whom it concerns most.
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  Speaker 1: Nearly it is they alone who can consider and allow
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  Speaker 1: for the hundred and one details which must necessarily be
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  Speaker 1: overlooked in any merely official redistribution. Moreover, it is by
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  Speaker 1: no means necessary to make straight away an absolutely equal
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  Speaker 1: redistribution of the dwellings. There will, no doubt be some
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  Speaker 1: inconveniences at first, but matters will soon be righted. In
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  Speaker 1: a society which has adopted expropriation, when the masons and carpenters,
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  Speaker 1: and all who are concerned in house building know that
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  Speaker 1: their daily bread is secured to them, they they will
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  Speaker 1: ask nothing better than to work at their old trades
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  Speaker 1: a few hours a day. They will adapt the fine
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  Speaker 1: houses which absorb the time of a whole staff of servants,
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  Speaker 1: and in a few months, homes will have sprung up
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  Speaker 1: infinitely healthier and more conveniently arranged than those of today,
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  Speaker 1: and to those who are not yet comfortably housed, the
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  Speaker 1: anarchist commune will be able to say, patience comrades. Palaces
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  Speaker 1: fairer and finer than any of the capitalists built for
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  Speaker 1: themselves will spring from the ground of our enfranchised city.
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  Speaker 1: They will belong to those who have most need of them.
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  Speaker 1: The anarchist commune does not build with an eye to revenues.
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  Speaker 1: These monuments, erected to its citizens, products of the collective spirit,
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  Speaker 1: will serve as models to all humanity. They will be yours.
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  Speaker 1: If the people of the revolution expropriate the houses and
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  Speaker 1: proclaim free lodgings, the communalizing of houses, and the right
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  Speaker 1: of each family to a decent dwelling, then the revolution
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  Speaker 1: will have assumed a communistic care from the first and
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  Speaker 1: started on a course from which it will be by
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  Speaker 1: no means easy to turn it. It will have struck
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  Speaker 1: a fatal blow at individual property. For the expropriation of
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  Speaker 1: dwellings contains in Germ the whole social revolution. On the
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  Speaker 1: manner of its accomplishments depends the character of all that follows.
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  Speaker 1: Either we shall start on a good road leading straight
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  Speaker 1: to anarchist communism, or we shall remain sticking in the
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  Speaker 1: mud of despotic individualism. It is easy to see the
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  Speaker 1: numerous objections theoretic on the one hand, practical on the other,
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  Speaker 1: with which we are sure to be met, As it
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  Speaker 1: will be a question of maintaining iniquity at any price.
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  Speaker 1: Our opponents will of course protest. Quote in the name
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  Speaker 1: of justice, Is it not a crying shame that will
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  Speaker 1: exclaim that the people of parish should take possession of
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  Speaker 1: all these fine houses, while the peasants in the country
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  Speaker 1: have only tumble down huts to live in. But do
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  Speaker 1: not let us make a mistake. These enthusiasts for justice forget,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: by lapse of memory to which they are subject, the
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  Speaker 1: crying shame which they themselves are tacitly defending. They forget
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  Speaker 1: that in this same city, the worker, with his wife
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  Speaker 1: and children suffocates in a noisome garret, while from his
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  Speaker 1: window he sees the rich man's palace. They forget that
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  Speaker 1: whole generations perish in crowded slums, starving for air and sunlight,
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  Speaker 1: and that to redress this injustice ought to be the
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  Speaker 1: first task of the revolution. Do not let these disingenuous
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  Speaker 1: protests hold us back. We know that any inequality which
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  Speaker 1: may exist between town and country in the early days
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  Speaker 1: of the revolution will be transitory and of a nature
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  Speaker 1: to right itself from day to day. For the village
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  Speaker 1: will not fail to improve its dwellings as soon as
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  Speaker 1: the peasant has ceased to be the beast of burden
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  Speaker 1: of the farmer, the merchant, the money lender, and the state.
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  Speaker 1: In order to avoid an accidental and transitory inequality, shall
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  Speaker 1: we stay our hand from writing an ancient wrong. The
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  Speaker 1: so called practical objections are not very formidable either. We
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  Speaker 1: are bidden to consider the hard case of some poor
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  Speaker 1: fellow who, by dint of privation, has contrived to buy
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  Speaker 1: a house just large enough to hold his family. And
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  Speaker 1: we are going to deprive him of his hard earned happiness,
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  Speaker 1: to turn him into the street. Certainly, not if his
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  Speaker 1: house is only just large enough for his family. By
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  Speaker 1: all means, let him stay there, Let him work in
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  Speaker 1: his little garden too. Our boys will not hinder him, Nay,
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  Speaker 1: they will lend him a helping hand if need be.
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  Speaker 1: But suppose he lets lodgings. Suppose he has empty rooms
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  Speaker 1: in his house, Then the people will make the lodger
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  Speaker 1: understand that he need not pay his former landlord any
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  Speaker 1: more rent. Stay where you are, but rent free. No
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  Speaker 1: more duns and collectors. Socialism has abolished all that. Or again,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: suppose that the landlord has a score of rooms all
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  Speaker 1: to him, and some poor woman lives nearby with five
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  Speaker 1: children in one room. In that case, the people would
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  Speaker 1: see whether, with some alterations, these empty rooms could not
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  Speaker 1: be converted into a suitable home for the poor woman
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  Speaker 1: and her five children. Would not that be more just
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  Speaker 1: and fair than to leave the mother and her five
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  Speaker 1: little ones languishing in a garret while Sir Gorgeous Midas
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  Speaker 1: sat at his ease in an empty mansion. Besides, good,
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  Speaker 1: Sir Gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his
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  Speaker 1: own accord. His wife will be delighted to be freed
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  Speaker 1: from half her big, unwieldy house when there is no
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: longer a staff of servants to keep it in order.
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  Speaker 1: So you are going to turn everything upside down, say
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  Speaker 1: the defenders of law and order. There will be no
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: end to the evictions and removals. Would it not be
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: better to start fresh by turning everybody out of doors
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  Speaker 1: and redistributing the houses by lot. Thus are critics, but
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  Speaker 1: we are firmly persuaded that if no government interferes in
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the matter, if all the changes are in trust to
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  Speaker 1: those free groups which have sprung up to undertake the work,
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  Speaker 1: the evictions and removals will be less numerous than those
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  Speaker 1: which take place in one year under the present system.
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  Speaker 1: Owing to the rapacity of landlords. In the first place,
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  Speaker 1: there are in all large towns almost enough empty houses
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  Speaker 1: and flats to lodge all the inhabitants of the slums.
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  Speaker 1: As to the palaces and suites of fine apartments, many
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  Speaker 1: working people would not live in them if they could.
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  Speaker 1: One could not keep up such houses without a large
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: staff of servants. Their occupants would soon find themselves forced
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  Speaker 1: to seek less luxurious dwellings. The fine ladies would find
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: that palaces were not well adapted to self help. In
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the kitchen. Gradually people would shake down. There would be
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: no need to conduct Dvays to a garret at the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: bayonet's point, or install Lazarus and d'vay's palace by the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: help of an armed escort. People would shake down amicably
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: into the available dwellings with the least possible and disturbance.
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  Speaker 1: Have we not the example of the village commune's redistributing
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: fields and disturbing the owners of the allotments so little
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  Speaker 1: that one can only praise the intelligence and good sense
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  Speaker 1: of the methods they employ. Fewer fields change hands under
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  Speaker 1: the management of the Russian commune than where personal property
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  Speaker 1: holds sway and is forever carrying its quarrels into courts
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  Speaker 1: of law. And are we to believe that the inhabitants
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  Speaker 1: of a great European city would be less intelligent and
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: less capable of organization than Russian or Hindu peasants. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: we must not blink the fact that every revolution means
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: a certain disturbance to everyday life. And those who expect
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: this tremendous lift out of the old grooves to be
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: accomplished without so much as jarring the dishes on their
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: dinner tables will find themselves mistaken. It is true that
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: governments can change without disturbing worthy citizens at dinner. But
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the crimes of society towards those who have nourished and
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: so reported it, are not to be redressed by any
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: such political slight of parties. Undoubtedly there will be a disturbance,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: but it must not be of pure destruction. It must
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: be minimized. And again it is impossible to lay too
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: much stress on this maxim It will be by addressing
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: ourselves to the interested parties, and not to boards and committees,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: that we shall best succeed in reducing the sum of
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: inconveniences for everybody. The people commit blunder on blunder when
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: they have to choose by ballots some hare brained candidate
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: who solicits the honor of representing them, and takes upon
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: himself to know all, to do all, and to organize all.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: But when they take upon themselves to organize what they know,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: what touches them directly, they do it better than all
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: the talking shops put together. Is not the Paris commune
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: even instance in point and the great dockers strike. And
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: have we not constant evidence of this fact in every
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: village commune? End of Chapter six