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Title: The Scientific Basis of Anarchy
Author: Pëtr Kropotkin
Date: 1887-02
Language: en
Source: The Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1887, online source https://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-scientific-basis-of-anarchy/.

Pëtr Kropotkin

The Scientific Basis of Anarchy

ANARCHY, the No-Government system of Socialism, has a double origin. It

is an outgrowth of the two great movements of thought in the economical

and the political fields which characterize our century, and especially

its second part. In common with all Socialists, the anarchists hold that

the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time;

that it is condemned to disappear; and that all requisites for

production must, and will, become the common property of society, and be

managed in common by the producers of wealth. And, in common with the

most advanced representatives of political Radicalism, they maintain

that the ideal of the political organization of society is a condition

of things where the functions of government are reduced to a minimum,

and the individual recovers his full liberty of initiative and action

for satisfying, by means of free groups and federations—freely

constituted—all the infinitely varied needs of the human being. As

regards Socialism, most of the anarchists arrive at its ultimate

conclusion, that is, at a complete negation of the wage-system and at

communism. And with reference to political organization, by giving a

further development to the above mentioned part of the Radical program,

they arrive at the conclusion that the ultimate aim of society is the

reduction of the functions of government to nil—that is, to a society

without government, to Anarchy. The anarchists maintain, moreover, that

such being the ideal of social and political organization, they must not

remit it to future centuries, but that only those changes in our social

organization which are in accordance with the above double ideal, and

constitute an approach to it, will have a chance of life and be

beneficial for the commonwealth.

As to the method followed by the anarchist thinker, it differs to a

great extent from that followed by the Utopists. The anarchist thinker

does not resort to metaphysical conceptions (like the 'natural rights,'

the 'duties of the State,' and so on) for establishing what are, in his

opinion, the best conditions for realizing the greatest happiness of

humanity. He follows, on the contrary, the course traced by the modern

philosophy of evolution—without entering, however, the slippery route of

mere analogies so often resorted to by Herbert Spencer. He studies human

society as it is now and was in the past; and, without either endowing

men altogether, or separate individuals, with superior qualities which

they do not possess, he merely considers society as an aggregation of

organisms trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the

individual with those of co-operation for the welfare of the species. He

studies society and tries to discover its tendencies, past and present,

its growing needs, intellectual and economical; and in his ideal he

merely points out in which direction evolution goes. He distinguishes

between the real wants and tendencies of human aggregations and the

accidents (want of knowledge, migrations, wars, conquests) which

prevented these tendencies from being satisfied, or temporarily

paralyzed them. And he concludes that the two most prominent, although

often unconscious, tendencies thought our history were: a tendency

towards integrating our labor for the production of all riches in

common, so as finally to render it impossible to discriminate the part

of the common production due to the separate individual; and a tendency

towards the fullest freedom of the individual for the prosecution of all

aims, beneficial both for himself and for society at large. The ideal of

the anarchist is thus a mere summing-up of what he considers to be the

next phase of evolution. It is no longer a matter of faith; it is a

matter for scientific discussion.

In fact, one of the leading features of our century is the growth of

Socialism and the rapid growth of Socialism and the rapid spreading of

Socialist views among the working classes. How could it be otherwise? We

have witnessed during the last seventy years an unparalleled sudden

increase of our powers of production, resulting in an accumulation of

wealth which has outstripped the most sanguine expectations. But owing

to our wage system, this increase of wealth—due to the combined efforts

of men of science, of managers, and workmen as well—has resulted only in

an unprecedented accumulation of wealth in the hands of the owners of

capital; while an increase of misery for the great numbers, and an

insecurity of life for all, have been the lot of the workmen. The

unskilled laborers, in continuous search for labor, are falling into an

unheard-of destitution; and even the best paid artisans and the skilled

workmen, who undoubtedly are living now a more comfortable life than

before, labor under the permanent menace of being thrown, in their turn,

into the same conditions as the unskilled paupers, in consequence of

some of the continuous and unavoidable fluctuations of industry and

caprices of capital. The chasm between the modern millionaire who

squanders the produce of human labor in a gorgeous and vain luxury, and

the pauper reduced to a miserable and insecure existence, is thus

growing more and more, so as to break the very unity of society—the

harmony of its life—and the endanger the progress of its further

development. At the same time, the working classes are the less inclined

to patiently to endure this division of society into two classes, as

they themselves become more and more conscious of the wealth-producing

power of modern industry, of the part played by labor in the production

of wealth, and of their own capacities of organization. In proportion as

all classes of the community take a more lively part in public affairs,

and knowledge spreads among the masses, their longing for equality

becomes stronger, and their demands of social reorganization become

louder and louder: they can be ignored no more. The worker claims his

share in the riches he produces; he claims his share in the management

of production; and he claims not only some additional well-being, but

also his full rights in the higher enjoyments of science and art. These

claims, which formerly were uttered only by the social reformer, begin

now to be made by a daily growing minority of those who work in the

factory or till the acre; and they so conform with our feelings of

justice, that they find support in a daily growing minority amid the

privileged classes themselves. Socialism becomes thus the idea of the

nineteenth century; and neither coercion nor pseudo-reforms can stop its

further growth.

Much hope of improvement was laid, of course, in the extension of

political rights to the working classes. But these concessions,

unsupported as they were by corresponding changes in the economical

relations, proved delusory. They did not materially improve the

conditions of the great bulk of the workmen. Therefore, the watchword of

Socialism is: 'Economical freedom, as the only secure basis for

political freedom.' And as long as the present wage system, with all its

bad consequences, remains unaltered, the Socialist watchword will

continue to inspire the workmen. Socialism will continue to grow until

it has realized its program.

Side by side with this great movement of thought in economical matters,

a like movement was going on with regard to political rights, political

organization, and the functions of government. Government was submitted

to the same criticism as Capital. While most of the Radicals saw in

universal suffrage and republican institutions the last word of

political wisdom, a further step was made by the few. The very functions

of government and the State, as also their relations to the individual,

were submitted to a sharper and deeper criticism. Representative

government having been experimented on a wider field than before, its

defects became more and more prominent. It became obvious that these

defects are not merely accidental, but inherent to the system itself.

Parliament and its executive proved to be unable to attend to all the

numberless affairs of the community and to conciliate the varied and

often opposite interests of the separate parts of a State. Election

proved unable to find out the men who might represent a nation, and

manage, otherwise than in a party spirit, the affairs they are compelled

to legislate upon. These defects became so striking that the very

principles of the representative system were criticized and their

justness doubted. Again, the dangers of a centralized government became

still more conspicuous when the Socialists came to the front and asked

for a further increase of the powers of government by entrusting it with

the management of the immense field covered now by the economical

relations between individuals. The question was asked, whether a

government, entrusted with the management of industry and trade, would

not become a permanent danger for liberty and peace, and whether it even

would be able to be a good manager?

The Socialists of the earlier part of this century did not fully realize

the immense difficulties of the problem. Convinced as they were of the

necessity of economical reforms, most of them took no notice of the need

of freedom for the individual; and we have had social reformers ready to

submit society to any kind of theocracy, dictatorship, or even Cæsarism,

in order to obtain reforms in a Socialist sense. Therefore we saw, in

this country and also on the Continent, the division of men of advanced

opinions into political Radicals and Socialists—the former looking with

distrust on the latter, as they saw in them a danger for the political

liberties which have been won by the civilized nations after a long

series of struggles. And even now, when the Socialists all over Europe

are becoming political parties, and profess the democratic faith, there

remains among most impartial men a well-founded fear of the Volksstaat

or 'popular State' being as great a danger for liberty as any form of

autocracy, if its government be entrusted with the management of all the

social organization, including the production and distribution of

wealth.

The evolution of the last forty years prepared, however, the way for

showing the necessity and possibility of a higher form of social

organization which might guarantee economical freedom without reducing

the individual to the role of a slave to the State. The origins of

government were carefully studied, and all metaphysical conceptions as

to its divine or 'social contract' derivation having been laid aside, it

appeared that it is among us of a relatively modern origin, and that its

powers grew precisely in proportion as the division of society into the

privileged and unprivileged classes was growing in the course of ages.

Representative government was also reduced to its real value—that of an

instrument which has rendered services in the struggle against

autocracy, but not an ideal of free political organization. As to the

system of philosophy which saw in the State (the Kultur-Staat) a leader

to progress, it was more and more shaken as it became evident that

progress is the more effective when it is not checked by State

interference. It thus became obvious that a further advance in social

life does not lie in the direction of a further concentration of power

and regulative functions in the hands of a governing body, but in the

direction of decentralization, both territorial and functional—in a

subdivision of public functions with respect both to their sphere of

action and to the character of the functions; it is in the abandonment

to the initiative of freely constituted groups of all those functions

which are now considered as the functions of government.

This current of thought found its expression not merely in literature,

but also, to a limited extent, in life. The uprising of the Paris

Commune, followed by that of the Commune of Cartagena—a movement of

which the historical bearing seems to have been quite overlooked in this

country—opened a new page of history. If we analyze not only this

movement in itself, but also the impression it left in the minds and the

tendencies which were manifested during the communal revolution, we must

recognize in it an indication showing that in the future human

agglomerations which are more advanced in their social development will

try to start an independent life; and that they will endeavor to convert

the more backward parts of a nation by example, instead of imposing

their opinions by law and force, or submitting themselves to the

majority-rule, which always is a mediocrity-rule. At the same time the

failure of representative government within the Commune itself proved

that self-government and self-administration must be carried on further

than in a mere territorial sense; to be effective they must be carried

on also with regard to the various functions of life within the free

community; a merely territorial limitation of the sphere of action of

government will not do—representative government being as deficient in a

city as it is in a nation. Life gave us thus a further point in favor of

the no-government theory, and a new impulse to anarchist thought.

Anarchists recognize the justice of both the just-mentioned tendencies

towards economical and political freedom, and see in them two different

manifestations of the very same need of equality which constitutes the

very essence of all struggles mentioned by history. Therefore, in common

with all Socialists, the anarchist says to the political reformer: 'No

substantial reform in the sense of political equality, and no limitation

of the powers of government, can be made as long as society is divided

into two hostile camps, and the laborer remains, economically speaking,

a serf to his employer.' But to the Popular State Socialist we say also:

'You must limit the powers of government and renounce Parliamentary

rule. To each new economical phases of life corresponds a new political

phases. Absolute monarchy—that is, Court-rule—corresponded to the system

of serfdom. Representative government corresponds to Capital-rule. Both,

however, are class-rule. But in a society where the distinction between

capitalist and laborer has disappeared, there is no need of such a

government; it would be an anachronism, a nuisance. Free workers would

require a free organization, and this cannot have another basis than

free agreement and free co-operation, without sacrificing the autonomy

of the individual to the all-pervading interference of the State. The

no-capitalist system implies the no-government system.'

Meaning thus the emancipation of man from the oppressive powers of

capitalist and government as well, the system of anarchy becomes a

synthesis of the two powerful currents of thought which characterize our

century.

In arriving at these conclusions anarchy proves to be in accordance with

the conclusions arrived at by the philosophy of evolution. By bringing

to light the plasticity of organization, the philosophy of evolution has

shown the admirable adaptively of organisms to their conditions of life,

and the ensuing development of such faculties as render more complete

both the adaptations of the aggregates to their surroundings and those

of each of the constituent parts of the aggregate to the needs of free

co-operation. It familiarized us with the circumstance that throughout

organic nature the capacities for life in common are growing in

proportion as the integration of organisms into compound aggregates

becomes more and more complete; and it enforced thus the opinion already

expressed by social moralists as to the perfectibility of human nature.

It has shown us that, in the long run of the struggle for existence,

'the fittest' will prove to be those who combine intellectual knowledge

with the knowledge necessary for the production of wealth, and not those

who are now the richest because they, or their ancestors, have been

momentarily the strongest. By showing that the 'struggle for existence'

must be conceived, not merely in its restricted sense of a struggle

between individuals for the means of subsistence, but in its wider sense

of adaptation of all individuals of the species to the best conditions

for the survival of the species, as well as for the greatest possible

sum of life and happiness for each and all, it permitted us to deduce

the laws of moral science from the social needs and habits of mankind.

It showed us the infinitesimal part played by the natural growth of

altruistic feelings, which develop as soon as the conditions of life

favor their growth. It thus enforced the opinion of social reformers as

to the necessity of modifying the conditions of life for improving man,

instead of trying to improve human nature by moral teachings while life

works in an opposite direction. Finally, by studying human society from

the biological point of view, it came to the conclusions arrived at by

anarchists from the study of history and present tendencies, as to

further progress being in the line of socialization of wealth and

integrated labor, combined with the fullest possible freedom of the

individual.

It is not a mere coincidence that Herbert Spencer, whom we may consider

as a pretty fair expounder of the philosophy of evolution, has been

brought to conclude, with regard to political organization, that 'that

form of society towards which we are progressing' is 'one in which

government will be reduced to the smallest amount possible, and freedom

increased to the greatest amount possible.'1 When he opposes in these

words the conclusions of his synthetic philosophy to those of Auguste

Comte, he arrives at very nearly the same conclusion as Proudhon2 and

Bakunin.3 More than that, the very methods of argumentation and the

illustrations resorted to by Herbert Spencer (daily supply of food,

post-office, and so on) are the same which we find in the writings of

the anarchists. The channels of thought were the same, although both

were unaware of each other's endeavors.

Again, when Mr. Spencer so powerfully, and even not without a touch of

passion, argues (in his Appendix to the third edition of the Data of

Ethics) that human societies are marching towards a state when a further

identification of altruism with egoism will be make 'in the sense that

personal gratification will come from the gratification of others;' when

he says that 'we are shown, undeniably, that it is a perfectly possible

thing for organisms to become so adjusted to the requirements of their

lives, that energy expended for the general welfare may not only be

adequate to check energy expended for the individual welfare, but may

come to subordinate it so far as to leave individual welfare no greater

part than is necessary for maintenance of individual life'—provided the

conditions for such relations between the individual and the community

be maintained4 —he derives from the study of nature and the very same

conclusions which the forerunners of anarchy, Fourier and Robert Owen,

derived from a study of human character.

When we see further Mr. Bain so forcibly elaborating the theory of moral

habits, and the French philosopher, M. Guyau, publishing his remarkable

work on Morality without Obligation or Sanction; when J.S. Mill so

sharply criticizes representative government, and when he discusses the

problem of liberty, although failing to establish its necessary

conditions; when Sir John Lubbock prosecutes his admirable studies on

animal societies, and Mr. Morgan applies scientific methods of

investigation to the philosophy of history—when, in short, every year,

by bringing some new arguments to the theory of anarchy—we must

recognize that this last, although differing as to its starting-points,

follows the same sound methods of scientific investigation. Our

confidence in its conclusions is still more increased. The difference

between anarchists and the just-named philosophers may be immense as to

the presumed speed of evolution, and as to the conduct which one ought

to assume as soon as he has had an insight into the aims towards which

society is marching. No attempt, however, has been made scientifically

to determine the ratio of evolution, nor have the chief elements of the

problem )the state of mind of the masses) been taken into account by the

evolutionist philosophers. As to bringing one's action into accordance

with his philosophical conceptions, we know that, unhappily, intellect

and will are too often separated by chasm not to be filled by mere

philosophical speculations, however deep and elaborate.

There is, however, between the just-named philosophers and the

anarchists a wide difference on one point of primordial importance. This

difference is the stranger as it arises on a point which might be

discussed figures in hand, and which constitutes the very basis of all

further deductions, as it belongs to what biological sociology would

describe as the physiology of nutrition.

There is, in fact, a widely spread fallacy, maintained by Mr. Spencer

and many others, as to the causes of the misery which we can see round

about us. It was affirmed forty years ago, and it is affirmed now by Mr.

Spencer and his followers, that misery in civilized society is due to

our insufficient production, or rather to the circumstance that

'population presses upon the means of subsistence.' T would be of no use

to inquire into the origin of such a misrepresentation of facts, which

might be easily verified. It may have its origin in inherited

misconceptions which have nothing to do with the philosophy of

evolution. But to be maintained and advocated by philosophers, there

must be, in the conceptions of these philosophers, some confusion as to

the different aspects of the struggle for existence. Sufficient

importance is not given to the difference between the struggle which

goes on among organisms which do not co-operate for providing the means

of subsistence, and those which do so. In this last case again there

must be some confusion between those aggregates whose members find their

means of subsistence in the ready produce of the vegetable and animal

kingdom, and those whose members artificially grow their means of

subsistence and are enabled to increase (to a yet unknown amount) the

productivity of each spot of the surface of the globe. Hunters who hunt,

each of them for his own sake, and the hunters who unite into societies

for hunting, stand quite differently with regard to the means of

subsistence. But the difference is still greater between the hunters who

take their means of subsistence as they are in nature, and civilized men

who grow their food and produce all requisites for a comfortable life by

machinery. In this last case—the stock of potential energy in nature

being little short of infinite in comparison with the present population

of scientific knowledge; so that for human beings who are in possession

of scientific knowledge, and co-operate for the artificial production of

the means of subsistence and comfort, the law is quite the reverse to

that of Malthus. The accumulation of means of subsistence and comfort is

going on at a much speedier rate than the increase of population. The

only conclusion which we can deduce from the laws of evolution and of

multiplication of effects is that the available amount of means of

subsistence increases at a rate which increases itself in proportion as

population becomes denser—unless it be artificially (and temporarily)

checked by some defects of social organization. As to our powers of

production (our potential production), they increase at a still speedier

rate; in proportion as scientific knowledge grows, the means for

spreading it are rendered easier, and inventive genius is stimulated by

all previous inventions.

If the fallacy as to the pressure of population on the means of

subsistence could be maintained a hundred years ago, it can be

maintained no more, since we have witnessed the effects of science on

industry, and the enormous increase of our productive powers during the

last hundred years. We know, in fact, that while the growth of

population of England has been from 16 ½ millions in 1844 to 26 ¾

millions in 1883, showing thus an increase of 62 per cent., the growth

of national wealth (as testified by schedule A of the Income Tax Act)

has increased at a twice speedier rate; it has grown from 221 for 507 ½

millions—that is, by 130 per cent.5 And we know that the same increase

of wealth has taken place in France, where population remains almost

stationary, and that it has gone on at a still speedier rate in the

United States, where population is increasing every year by immigration.

But the figures just mentioned, while showing the real increase of

production, give only a faint idea of what our production might be under

a more reasonable economical organization. We know well that the owners

of capital, while trying to produce more wares with fewer 'hands,' are

also continually endeavoring to limit the production, in order to sell

at higher prices. When the benefits of a concern are going down, the

owner of the capital limits the production, or totally suspends it, and

prefers to engage his capital in foreign loans or shares of Patagonian

gold-mines. Just now there are plenty of pitmen in England who ask for

nothing better than to be permitted to extract coal and supply with

cheap fuel the households where children are shivering before empty

chimneys. There are thousands of weavers who ask for nothing better than

to weave stuffs in order to replace the Whitechapel rugs with linen. And

so in all branches of industry. How can we talk about a want of means of

subsistence when 246 blasting furnaces and thousands of factories lie

idle in Great Britain alone; and when there are, just now, thousands and

thousands of unemployed in London alone; thousands of men who would

consider themselves happy if they were permitted to transform (under the

guidance of experienced men) the heavy clay of Middlesex into a rich

soil, and to cover with rich cornfields and orchards the acres of

meadow-land which now yield only a few pounds' worth of hay? But they

are prevented from doing so by the owners of the land, of the weaving

factory, and of the coal-mine, because capital finds it more

advantageous to supply the Khedive with harems and the Russian

Government with 'strategic railways' and Krupp guns. Of course the

maintenance of harems pays: it gives ten or fifteen per cent., on the

capital, while the extraction of coal does not pay—that is, it brings

three or five per cent.,—and that is a sufficient reason for limiting

the production and permitting would-be economists to indulge in

reproaches to the working classes as to their too rapid multiplication!

Here we have instances of a direct and conscious limitation of

production, due to the circumstance that the requisites for production

belong to the few, and that these few have the right of disposing of

them at their will, without caring about the interests of the community.

But there is also the indirect and unconscious limitation of

production—that which results from squandering the produce of human

labor in luxury; instead of applying it to a further increase of

production.

This last even cannot be estimated in figures but a walk through the

rich shops of any city and a glance at the manner in which money is

squandered now, can give an approximate idea of this indirect

limitation. When a rich man spends a thousand pounds for his stables, he

squanders five to six thousand days of human labor, which might be used,

under a better social organization, for supplying with comfortable homes

those who are compelled to live now in dens. And when a lady spends a

hundred pounds for her dress, we cannot but say that she squanders, at

least, two years human labor, which, again under a better organization,

might have supplied a hundred women with decent dresses, and much more

with applied to a further improvement of the instruments of production.

Preachers thunder against luxury, because it is shameful to squander

money for feeding and sheltering hounds and horses, when thousands live

in the East End on sixpence a day, and other thousands have not even

their miserable sixpence every day. But the economist sees more than

that in our modern luxury: when millions of days of labor are spent

every year for the satisfaction of the stupid vanity of the rich, he

says that so many millions of workers have been diverted from the

manufacture of those useful instruments which would permit us to decuple

and centuple our present production of means of subsistence and of

requisites for comfort.

In short, if we take into account both the real and the potential

increase of our wealth, and consider both the direct and indirect

limitation of production, which are unavoidable under our present

economical system, we must recognize that the supposed 'pressure of

population on the means of subsistence' is a mere fallacy, repeated,

like many other fallacies, without even taking the trouble of submitting

it to a moment's criticism. The causes of the present social disease

must be sought elsewhere.

Let us take a civilized country. The forests have been cleared, the

swamps drained. Thousands of roads and railways intersect it in all

directions; the rivers have been rendered navigable, and the seaports

are of easy access. Canals connect the seas. The rocks have been pierced

by deep shafts; thousands of manufactures cover the land. Science has

taught men how to use the energy of nature for the satisfaction of his

needs. Cities have slowly grown in the long run of ages, and treasures

of science and art are accumulated in these centers of civilization.

But—who has made all these marvels?

The combined efforts of scores of generations have contributed towards

the achievement of these results.

Our cities, connected by roads and brought into easy communication with

all peopled parts of the globe, are the growth of centuries; and each

house in these cities, each factory, each shop, derives its value, its

very raison d'etre, from the fact that it is situated on a spot of the

globe where thousands or millions have gathered together. Every smallest

part of the immense whole which we call the wealth of civilized nations

derives its value precisely from being a part of this whole. What would

be the value of an immense London shop or storehouse were it not

situated precisely in London, which has become the gathering spot for

five millions of human beings? And what would be the value of our

coal-pits, our manufactures, our shipbuilding yards, were it not for the

immense traffic which goes on across the seas, for the railways which

transport mountains of merchandise, for the cities which number their

inhabitants by millions? Who is, then, the individual who has the right

to step forward and, laying his hands on the smallest part of this

immense whole, to say, 'I have produced this; it belongs to me'? And how

can we discriminate, in this immense interwoven whole, the part which

the isolated individual may appropriate to himself with the slightest

approach to justice? Houses and streets, canals and railways, machines

and works of arts, all these have been created by the combined efforts

of generations past and present, of men living on these islands and men

living thousands of miles away.

But it has happened in the long run of ages that everything which

permits men further to increase their production, or even to continue

it, has been appropriated by the few. The land, which derives its value

precisely from its being necessary for an ever-increasing population,

belongs to the few, who may prevent the community from cultivating it.

The coal-pits, which represent the labor of generations, and which also

derive their value from the wants of the manufacturers and railroads,

from the immense trade carried on and the density of population (what is

the value of coal-layers in Transbaikalia?), belong again to the few,

who have even the right of stopping the extraction of coal if they

choose to give another use to their capital. The lace-weaving machine,

which represents, in its present state of perfection, the work of three

generations of Lancashire weavers, belongs again to the few; and if the

grandsons of the very same weaver who invented the first lace-weaving

machine claim their rights of bringing one of these machines into

motion, they will be told 'Hands off! This machine does not belong to

you!' The railroads, which mostly would be useless heaps of iron if

Great Britain had not its present dense population, its industry, trace,

and traffic, belong again to the few—to a few shareholders, who may even

not know where the railway is situated which brings them a yearly income

larger than that of a medieval king; and if the children of those people

who died by thousands in digging the tunnels would gather and go—a

ragged and starving crowd—to ask bread or work from the shareholders,

they would be met with bayonets and bullets.

Who is the sophist who will dare to say that such an organization is

just? But what is unjust cannot be beneficial for mankind; and it is

not. In consequence of this monstrous organization, the son of a

workman, when he is able to work, finds no acre to till, no machine to

set in motion, unless he agrees to sell his labor for a sum inferior to

its real value. His father and grandfather have contributed in draining

the field, or erecting the factory, to the full extent of their

capacities—and nobody can do more than that—but he comes into the world

more destitute than a savage. If he resorts to agriculture, he will be

permitted to cultivate a plot of land, but on the condition that he

gives up one quarter of his crop to the landlord. If he resorts to

industry, he will be permitted to work, but on the condition that out of

the thirty shillings he has produced, ten shillings or more will be

pocketed by the owner of the machine. We cry against the feudal baron

who did not permit anyone to settle on his land otherwise than on

payment of one quarter of the crops to the lord of the manor; but we

continue to do as they did—we extend their system. The forms have

changed, but the essence has remained the same. And the workman is

compelled to accept the feudal conditions which we call 'free contrast,'

because nowhere will he find better conditions. Everything has been

appropriated by somebody; he must accept the bargain, or starve.

Owing to this circumstance our production takes a wrong turn. It takes

no care of the needs of the community; its only aim is to increase the

benefits of the capitalist. Therefore—the continuous fluctuations of

industry, the crises periodically coming nearly every ten years, and

throwing out of employment several hundred thousand men who are brought

to complete misery, whose children grow up in the gutter, ready to

become inmates of the prison and workhouse. The workmen being unable to

purchase with their wages the riches they are producing, industry must

search for markets elsewhere, amid the middle classes of other nations.

It must find markets, in the East, in Africa, anywhere; it must

increase, by trade, the number of its serfs in Egypt, in India, in the

Congo. But everywhere it finds competitors in other nations which

rapidly enter into the same line of industrial development. And wars,

continuous wars, must be fought for the supremacy on the

world-market—wars for the possession of the East, wars for getting

possession of the seas, wars for having the right of imposing heavy

duties on foreign merchandise. The thunder of guns never ceases in

Europe; whole generations are slaughtered; and we spend in armaments the

third of the revenue of our States—a revenue raised, the poor know with

what difficulties.

Education is the privilege of the few. Not because we can find no

teachers, not because the workman's son and daughter are less able to

receive instruction, but because one can receive no reasonable

instruction when at the age of fifteen he descends into the mine, or

goes selling newspapers in the streets. Society becomes divided into two

hostile camps; and no freedom is possible under such conditions. While

the Radical asks for a further extension of liberty, the statesman

answers him that a further increase of liberty would bring about an

uprising of the paupers; and those political liberties which have cost

so dear are replaced by coercion, by exceptional laws, by military rule.

And finally, the injustice of our repartition of wealth exercises the

most deplorable effect on our morality. Our principles of morality say:

'Love your neighbor as yourself'; but let a child follow this principle

and take off his coat to give it to the shivering pauper, and his mother

will tell him that he must understand the moral principles in their

right sense. If he lives according to them, he will go barefoot, without

alleviating the misery round about him! Morality is good on the lips,

not in deeds. Our preachers say, 'Who works, prays,' and everybody

endeavors to make others work for himself. They say, 'Never lie!' and

politics is a big lie. And we accustom ourselves and our children to

live under this double-faced morality, which is hypocrisy, and to

conciliate our double-facedness by sophistry. Hypocrisy and sophistry

become the very basis of our life. But society cannot live under such a

morality. It cannot last so: it must, it will, be changed.

The question is thus no more a mere question of bread. It covers the

whole field of human activity. But it has at its bottom a question of

social economy, and we conclude: The means of production and of

satisfaction of all needs of society, having been created by the common

efforts of all, must be at the disposal of all. The private

appropriation of requisites for production is neither just nor

beneficial. All must be placed on the same footing as producers and

consumers of wealth. That would be the only way for society to step out

of the bad conditions which have been created by centuries of wars and

oppression. That would be the only guarantee for further progress in a

direction of equality and freedom, which always were the real, although

unspoken goal of humanity.