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Title: Communal Anarchy Author: Dyer D. Lum Date: 1886 Language: en Topics: anarchist communism, anarcho-communism, communism, anarchy Source: Retrieved on 25 January, 2019 from https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/anarchist-mutualism/dyer-d-lum-communal-anarchy-1886/ Notes: Dyer D. Lum, “Communal Anarchy,” The Alarm 2 no. 15 (March 6, 1886): 2.
A distinction has been sought between what has been termed “Mutualistic
Anarchy” and communistic anarchy, but it is one we fail to recognize.
Anarchy, or the total cessation of force government, is the fundamental
principle upon which all our arguments are based. Communism is a
question of administration in the future, and hence must be subordinate
to and in accord with the principles of Anarchy and all of its logical
deductions. Anarchy proclaims that sovereignty of the individual, the
abrogation of all artificial inequalities, and the total cessation of
coercion over a minority, even if that minority be a single individual.
To secure this end it demands the abolition of the State. This involves
the destruction of the privileges now legalized and which are the cause
of our social discord. To abolish the state is at one blow to destroy
special privilege. With the fall of the legal scaffolding property
ceases to be a ravenous beast and is converted into a useful
domesticated auxillary to individual effort. Government exists merely
for the protection of special privileges their laws confer upon
property.
Anarchy being our fundamental principle, no scheme of social
administration we may advocate, must be contrary thereto. In using the
word communism, therefore, we in no wise abridge the rights of the
individual. But why use the word at all? it may be asked. For this
reason: In speaking of the individual we believe Anarchy covers the
whole ground; but in speaking of society in its associative phase,
forming into groups for the purposes of production and distribution, we
prefer to use this old term, and by associating it with the qualifying
word Anarchy, rescue it from the abuse into which it has fallen.
Each writer in The Alarm is responsible for his own articles, but in
giving them editorial space they become representative of principles
inculcated by this paper. We would therefore say that The Alarm does not
advocate the institution of any system whereby individual right can be
invaded. We demand the abolition of the legal sanction to property,
believing the destruction of exclusive claim to products for speculative
purposes will leave property communal. We recognize the right of each to
own and possess the result of his own labor; he may make a machine if he
wish and call it his “private property” and no one can object, for under
communal anarchy his claim would involve no infringement upon others’
rights. But where the claim has no sanction in law it becomes harmless.
In attaching private property we are combating the legalization of
privilege. In using the word State we refer to any alleged source of
authority and hold the principle to be as operative in the Social
Communes of the future as in the political republic of the present. In
brief, the only use of force, in any manner whatever, an Anarchist can
justify is that used in attaining and defending his natural rights as an
individual. Communal Anarchy rejects all assumed “divine rights” to
authority of man over man, whether it be asserted by a monarch, priest,
or the majority of the people. The destruction of privilege is our sole
object.
Lum