THERE is a deal of confusion and uncertainty in the use of the words
"Socialist," "Anarchist," and "Nihilist." Even the '1st himself commonly
knows with as little accuracy what he is as the rest of us know why he
is. The Socialist believes that most human affairs should be regulated
and managed by the State--the Government--that is to say, the majority.
Our own system has many Socialistic features and the trend of republican
government is all that way. The Anarchist is the kind of lunatic who
believes that all crime is the effect of laws forbidding it--as the pig
that breaks into the kitchen garden is created by the dog that chews its
ear! The Anarchist favors abolition of all law and frequently belongs to
an organization that secures his allegiance by solemn oaths and dreadful
penalties. "Nihilism" is a name given by Turgenieff to the general body
of Russian discontent which finds expression in antagonizing authority
and killing authorities. Constructive politics would seem, as yet, to
be a cut above the Nihilist's intelligence; he is essentially a
destructionary. He is so diligently engaged in unweeding the soil that
he has not given a thought to what he will grow there. Nihilism may
be described as a policy of assassination tempered by reflections upon
Siberia. American sympathy with it is the offspring of an unholy union
between the tongue of a liar and the ear of a dupe.
Upon examination it will be seen that political dissent, when it takes
any form more coherent than the mere brute dissatisfaction of a mind
that does not know what it wants to want, finds expression in one of but
two ways--in Socialism or in Anarchism. Whatever methods one may think
will best substitute for a system gradually evolved from our needs and
our natures a system existing only in the minds of dreamers, one is
bound to choose between these two dreams. Yet such is the intellectual
delinquency of many who most strenuously denounce the system that we
have that we not infrequently find the same man advocating in one
breath, Socialism, in the next, Anarchism. Indeed, few of these sons of
darkness know that even as coherent dreams the two are incompatible.
With Anarchy triumphant the Socialist would be a thousand years further
from realization of his hope than he is today. Set up Socialism on a
Monday and on Tuesday the country would be _en fête_, gaily hunting down
Anarchists. There would be little difficulty in trailing them, for they
have not so much sense as a deer, which, running down the wind, sends
its tell-tale fragrance on before.
Socialism and Anarchism are the two extremes of political thought; they
are parts of the same dung, in the sense that the terminal points of a
road are parts of the same road. Between them, about midway, lies
the system that we have the happiness to endure. It is a "blend" of
Socialism and Anarchism in about equal parts: all that is not one is the
other. Everything serving the common interest, or looking to the welfare
of the whole people, is socialistic in the strictest sense of the word
as understood by the Socialist Whatever tends to private advantage or
advances an individual or class interest at the expense of a public
one, is anarchistic. Cooperation is Socialism; competition is Anarchism.
Competition carried to its logical conclusion (which only cooperation
prevents or can prevent) would leave no law in force no property
possible no life secure.
Of course the words "cooperation" and "competition" are not here used in
a merely industrial and commercial sense; they are intended to cover
the whole field of human activity. Two voices singing a duet--that is
cooperation--Socialism. Two voices singing each a different tune and
trying to drown each other--that is competition--Anarchism: each is a
law unto itself--that is to say, it is lawless. Everything that ought
to be done the Socialist hopes to do by associated endeavor, as an army
wins battles; Anarchism is socialistic in its means only: by cooperation
it tries to render cooperation impossible--combines to kill combination.
Its method says to its purpose: "Thou fool!"