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Title: State Socialism and Anarchism Author: Benjamin Tucker Date: 1888 Language: en Topics: individualism, Individualist Anarchism, mutualism, Pamphlet, Economics. Source: Retrieved on 14/08/2019 from http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/state-socialism-and-anarchism
Probably no agitation has ever attained the magnitude, either in the
number of its recruits or the area of its influence, which has been
attained by Modern Socialism, and at the same time been so little
understood and so misunderstood, not only by the hostile and the
indifferent, but by the friendly, and even by the great mass of its
adherents themselves. This unfortunate and highly dangerous state of
things is due partly to the fact that the human relationships which this
movement—if anything so chaotic can be called a movement—aims to
transform, involve no special class or classes, but literally all
mankind; partly to the fact that these relationships are infinitely more
varied and complex in their nature than those with which any special
reform has ever been called upon to deal; and partly to the fact that
the great moulding forces of society, the channels of information and
enlightenment, are well-nigh exclusively under the control of those
whose immediate pecuniary interests are antagonistic to the bottom claim
of Socialism that labor should be put in possession of its own.
Almost the only persons who may be said to comprehend even approximately
the significance, principles, and purposes of Socialism are the chief
leaders of the extreme wings of the Socialistic forces, and perhaps a
few of the money kings themselves. It is a subject of which it has
lately become quite the fashion for preacher, professor, and
penny-a-liner to treat, and, for the most part, woeful work they have
made with it, exciting the derision and pity of those competent to
judge. That those prominent in the intermediate Socialistic divisions do
not fully understand what they are about is evident from the positions
they occupy. If they did; if they were consistent, logical thinkers; if
they were what the French call consequent men,—their reasoning faculties
would long since have driven them to one extreme or the other.
For it is a curious fact that the two extremes of the vast army now
under consideration, though united, as has been hinted above, by the
common claim that labor shall be put in possession of its own, are more
diametrically opposed to each other in their fundamental principles of
social action and their methods of reaching the ends aimed at than
either is to their common enemy, the existing society. They are based on
two principles the history of whose conflict is almost equivalent to the
history of the world since man came into it; and all intermediate
parties, including that of the upholders of the existing society, are
based upon a compromise between them. It is clear, then, that any
intelligent, deep-rooted opposition to the prevailing order of things
must come from one or the other of these extremes, for anything from any
other source, far from being revolutionary in character, could be only
in the nature of such superficial modification as would be utterly
unable to concentrate upon itself the degree of attention and interest
now bestowed upon Modern Socialism.
The two principles referred to are Authority and Liberty, and the names
of the two schools of Socialistic thought which fully and unreservedly
represent one or the other of them are, respectively, State Socialism
and Anarchism. Whoso knows what these two schools want and how they
propose to get it understands the Socialistic movement. For, just as it
has been said that there is no half-way house between Rome and Reason,
so it may be said that there is no half-way house between State
Socialism and Anarchism. There are, in fact, two currents steadily
flowing from the center of the Socialistic forces which are
concentrating them on the left and on the right; and, if Socialism is to
prevail, it is among the possibilities that, after this movement of
separation has been completed and the existing order have been crushed
out between the two camps, the ultimate and bitterer conflict will be
still to come. In that case all the eight-hour men, all the
trades-unionists, all the Knights of Labor, all the land
nationalizationists, all the greenbackers, and, in short, all the
members of the thousand and one different battalions belonging to the
great army of Labor, will have deserted their old posts, and, these
being arrayed on the one side and the other, the great battle will
begin. What a final victory for the State Socialists will mean, and what
a final victory for the Anarchists will mean, it is the purpose of this
paper to briefly state.
To do this intelligently, however, I must first describe the ground
common to both, the features that make Socialists of each of them.
The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from
the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his
Wealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But
Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely,
immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself
to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth
is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political
economists have followed his example by confining their function to the
description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial
phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the
description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means
of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith
enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he
had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it
the basis of a new economic philosophy.
This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of
three different nationalities, in three different languages: Josiah
Warren, an American; Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman; Karl Marx, a
German Jew. That Warren and Proudhon arrived at their conclusions singly
and unaided is certain; but whether Marx was not largely indebted to
Proudhon for his economic ideas is questionable. However this may be,
Marx’s presentation of the ideas was in so many respects peculiarly his
own that he is fairly entitled to the credit of originality. That the
work of this interesting trio should have been done so nearly
simultaneously would seem to indicate that Socialism was in the air, and
that the time was ripe and the conditions favorable for the appearance
of this new school of thought. So far as priority of time is concerned,
the credit seems to belong to Warren, the American,—a fact which should
be noted by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against
Socialism as an imported article. Of the purest revolutionary blood,
too, this Warren, for he descended from the Warren who fell at Bunker
Hill.
From Smith’s principle that labor is the true measure of price—or, as
Warren phrased it, that cost is the proper limit of price—these three
men made the following deductions: that the natural wage of labor is its
product; that this wage, or product, is the only just source of income
(leaving out, of course, gift, inheritance, etc.); that all who derive
income from any other source abstract it directly or indirectly from the
natural and just wage of labor; that this abstracting process generally
takes one of three forms,—interest, rent, and profit; that these three
constitute the trinity of usury, and are simply different methods of
levying tribute for the use of capital; that, capital being simply
stored-up labor which has already received its pay in full, its use
ought to be gratuitous, on the principle that labor is the only basis of
price; that the lender of capital is entitled to its return intact, and
nothing more; that the only reason why the banker, the stockholder, the
landlord, the manufacturer, and the merchant are able to exact usury
from labor lies in the fact that they are backed by legal privilege, or
monopoly; and that the only way to secure labor the enjoyment of its
entire product, or natural wage, is to strike down monopoly.
It must not be inferred that either Warren, Proudhon, or Marx used
exactly this phraseology, or followed exactly this line of thought, but
it indicates definitely enough the fundamental ground taken by all
three, and their substantial thought up to the limit to which they went
in common. And, lest I may be accused of stating the positions and
arguments of these men incorrectly, it may be well to say in advance
that I have viewed them broadly, and that, for the purpose of sharp,
vivid, and emphatic comparison and contrast, I have taken considerable
liberty with their thought by rearranging it in an order, and often in a
phraseology, of my own, but, I am satisfied, without, in so doing,
misrepresenting them in any essential particular.
It was at this point—the necessity of striking down monopoly—that came
the parting of their ways. Here the road forked. They found that they
must turn either to the right or to the left,—follow either the path of
Authority or the path of Liberty. Marx went one way; Warren and Proudhon
the other. Thus were born State Socialism and Anarchism.
First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine
that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government,
regardless of individual choice.
Marx, its founder, concluded that the only way to abolish the class
monopolies was to centralize and consolidate all industrial and
commercial interests, all productive and distributive agencies, in one
vast monopoly in the hands of the State. The government must become
banker, manufacturer, farmer, carrier, and merchant, and in these
capacities must suffer no competition. Land, tools, and all instruments
of production must be wrested from individual hands, and made the
property of the collectivity. To the individual can belong only the
products to be consumed, not the means of producing them. A man may own
his clothes and his food, but not the sewing-machine which makes his
shirts or the spade which digs his potatoes. Product and capital are
essentially different things; the former belongs to individuals, the
latter to society. Society must seize the capital which belongs to it,
by the ballot if it can, by revolution if it must. Once in possession of
it, it must administer it on the majority principle, though its organ,
the State, utilize it in production and distribution, fix all prices by
the amount of labor involved, and employ the whole people in its
workshops, farms, stores, etc. The nation must be transformed into a
vast bureaucracy, and every individual into a State official. Everything
must be done on the cost principle, the people having no motive to make
a profit out of themselves. Individuals not being allowed to own
capital, no one can employ another, or even himself. Every man will be a
wage-receiver, and the State the only wage-payer. He who will not work
for the State must starve, or, more likely, go to prison. All freedom of
trade must disappear. Competition must be utterly wiped out. All
industrial and commercial activity must be centered in one vast,
enormous, all-inclusive monopoly. The remedy for monopolies is monopoly.
Such is the economic programme of State Socialism as adopted from Karl
Marx. The history of its growth and progress cannot be told here. In
this country the parties that uphold it are known as the Socialistic
Labor Party, which pretends to follow Karl Marx; the Nationalists, who
follow Karl Marx filtered through Edward Bellamy; and the Christian
Socialists, who follow Karl Marx filtered through Jesus Christ.
What other applications this principle of Authority, once adopted in the
economic sphere, will develop is very evident. It means the absolute
control by the majority of all individual conduct. The right of such
control is already admitted by the State Socialists, though they
maintain that, as a matter of fact, the individual would be allowed a
much larger liberty than he now enjoys. But he would only be allowed it;
he could not claim it as his own. There would be no foundation of
society upon a guaranteed equality of the largest possible liberty. Such
liberty as might exist would exist by sufferance and could be taken away
at any moment. Constitutional guarantees would be of no avail. There
would be but one article in the constitution of a State Socialistic
country: The right of the majority is absolute.
The claim of the State Socialists, however, that this right would not be
exercised in matters pertaining to the individual in the more intimate
and private relations of his life is not borne out by the history of
governments. It has ever been the tendency of power to add to itself, to
enlarge its sphere, to encroach beyond the limits set for it; and where
the habit of resisting such encroachment is not fostered, and the
individual is not taught to be jealous of his rights, individuality
gradually disappears and the government or State becomes the all-in-all.
Control naturally accompanies responsibility. Under the system of State
Socialism, therefore, which holds the community responsible for the
health, wealth, and wisdom of the individual, it is evident that the
community, through its majority expression, will insist more and more in
prescribing the conditions of health, wealth, and wisdom, thus impairing
and finally destroying individual independence and with it all sense of
individual responsibility.
Whatever, then, the State Socialists may claim or disclaim, their
system, if adopted, is doomed to end in a State religion, to the expense
of which all must contribute and at the altar of which all must kneel; a
State school of medicine, by whose practitioners the sick must
invariably be treated; a State system of hygiene, prescribing what all
must and must not eat, drink, wear, and do; a State code of morals,
which will not content itself with punishing crime, but will prohibit
what the majority decide to be vice; a State system of instruction,
which will do away with all private schools, academies, and colleges; a
State nursery, in which all children must be brought up in common at the
public expense; and, finally, a State family, with an attempt at
stirpiculture, or scientific breeding, in which no man and woman will be
allowed to have children if the State prohibits them and no man and
woman can refuse to have children if the State orders them. Thus will
Authority achieve its acme and Monopoly be carried to its highest power.
Such is the ideal of the logical State Socialist, such the goal which
lies at the end of the road that Karl Marx took. Let us now follow the
fortunes of Warren and Proudhon, who took the other road,—the road of
Liberty.
This brings us to Anarchism, which may be described as the doctrine that
all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary
associations, and that the State should be abolished.
When Warren and Proudhon, in prosecuting their search for justice to
labor, came face to face with the obstacle of class monopolies, they saw
that these monopolies rested upon Authority, and concluded that the
thing to be done was, not to strengthen this Authority and thus make
monopoly universal, but to utterly uproot Authority and give full sway
to the opposite principle, Liberty, by making competition, the
antithesis of monopoly, universal. They saw in competition the great
leveler of prices to the labor cost of production. In this they agreed
with the political economists. The query then naturally presented itself
why all prices do not fall to labor cost; where there is any room for
incomes acquired otherwise than by labor; in a word, why the usurer, the
receiver of interest, rent, and profit, exists. The answer was found in
the present one-sidedness of competition. It was discovered that capital
had so manipulated legislation that unlimited competition is allowed in
supplying productive labor, thus keeping wages down to the starvation
point, or as near it as practicable; that a great deal of competition is
allowed in supplying distributive labor, or the labor of the mercantile
classes, thus keeping, not the prices of goods, but the merchants’
actual profits on them down to a point somewhat approximating equitable
wages for the merchants’ work; but that almost no competition at all is
allowed in supplying capital, upon the aid of which both productive and
distributive labor are dependent for their power of achievement, thus
keeping the rate of interest on money and of house-rent and ground-rent
at as high a point as the necessities of the people will bear.
On discovering this, Warren and Proudhon charged the political
economists with being afraid of their own doctrine. The Manchester men
were accused of being inconsistent. The believed in liberty to compete
with the laborer in order to reduce his wages, but not in liberty to
compete with the capitalist in order to reduce his usury. Laissez faire
was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for
the gander, capital. But how to correct this inconsistency, how to serve
this gander with this sauce, how to put capital at the service of
business men and laborers at cost, or free of usury,—that was the
problem.
Marx, as we have seen, solved it by declaring capital to be a different
thing from product, and maintaining that it belonged to society and
should be seized by society and employed for the benefit of all alike.
Proudhon scoffed at this distinction between capital and product. He
maintained that capital and product are not different kinds of wealth,
but simply alternate conditions or functions of the same wealth; that
all wealth undergoes an incessant transformation from capital into
product and from product back into capital, the process repeating itself
interminably; that capital and product are purely social terms; that
what is product to one man immediately becomes capital to another, and
vice versa; that if there were but one person in the world, all wealth
would be to him at once capital and product; that the fruit of A’s toil
is his product, which, when sold to B, becomes B’s capital (unless B is
an unproductive consumer, in which case it is merely wasted wealth,
outside the view of social economy); that a steam-engine is just as much
product as a coat, and that a coat is just as much capital as a
steam-engine; and that the same laws of equity govern the possession of
the one that govern the possession of the other.
For these and other reasons Proudhon and Warren found themselves unable
to sanction any such plan as the seizure of capital by society. But,
though opposed to socializing the ownership of capital, they aimed
nevertheless to socialize its effects by making its use beneficial to
all instead of a means of impoverishing the many to enrich the few. And
when the light burst in upon them, they saw that this could be done by
subjecting capital to the natural law of competition, thus bringing the
price of its own use down to cost,—that is, to nothing beyond the
expenses incidental to handling and transferring it. So they raised the
banner of Absolute Free Trade; free trade at home, as well as with
foreign countries; the logical carrying out of the Manchester doctrine;
laissez faire the universal rule. Under this banner they began their
fight upon monopolies, whether the all-inclusive monopoly of the State
Socialists, or the various class monopolies that now prevail.
Of the latter they distinguished four of principal importance: the money
monopoly, the land monopoly, the tariff monopoly, and the patent
monopoly.
First in the importance of its evil influence they considered the money
monopoly, which consists of the privilege given by the government to
certain individuals, or to individuals holding certain kinds of
property, of issuing the circulating medium, a privilege which is now
enforced in this country by a national tax of ten per cent., upon all
other persons who attempt to furnish a circulating medium, and by State
laws making it a criminal offense to issue notes as currency. It is
claimed that the holders of this privilege control the rate of interest,
the rate of rent of houses and buildings, and the prices of goods,—the
first directly, and the second and third indirectly. For, say Proudhon
and Warren, if the business of banking were made free to all, more and
more persons would enter into it until the competition should become
sharp enough to reduce the price of lending money to the labor cost,
which statistics show to be less than three-fourths of once per cent. In
that case the thousands of people who are now deterred from going into
business by the ruinously high rates which they must pay for capital
with which to start and carry on business will find their difficulties
removed. If they have property which they do not desire to convert into
money by sale, a bank will take it as collateral for a loan of a certain
proportion of its market value at less than one per cent. discount. If
they have no property, but are industrious, honest, and capable, they
will generally be able to get their individual notes endorsed by a
sufficient number of known and solvent parties; and on such business
paper they will be able to get a loan at a bank on similarly favorable
terms. Thus interest will fall at a blow. The banks will really not be
lending capital at all, but will be doing business on the capital of
their customers, the business consisting in an exchange of the known and
widely available credits of the banks for the unknown and unavailable,
but equality good, credits of the customers and a charge therefor of
less than one per cent., not as interest for the use of capital, but as
pay for the labor of running the banks. This facility of acquiring
capital will give an unheard of impetus to business, and consequently
create an unprecedented demand for labor,—a demand which will always be
in excess of the supply, directly to the contrary of the present
condition of the labor market. Then will be seen an exemplification of
the words of Richard Cobden that, when two laborers are after one
employer, wages fall, but when two employers are after one laborer,
wages rise. Labor will then be in a position to dictate its wages, and
will thus secure its natural wage, its entire product. Thus the same
blow that strikes interest down will send wages up. But this is not all.
Down will go profits also. For merchants, instead of buying at high
prices on credit, will borrow money of the banks at less than one per
cent., buy at low prices for cash, and correspondingly reduce the prices
of their goods to their customers. And with the rest will go house-rent.
For no one who can borrow capital at one per cent. with which to build a
house of his own will consent to pay rent to a landlord at a higher rate
than that. Such is the vast claim made by Proudhon and Warren as to the
results of the simple abolition of the money monopoly.
Second in importance comes the land monopoly, the evil effects of which
are seen principally in exclusively agricultural countries, like
Ireland. This monopoly consists in the enforcement by government of land
titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation. It was
obvious to Warren and Proudhon that, as soon as individualists should no
longer be protected by their fellows in anything but personal occupancy
and cultivation of land, ground-rent would disappear, and so usury have
one less leg to stand on. Their followers of to-day are disposed to
modify this claim to the extent of admitting that the very small
fraction of ground-rent which rests, not on monopoly, but on superiority
of soil or site, will continue to exist for a time and perhaps forever,
though tending constantly to a minimum under conditions of freedom. But
the inequality of soils which gives rise to the economic rent of land,
like the inequality of human skill which gives rise to the economic rent
of ability, is not a cause for serious alarm even to the most thorough
opponent of usury, as its nature is not that of a germ from which other
and graver inequalities may spring, but rather that of a decaying branch
which may finally wither and fall.
Third, the tariff monopoly, which consists in fostering production at
high prices and under unfavorable conditions by visiting with the
penalty of taxation those who patronize production at low prices and
under favorable conditions. The evil to which this monopoly gives rise
might more properly be called misusury than usury, because it compels
labor to pay, not exactly for the use of capital, but rather for the
misuse of capital. The abolition of this monopoly would result in a
great reduction in the prices of all articles taxed, and this saving to
the laborers who consume these articles would be another step toward
securing to the laborer his natural wage, his entire product. Proudhon
admitted, however, that to abolish this monopoly before abolishing the
money monopoly would be a cruel and disastrous policy, first, because
the evil of scarcity of money, created by the money monopoly, would be
intensified by the flow of money out of the country which would be
involved in an excess of imports over exports, and, second, because that
fraction of the laborers of the country which is now employed in the
protected industries would be turned adrift to face starvation without
the benefit of the insatiable demand for labor which a competitive money
system would create. Free trade in money at home, making money and work
abundant, was insisted upon by Proudhon as a prior condition of free
trade in goods with foreign countries.
Fourth, the patent monopoly, which consists in protecting inventors and
authors against competition for a period long enough to enable them to
extort from the people a reward enormously in excess of the labor
measure of their services,—in other words, in giving certain people a
right of property for a term of years in laws and facts of Nature, and
the power to exact tribute from others for the use of this natural
wealth, which should be open to all. The abolition of this monopoly
would fill its beneficiaries with a wholesome fear of competition which
would cause them to be satisfied with pay for their services equal to
that which other laborers get for theirs, and to secure it by placing
their products and works on the market at the outset at prices so low
that their lines of business would be no more tempting to competitors
than any other lines.
The development of the economic programme which consists in the
destruction of these monopolies and the substitution for them of the
freest competition led its authors to a perception of the fact that all
their thought rested upon a very fundamental principle, the freedom of
the individual, his right of sovereignty over himself, his products, and
his affairs, and of rebellion against the dictation of external
authority. Just as the idea of taking capital away from individuals and
giving it to the government started Marx in a path which ends in making
the government everything and the individual nothing, so the idea of
taking capital away from government-protected monopolies and putting it
within easy reach of all individuals started Warren and Proudhon in a
path which ends in making the individual everything and the government
nothing. If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external
government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the State. This
was the logical conclusion to which Warren and Proudhon were forced, and
it became the fundamental article of their political philosophy. It is
the doctrine which Proudhon named An-archism, a word derived from the
Greek, and meaning, not necessarily absence of order, as is generally
supposed, but an absence of rule. The Anarchists are simply unterrified
Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that the best government is that
which governs least, and that that which governs least is no government
at all. Even the simple police function of protecting person and
property they deny to governments supported by compulsory taxation.
Protection they look upon as a thing to be secured, as long as it is
necessary, by voluntary association and cooperation for self-defence, or
as a commodity to be purchased, like any other commodity, of those who
offer the best article at the lowest price. In their view it is in
itself an invasion of the individual to compel him to pay for or suffer
a protection against invasion that he has not asked for and does not
desire. And they further claim that protection will become a drug in the
market, after poverty and consequently crime have disappeared through
the realization of their economic programme. Compulsory taxation is to
them the life-principle of all the monopolies, and passive, but
organized, resistance to the tax-collector they contemplate, when the
proper time comes, as one of the most effective methods of accomplishing
their purposes.
Their attitude on this is a key to their attitude on all other questions
of a political or social nature. In religion they are atheistic as far
as their own opinions are concerned, for they look upon divine authority
and the religious sanction of morality as the chief pretexts put forward
by the privileged classes for the exercise of human authority. If God
exists, said Proudhon, he is man’s enemy. And in contrast to Voltaire’s
famous epigram, If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent
him, the great Russian Nihilist, Mikhail Bakunin, placed this
antithetical proposition: If God existed, it would be necessary to
abolish him. But although, viewing the divine hierarchy as a
contradiction of Anarchy, they do not believe in it, the Anarchists none
the less firmly believe in the liberty to believe in it. Any denial of
religious freedom they squarely oppose.
Upholding thus the right of every individual to be or select his own
priest, they likewise uphold his right to be or select his own doctor.
No monopoly in theology, no monopoly in medicine. Competition everywhere
and always; spiritual advice and medical advice alike to stand or fall
on their own merits. And not only in medicine, but in hygiene, must this
principle of liberty be followed. The individual may decide for himself
not only what to do to get well, but what to do to keep well. No
external power must dictate to him what he must and must not eat, drink,
wear, or do.
Nor does the Anarchistic scheme furnish any code of morals to be imposed
upon the individual. Mind your own business is its only moral law.
Interference with another’s business is a crime and the only crime, and
as such may properly be resisted. In accordance with this view the
Anarchists look upon attempts to arbitrarily suppress vice as in
themselves crimes. They believe liberty and the resultant social
well-being to be a sure cure for all the vices. But they recognize the
right of the drunkard, the gambler, the rake, and the harlot to live
their lives until they shall freely choose to abandon them.
In the matter of the maintenance and rearing of children the Anarchists
would neither institute the communistic nursery which the State
Socialists favor nor keep the communistic school system which now
prevails. The nurse and the teacher, like the doctor and the preacher,
must be selected voluntarily, and their services must be paid for by
those who patronize them. Parental rights must not be taken away, and
parental responsibilities must not be foisted upon others.
Even in so delicate a matter as that of the relations of the sexes the
Anarchists do not shrink from the application of their principle. They
acknowledge and defend the right of any man and woman, or any men and
women, to love each other for as long or as short a time as they can,
will, or may. To them legal marriage and legal divorce are equal
absurdities. They look forward to a time when every individual, whether
man or woman, shall be self-supporting, and when each shall have an
independent home of his or her own, whether it be a separate house or
rooms in a house with others; when the love relations between these
independent individuals shall be as varied as are individual
inclinations and attractions; and when the children born of these
relations shall belong exclusively to the mothers until old enough to
belong to themselves.
Such are the main features of the Anarchistic social ideal. There is
wide difference of opinion among those who hold it as to the best method
of obtaining it. Time forbids the treatment of that phase of the subject
here. I will simply call attention to the fact that it is an ideal
utterly inconsistent with that of those Communists who falsely call
themselves Anarchists while at the same time advocating a regime of
Archism fully as despotic as that of the State Socialists themselves.
And it is an ideal that can be as little advanced by Prince Kropotkine
as retarded by the brooms of those Mrs. Partingtons of the bench who
sentence them to prison; an ideal which the martyrs of Chicago did far
more to help by their glorious death upon the gallows for the common
cause of Socialism than by their unfortunate advocacy during their
lives, in the name of Anarchism, of force as a revolutionary agent and
authority as a safeguard of the new social order. The Anarchists believe
in liberty both as an end and means, and are hostile to anything that
antagonizes it.
I should not undertake to summarize this altogether too summary
exposition of Socialism from the standpoint of Anarchism, did I not find
the task already accomplished for me by a brilliant French journalist
and historian, Ernest Lesigne, in the form of a series of crisp
antithesis; by reading which to you as a conclusion of this lecture I
hope to deepen the impression which it has been my endeavor to make.
There are two Socialisms.
One is communistic, the other solidaritarian.
One is dictatorial, the other libertarian.
One is metaphysical, the other positive.
One is dogmatic, the other scientific.
One is emotional, the other reflective.
One is destructive, the other constructive.
Both are in pursuit of the greatest possible welfare for all.
One aims to establish happiness for all, the other to enable each to be
happy in his own way.
The first regards the State as a society sui generis, of an especial
essence, the product of a sort of divine right outside of and above all
society, with special rights and able to exact special obediences; the
second considers the State as an association like any other, generally
managed worse than others.
The first proclaims the sovereignty of the State, the second recognizes
no sort of sovereign.
One wishes all monopolies to be held by the State; the other wishes the
abolition of all monopolies.
One wishes the governed class to become the governing class; the other
wishes the disappearance of classes.
Both declare that the existing state of things cannot last.
The first considers revolutions as the indispensable agent of
evolutions; the second teaches that repression alone turns evolutions
into revolution.
The first has faith in a cataclysm.
The second knows that social progress will result from the free play of
individual efforts.
Both understand that we are entering upon a new historic phase.
One wishes that there should be none but proletaires.
The other wishes that there should be no more proletaires.
The first wishes to take everything away from everybody.
The second wishes to leave each in possession of its own.
The one wishes to expropriate everybody.
The other wishes everybody to be a proprietor.
The first says: ‘Do as the government wishes.’
The second says: ‘Do as you wish yourself.’
The former threatens with despotism.
The latter promises liberty.
The former makes the citizen the subject of the State.
The latter makes the State the employee of the citizen.
One proclaims that labor pains will be necessary to the birth of a new
world.
The other declares that real progress will not cause suffering to any
one.
The first has confidence in social war.
The other believes only in the works of peace.
One aspires to command, to regulate, to legislate.
The other wishes to attain the minimum of command, of regulation, of
legislation.
One would be followed by the most atrocious of reactions.
The other opens unlimited horizons to progress.
The first will fail; the other will succeed.
Both desire equality.
One by lowering heads that are too high.
The other by raising heads that are too low.
One sees equality under a common yoke.
The other will secure equality in complete liberty.
One is intolerant, the other tolerant.
One frightens, the other reassures.
The first wishes to instruct everybody.
The second wishes to enable everybody to instruct himself.
The first wishes to support everybody.
The second wishes to enable everybody to support himself.
One says:
The land to the State.
The mine to the State.
The tool to the State.
The product to the State.
The other says:
The land to the cultivator.
The mine to the miner.
The tool to the laborer.
The product to the producer.
There are only these two Socialisms.
One is the infancy of Socialism; the other is its manhood.
One is already the past; the other is the future.
One will give place to the other.
Today each of us must choose for the one or the other of these two
Socialisms, or else confess that he is not a Socialist.