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Title: Anarchist-Mutualism Author: J. William Lloyd Date: June 17, 1927 Language: en Topics: mutualism, individualist Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20081122003004/http://www.zetetics.com/mac/blog/00000930.html
My old-time comrade and dear friend, C.L. Swartz, has sent me a copy of
his new book, "What is Mutualism", for review. I have unlimited respect
for C.L. Swartz, his ripe scholarship and sincere idealism, and if I am
compelled by an equal sincerity to differ with him, I hope our valued
friendship will not be affected.
I make this review with pleasure, because it will incidentally afford me
an opportunity to explain myself to my old comrades, who, I know, regard
me as a sad renegade. In 1884, or thereabout, I became a disciple of the
school of Proudhon and Tucker. Tho never very orthodox, I passed for a
pretty straight Individualist-Anarchist for some 20 years. Tucker was a
gentleman and a scholar, and his personal charm held me as well as
intellectual and moral conviction. But at last my critical faculties
were turned on the cult itself and I had to come out. I am no longer an
Anarchist, but perhaps on many points I might fairly be called a
Near-Anarchist still. I no longer label myself an Anarchist, or a
Socialist (except in the large use of that term), but a Humanist, and
the one principle I subscribe to is the greatest benefit to the greatest
number. But I want all the personal liberty it is possible to have, for
myself and others, so far as it is consistent with social benefit. I say
all this because this new cult of Mutualism is simply the old cult of
Tuckerism, of Individualist-Anarchism, under a new name and very wisely
supplemented by the constructive principle of cooperation. As such it is
far more attractive to me, as Co-operation is the most saving word in
the language.
The Anarchists of half a century ago knew nothing of the psychology of
modern business. With a new idea to put over, and in private life,
courteous, cordial and refined, on paper they were a lot of swaggering,
critical, swashbucklers, arrogant, browbeating and insulting, and all
who differed were knaves or fools, and frankly so informed. The
dictionary was reversed, and the astonished world was told that Anarchy
was Order and Government was Invasion. Worse salesmanship for a new
propaganda could hardly have been conceived. But conceit did not stop
here, for men were also told that the Declaration of Independence must
also be reversed. There were no "natural rights", or any rights except
those of might, unless created by contract between associates, and that
children were the chattels of their parents, who (after all, as it was
contradictorily discovered) had a natural right to do what they pleased
with them as a labor product. It was a thousand pities, for those men
really had some very valuable ideas that the world needed and which a
sane and considerate propaganda might have enabled them to spread far.
The tone of "What is Mutualism" is very different. It is courteous,
persuasive, respectful and sweetly reasonable, and the old,
antagonism-creating name has been wisely dropped, but under this gentle
exterior one is saddened to see most of the old ideas reappear still.
As I see it: --
Liberty is to do as you please;
Law is that which limits liberty;
Government is that which applies law.
There is not now, and never has been, any complete liberty in our
natural world or among men.
The universe is constructed of opposites, which always operate
co-existently, at least to some extent; therefore liberty and authority
always co-exist and operate together,
Anarchists plead only for equal-liberty, which is limited liberty, and
therefore admit at the start that there is something in Nature and her
necessities which limits liberty; therefore admit natural law and
natural government -- that there is a natural basis and origin for
government. It is a dangerous admission for their cult. But they go
further and claim that even equal-liberty has no rights against invasive
might and its right must be created by an artificial contract between
associates who pool their mights to defend it. They don't stress the
corollary, but if cornered admit it, that those outside the contract
have no rights whatever and may be invaded without guilt by whosoever
has the might. It is remindful of the morality of our Amerindians who
are angels in tribal relations and fiends on the war-path to outsiders.
They thus create a justification for invasion that the moral sense of
the rest of men denies -- and so still further cease to be the champions
of liberty.
It is a tremendous strategic mistake that the Mutualists thus make to
fly in the face of and array against them the moral intuitions of
mankind. And quite unnecessary also. Even if they believe this, it is
needless to mention it. Nobody suspects for a moment that Comrade Swartz
and his immediate associates are seeking excuses for rape and murder on
non-associates, or that they would treat their children any more like
puppies or stove wood than other humans. Why then metaphysically outrage
the moral code of those they are trying to persuade? What they are
trying to put over is that good men, if they wish to have satisfactory
liberty, must associate to realize and defend it. Why not emphasize that
and chuck offensive hair-splitting out of the window? Why take a
position that would theoretically permit one of their associates to prey
as a burglar on non-associates, or a woman to sell her pretty little
daughter into white slavery? And if it actually happened, if the man and
the woman were loyal and inoffensive within the clan, and willing that
the other members had equal liberty to burglarize and sell, how, without
violating their principles, could they act to stop it? It was precisely
at this point where Tucker, mad with his logic, asserted that the child
was the labor-product of the mother, therefore absolutely her property
and that the mother had the right to throw her baby into the fire, like
an old newspaper, if she chose, that I broke with him first, and my
Anarchism first began to crack. What insanity has moved modern
Mutualists to re-assert these positions against which the heart of
humanity and the intuitions of its moral conscience will always rebel?
Especially as it is quite certain that none of those writing this book
(for I am informed it is a mutualist creation) intend to make any
practical application of such anti-social dogmas; nor has the practical
application of the theory of the social-contract any need of such logic.
Nothing seems easier to demonstrate than natural rights. When Nature
created us she endowed us all with an innate and indestructible
conviction that we have: --
These are our natural rights, and everybody is convinced of them, spite
of all doctrinaires. It is safe to say that Comrade Swartz is as
convinced of his natural right to these rights as I am and would fight
as hard to maintain them. And there are other natural rights with a
wider social application. If advanced thinkers base their contentions on
natural rights, and claim these for all human beings by the very fact of
their humanity, they can go ahead with confidence and appeal with
results to the human heart.
Those who would reason clearly on the question of rights should always
make a distinction between rights and privileges. The so-called "right
of might" is in the nature of a privilege. It is not a right, nor is it
right unless it serves a right. Our rights always relate to benefits and
connote satisfaction. That is right which benefits. In Nature might has
no justification for action unless it secures benefit -- therefore is
subordinate to right. Might must serve right before it is justified and
right must have the service of might before it can practically act, tho
it existed just as certainly before. Swartz has a right to his Mutual
Bank, tho he has no might to compel the government to withdraw its
impediments. If might does not serve right, Nature condemns it in the
final results -- they are not beneficial. By endorsing the right of
might Anarchists throw away their whole case, for they thereby endorse
and justify all successful invasions, and particularly the invasions of
government, which has the most might.
Instead of all rights being derived from might, all rights are derived
from benefit and imply that, otherwise cannot qualify.
Government has its origin in Nature below man. Animal parents control
their young, animal packs follow and obey a leader. We see the same
among primitive men. Nature has instituted an instinct for government
and its purpose has been benefit and preservation. The mother governs
her child for the benefit of the family; and the tribe, the larger
family, huddles for protection under the strength, courage and wisdom of
the chief. The natural roots of government are in the mother and the
chief, and in that self-government by which a man conserves his health
and safety by controlling his dangerous appetites and impulses.
Government of this kind is instinctively sought by human beings, and
benefits of this sort are instinctively expected of government; and
where benefits of this sort are derived from government, there need be
no fear of rebellion. To "establish justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty", states the essentials
pretty well.
Government of the invasive kind began when tribesmen adopted these very
principles that Tucker and Swartz would have us accept -- they felt an
implied contract bound them together in loyalty within the tribe, but
outside there was no right but might, no one outside the tract had any
rights they were required to respect. The result was invasions, war,
conquest of weaker tribes, property in loot, the ownership of stolen
lands, the making of slaves. The chief made himself king over these
conquered ones, subjects. By a separate contract with his strongest
warriors he divided stolen lands among them, and made them feudal lords
with serfs, and bound them to him and away from the loyalty to the
weaker ones of the tribe. Special privileges in stolen property -- that
has been the quality of invasive government ever since. But the people
have never forgotten that government purely for social benefit is
perfectly possible, and the reason they do not forget it is because they
still have mothers, and still at time, strong friends and champions
arise to use their might to protect them.
Another instance where an implied contract was used for invasion was
when men usurped all rights in the name of might, declared women had no
rights, subjugated them, and instituted that form of marriage in which,
in its pure form, the woman was forced to be monogamous, was purely her
husband's property, without human rights, and her children also property
and also his.
Pure liberty -- the untrammeled doing as one pleases -- nowhere exists.
Law and government, in some form or degree, open or concealed, always
accompany liberty and modify it. When Anarchists ask only for
equal-liberty they themselves acknowledge this and institute a degree of
law and government by limiting liberty by equality, governing liberty by
equality. Once you admit that, in practice, liberty must be limited, law
and government are admitted, and it only becomes a question how much or
hoe little liberty is best for the greatest benefit. If Mutualists bind
themselves by a contract, the moment any one of them finds he has made a
mistake and no longer agrees to the contract, he finds that the Contract
has become a Government, and its several parts are laws, which is
associates will enforce upon him. He can leave of course but if his home
and investments are there that will not be so easy, and if obliged to go
to another group, under another contract, he only changes governments,
as an American who goes to Canada or Mexico. If a child has the
misfortune to be born under one of these contract-mutualisms he finds he
has no rights whatever, and is only property of his parent's might. Not
even equal-liberty for him until big enough to put his head into one of
those contract nooses. If he chooses to live as a pure inoffensive
individualist, outside of any contract, he will find that for his
mutualist neighbors he has no rights whatever, unless they choose to
endow him with some. If not, they are free to exercise their might upon
him.
If a contract exactly expresses the will of a member it, of course, does
not govern him. But it is a rigid form, for all that, and, sooner or
later is bound to pinch somewhere, for he is growing and changing. When
it pinches it governs, and if he enforces it on his dissenting desires
he aids it to govern, but it governs none the less. If he does not
enforce it on himself, but breaks it, and others enforce it on him, he
is sure it governs. If enforced only by forfeiture of bonds, loss of
privileges, etc., it governs still. A contract enforced limits liberty,
tho not necessarily equal-liberty, and a contract not enforced, or not
intended for enforcement, is weak, and weak precisely at points of
greatest strain. And it is safe to say that, with any contract involving
social life, there will be moments of emergency and crucial necessity
when imperious wills will enforce the contract or violate it spite of
any scruples about equal-liberty.
Perhaps the contract will be enforced only by the boycott. Mutualists
would fain [sic] persuade us that there is no possible invasion of equal
liberty in a boycott. Comrade Swartz, instinctively sensing a weak spot
in his levees here, throws all his strength to its support. "It is", he
says, "the only weapon that cannot be used invasively?The reason for
this is that the boycott is not an act; it is merely the refusal to
act." Yet please note that he admits it is a "weapon", and implies that
it can be "used", and on page 163 admits that a boycotted person "may
correctly allege that he has been coerced", and lower down speaks of a
boycott exerting a "pressure." On page 165, we see it recommended as a
"punishment for crime", and a "drastic penalty", "more painful to many
than to be incarcerated in a prison", etc. Now how can the use of a
weapon, to exert a pressure, to coerce, to inflict a drastic penalty or
punishment, worse than incarceration in a prison, be described as no
act, "merely a declination to act"? It is absurd. The confusion of the
Anarchist here comes from his failing to understand that, in the
paradoxicality of the universe, there are acts-negative as well as
acts-positive, and that the boycott is one of the acts-negative. A
failure, or refusal to act in a positive manner may still be an
act-negative. Thus if a baby, at my feet, falls into a ditch, and I,
quite able to retrieve it, allow it to drown, I am just as guilty of its
murder as if I pushed it under; if I see a spark starting to ignite a
house, and I, quite able, indifferently permit it to burn on, I am
morally guilty of arson. When I boycott or ostracize a person to coerce
him to do something which he is unwilling to do I am acting, and my act
is an act of government.
For this is precisely what government is -- in the relations of human
beings, it is the action of one mind to control another mind to coerce
it to perform an act, or cease to act, where it is reluctant or
unwilling to comply -- that is government, and is so understood by all
mankind -- or, more briefly -- government is the imposition of a
stronger will upon a weaker will that is here unwilling. It is always a
limitation of liberty, even if intended to maintain whatever liberty may
be possible.
Anarchists will find, whenever they try to apply their theories, that
they cannot maintain an orderly, comfortable home, or run an orderly,
harmonious school, or conduct an orderly public meeting, (Tucker averred
that it was necessary that the moderator should be an autocrat), or run
a safe railroad train, or sail a safe ship, without government. There
must be discipline for order and efficiency -- self-applied, or
externally applied, and almost invariably the latter, for the
self-applied is very unreliable in practice. Swartz praises the superior
efficiency of private business concerns over government action in the
same lines. He fails to note that the reason is that the discipline and
government of the business enterprises is far more instant and severe
than that of ordinary political government. In the army and navy, where
government is still more strict and severe, efficiency is supreme.
Efficiency is apt to be in inverse proportion to liberty. But of course
government is a blind force and must be directed by intelligence; a fool
must not be an engineer.
I cite all this merely to prove that Anarchism is a natural
impossibility. Government is ubiquitous and pops up everywhere. There is
no such thing as complete liberty, and equal-liberty, tho a beautiful
moral standard, as an ideal, is, in real life invaded all the time, by
stern natural necessity. There is no such thing as an "individual
sovereign", a "single, separate person" -- he does not exist. Centrally
there is a certain nucleus of individuality, yes, and very precious to
us, but on all borders and contacts one merges with forces, things and
persons, depends on them, and becomes all tangled up, coercing and being
coerced, governing and being governed, in all sorts of conscious or
unconscious, secret or overt way, by acts-negative or acts-positive.
Society is not a mere word, but a living reality. As soon as any group
forms there begins to develop a collective, composite spirit, or mind,
invisible, but very real, that more or less telepathically unites and
includes it -- all its members. All contribute life to it -- all are
influenced, modified by it. This is Society -- the composite spirit of
the group -- and it exercises an invisible, but very real government.
The visible leaders must mainly express it or they do not last long.
There is always a majority rule, tho a powerful individual mind may
captivate the majority, at least for a time. Anarchists cannot escape
the action of this government; moreover they will participate in it.
I first really faced the fallacy of Anarchism when I faced the problem
of Conservation. When Anarchists forgot the assertion of the single
right of might, they were full of rights to assert, and one was that the
individual sovereign had an indisputable right to go to wild Nature for
anything he could use and, provided he left the field open for others,
no one had a right to prevent him. I agreed, till suddenly I realized
that this meant that an Italian could live on slaughtered son birds, a
market pot-hunter could kill all the year round, fish could be seined
out of all waters, the lumber-hog could seep away the forests, and, as
long as these men left equal-liberty for others to commit equal havoc,
there was absolutely nothing in Anarchist principles that could
consistently be applied to stop them. They were occupying and using, and
not invading equal-liberty -- and to stop them was "government", that
is, "invasion". I dropt Anarchism right then and there. I began to see
emerging the rights of society -- of a wise collectivity, envisaging the
rights o all and of posterity. Some social benefits required even the
sacrifice of equal-liberty.
In presenting their propaganda, Anarchists seem to fight shy of putting
out any definite program, or telling in unmistakable terms how their
principles would work out in practice. Usually they prefer to only
deliver fascinating generalities. One of these fascinating generalities
is that of usufruct, which, they claim, would give a perfect title to
land. But when you look into it, this doctrine of occupation and use is
as full of potential trouble as any tropical jungle. Will occupancy
alone give a full title to ownership, or will use alone do so, or must
it be both occupancy and use. And what constitutes either occupancy or
use? If I set my house in the middle of a quarter-section do I occupy
all that land, or do I occupy only what my house actually covers? If I
run a footpath over a farm and walk over it frequently, does that
constitute use? If I fence in 10,000 acres of rich land, capable of
feeding 40,000 people under intensive cultivation, and merely pasture
10,000 head of cattle on the tract, is that occupancy and use and must
the other 39,999 leave me in possession? What constitutes failure to
occupy? How long may I be absent, and under what circumstances, and
still retain occupancy. And so on and so on, and so on? What has the
right to decide such questions anyway, or to enforce decisions when
made, especially when "the natural right of might" looms in the
background? Is it not instantly clear that any and all decisions must be
more or less arbitrary. And all occupancy and use of land is to a
certain extent a monopoly and excludes some one from the equal right to
occupy and use it -- is, to a degree, a violation of equal freedom. I
see endless possibilities of disputes, quarrels, litigation, fights,
feuds, arising out of this utterly loose and indeterminate way of
deciding land titles. Far better in every way, in my judgment, is to
plan of the Single Taxer -- all the people own the land in common and
the government administers it; you pay your rent to a clearly defined
piece of land, and so long as you pay, you occupy -- when you stop
payment, you have vacated your title. It is all as clear as dollars and
cents, and settled instantly on business-like principles. And makes it
far more difficult to hold valuable and socially-needed lands for
selfish pleasure or inferior use. Under usufruct a stubborn occupant,
holding a strategic position, refusing to sell out, could block a road,
even a railroad, and cause expense and trouble, or exact his own price,
or exact a toll. Nothing of that [is] possible under government
ownership.
Much more could be said, but I have not been asked to write a volume.
And there is much in the book to praise. The criticism of Bolshevism is
penetrative and deserved. I am not a financier but The Mutual Bank
appeals to me as an excellent institution. For many years I have been
convinced that the finances of the country should represent and be based
upon the exchangable wealth of the country, not based on gold. The
explanation of what The Mutual Bank is, and would do, seems to me to be
more clearly given in this book than in anything else I have read. Some
such method is painfully needed to deliver from the robbery of interest
and insure general prosperity. [NOTE inserted in hand by Lloyd: Now
(1934) I believe, with Bellamy, that the remedy is to abolish all banks
and money.] The tone of the book is excellent, its literary merit of the
highest. There is a complete absence of violent accusation and insult
toward opponents, or those criticised. Its working methods, as
recommended -- education, passive resistance, to repeal obnoxious laws
where possible and ignore where impossible -- all these are admirable.
But repeal would require voting -- do Mutualists use the vote? Are they
wise enough to be opportunists and to use the enemy's weapons where
available? The original Anarchists would die first.
For myself I am satisfied that education and evolution are all we can
look to for effective help -- the evolution of character. When the
general character of society reaches a high enough development, only men
of character can represent it in government or serve it in business, and
the nature of all institutions will reflect that character,
opportunities for the unscrupulous to use the might of force or cunning
to domineer and exploit here will always be, under any system, rule or
contract, and nothing but the refusal of the tempted to utilize these
opportunities can save the day. And no matter how bad the social system,
the good man will at once proceed to reform it into one of real social
service. Even a dictator is harmless is his character is high enough,
and the loudest professor of Anarchism will be a tyrant and a parasite
if his character is low enough.
I quite agree with this book in its denunciation of monopoly and special
business privilege. Government should never be permitted to create
these. I am for free trade and free competition. Private parties should
always be free to compete with the government in rendering public
service -- a competition between government and private companies should
act as a corrective of the usual faults of each. I favor the abolition
of patents and copyrights, still I think it would be to the public
interest to offer inducements to investors. I would suggest a plan
something like this: Suppose a board of experts nominated by the
manufacturers of the county, to pass on the merits of inventions. Any
inventor who chooses may submit his invention to these. If they approve,
they appraise the labor cost of his invention, and of his model, and
reimburse him for this. They also describe and illustrate his invention
in one issue of a periodical they print, which goes to all
manufacturers. Any and all are now free to make and sell the invention,
but all who do so must pay the inventor a small royalty for his
lifetime, or for the time they continue so to do. By this plan the
inventor would get at least something for his invention, at least get
back his expenses. But it would be the property of the people, and could
not be bought up and shelved. All would have access to it on equal
terms, and the more who were benefited, the more the inventor would get.
And the more good, free inventions, the more the whole world gains.
I fully agree that juries should try he law as well s the evidence. In
other words, all laws relating to crime should be flexible, and applied
or modified according to the peculiar circumstances of each case. Only
thus can justice be done. But to select ignorant and unwilling men,
haphazard, for jurors, is a most clumsy and dangerous method. Jurymen
should be professionals, men of selected character, especially educated
in human psychology and the problems of impartial equity; in the employ
of the whole people at a fixed salary, and always on the job, trying all
cases as they came. Lawyers, too, should be only in the employ of the
people, at fixed salaries; not mercenaries, fighting like soldiers of
fortune for the highest bidder. The chief business of lawyers should be
to settle quarrels, reconcile disputants, dissipate litigation and
reform criminals. Also to constantly simplify, clarify and lessen law
and save legal expense to the community. For a lawyer to aid a known
criminal to escape conviction should be regarded as a worse crime than
that of his client, because treasonable to his profession and not
against an individual but the whole people.
I am convinced that private associations for defence against crime would
swiftly lead to worse abuses than those we now suffer from in that line.
Like mercenary lawyers, the temptation would always be to fight for
their customers, right or wrong. And to get into conflicts between
themselves that might easily embroil the whole community or lead to
civil wars. Besides, there is nothing in true Anarchist principles that
requires anyone to employ a defence-association. An individual sovereign
has a right, according to his principles, to make his own laws about his
own affairs, and avenge his own wrongs in his own way. Under Anarchism
we could not fail to go back to the old ways of blood-vengeance and the
vendetta, to lynch law and standing feuds.
The government we are under today has grown out of the composite spirit
of the people and represents it. It is as good as the people deserve,
speaking generally, however hard on advanced individuals. It will
improve as the spirit of the people improves, and it can only improve
that way. Bloody revolutions only deceptively change surfaces. Witness
that in modern Russia the continuing spirit of czarist days comes out in
despotisms, bureaucracy, massacres, executions without trial, espionage,
censorship, corruption, inefficiency. Only those improvements have been
made that the spirit of the people was ready for and would peacably have
gradually effected anyway.
The greatest reform needed in government is flexibility and a
recognition and promotion of growth. If governments were wise they would
emasculate and "denature" rebellions by allowing safety-valves and
vent-holes for radicals. They would encourage and solicit criticism and
assist those who offered better ways to demonstrate their methods in
practice, thus submitting them to the acid test. If a new theory could
demonstrate actual improvement, then the referendum. No revolutions on
that road, but steady evolution.
The trouble with Radicals is that they are practically all doctrinaires.
They denounce compromise, not recognizing that compromise is the road of
progress. In real life all principles must, at times, recognize and
employ their opposites. There is everything in the universe and a time,
place and use for each thing. Take the principle of Equal-Freedom and
the case of the motorist. The motorist is not a criminal, nor intends to
be -- simply a busy man, rushing to his important destination, asking
only liberty to do so at his own risk, and willing to give the same
liberty to everyone, in cars or on foot. But at the crossing of the
ways, there stands the traffic-officer, with his white gloves,
imperiously stopping and starting him at his will. It is a clear
invasion of equal-liberty and he would defy it if he dared, but there is
Law behind the officer, and bullets behind the law. Yet there is public
benefit in the traffic-officer and the people will never let him go,
principle or no principle.
I have been sorry to criticize this book. Its spirit is fine -- the
spirit of individualist-anarchism usually is fine and co-operation is
all to the good. I am for co-operation to the limit and for individual
liberty as far as practicable. I agree with Jefferson that the least
government that will do the work is the best and would reduce law to a
minimum -- but social action without some government and some law is
naturally impossible and will always be found so. And liberty is the
legal-tender of life and a piece of it is the price we pay for every
motion and benefit.