the most blood-curdling stories about Anarchism. Not a thing too
outrageous to be employed against this philosophy and its exponents.
Therefore Anarchism represents to the unthinking what the proverbial
bad man does to the child,--a black monster bent on swallowing
everything; in short, destruction and violence.
Destruction and violence! How is the ordinary man to know that the
most violent element in society is ignorance; that its power of
destruction is the very thing Anarchism is combating? Nor is he
aware that Anarchism, whose roots, as it were, are part of nature's
forces, destroys, not healthful tissue, but parasitic growths that
feed on the life's essence of society. It is merely clearing the
soil from weeds and sagebrush, that it may eventually bear healthy
fruit.
Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than
to think. The widespread mental indolence, so prevalent in society,
proves this to be only too true. Rather than to go to the bottom of
any given idea, to examine into its origin and meaning, most people
will either condemn it altogether, or rely on some superficial or
prejudicial definition of non-essentials.
Anarchism urges man to think, to investigate, to analyze every
proposition; but that the brain capacity of the average reader be not
taxed too much, I also shall begin with a definition, and then
elaborate on the latter.
ANARCHISM:--The philosophy of a new social order based on
liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all
forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong
and harmful, as well as unnecessary.
The new social order rests, of course, on the materialistic basis of
life; but while all Anarchists agree that the main evil today is an
economic one, they maintain that the solution of that evil can be
brought about only through the consideration of EVERY PHASE of
life,--individual, as well as the collective; the internal, as well
as the external phases.
A thorough perusal of the history of human development will disclose
two elements in bitter conflict with each other; elements that are
only now beginning to be understood, not as foreign to each other,
but as closely related and truly harmonious, if only placed in proper
environment: the individual and social instincts. The individual and
society have waged a relentless and bloody battle for ages, each
striving for supremacy, because each was blind to the value and
importance of the other. The individual and social instincts,--the
one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth,
aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for
mutual helpfulness and social well-being.
The explanation of the storm raging within the individual, and
between him and his surroundings, is not far to seek. The primitive
man, unable to understand his being, much less the unity of all life,
felt himself absolutely dependent on blind, hidden forces ever ready
to mock and taunt him. Out of that attitude grew the religious
concepts of man as a mere speck of dust dependent on superior powers
on high, who can only be appeased by complete surrender. All the
early sagas rest on that idea, which continues to be the LEIT-MOTIF
of the biblical tales dealing with the relation of man to God, to the
State, to society. Again and again the same motif, MAN IS NOTHING,
THE POWERS ARE EVERYTHING. Thus Jehovah would only endure man on
condition of complete surrender. Man can have all the glories of the
earth, but he must not become conscious of himself. The State,
society, and moral laws all sing the same refrain: Man can have all
the glories of the earth, but he must not become conscious of
himself.
Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the
consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and
society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void,
since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination.
Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely
in nature, but in man. There is no conflict between the individual
and the social instincts, any more than there is between the heart
and the lungs: the one the receptacle of a precious life essence, the
other the repository of the element that keeps the essence pure and
strong. The individual is the heart of society, conserving the
essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing
the element to keep the life essence--that is, the individual--pure
and strong.
"The one thing of value in the world," says Emerson, "is the active
soul; this every man contains within him. The soul active sees
absolute truth and utters truth and creates." In other words, the
individual instinct is the thing of value in the world. It is the
true soul that sees and creates the truth alive, out of which is to
come a still greater truth, the re-born social soul.
Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have
held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces
for individual and social harmony. To accomplish that unity,
Anarchism has declared war on the pernicious influences which have so
far prevented the harmonious blending of individual and social
instincts, the individual and society.
Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of
human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent
the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails.
Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades
his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out
of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical,
so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and
blood have ruled the world since gods began. Anarchism rouses man to
rebellion against this black monster. Break your mental fetters, says
Anarchism to man, for not until you think and judge for yourself will
you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest obstacle to all
progress.
Property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial of the right to
satisfy his needs. Time was when property claimed a divine right,
when it came to man with the same refrain, even as religion,
"Sacrifice! Abnegate! Submit!" The spirit of Anarchism has lifted
man from his prostrate position. He now stands erect, with his face
toward the light. He has learned to see the insatiable, devouring,
devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the
monster dead.
"Property is robbery," said the great French Anarchist, Proudhon.
Yes, but without risk and danger to the robber. Monopolizing the
accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his
birthright, and has turned him loose a pauper and an outcast.
Property has not even the time-worn excuse that man does not create
enough to satisfy all needs. The A B C student of economics knows
that the productivity of labor within the last few decades far
exceeds normal demand a hundredfold. But what are normal demands to
an abnormal institution? The only demand that property recognizes is
its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means
power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to
enslave, to outrage, to degrade. America is particularly boastful of
her great power, her enormous national wealth. Poor America, of what
avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are
wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with
hope and joy gone, a homeless, soilless army of human prey.
It is generally conceded that unless the returns of any business
venture exceed the cost, bankruptcy is inevitable. But those engaged
in the business of producing wealth have not yet learned even this
simple lesson. Every year the cost of production in human life is
growing larger (50,000 killed, 100,000 wounded in America last year);
the returns to the masses, who help to create wealth, are ever
getting smaller. Yet America continues to be blind to the inevitable
bankruptcy of our business of production. Nor is this the only crime
of the latter. Still more fatal is the crime of turning the producer
into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than
his master of steel and iron. Man is being robbed not merely of the
products of his labor, but of the power of free initiative, of
originality, and the interest in, or desire for, the things he is
making.
Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things that
help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to
live in. But if man is doomed to wind cotton around a spool, or dig
coal, or build roads for thirty years of his life, there can be no
talk of wealth. What he gives to the world is only gray and hideous
things, reflecting a dull and hideous existence,--too weak to live,
too cowardly to die. Strange to say, there are people who extol this
deadening method of centralized production as the proudest
achievement of our age. They fail utterly to realize that if we are
to continue in machine subserviency, our slavery is more complete
than was our bondage to the King. They do not want to know that
centralization is not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of
health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in
a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.
Anarchism cannot but repudiate such a method of production: its goal
is the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the
individual. Oscar Wilde defines a perfect personality as "one who
develops under perfect conditions, who is not wounded, maimed, or in
danger." A perfect personality, then, is only possible in a state of
society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions
of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table,
the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the
painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist,--the
result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work
as a creative force. That being the ideal of Anarchism, its economic
arrangements must consist of voluntary productive and distributive
associations, gradually developing into free communism, as the best
means of producing with the least waste of human energy. Anarchism,
however, also recognizes the right of the individual, or numbers of
individuals, to arrange at all times for other forms of work, in
harmony with their tastes and desires.
Such free display of human energy being possible only under complete
individual and social freedom, Anarchism directs its forces against
the third and greatest foe of all social equality; namely, the State,
organized authority, or statutory law,--the dominion of human
conduct.
Just as religion has fettered the human mind, and as property, or the
monopoly of things, has subdued and stifled man's needs, so has the
State enslaved his spirit, dictating every phase of conduct. "All
government in essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny." It matters not
whether it is government by divine right or majority rule. In every
instance its aim is the absolute subordination of the individual.
Referring to the American government, the greatest American
Anarchist, David Thoreau, said: "Government, what is it but a
tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself
unimpaired to posterity, but each instance losing its integrity; it
has not the vitality and force of a single living man. Law never
made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even
the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice."
Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance
and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments
ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses,
while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the
annihilation of individual liberty. Thus Ouida is right when she
maintains that "the State only aims at instilling those qualities in
its public by which its demands are obeyed, and its exchequer is
filled. Its highest attainment is the reduction of mankind to
clockwork. In its atmosphere all those finer and more delicate
liberties, which require treatment and spacious expansion, inevitably
dry up and perish. The State requires a taxpaying machine in which
there is no hitch, an exchequer in which there is never a deficit,
and a public, monotonous, obedient, colorless, spiritless, moving
humbly like a flock of sheep along a straight high road between two
walls."
Yet even a flock of sheep would resist the chicanery of the State, if
it were not for the corruptive, tyrannical, and oppressive methods it
employs to serve its purposes. Therefore Bakunin repudiates the
State as synonymous with the surrender of the liberty of the
individual or small minorities,--the destruction of social
relationship, the curtailment, or complete denial even, of life
itself, for its own aggrandizement. The State is the altar of
political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for
the purpose of human sacrifice.
In fact, there is hardly a modern thinker who does not agree that
government, organized authority, or the State, is necessary ONLY to
maintain or protect property and monopoly. It has proven efficient
in that function only.
Even George Bernard Shaw, who hopes for the miraculous from the State
under Fabianism, nevertheless admits that "it is at present a huge
machine for robbing and slave-driving of the poor by brute force."
This being the case, it is hard to see why the clever prefacer wishes
to uphold the State after poverty shall have ceased to exist.
Unfortunately there are still a number of people who continue in the
fatal belief that government rests on natural laws, that it maintains
social order and harmony, that it diminishes crime, and that it
prevents the lazy man from fleecing his fellows. I shall therefore
examine these contentions.
A natural law is that factor in man which asserts itself freely and
spontaneously without any external force, in harmony with the
requirements of nature. For instance, the demand for nutrition, for
sex gratification, for light, air, and exercise, is a natural law.
But its expression needs not the machinery of government, needs not
the club, the gun, the handcuff, or the prison. To obey such laws,
if we may call it obedience, requires only spontaneity and free
opportunity. That governments do not maintain themselves through
such harmonious factors is proven by the terrible array of violence,
force, and coercion all governments use in order to live. Thus
Blackstone is right when he says, "Human laws are invalid, because
they are contrary to the laws of nature."
Unless it be the order of Warsaw after the slaughter of thousands of
people, it is difficult to ascribe to governments any capacity for
order or social harmony. Order derived through submission and
maintained by terror is not much of a safe guaranty; yet that is the
only "order" that governments have ever maintained. True social
harmony grows naturally out of solidarity of interests. In a society
where those who always work never have anything, while those who
never work enjoy everything, solidarity of interests is non-existent;
hence social harmony is but a myth. The only way organized authority
meets this grave situation is by extending still greater privileges
to those who have already monopolized the earth, and by still further
enslaving the disinherited masses. Thus the entire arsenal of
government--laws, police, soldiers, the courts, legislatures,
prisons,--is strenuously engaged in "harmonizing" the most
antagonistic elements in society.
The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to
diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the
greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing
in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital
punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with
crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the
horrible scourge of its own creation.
Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution
of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to
misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people
are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they
loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the
statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. What does
society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the
poverty, the horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass
on its way to crime and degradation. Who that knows this terrible
process can fail to see the truth in these words of Peter Kropotkin:
"Those who will hold the balance between the benefits thus attributed
to law and punishment and the degrading effect of the latter on
humanity; those who will estimate the torrent of depravity poured
abroad in human society by the informer, favored by the Judge even,
and paid for in clinking cash by governments, under the pretext of
aiding to unmask crime; those who will go within prison walls and
there see what human beings become when deprived of liberty, when
subjected to the care of brutal keepers, to coarse, cruel words, to a
thousand stinging, piercing humiliations, will agree with us that the
entire apparatus of prison and punishment is an abomination which
ought to be brought to an end."
The deterrent influence of law on the lazy man is too absurd to merit
consideration. If society were only relieved of the waste and
expense of keeping a lazy class, and the equally great expense of the
paraphernalia of protection this lazy class requires, the social
tables would contain an abundance for all, including even the
occasional lazy individual. Besides, it is well to consider that
laziness results either from special privileges, or physical and
mental abnormalities. Our present insane system of production
fosters both, and the most astounding phenomenon is that people
should want to work at all now. Anarchism aims to strip labor of its
deadening, dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to
make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real
harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work both
recreation and hope.
To achieve such an arrangement of life, government, with its unjust,
arbitrary, repressive measures, must be done away with. At best it
has but imposed one single mode of life upon all, without regard to
individual and social variations and needs. In destroying government
and statutory laws, Anarchism proposes to rescue the self-respect and
independence of the individual from all restraint and invasion by
authority. Only in freedom can man grow to his full stature. Only
in freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the very best in
him. Only in freedom will he realize the true force of the social
bonds which knit men together, and which are the true foundation of a
normal social life.
But what about human nature? Can it be changed? And if not, will it
endure under Anarchism?
Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy
name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson
to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak
authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan,
the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of
human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every
soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?
John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in
captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits,
their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from
their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow
space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its
potentialities?
Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose,
alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all
its wonderful possibilities.
Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind
from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from
the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint
of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free
grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social
wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access
to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according
to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.
This is not a wild fancy or an aberration of the mind. It is the
conclusion arrived at by hosts of intellectual men and women the
world over; a conclusion resulting from the close and studious
observation of the tendencies of modern society: individual liberty
and economic equality, the twin forces for the birth of what is fine
and true in man.
As to methods. Anarchism is not, as some may suppose, a theory of
the future to be realized through divine inspiration. It is a living
force in the affairs of our life, constantly creating new conditions.
The methods of Anarchism therefore do not comprise an iron-clad
program to be carried out under all circumstances. Methods must grow
out of the economic needs of each place and clime, and of the
intellectual and temperamental requirements of the individual. The
serene, calm character of a Tolstoy will wish different methods for
social reconstruction than the intense, overflowing personality of a
Michael Bakunin or a Peter Kropotkin. Equally so it must be apparent
that the economic and political needs of Russia will dictate more
drastic measures than would England or America. Anarchism does not
stand for military drill and uniformity; it does, however, stand for
the spirit of revolt, in whatever form, against everything that
hinders human growth. All Anarchists agree in that, as they also
agree in their opposition to the political machinery as a means of
bringing about the great social change.
"All voting," says Thoreau, "is a sort of gaming, like checkers, or
backgammon, a playing with right and wrong; its obligation never
exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right thing is doing
nothing for it. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of
chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority."
A close examination of the machinery of politics and its achievements
will bear out the logic of Thoreau.
What does the history of parliamentarism show? Nothing but failure
and defeat, not even a single reform to ameliorate the economic and
social stress of the people. Laws have been passed and enactments
made for the improvement and protection of labor. Thus it was proven
only last year that Illinois, with the most rigid laws for mine
protection, had the greatest mine disasters. In States where child
labor laws prevail, child exploitation is at its highest, and though
with us the workers enjoy full political opportunities, capitalism
has reached the most brazen zenith.
Even were the workers able to have their own representatives, for
which our good Socialist politicians are clamoring, what chances are
there for their honesty and good faith? One has but to bear in mind
the process of politics to realize that its path of good intentions
is full of pitfalls: wire-pulling, intriguing, flattering, lying,
cheating; in fact, chicanery of every description, whereby the
political aspirant can achieve success. Added to that is a complete
demoralization of character and conviction, until nothing is left
that would make one hope for anything from such a human derelict.
Time and time again the people were foolish enough to trust, believe,
and support with their last farthing aspiring politicians, only to
find themselves betrayed and cheated.