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Title: Free Cooperation and Communities
Author: Ricardo Mella
Date: October 1900
Language: en
Topics: Anarcho-Collectivism, Libertarian Labyrinth
Source: Retrieved on June 16, 2019 from https://web.archive.org/web/20190616141013/http://library.libertarian-labyrinth.org/items/show/3480
Notes: A translation of “Cooperation libre et communautés” (Temps Nouveaux, Literary Supplement, October, 1900) by Shawn P. Wilbur.

Ricardo Mella

Free Cooperation and Communities

I mean by “free cooperation” the voluntary contribution of an

indeterminate number of individuals to a common end, through a system of

community, every social arrangement resting on common property in

things. Each time that I use the expression “systems of community,” it

will be to designate some or all of the plans for community that are

preconceived or, what amount to the same thing, determined a priori.

Among us anarchists, there are communists, collectivists and anarchists

without any qualifying term. Under the name of “anarchist socialism,”

there exists an equally important group that rejects all doctrinal

exclusivity and accepts a program of dismissing in principle all

divergences. The name socialist, by its generic character, is more

acceptable than any other.

However, in fact, doctrinal differences persist, so it is useful to

subject the idea to an impartial analysis and to seek to establish

agreement by eliminating the causes of the divergences.

Apart from the individualist faction, we are all socialist anarchists

and all in favor of community. I say all, because collectivism, as the

Spanish anarchists understand it, is only a degree of the community of

which, in their turn, those who call themselves communists do not reject

a single word. So there is a common principle. The different names that

we give ourselves indicate nothing other than different interpretations,

since for all, the primordial principle is the possession in common of

the earth, the instruments of labor, etc., …

The differences loom up as soon as it is a question of the mode of

production and the division of wealth.

The disparity of opinions appears noticeable, because, through

education, we tend to become dogmatic and because each, today, attempts

to systematize their future society, neglecting the anarchist idea

itself to some degree.

In my opinion, such a disparity, born of preferences for determined

systems, is not reasonable. I mean that the act of advocating these

systems is contradictory to the radical principle of liberty and that it

is not essential to the propagation of our ideas.

It is very simple to make the least cultivated people understand that

things will be done in a particular manner in the future, but that only

serves to reaffirm their authoritarian education and make them believe

that we will act in a certain manner and not in another.

We say to them so casually that each will enjoy the full product of

their labor, or that each will take what is necessary for them, wherever

they find it; but what is harder to explain is the manner by which we

will proceed without causing harm to anyone and especially how all men

will come to agreement in order to act according to one method or

another.

We must, on the contrary, penetrate skulls with the idea that everything

should happen, everywhere and always, in conformity to the will of the

associates, and we strive to make well understood the absolute necessity

that exists of leaving individuals a complete independence of action. It

is certainly not by stuffing brains with preconceived plans that we will

prepare them for anarchist education.

That last task is more complicated than the preceding one. It makes less

easy the comprehension of anarchist ideas, but it is that idea that

corresponds to the affirmation of a better world, where authority will

be reduced to nothing.

That manner of understanding propaganda being certainly common to all of

us, I believe that we do useful work by all contributing to orienting it

more each day in an anti-dogmatic and antiauthoritarian direction.

If we affirm that liberty must consist, for each group and each

individual, in being able to act autonomously in every moment, and if we

all affirm it, it is clear that we desire the means with the aid of

which such an autonomy will be practicable. And, because we desire these

means, we are obviously socialist and affirm that the common possession

of wealth is just and necessary, for without the community that

signifies the equality of means, the autonomy would be impracticable.

We mean, we believe, without contest, by the community of wealth, the

possession in common of all the things put thus at the free disposal of

groups and individuals. That supposes that it would be necessary to

establish the agreement necessary for the methodical use of that ability

to freely dispose of things.

The search for the possible forms of that accord give rise to the

different schools of which it has been a question.

Will it be necessary, despite our purely socialist affirmations, to

systematize life in full anarchy? Will it be necessary to decide today

on a special system of communist practice? Must we work at the

establishment of an exclusive method? If that was [the case], it would

be to justify the existence of as many anarchist fractions as there are

economic ideas dividing our opinions.

On the other hand, we will demonstrate that with such intentions we want

a bit more than the equality of means as guarantee of liberty. We will

demonstrate that we try to give a rule to liberty itself, or rather to

its exercise.

To systematize the exercise of autonomy is a contradiction. Free is the

individual, free is the group; nothing can oblige them to adopter such

and such a system of social life. Besides, nothing would be powerful

enough to impress a uniform direction on the production and distribution

of wealth.

Because we affirm the total individual and collective autonomy, we must

admit as a consequence the ability to proceed as we intend it, the

possibility that some act in one manner and other in another. It is the

evidence of multiple practices, the diversity of which will not be an

obstacle to the result of social peace and harmony to which we aspire.

So we should admit in summary the principle of free cooperation, based

on the equality of means, without it being necessary to go farther into

the practical consequences of the idea.

Why must anarchism be communist or collectivist?

Just the enunciation of these words produces in our mind the image of a

preconceived plan, of a closed system, and who, anarchists, are not

dogmatic; we do not advocate infallible panaceas; we do not construct on

the shifting sands these fragile castle that the slightest wind of the

near future will suffice to demolish. We spread liberty in fact, the

possibility of working in all times and all places. That possibility

will be effective for the people as soon as it is found in possession of

the wealth and it can dispose of it without anyone, nor anything being

able to oppose it. It will be that much more effective as the people can

better and more freely consult one another concerning the means of

organizing the production and distribution of wealth put at its

disposition.

We could then say to the people: Do what seems good to you; group

yourself as you please; regulate your relations for the use of wealth as

you think best; organize the free life as you know it and as you are

able… Then, under the influence of diverse opinions, under the influence

of climate and race, under that of the physical environment and the

social milieu, produce activity in multiple directions. Various methods

will be applied and thus, in the long run, experience and the

necessities will determine the harmonic and universal solutions of

social life. We will obtain, by experiment, at least a part of what we

would certainly not obtain with all the discussions and intellectual

efforts possible.

The affirmation that everything is for all in no way implies that each

can dispose of everything arbitrarily or in conformity to a given rule.

That only means that wealth being at the free disposition of

individuals, the organization of the enjoyment of things is left to the

initiation of these latter.

The search for the forms of such an organization is certainly useful and

necessary, but especially by way of study and not by means of an imposed

doctrine; the same search would not and should not result in a unanimity

of opinions. It is not necessary that it determines a social credo. In

matters of opinion it is necessary to know how to respect all, and the

freedom to put them into practice is the best guarantee of that respect.

In a society like the one that we recommend, the diverse nature of the

labors will oblige the members in every case to charge themselves in

turn with the sole of the execution of certain tasks. In other cases,

the voluntariat will be necessary. So it is necessary that a group

concerns itself permanently with the those labors; others will be

accomplished in turn by various groups. Here, the distribution could

follow the communist process that abandons it to the necessities or, to

put it better, to the will of individuals; there, it will be necessary

to resolve voluntarily to some one rule, like rationing or something

approaching it. Who could claim to be capable of embracing the whole of

the future life?

One could tell me that all of this account is simply communism; in this

case, collectivism is also communism and vice versa. There is no more

than a difference of degrees, and what I seek to prove is the

contradiction into which we fall when, to the term anarchy, we associate

a closed, invariable, uniform system, subject to some predetermined

rules.

Even though there will exist in the brain of each among us that spirit

of broad liberty, that general criterion that I designate under the name

of free cooperation, the practical result will demonstrate that to the

terms collectivism, communism, etc., are more or less associated the

idea of a complete plan of social life, apart from which everything is

only an error.

Our struggles come precisely from having associated certain ideas with

certain terms where exclusivism is affirmed, and when propaganda lets

itself be invaded by the particularities of school, the result is fatal,

for instead of making conscious anarchists, we make fanatics for

communism A, or fanatics for communism B, fanatics, in a word, of a

dogma, whatever it may be.

To the reasons that we could call [matters] of internal order, already

put forward, I should add others, of the general order, which will

corroborate my deductions.

Present experience and the historical experience of which that of the

future will only be the corollary, will be drawn in.

How can one desire that one system could or can predominate? Facts are

far from following invariable rules. The principle is generally one, but

the practical experiments vary noticeably and distance themselves from

the point of departure. From the communism of some peoples we can only

obtain a characteristic ideal. In the facts, there is not one communism

like another communism. In all places concessions are made to

individualism, but to very differing degrees. The regulation of life

oscillates from free agreement to the most repugnant despotism. From the

free communities of the Eskimos to the authoritarian communism of the

ancient Peruvian empire, the distance is enormous. However, the

practices of communism derive from a single principle: the absolute

right of the collectivity, which, in the governmental countries, is

transformed into the absolute right of the prince assuming the

representation and the rights of the aforesaid. That principle cannot,

however, persist without essential limits. From all sides the limits on

the profit of individuality are numerous. In certain cases, the house

and garden are private property. In other cases, the community only

extends to a portion of the earth, the other parts being reserved to the

State and to the priests and warriors. Finally, the Eskimos, in their

free communism, recognize the right of the individual to separate from

the community and establish themselves elsewhere, hunting and fishing at

their own, sole risk. By continuing this excursion in the domain of

sociology and history, we easily understand how difficult it is to

explain that such contrary practices proceed from a common principle.

In the same manner, the individualist regime in many cases finds itself

in some regions closer to communism than to individualism properly

speaking. Property, often, is reduced to possession or to the usufruct

that the State, at will, grants or takes away. In other cases, the

enjoyment of the earth is allocated by periodic repartitions, because,

theoretically, we say that the soil belongs to everyone.

If we analyze the present experience of industrial or agricultural

individualism, we see that the principle, or rule, is one: the right to

exclusive and absolute property in things, but that the methods of

applications vary from country to country and from city to city.

Despite the concern for unification of the legislators, [and] the

absorbing and unitarist power of the State, the laws are a veritable

“maremagnum” and the habits and customs in industry, commerce and

agriculture are so opposite, that what is equitable in one place is

taken for unjust in another.

There are countries where association performs miracles and others where

individuals prefer to struggle on their own accounts. Some entire

regions belong to one single nation or to a dozen individuals, while

others are all divided in little parcels. Here large industry prevails,

there the ancient artisan persists, laboring in their little workshop.

The transmission of property dons the most varied forms. As for the

tithes taken by the lord who enjoys an absolute right, they have

disappeared or are transformed in certain places, while in others they

persist.

Is it necessary to note that no so-called civilized State is totally

individualistic? Despite the right of use and abuse of things, the

public power invades the right of the citizens at each step. For cause

of general utility, we establish expropriation and we thus fall back

onto the communist principle of the right of the collectivity.

On the other hand, a considerable portion of wealth is consumed in

common in the civilized countries and a great number of communistic

institutions exist, which live in the midst of modern individualism.

I believe it is useless to add proofs that are accessible to everyone; I

limit myself to indicating a process and drawing the conclusions.

Some experiments set out, I deduce that the future will develop

according to a general principle, that of the common or collective

possession (the two terms being, for me, equivalent) of wealth, and

that, practically, this principle translates into various methods of

production, distribution and consumption, all methods of free

cooperation.

That same deduction results immediately from the principle of liberty

that is so dear to us. And now, I can add that the diversity of

individualist or communist experiments, contained in the past and in the

present, is only the necessary consequence of the principle of liberty

surviving in the human species, despite all the coactions. The

individual, just like the group, always tends to regulate its existence,

to rule itself according to is opinions, tastes and necessities. And

then even when it is reduced to an imposed system, it sets its existence

free, in the very midst of this system, by not conforming itself to it

and by arranging it as much as possible according to the tastes,

necessities and opinions in question. It was thus in the past, is so

today, and will be the same tomorrow, we believe.

In the face of the systematic variability and all the exclusivisms of

doctrine, I believe I have established that the corollary of anarchy is

the free cooperation in which every practice of community has the space

suitable to it.

The struggles of doctrinal exclusivism languish at present. My desire is

to have contributed to making them disappear entirely.

The affirmation of the method of free cooperation is purely anarchist,

and it will teach to those who come to us that we decree neither dogmas

nor systems for the future, and that anarchy is not an appearance of

liberty, but liberty itself, liberty in action.