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Title: Socialism and Anarchism Author: William Morris Date: 1889 Language: en Topics: anti-anarchy, not-anarchist Source: Retrieved on 3 March 2011 from http://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1889/sa/index.htm Notes: First printed as a letter in Commonweal, May 5th, 1889.
In answer to our comrade Blackwell’s suggestion and in default of
someone else beginning that free discussion he speaks of, I wish to note
down a few thoughts suggested by reading the clauses of the Anarchist
Congress at Valentia, as stated by our comrade; premising that I do so
in no polemical spirit, but simply giving my own thoughts and hopes for
the future for what they may be worth.
I will begin by saying that I call myself a Communist, and have no wish
to qualify that word by joining any other to it. The aim of Communism
seems to me to be the complete equality of condition for all people; and
anything in a Socialist direction which stops short of this is merely a
compromise with the present condition of society, a halting-place on the
road to the goal. This is the only logical outcome of any society which
is other than a close company sustained by violence for the express
purpose of “the exploitation of man by man” in the interest of the
strongest. Our present “society” dominated by capitalism, the society of
contract, is a form of this class-society which has been forced upon
those who hold the slave ideal by the growth of knowledge and the
acquirement by man of mastery over the forces of nature. The history of
“society” since the fall of feudalism has been the gradual freeing of
class or slave-society from the fetters of superstition, so that it
might develop naturally within its prescribed limits of “exploitation of
man by man,” and that stupendous and marvellously rapid growth in power
and resources of modern slave-society is due to this shaking off of
superstition.
Communism also will have to keep itself free of superstition. Its ethics
will have to be based on the recognition of natural cause and effect,
and not on rules derived from a priori ideas of the relation of man to
the universe or some imagined ruler of it; and from these two things,
the equality of condition and the recognition of the cause and effect of
material nature, will grow all Communistic life. So far I think I can
see clearly; but when I try to picture to myself the forms which that
life will take, I confess I am at fault, and I think we must all be so.
Most people who can be said to think at all are now beginning to see
that the realization of Socialism is certain; although many can see no
further than a crude and incomplete State Socialism, which very
naturally repels many from Socialism altogether. All genuine Socialists
admit that Communism is the necessary development of Socialism; but I
repeat, further than this all must be speculative; and surely in
speculating on the future of society we should try to shake ourselves
clear of mere phrases: especially as many of them will cease to have a
meaning when the change comes that we all of us long for. And here I
join issue with our Anarchist-Communist friends, who are somewhat
authoritative on the matter of authority, and not a little vague also.
For if freedom from authority means the assertion of the advisability or
possibility of an individual man doing what he pleases always and under
all circumstances, this is an absolute negation of society, and makes
Communism as the highest expression of society impossible; but when you
begin to qualify this assertion of the right to do as you please by
adding “as long as you don’t interfere with other people’s rights to do
the same,” the exercise of some kind of authority becomes necessary. If
individuals are not to coerce others, there must somewhere be an
authority which is prepared to coerce them not to coerce; and that
authority must clearly be collective. And there are other difficulties
besides this crudest and most obvious one.
The bond of Communistic society will be voluntary in the sense that all
people will agree in its broad principles when it is fairly established,
and will trust to it as affording mankind the best kind of life
possible. But while we are advocating equality of condition — i.e., due
opportunity free to everyone for the satisfaction of his needs — do not
let us forget the necessary (and beneficent) variety of temperament,
capacity and desires which exists amongst men about everything outside
the region of the merest necessaries; and though many, or, if you will,
most of these different desires could be satisfied without the
individual clashing with collective society, some of them could not be.
Any community conceivable will sometimes determine on collective action
which, without being in itself immoral or oppressive, would give pain to
some of its members; and what is to be done then if it happens to be a
piece of business which must be either done or left alone? would the
small minority have to give way or the large majority? A concrete
example will be of use here, especially as it affects my temperament. I
have always believed that the realization of Socialism would give us an
opportunity of escaping from that grievous flood of utilitarianism which
the full development of the society of contract has cursed us with; but
that would be in the long run only; and I think it quite probable that
in the early days of Socialism the reflex of the terror of starvation,
which so oppresses us now, would drive us into excesses of
utilitarianism. Indeed, there is a school of Socialists now extant who
worship utilitarianism with a fervour of fatuity which is perhaps a
natural consequence of their assumption of practicality. So that it is
not unlikely that the public opinion of a community would be in favour
of cutting down all the timber in England, and turning the country into
a big Bonanza farm or a market-garden under glass. And in such a case
what could we do? who objected “for the sake of life to cast away the
reasons for living,” when we had exhausted our powers of argument?
Clearly we should have to submit to authority. And a little reflection
will show us many such cases in which the collective authority will
weigh down individual opposition, however, reasonable, without a hope
for its being able to assert itself immediately; in such matters there
must be give and take: and the objectors would have to give up the
lesser for the greater. In short, experience shows us that wherever a
dozen thoughtful men shall meet together there will be twelve different
opinions on any subject which is not a dry matter of fact (and often on
that too); and if those twelve men want to act together, there must be
give and take between them, and they must agree on some common rule of
conduct to act as a bond between them, or leave their business undone.
And what is this common bond but authority — that is, the conscience of
the association voluntarily accepted in the first instance.
Furthermore, when we talk of the freedom of the individual man, we must
not forget that every man is a very complex animal, made up of many
different moods and impulses; no man is always wise, or wise in all
respects. Philip sober needs protection against Philip drunk, or he may
chance to wake up from his booze in a nice mess. Surely we all of us
feel that there is a rascal or two in each of our skins besides the
other or two who want to lead manly and honourable lives, and do we not
want something to appeal to on behalf of those better selves of ours?
and that something is made up of the aspirations of our better selves,
and is the social conscience without which there can be no true society,
and which even a false society is forced to imitate, and so have a sham
social conscience — what we sometimes call hypocrisy.
Now I don’t want to be misunderstood. I am not pleading for any form of
arbitrary or unreasonable authority, but for a public conscience as a
rule of action: and by all means let us have the least possible exercise
of authority. I suspect that many of our Communist-Anarchist friends do
really mean that, when they pronounce against all authority. And with
equality of condition assured for all men, and our ethics based on
reason, I cannot think that we need fear the growth of a new authority
taking the place of the one which we should have destroyed, and which we
must remember is based on the assumption that equality is impossible and
that slavery is an essential condition of human society. By the time it
is assumed that all men’s needs must be satisfied according [to] the
measure of the common wealth, what may be called the political side of
the question would take care of itself.