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Title: Are We Good Enough? Author: Charlotte Wilson Date: June 1888 Language: en Topics: anarchist communism, anarcho-communism, communism Source: https://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/are-we-good-enough/view.php
One of the commonest objections to Communism is, that men are not good
enough to live under a Communist state of things. They would not submit
to a compulsory Communism, but they are not yet ripe for free,
Anarchistic Communism. Centuries of individualistic education have
rendered them too egotistic. Slavery, submission to the strong, and work
under the whip of necessity, have rendered them unfit for a society
where everybody would be free and know no compulsion except what results
from a freely taken engagement towards the others, and their disapproval
if he would not fulfill the engagement. Therefore, we are told, some
intermediate transition state of society is necessary as a step towards
Communism.
Old words in a new shape; words said and repeated since the first
attempt at any reform, political or social, in any human society. Words
which we heard before the abolition of slavery; words said twenty and
forty centuries ago by those who like too much their own quietness for
liking rapid changes, whom boldness of thought frightens, and who
themselves have not suffered enough from the iniquities of the present
society to feel the deep necessity of new issues!
Men are not good enough for Communism, but are they good enough for
Capitalism? If all men were good-hearted, kind, and just, they would
never exploit one another, although possessing the means of doing so.
With such men the private ownership of capital would be no danger. The
capitalist would hasten to share his profits with the workers, and the
best remunerated workers with those suffering from occasional causes. If
men were provident they would not produce velvet and articles of luxury
while food is wanted in cottages: they would not build palaces as long
as there are slums.
If men had a deeply developed feeling of equity they would not oppress
other men. Politicians would not cheat their electors ; Parliament would
not be a chattering and cheating box, and Charles Warren's policemen
would refuse to bludgeon the Trafalgar Square talkers and listeners. And
if men were gallant, self-respecting, and less egotistic, even a bad
capitalist would not be a danger; the workers would have soon reduced
him to the roll of a simple comrade-manager. Even a king would not be
dangerous, because the people would merely consider him as a fellow
unable to do better work, and therefore entrusted with signing some
stupid papers sent out to other cranks calling themselves kings.
But men are not those free-minded, independent, provident, loving, and
compassionate fellows which we should like to see them. And precisely,
therefore, they must not continue living under the present system which
permits them to oppress and exploit one another. Take, for instance,
those misery-stricken tailors who paraded last Sunday in the streets,
and suppose that one of them has inherited a hundred pounds from an
American uncle. With these hundred pounds he surely will not start a
productive association for a dozen of like misery-stricken tailors, and
try to improve their condition, lie will become a sweater. And,
therefore, we say that in a society where men are so bad as this
American heir, it is very hard for him to have misery-stricken tailors
around him. As soon as he can he will sweat them ; while if these same
tailors had a secured living from the Communist stores, none of theta
would sweat to enrich their ex-comrade, and the young sweater would
himself not become the very bad beast he surely will become if he
continues to be a sweater.
We are told we are too slavish, too snobbish, to be placed under free
institutions ; but we say that because we are indeed so slavish we ought
not to remain any longer under the present institutions, which favor the
development of slavishness. We see that Britons, French, and Americans
display the most disgusting slavishness towards Gladstone, Boulanger, or
Gould. And we conclude that in a humanity already endowed with such
slavish instincts it is very bad to have the masses forcibly deprived of
higher education, and compelled to live under the present inequality of
wealth, education, and knowledge. Higher instruction and equality of
conditions would be the only means for destroying the inherited slavish
instincts, and we cannot understand how slavish instincts can be made an
argument for maintaining, even for one day longer, inequality of
conditions; for refusing equality of instruction to all members of the
community.
Our space is limited, but submit to the same analysis any of the aspects
of our social life, and you will see that the present capitalist,
authoritarian system is absolutely inappropriate to a society of men so
improvident, so rapacious, so egotistic, and so slavish as they are now.
Therefore, when we hear men saying that the Anarchists imagine men much
better than they really are, we merely wonder how intelligent people can
repeat that nonsense. Do we not say continually that the only means of
rendering men less rapacious and egotistic, less ambitious and less
slavish at the same time, is to eliminate those conditions which favor
the growth of egotism and rapacity, of slavishness and ambition? The
only difference between us and those who make the above objection is
this: We do not, like them, exaggerate the inferior instincts of the
masses, and do not complacently shut our eyes to the same bad instincts
in the upper classes. We maintain that both rulers and ruled are spoiled
by authority; both exploiters and exploited are spoiled by exploitation;
while our opponents seem to admit that there is a kind of salt of the
earth --- the rulers, the employers, the leaders --- who, happily
enough, prevent those bad men --- the ruled, the exploited, the led ---
from becoming still worse than they are.
There is the difference, and a very important one. We admit the
imperfections of human nature, but we make no exception for the rulers.
They make it, although sometimes unconsciously, and because we make no
such exception, they say that we are dreamers, "unpractical men."
An old quarrel, that quarrel between the "practical men" and the
"unpractical," the so-called Utopists: a quarrel renewed at each
proposed change, and always terminating by the total defeat of those who
name themselves practical people.
Many of us must remember the quarrel when it raged in America before the
abolition of slavery. When the full emancipation of the Negroes was
advocated, the practical people used to say that if the Negroes were no
more compelled to labor by the whips of their owners, they would not
work at all, and soon would, become a charge upon the community. Thick
whips could be prohibited, they said, and the thickness of the whips
might be progressively reduced by law to half an inch first and then to
a mere trifle of a few tenths of an inch; but some kind of whip must be
maintained. And when the abolitionists said --- just as we say now ---
that the enjoyment of the produce of one's labor would be a much more
powerful inducement to work than the thickest whip, "Nonsense, my
friend," they were told --- just as we are told now. "You don't know
human nature! Years of slavery have rendered them improvident, lazy and
slavish, and human nature cannot be changed in one day. You are imbued,
of course, with the best intentions, but you are quite "unpractical."
Well, for some time the practical men had their own way in elaborating
schemes for the gradual emancipation of Negroes. But, alas! the schemes
proved quite unpractical, and the civil war --- the bloodiest on record
--- broke out. But the war resulted in the abolition of slavery, without
any transition period ; --- and see, none of the terrible consequences
foreseen by the practical people followed. The Negroes work, they are
industrious and laborious, they are provident --- nay, too provident,
indeed --- and the only regret that can be expressed is, that the scheme
advocated by the left wing of the unpractical camp --- full equality and
land allotments --- was not realized: it would have saved much trouble
now.
About the same time a like quarrel raged in Russia, and its cause was
this. There were in Russia twenty million serfs. For generations past
they had been under the rule, or rather the birch-rod, of their owners.
They were flogged for tilling their soil badly, flogged for want of
cleanliness in their households, flogged for imperfect weaving of their
cloth, flogged for not sooner marrying their boys and girls --- flogged
for everything. Slavishness, improvidence, were their reputed
characteristics.
Now came the Utopists and asked nothing short of the following:
Complete liberation of the serfs; immediate abolition of any obligation
of the serf towards the lord. More than that: immediate abolition of the
lord's jurisdiction and his abandonment of all the affairs upon which he
formerly judged, to peasants tribunals elected by the peasants and
judging, not in accordance with law which they do not know, but with
their unwritten customs. Such was the unpractical scheme of the
unpractical camp. It was treated as a mere folly by practical people.
But happily enough there was by that time in Russia a good deal of
unpracticalness in the air, and it was maintained by the unpracticalness
of the peasants, who revolted with sticks against guns, and refused to
submit, notwithstanding the massacres, and thus enforced the unpractical
state of mind to such a degree as to permit the unpractical camp to
force the Czar to sign their scheme --- still mutilated to some extent.
The most practical people hastened to flee away from Russia, that they
might not have their throats cut a few days after the promulgation of
that unpractical scheme.
But everything went on quite smoothly, notwithstanding the many blunders
still committed by practical people. These slaves who were reputed
improvident, selfish brutes, and so on, displayed such good sense, such
an organizing capacity as to surpass the expectations of even the most
unpractical Utopists; and in three years after the Emancipation the
general physiognomy of the villages had completely changed. The slaves
were becoming Men!
The Utopists won the battle. They proved that they were the really
practical people, and that those who pretended to be practical were
imbeciles. And the only regret expressed now by all who know the Russian
peasantry is, that too many concessions were made to those practical
imbeciles and narrow-minded egotists: that the advice of the left wing
of the unpractical camp was not followed in full.
We cannot give more examples. But we earnestly invite those who like to
reason for themselves to study the history of any of the great social
changes which have occurred in humanity from the rise of the Communes to
the Reform and to our modern times. They will see that history is
nothing but a struggle between the rulers and the ruled, the oppressors
and the oppressed, in which struggle the practical camp always aides
with the rulers and the oppressors, while the unpractical camp sides
with the oppressed; and they will see that the struggle always ends in a
final defeat of the practical camp after much bloodshed and suffering,
due to what they call their "practical good sense."
If by saying that we are unpractical our opponents mean that we foresee
the march of events better than the practical short-sighted cowards,
then they are right. But if they mean that they, the practical people,
have a better foresight of events, then we send them to history and ask
them to put themselves in accordance with its teachings before making
that presumptuous assertion.