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Title: The Modern State
Author: Elisée Reclus
Date: 1905
Language: en
Topics: state, the State
Source: *Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus.*
Notes: Reclus’ most extended critique of the state appears in L’Evolution, la révolution et l’idéal anarchique and in the chapter “L’État moderne,” in volume 6 of L’Homme et la Terre (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 171–223. The following text consists of the most important sections of that chapter (171–77, 188–94, and 214–23).

Elisée Reclus

The Modern State

The world is very close to unification. All lands, including even the

small islands scattered across the vast ocean, have entered into the

field of attraction of one common culture, in which the European type

predominates. Only in a few rare enclaves—in lands of caves where men

flee the light, or in very secluded places protected by walls of rock,

forests, or marshlands—have some tribes been able to remain completely

isolated, living their lives outside the rhythm of the great universal

life. However, as jealously as these peoples have hidden themselves,

forming small, selfsufficient hereditary circles, scientific researchers

have discovered them and integrated them into the whole of humanity by

studying their forms, their ways of life, and their traditions, and by

placing them in a social classification of which they were previously an

unknown member.

The instinctive tendency of all nations to take part in the common

affairs of the entire world already manifests itself in many instances

in contemporary history. For example, in 1897 we witnessed the six

greatest European powers (whatever their secret motives may have been)

claiming to seek to maintain a balance of power in Europe, while

satisfying both Turkey and Greece.[1] In the process, they fired on some

unfortunate Cretans—their “brothers in Christ”—in the name of “public

order.” Despite the disheartening spectacle of a large deployment of

force against a small people who asked only that justice be rendered to

them, it was nevertheless a completely new and telling political

phenomenon that soldiers and sailors of various languages and

nationalities could join together, grouped in allied detachments under

the orders of a leader chosen by lot among the British, Austrians,

Italians, French, and Russians. This was an event with an international

character, unprecedented in history because of the methodical precision

with which it was carried out. It was proven that Europe as a whole is

now indeed a sort of republic of states, united through class

solidarity. The financial caste that rules from Moscow to Liverpool

causes governments and armies to act with perfect discipline.

Since then, history has offered other examples of this council of

nations that forms spontaneously in all grave political situations.

Since the interests of all are at stake, each wants to take part in the

deliberations and profit from the settlement. In China, for example, the

temporary alliance that has been achieved between nations is strong

enough to unite the military representatives of all the states in a

common task of destruction and massacre. Elsewhere, notably in Morocco,

the collective machinations are limited for the time being to diplomatic

talks, but at any rate, the case is clear. States have an acute

awareness of the effects of all events throughout the world on their own

destiny, and they do their best to cope with changes in the balance of

power. Nevertheless, it is very important to stress the difference

between the solidarity of conservative states and that of peoples during

periods of revolution, in which an upsurge takes place in the opposite

direction. Whereas the year 1848 rocked the world with tremors of

liberty, fifty years later we find that England hands itself over to

representatives of the aristocracy and throws itself into a long war

behind a band of crooks. France grapples with a recrudescence of a

clerical and military mentality. Spain reestablishes the practices of

the Inquisition. America, populated by immigrants, tries to close its

ports to foreigners. And Turkey takes revenge against Greece.

A movement of convergence toward mutual understanding is occurring all

over the world. We may therefore be permitted, in order to comprehend

the transformations that will occur in the future, to take as our

starting point the state of mind and practice exhibited by the civilized

peoples of Europe in the management of their societies and the

realization of their ideal. Obviously, each group of men moving toward

the same goal will not slavishly follow the same road. It will take,

according to the position that it occupies at any given time, the path

that is determined by the sum total of all the individual wills that it

contains. So what we propose is a kind of average that is related to the

particular situation of each nation and each social element according to

the temporal and spatial milieu. But in such a study, the researcher

must carefully distance himself from any tendency toward patriotism,

that vestige of the ancient delusion that one’s nation is specially

chosen by Divine Providence for the acquisition of wealth and the

accomplishment of great things. Corresponding to this natural delusion

of all peoples that they rank first in merit and genius is another,

which Ludwig Gumplowicz called “acrochronism.” Its effect is that one is

content to suppose that contemporary civilization, as imperfect as it

may be, is nevertheless the culminating state of humanity, and that by

comparison, all past ages were barbaric. This is a “chronocentric”

egoism, analogous to the “ethnocentric” egoism of patriotism.

The “rights of man” were proclaimed for thousands of years by isolated

individuals and more than a century ago by an assembly that has drawn

the attention of peoples ever since. Yet in present-day society these

rights are still only recognized in principle, like a simple word whose

meaning one hardly begins to fathom. The brutal fact of authority

endures against rights, in the family and in society as well as in the

state. It endures while at the same time accepting its opposite and

intermingling with it in a thousand illogical and bizarre combinations.

There are now very few fanatical defenders of the kind of absolute

authority that gives to the prince the right of life and death over his

subjects, and to the husband and father the same rights over his wife

and children. Yet public opinion on such matters wavers indecisively,

guided less by reason than by one’s individual circumstances and

personal sympathies, and by the nature of the stories one hears.

Generally speaking, it can be said that man measures the strictness of

his principles of liberty by his share of personal benefits from the

outcome. He is absolutely strict when it is a question of events that

occur on the other side of the world. But when it is a question of his

own country or caste, he compromises slightly by mixing his mania for

authority with conceptions of human rights. Finally, when he is directly

affected, he is likely to let himself be blinded by passion, and he will

gladly make authoritarian pronouncements.

In certain countries—France, for example—is it not an established

custom, so to speak, that the husband has the right to kill his

unfaithful wife? It is above all within the family, in a man’s daily

relationships with those close to him, that one can best judge him. If

he absolutely respects the liberty of his wife, if the rights and the

dignity of his sons and daughters are as precious to him as his own,

then he proves himself worthy of entering the assembly of free citizens.

If not, he is still a slave, since he is a tyrant.

It has often been repeated that the family unit is the primordial cell

of humanity. This is only relatively true, for two men who meet and

strike up a friendship, a band (even among animals) that forms to hunt

or fish, a concert of voices or instruments that join in unison, an

association to realize ideas through common action—all constitute

original groupings in the great global society. Nevertheless, it is

certain that familial associations, whether manifested in polygyny,

polyandry, monogamy, or free unions, exercise a direct influence on the

form of the state through the effects of their ethics. What one sees on

a large scale parallels what one sees on a small scale. The authority

that prevails in government corresponds to that which holds sway in

families, though ordinarily in lesser proportions, for the government is

incapable of pressuring widely dispersed individuals in the way that one

spouse can pressure the other who lives under the same roof.

Just as familial practices naturally harden into “principles” for all

those involved, so government takes on the form of distinct political

bodies encompassing various segments of the human race that are

separated from one another. The causes of this separation vary and

intermingle. In one place, a difference in language has demarcated two

groups. In another, economic conditions arising from a specific soil,

particular products, or diverging historical paths have created the

boundaries that divide them. Then, on top of all the primary causes,

whether arising from nature or from stages of social evolution, is added

a layer of conflicts that every authoritarian society always produces.

Thus through the ceaseless interplay of interests, ambitions, and forces

of attraction and repulsion, states become demarcated. Despite their

constant vicissitudes, these entities claim to have a sort of collective

personality and demand from those under their jurisdiction that peculiar

feeling of love, devotion, and sacrifice called “patriotism.” But should

a conqueror pass through and erase the existing borders, the subjects

must, by order of that authority, modify their feelings and reorient

themselves in relation to the new sun around which they now revolve.

Just as property is the right of use and abuse, so is authority the

right to command rightly or wrongly. This is understood well by the

masters and also by the governed, whether they slavishly obey or feel

the spirit of rebellion awakening. Philosophers have viewed authority

quite differently. Desiring to give this word a meaning closer to its

original one,

which implied something like creation, they tell us that authority

resides in anyone who teaches someone else something useful, and that it

applies to everyone from the most celebrated scholar to the humblest

mother.[2] Still, none of them goes so far as to consider the

revolutionary who stands up to power as the true representative of

authority.

---

Individuals and classes with power at their disposal—whether chiefs of

state or aristocratic, religious, or bourgeois masters—willingly

intervene with brutal force to suppress all popular initiative. In their

childish and barbaric illusion, they think themselves capable of

stopping the overflowing vitality of the masses, and of immobilizing

society for their personal profit. But they can only lift a faltering

hand. The unchanging laws of history are beginning to be understood well

enough so that even the more audacious exploiters of society do not dare

to run head-on into its movement. They must proceed with science and

skill in order to divert it onto side roads, like a train that is

switched from the main track. Up to the present, the most frequently

used means—and one that unfortunately benefits most the masters of the

people—consists of transforming all the energies of a nation into a rage

against the foreigner. The pretexts are easy to find, since the

interests of states remain different and in conflict through the very

fact of their separation into distinct artificial organisms. Beyond the

pretexts, there exist the memories of actual wrongs, massacres, and

crimes of all sorts committed in former wars. The call for revenge still

resounds, and when a new war will have passed like the terrible flames

of a fire devouring everything in its path, it will also leave the

memory of hatred and serve as leaven for future conflicts. How many

examples one could cite of such diversions! Those in power respond to

the internal problems of the government through external wars. If the

wars are triumphant and the masters take advantage of the opportunity to

profit from them through the consolidation of their regime, they will

have debased their people through the foolish vanity they call glory.

They will have made the people into shameful accomplices by inviting

them to steal, pillage, and slaughter, and this solidarity of evil will

cause the people’s former demands to languish as their cups are once

more filled with the red wine of hatred.

In addition to war, those who govern have at their disposal other

powerful means of protecting themselves from any threat. These include

corruption and demoralization through gambling and all forms of

debauchery: betting, horse-racing, drinking, cafés, and nightclubs. “If

they sing, they’ll pay!” The depraved, debased, and self-hating no

longer have the dignity necessary to impel them to revolt. Imagining

they have the souls of lackeys, they do themselves justice by accepting

their oppression. Thus the wars of the Republic and the burgeoning vices

and depravity that succeeded the first years of the Revolution, with its

ideals of austerity and virtue, were well timed to prepare the way for

the imperial regime and the shameful debasement of character. However,

this swing in the opposite direction was largely the result of a normal

reaction on the part of society as a whole. It is natural for men to

shift from one extreme to the other, in the same way that their lives

alternate from activity to sleep, and from rest to work. Moreover, since

a nation is composed of many classes and diverse groups, each of which

has a particular evolution within the general one, historical movements

with opposing tendencies collide and intersect, creating a complicated

web that the historian can untangle only with great difficulty.

Thus during the internal struggles of the French Revolution, the people

of the Vendée certainly represented the principle of the autonomous and

freely federated commune, in opposition to the central government.

However, through a contradiction that they were unable to grasp due to

their complete lack of education, they also became defenders of the

Church, whose goal was universal authority over souls, and of the

monarchy, which viewed all members of the commune as nothing but corvée

labor to be taxed, or even as so much meat to be sliced up on the

battlefield.[3] Through a strange naïveté that would be comic were it

not so tragic, the Negros of Haiti, struggling for their freedom against

the white planters, enthusiastically declared themselves to be subjects

of the King; and the rebels of the Spanish colonies of the New World

greeted the Catholic King of Spain with cheers! Throughout history,

those who revolted against any authority almost always did so in the

name of another authority, as if the ideal required nothing more than

changing masters. During the time of great ferment in public opinion and

of intellectual liberation that led to the revolution of 1830, those who

worked for the emancipation of language and for the free study of the

history of art and literature of all periods and all cultures (and not

only those of Greece, Rome, and the Age of Louis XIV), and those who

traced their origins back to the Middle Ages and even found ancestry

among the Germans and Slavs (in a word, the “romantics”), had for the

most part remained royalists and Christians. On the other hand, those

who championed political liberty always did so through the classical

forms of the Schoolmen, in the traditional style that is the hallmark of

the Academies. When Blanqui, blackened with powder, finally laid down

his rifle after the three victorious days in July, he simply said: “Down

with the Romantics!”[4] The revolution had disintegrated into two

elements: a political one, which aimed at toppling thrones, and a

literary one, which worked for the liberation of language and the

extension of its domain. Each of these groups of revolutionaries was

reactionary from the standpoint of the other. And each faction was quite

justified in criticizing the other’s illogic, irrelevancies,

absurdities, and stupidities.

The historian who studies the vicissitudes of events and tries to

extract what is essential relative to progress has the most difficult

problem to resolve, that of discovering the parallelogram of forces

underlying the thousand conflicting impulses that collide on all sides.

It is easy for him to err, and he often despairs that he is witnessing a

collapse when in reality there was progress, or rather when, in the

overall assessment of losses and gains, human resources have actually

greatly increased.

But how long and difficult does the work of true revolution seem to

those who are devoted to the ideal! For if the external forms of

institutions and laws respond to the pressure of deeper changes taking

place, they cannot produce those changes: a new impetus must always come

from the interior. To begin with, it certainly appears that the adoption

of a constitution or of laws that give official expression to the

victory of that part of the nation which is demanding its rights would

ensure the progress that had been achieved. Yet it is possible that the

result will be precisely the opposite. While it is true that any charter

or laws that are agreed to by the insurgents may sanction the liberty

that has been won, it is also true that they will limit it, and therein

lies the danger. They determine the precise limit at which the victors

must stop, and this inevitably becomes the point of departure for a

retreat. For a situation is never absolutely stationary, and if movement

does not occur in the direction of progress, it

will occur on the side of repression. The immediate consequence of law

is to lull those who have imposed it during their temporary triumph, to

drain from zealous individuals the personal energy that animated them in

their

victorious efforts, and to transfer it to others, to professional

legislators and to conservatives—in other words, to the very enemies of

all progressive change. Moreover, the people are conservative at heart,

and the game of revolution does not please them for long. They accept

evolution because they are not suspicious of it; since they are unaware

of it, it is unlikely to arouse their displeasure. Having become

legalists, the former rebels are in part satisfied. They enter the ranks

of the “friends of order,” and reaction regains the upper hand until the

arrival of new groups of revolutionaries who are not tied to the system,

and who, aided by the mistakes or follies of the government, smash

another hole in the ancient edifice.

As soon as an institution is established, even if it should be only to

combat flagrant abuses, it creates them anew through its very existence.

It has to adapt to its bad environment, and in order to function, it

must do so in a pathological way. Whereas the creators of the

institution follow only noble ideals, the employees that they appoint

must consider above all their remuneration and the continuation of their

employment. Far from desiring the success of the endeavor, in the end

their greatest desire is that the goal should never be achieved.[5] It

is no longer a question of accomplishing the task, but only of the

profits that it brings and the honors that it confers. For example, a

commission of engineers is in charge of investigating the complaints of

landowners who were displaced by the construction of the aqueduct of the

Avre. It would seem very simple first to study these complaints and then

to respond in all fairness. But no—they begin by taking a few years to

do a general survey of the region, a task that had already been done,

and done well at that. Time passes, expenses accumulate, and the

complaints get worse. How often has it happened that the funds allocated

for some public work are notoriously insufficient, scarcely enough to

maintain the scaffolding, yet the engineers run up fees as if useful

work were being accomplished? How many years were necessary for that

tireless association, the Loire Navigable, to obtain the authorization

to create a channel in the riverbed at its own expense by constructing

relatively inexpensive groins? The state would only consider works

costing millions, and twenty years later the matter would probably still

be under study, like so many other projects that are vital for the

intelligent use of French land.

---

The Law is decreed by the Parliament, which arises from the People, in

whom national sovereignty resides. The freer the country, the more

venerable its elected legislative body, and the more important the free

examination of all the implications of liberty. And no institution is

more deserving of critique than parliamentary government.

The Parliament was undeniably an instrument of progress for the nation

that gave birth to it, and one can understand the admiration that

Montesquieu developed through studying the functioning of the British

system, which is so simple, and therefore so logical. Later, during the

National Assembly of 1789 and the Convention, the Parliament passed

through its heroic period in France, and on the whole, played a rather

positive role in the history of the gradual liberation of the

individual. Since then, it has spread to all countries of the world,

including the Negro republics of Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Liberia. Only

Russia (1905), Turkey, China, the European colonies of exploitation, and

a few other states remain without national representation. The

institution has become diversified in different countries, demonstrating

shortcomings in some cases and strengths in others, but one finds

everywhere a profound divergence between the evolution of a people and

that of its legislative body.

Even if one sets aside systems with poll taxes and plural voting,

ignores the fact that with rare exceptions the feminine half of the

population is not “represented” at all, and considers only universal

suffrage that is honestly applied, one still cannot claim that the laws

voted on by the majority of the elected representatives, who are

themselves selected by the majority of the voters, express the opinion

of the majority of electors. In fact, the opposite is often true. This

defect, which is purely mathematical, might be negligible if the state

contained only two factions, since the losses and gains would balance

out on the whole, but it becomes so much more serious as life

intensifies and opinions become more diverse. Yet the Swiss are alone in

conferring on the entire electorate the final adoption or rejection of

each new law.

Except in very rare cases, the spectacle presented by countries during

an election would hardly delight a man of principles. Whether an

electoral committee drafts the candidate, or whether he violates his own

modesty, ambitions inevitably emerge, and machinations, extravagant

promises, and lies have free rein. Moreover, it is certainly not the

most honest candidate who has the best chance of winning. Since the

legislators must be knowledgeable about all sorts of problems—local and

global, financial and educational, technical and moral—no particular

ability recommends the candidate to the voters. The winner may owe his

success to a certain provincial popularity, his good-natured qualities,

his oratorical skills, or his organizational talents, but frequently he

is also indebted to his wealth, his family connections, or even the

terror that he can inspire as a great industrialist or large property

owner. Most often, he will be a man of the party; he will be asked

neither to involve himself in public works, nor to facilitate human

relations, but rather to fight against one faction or another. In short,

the composition of the legislature does not at all reflect that of the

nation. It will be generally inferior in moral qualities, since it is

dominated by professional politicians.

Once elected, the representative is in fact independent of his electors.

It is left up to him to decide on the thousand issues of each day

according to his own conscience, and if he does not take the side of his

constituents, there exists no recourse against his vote. Far from having

any accountability during the four, seven, or nine years of his mandate,

and well aware that he can now commit crimes with impunity, the elected

official finds himself immediately exposed to all sorts of seductions on

behalf of the ruling classes. The newcomer is initiated into the

legislative traditions under the leadership of the veteran

parliamentarians, adopts the esprit de corps, and is solicited by big

industry, high officials, and above all, international finance. Even if

the parliament happens to be composed of a majority of honest people, it

develops a peculiar mentality based entirely on negotiations,

compromises, recantations, dealings that must not reach the ears of the

general public, and bargaining in the corridors that is covered up by

brilliant jousting between skilled orators. All noble character is

debased, all sincere conviction contaminated, and all honest intention

destroyed.

Thus it is not surprising that so many men refuse to help sustain such

an environment by means of their vote and to cooperate in the “conquest

of state power.” The revolutionaries at least realize that the forms of

the past will endure as long as the workers support their existence and

compromise with them, even if only to modify them. They can only deplore

the naïveté of those who think that they can “make the Revolution armed

to the teeth with ballots.” In order to maintain this illusion, one must

ignore the real weakness of this allegedly sovereign parliament, closing

one’s eyes to the far more powerful institutions that gather around it,

playing with it like a cat with a mouse.

---

All the movements for emancipation stand together, although the

insurgents are often unaware of each other, and they even hold on to

their atavistic enmities and resentments. From England and Germany to

France and Italy, there are many workers who despise one another, though

this does not prevent them from helping each another in their common

struggle against capitalist oppression. Similarly, among the women who

have thrown themselves impetuously into the battle for equality between

the sexes, there were at first a very significant number who, with their

rather patrician or high-brow tendencies, harbored a pious disdain of

the worker in his worn-out or dirty clothes. Nevertheless, since the

early days of “feminism,” we have witnessed the heroism of brave women

who go to the prostitutes to join them in solidarity to protest the

abominable treatment to which they have been subjected, and the shocking

bias of the law in favor of the corrupters and against their victims.

Risking insults and the most unsavory contacts, they dared to enter the

brothels and form an alliance with their scorned sisters against the

shameful injustice of society. Consequently, the coarse laughter and

vulgar insults that greeted their first steps gave way to a profound

admiration on the part of many who had mocked them. Here is a courage of

a different order than that of the fierce soldier who, seized with a

bestial fury, lunges with his sword or fires his rifle.

Obviously, all of the claims of women against men are just: the demands

of the female worker who is not paid as much as the male worker for the

same labor, the demands of the wife who is punished for “crimes” that

are mere “peccadilloes” when committed by the husband, and the demands

of the female citizen who is barred from all overt political action, who

obeys laws that she has not helped to create, and who pays taxes to

which she has not consented. She has an absolute right to recrimination,

and the women who occasionally take revenge are not to be condemned,

since the greatest wrongs are those committed by the privileged. But

ordinarily, a woman does not avenge herself at all. To the contrary, at

her conventions she naïvely petitions legislators and high officials,

waiting for salvation through their deliberations and decrees; however,

experience teaches women year after year that freedom does not come

begging, but rather must be conquered. It teaches them, moreover, that

in reality their cause merges with that of all oppressed people, whoever

they may be. Women will need to occupy themselves henceforth with all

people who are wronged, and not only with the unfortunate women forced

by poverty to sell their bodies. Once all are united, all the voices of

the weak and the downtrodden will thunder with a tremendous outcry that

will indeed have to be heard.

Make no mistake about it. Those who seek justice would have neither a

chance of realizing it in the future nor a single ray of hope to console

them in their misery if the league of all enemy classes had no

defections and remained as solid as the human wall of an infantry

formation. However, countless renegades leave their ranks. Some go

without hesitation to augment the camp of the rebels, while others

disperse here and there, somewhere between the ranks of the innovators

and the conservatives. In any case, they are too far from their original

position to be brought back at the moment of battle. It is perfectly

natural that organized bodies are thus weakened by a loss of their best

elements through a continual migration. The study of the interconnected

facts and laws revealed by contemporary science, the rapid

transformation of society, new conditions in the environment, and the

need for mental balance in those who are logically attracted to the

search for truth—all this creates for the young a milieu completely

different from that entailed by a traditional society with its slow and

painful evolution. It is true that the representatives of ancient

monopolies also gain recruits, especially among those who, tired of

suffering for their ideas, finally want to try out the joys and

privileges of this world, to eat when they are hungry and take their

turn living as parasites. But whatever the particular worth of a given

individual who changes his ideals and practices, it is certain that the

revolutionary offensive benefits by this exchange of men. It receives

those who have conviction and determination, young people with boldness

and will, whereas those whom life has defeated head for the camp of the

parties of reaction and bring with them their discouragement and their

faintheartedness.

The state and the various elements that constitute it have the great

disadvantage of acting according to a mechanism so regular and so

ponderous that it is impossible for them to modify their movements and

adapt to new realities. Not only does bureaucracy not assist in the

economic workings of society, but it is doubly harmful to it. First, it

impedes individual initiative in every way and even prevents its

emergence; second, it delays, halts, and immobilizes the works that are

entrusted to it. The cogs of the administrative machine work precisely

in the opposite direction from those functioning in an industrial

establishment. The latter strives to reduce the number of useless

articles, and to produce the greatest possible results with the simplest

mechanism. By contrast, the administrative hierarchy does its utmost to

multiply the number of employees and subordinates, directors, auditors,

and inspectors. Work becomes so complicated as to be impossible. As soon

as business arises that is outside the normal routine, the

administration is as disturbed as a company of frogs would be if a stone

were thrown into their swamp. Everything becomes a pretext for a delay

or a reprimand. One withholds his signature because he is jealous of a

rival who might benefit from it; another because he fears the

displeasure of a supervisor; a third holds back his opinion in order to

give the impression of importance. Then there are the indifferent and

the lazy. Weather, accidents, and misunderstandings are all used as

excuses for the results of ill will. Finally, files disappear under a

layer of dust in the office of some malevolent or lazy manager. Useless

formalities and sometimes the physical impossibility of providing all of

the desired signatures halts business, which gets lost like a parcel en

route between capitals.

The most urgent projects cannot be accomplished because the sheer force

of inertia of the bureaucracy remains insurmountable. This is the case

with the island of Ré, which is in danger of some day being split in two

by a storm. On the ocean side, it has already lost a strip of land

several kilometers wide in some places, and currently all that remains

at the most threatened point is an isthmus of less than one hundred

meters. The row of dunes that forms the backbone of the island is very

weak there. Considering all the facts, it is inevitable that one day,

during a strong equinoctial tide, a raging westerly wind will push the

waves across the peduncle of sand and open up a large strait through the

swamps and fields. Everyone agrees that it is urgent to construct a

strong seawall at the weak point on the island; however, some time ago a

small fort was built, a worthless construction now abandoned to the

bats, without even a man garrisoned there. No matter, it is in principle

under the supervision of the corps of engineers, and consequently all

public works are necessarily halted in its vicinity. This part of the

island will have to perish. Not far from there, the waters of a gulf

have intruded into the salt marshes and changed them into a shallow

estuary. It would be easy to recover these “Lost Marshes,” and the

surrounding residents have formulated a proposal to do so. But the

invasion of the sea has made state property of the area, and the series

of formalities that the recovery of the land would entail seems so

interminable that the undertaking has become impossible. The lost land

will remain lost unless a revolution abolishes all clumsy intervention

from an ignorant and indifferent state and restores the free management

of interests to the interested parties themselves.

In certain respects, minor officials exercise their power more

absolutely than persons of high rank, who are by their very importance

constrained by a certain propriety. They are bound to respect social

decorum and to conceal their insolence, and this sometimes succeeds in

soothing them and calming them down. In addition, the brutalities,

crimes, or misdemeanors committed by important figures engage everyone’s

attention. The public becomes enthralled with their acts and discusses

them passionately. Often they even risk being removed from office

through the intervention of deliberative bodies and bringing their

superiors down with them. But the petty official need not have the

slightest fear of being held responsible in this way so long as he is

shielded by a powerful boss. In this case, all upper-level

administration, including ministers and even the king, will vouch for

his irreproachable conduct. The uncouth can give free rein to crass

behavior, the violent lash out as they please, and the cruel enjoy

torturing at their leisure. What a hellish life it is to endure the

hatred of a drill sergeant, a jailer, or the warden of a chain gang!

Sanctioned by law, rules, tradition, and the indulgence of his

superiors, the tyrant becomes judge, jury, and executioner. Of course,

while giving vent to his anger, he is always supposed to have dispensed

infallible justice in all its splendor. And when cruel fate has made him

the satrap of some distant colony, who will be able to oppose his

caprice? He joins the ranks of kings and gods.

The arrogant, do-nothing petty bureaucrat who, protected by a metal

grating, can take the liberty of being rude toward anyone; the judge who

exercises his “wit” at the expense of the accused he is about to

condemn; the police who brutally round up people or beat demonstrators;

plus a thousand other arrogant manifestations of authority—this is what

maintains the animosity between the government and the governed. And it

must be noted that these daily acts do not wrap themselves in the mantle

of the law but rather hide behind decrees, memos, reports, regulations,

and orders from the prefect and other officials. The law can be harsh

and indeed unjust, but the worker crosses its path only rarely. In

certain circumstances, he can even go through life without suspecting

that he is subject to it, as when he is unaware that he is paying some

tax. But every time he acts, he is confronted with decisions decreed by

officials whose irresponsibility differs from that of the members of

parliament. The decisions of the former are without recourse and

continually remind the individual of the guardianship that the state

exercises over him.

The number of high and low officials will naturally grow considerably,

in proportion to increases in budgetary resources and to the extent that

the treasury contrives to find new means of extracting additional

revenues from whatever may be taxed. But the proliferation of employees

and staff members results above all from what we like to call

“democracy,” that is, from the participation of the masses in the

prerogatives of power. Each citizen wants his scrap, and the main

preoccupation of those who already have an official post is to classify,

study, and annotate the applications of others who seek a position. The

budget has paid for, and possibly continues to pay for, a forest ranger

on the island of Ouessant, which has a grand total of eight trees—five

in the garden of the curé and three in the cemetery!

So much pressure is exerted on the government by the multitude of

supplicants that the acquisition of distant colonies is due in very

large part to the concern for the distribution of government positions.

One can judge the so-called colonization of many countries by the fact

that in Algeria in 1896 there were a little more than 260,000 French

residing within the territorial boundaries, of which more than 51,000

were officials of all kinds. This constitutes roughly a fifth of the

colonists,[6] yet one must also take into account the 50,000 soldiers

stationed there. This brings to mind the inscription added on a map to

the name of the “town” of Ushuaia, the southernmost urban settlement of

the Americas and of the world: “Seventy-eight inhabitants, all

officials”!

France is an example of such a “democratization” of the state since it

is managed by approximately six hundred thousand participants in the

exercise of sovereign power. But if one adds to the officials in the

strict sense those who consider themselves as such, and who are indeed

invested with certain local or temporary powers, as well as those

distinguished from the mass of the nation through titles or

distinguishing marks, such as the village policemen and the town criers,

not to mention the recipients of decorations and medals, it becomes

apparent that there are more officials than soldiers. Moreover, the

former are, as a group, much more energetic supporters of the government

that pays them. Whereas the soldier obeys orders out of fear, the

official’s motivation stems not only from forced obedience but also from

conviction. Being himself a part of the government, he expresses its

spirit in his whole manner of thinking and in his ambitions. He

represents the state in his own person. Moreover, the vast army of

bureaucrats in office has a reserve force of a still greater army of all

the candidates for offices, supplicants and beggars of favors, friends,

and relations. Just as the rich depend on the broad masses of the poor

and starving, who are similar to them in their appetites and their love

of lucre, so do the masses, who are oppressed, persecuted, and abused by

state employees of all sorts, support the state indirectly, since they

are composed of individuals who are each preoccupied with soliciting

jobs.

Naturally, this unlimited expansion of power, this minute allocation of

positions, honors, and meager rewards, to the point of ridiculous

salaries and the mere possibility of future remuneration, has two

consequences with opposing implications. On the one hand, the ambition

to govern becomes widespread, even universal, so that the natural

tendency of the ordinary citizen is to participate in the management of

public affairs. Millions of men feel a solidarity in the maintenance of

the state, which is their property, their affair. At the same time, the

growing debt of the government, divided into thousands of small

entitlements to income, finds as many champions as it has creditors

drawing the value of their income coupons from quarter to quarter. On

the other hand, this state, divided into innumerable fragments,

showering privileges on one or another individual whom all know and have

no particular reason to admire or fear, but whom they may even

despise—this banal government, being all too well understood, no longer

dominates the multitudes through the impression of terrifying majesty

that once belonged to masters who were all but invisible and who only

appeared before the public surrounded by judges, attendants, and

executioners. Not only does the state no longer inspire mysterious and

sacred fear, it even provokes laughter and contempt. It is through the

satirical newspapers, and especially through the marvelous caricatures

that have become one of the most remarkable forms of contemporary art,

that future historians will have to study the public spirit during the

period beginning with the second half of the nineteenth century. The

state perishes and is neutralized through its very dissemination. Just

when all possess it, it has virtually ceased to exist, and is no more

than a shadow of itself.

Institutions thus disappear at the moment when they seem to triumph. The

state has branched out everywhere; however, an opposing force also

appears everywhere. While it was once considered inconsequential and was

unaware of itself, it is constantly growing and henceforth will be

conscious of the work that it has to accomplish. This force is the

liberty of the human person, which, after having been spontaneously

exercised by many primitive tribes, was proclaimed by the philosophers

and successively demanded with varying degrees of consciousness and will

by countless rebels. Presently, the number of rebels is multiplying, and

their propaganda is taking on a character that is less emotional than it

was previously and much more scientific. They enter the struggle more

convinced, more daring, and more confident of their strength, and they

find an environment that offers more opportunities to avoid the grip of

the state. Here is the great revolution that is developing and even

reaching partial fulfillment before our eyes. In the past, society has

functioned through distinct nations, separated by borders and living

under the domination of individuals and classes who claim superiority

over other men. We now see another mode of general evolution that

intermingles with the previous one and begins to replace it in an

increasingly regular and decisive manner. This mode consists of direct

action through the freely expressed will of men who join together in a

clearly defined endeavor, without concern for boundaries between classes

and countries. Each accomplishment that is thus realized without the

intervention of official bosses and outside the state, whose cumbersome

machinery and obsolete practices do not lend themselves to the normal

course of life, is an example that can be used for larger undertakings.

Erstwhile subjects become partners joining together in complete

independence, according to their personal affinities and their relation

to the climate that bathes them and the soil that supports them. They

learn to escape from the leading strings that had guided them so badly,

being in the hands of degenerate and foolish men. It is through the

phenomena of human activity in the arenas of labor, agriculture,

industry, commerce, study, education, and discovery that subjugated

peoples gradually succeed in liberating themselves and in gaining

complete possession of that individual initiative without which no

progress can ever take place.

[1] Reclus refers to Crete’s civil war of 1897 between the Greeks and

Muslims. Six major European powers (Germany, Austria, France, Italy,

Great Britain, and Russia), in addition to Greece and Turkey, became

involved in the conflict and ultimately imposed a peace agreement in

conformity with their will.

[2] Saint-Yves d’Alvaydra, La mission des Juifs, 41. [Reclus’ note]

[3] Reclus is punning on taillable, which refers both to taxing and to

cutting.

[4] Gustave Geoffroy, L’Enfermé, 51. [Reclus’ note]

[5] Reclus cites “Herbert Spencer, Introduction to Social Science, ch.

V, 87.” There is, however, no such title. He is apparently referring to

chapter 5 of Spencer’s The Study of Sociology (Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press, 1961; reprint of the 1880 edition). There, Spencer

comments that “agencies established to get remedies for crying evils,

are liable to become agencies maintained and worked in a considerable

degree, and sometimes chiefly, for the benefit of those who reap income

from them” (75).

[6] Louis Vignon, La France en Algérie. [Reclus’ note]