All things belong to all, and provided that men and women contribute
their share of labour for the production of necessary objects, they are
entitled to their share of all that is produced by the community at
large. "But this is Communism," you may say. Yes, it is Communism, but
it is the Communism which no longer speaks in the name of religion or of
the state, but in the name of the people. During the past fifty years a
great awakening of the working-class has taken place! the prejudice in
favour of private property is passing away. The worker grows more and
more accustomed to regard the factory, the railway, or the mine, not as
a feudal castle belonging to a lord, but as an institution of public
utility which the public has the right to control. The idea of
possession in common has not been worked out from the slow deductions of
some thinker buried in his private study, it is a thought which is
germinating in the brains of the working masses, and when the
revolution, which the close of this century has in store for us, shall
have hurled confusion into the camp of our exploiters, you will see that
the mass of the people will demand Expropriation, and will proclaim its
right to the factory, the locomotive, and the steamship.
Just as the sentiment of the inviolability of the home has developed
during the latter half of our century, so also the sentiment of
collective right to all that serves for the production of wealth has
developed among the masses. It is a fact, and he who, like ourselves,
wishes to share the popular life and follow its development, must
acknowledge that this affirmation is a faithful summary of the people's
aspirations. The tendency of this closing century is towards Communism,
not the monastic or barrack-room Communism formerly advocated, but the
free Communism which places the products reaped or manufactured in
common at the disposal of all, leaving to each the liberty to consume
them as he pleases in his own home.
This is the solution of which the mass of the people can most readily
take hold, and it is the solution which the people demands at the most
solemn epochs. In 1848 the formula "From each according to his
abilities, to each according to his needs" was the one which went
straight to the heart of the masses, and if they acclaimed the Republic
and universal suffrage, it was because they hoped to attain to Communism
through them. In 1871, also, when the people besieged in Paris desired
to make a supreme effort to resist the invader, what was their
demand?--That free rations should be served out to everyone. Let all
articles be put into one common stock and let them be distributed
according to the requirements of each. Let each one take freely of all
that is abundant and let those objects which are less plentiful be
distributed more sparingly and in due proportions--this is the solution
which the mass of the workers understand best. This is also the system
which is commonly practised in the rural districts (of France). So long
as the common lands afford abundant pasture, what Commune seeks to
restrict their use? When brush-wood and chestnuts are plentiful, what
Commune forbids its members to take as much as they want? And when the
larger wood begins to grow scarce, what course does the peasant
adopt?--The allowancing of individuals.
Let us take from the common stock the articles which are abundant, and
let those objects whose production is more restricted be served out in
allowances according to requirements, giving preference to children and
old persons, that is to say, to the weak. And, moreover, let all be
consumed, not in public, but at home, according to individual tastes and
in company with one's family and friends. This is the ideal of the
masses.
But it is not enough to argue about, "Communism" and "Expropriation;" it
is furthermore necessary to know who should have the management of the
common patrimony, and it is especially on this question that different
schools of Socialists are opposed to one another, some desiring
authoritarian Communism, and others, like ourselves, declaring
unreservedly in favour of anarchist Communism. In order to judge between
these two, let us return once again to our starting point, the
Revolution of last century.
In overturning royalty the Revolution proclaimed the sovereignty of the
people; but, by an inconsistency which was very natural at that time, it
proclaimed, not a permanent sovereignty, but an intermittent one, to be
exercised at certain intervals only, for the nomination of deputies
supposed to represent the people. In reality it copied its institutions
from the representative government of England. The Revolution was
drowned in blood, and, nevertheless, representative government became
the watchword of Europe. All Europe, with the exception of Russia, has
tried it, under all possible forms, from government based on a property
qualification to the direct government of the little Swiss republics.
But, strange to say, just in proportion as we have approached nearer to
the ideal of a representative government, elected by a perfectly free
universal suffrage, in that same proportion have its essential vices
become manifest to us, till we have clearly seen that this mode of
government is radically defective. Is it not indeed absurd to take a
certain number of men from out the mass, and to entrust them with the
management of _all_ public affairs, saying to them, "Attend to these
matters, we exonerate ourselves from the task by laying it upon you: it
is for you to make laws on all manner of subjects--armaments and mad
dogs, observatories and chimneys, instruction and street-sweeping:
arrange these things as you please and make laws about them, since you
are the chosen ones whom the people has voted capable of doing
everything!" It appears to me that if a thoughtful and honest man were
offered such a post, he would answer somewhat in this fashion:--
"You entrust me with a task which I am unable to fulfil. I am
unacquainted with most of the questions upon which I shall be called on
to legislate. I shall either have to work to some extent in the dark,
which will not be to your advantage, or I shall appeal to you and summon
meetings in which you will yourselves seek to come to an understanding
on the questions at issue, in which case my office will be unnecessary.
If you have formed an opinion and have formulated it, and if you are
anxious to come to an understanding with others who have also formed an
opinion on the same subject, then all you need do is to communicate with
your neighbours and send a delegate to come to an understanding with
other delegates on this specific question; but you will certainly
reserve to yourselves the right of taking an ultimate decision; you will
not entrust your delegate with the making of laws for you. This is how
scientists and business men act each time that they have to come to an
agreement."
But the above reply would be a repudiation of the representative system,
and nevertheless it is a faithful expression of the idea which is
growing everywhere since the vices of representative government have
been exposed in all their nakedness. Our age, however, has gone still
further, for it has begun to discuss the rights of the State and of
Society in relation to the individual; people now ask to what point the
interference of the State is necessary in the multitudinous functions of
society.
* * * * *
Do we require a government to educate our children? Only let the worker
have leisure to instruct himself, and you will see that, through the
free initiative of parents and of persons fond of tuition, thousands of
educational societies and schools of all kinds will spring up, rivalling
one another in the excellence of their teaching. If we were not crushed
by taxation and exploited by employers, as we now are, could we not
ourselves do much better than is now done for us? The great centres
would initiate progress and set the example, and you may be sure that
the progress realised would be incomparably superior to what we now
attain through our ministeries.--Is the State even necessary for the
defence of a territory? If armed brigands attack a people, is not that
same people, armed with good weapons, the surest rampart to oppose to
the foreign aggressor? Standing armies are always beaten by invaders,
and history teaches that the latter are to be repulsed by a popular
rising alone.--While Government is an excellent machine to protect
monopoly, has it ever been able to protect us against ill-disposed
persons? Does it not, by creating misery, increase the number of crimes
instead of diminishing them? In establishing prisons into which
multitudes of men, women, and children are thrown for a time in order to
come forth infinitely worse than when they went in, does not the State
maintain nurseries of vice at the expense of the tax-payers? In obliging
us to commit to others the care of our affairs, does it not create the
most terrible vice of societies--indifference to public matters?
On the other hand, if we analyse all the great advances made in this
century--our international traffic, our industrial discoveries, our
means of communication--do we find that we owe them to the State or to
private enterprise? Look at the network of railways which cover Europe.
At Madrid, for example, you take a ticket for St. Petersburg direct. You
travel along railroads which have been constructed by millions of
workers, set in motion by dozens of companies; your carriage is attached
in turn to Spanish, French, Bavarian, and Russian locomotives: you
travel without losing twenty minutes anywhere, and the two hundred
francs which you paid in Madrid will be divided to a nicety among the
companies which have combined to forward you to your destination. This
line from Madrid to St. Petersburg has been constructed in small
isolated branches which have been gradually connected, and direct trains
are the result of an understanding which has been arrived at between
twenty different companies. Of course there has been considerable
friction at the outset, and at times some companies, influenced by an
unenlightened egotism have been unwilling to come to terms with the
others; but, I ask, was it better to put up with this occasional
friction, or to wait until some Bismarck, Napoleon, or Zengis Khan
should have conquered Europe, traced the lines with a pair of compasses,
and regulated the despatch of the trains? If the latter course had been
adopted, we should still be in the days of stage-coaches.
The network of railways is the work of the human mind proceeding from
the simple to the complex by the spontaneous efforts of the parties
interested, and it is thus that all the great enterprises of our age
have been undertaken. It is quite true, indeed, that we pay too much to
the managers of these enterprises; this is an additional reason for
suppressing their incomes, but not for confiding the management of
European railways to a central European government.
What thousands of examples one could cite in support of his same idea!
Take all great enterprises such as the Suez Canal, the lines of Atlantic
steamers, the telegraph which connects us with North and South America.
Consider also that commercial organisation which enables you on rising
in the morning to find bread at the baker's--that is, if you have the
money to pay for it, which is not always the case now-a-days--meat at
the butcher's, and all other things that you want at other shops. Is
this the work of the State? It is true that we pay abominably dearly for
middlemen; this is, however, an additional reason for suppressing them,
but not for believing that we must entrust government with the care of
providing for our feeding and clothing. If we closely scan the
development of the human mind in our times we are struck by the number
of associations which spring up to meet the varied requirement of the
individual of our age--societies for study, for commerce, for pleasure
and recreation; some of them, very small, for the propagation of a
universal language or a certain method of short-hand writing; others
with large arms, such as that which has recently been established for
the defence of the English coast, or for the avoidance of lawsuits, and
so on. To make a list of the associations which exist in Europe, volumes
would be necessary, and it would be seen that there is not a single
branch of human activity with which one or other does not concern
itself. The State itself appeals to them in the discharge of its most
important function--war; it says, "We undertake to slaughter, but we
cannot take care of our victims; form a Red Cross Society to gather up
the wounded on the battle-field and to take care of them."
Let others, if they will, advocate industrial barracks or the monastery
of Authoritarian Communism, we declare that the tendency of society is
in an opposite direction. We foresee millions and millions of groups
freely constituting themselves for the satisfaction of all the varied
needs of human beings--some of these groups organised by quarter,
street, and house; others extending hands across the walls of cities,
over frontiers and oceans. All of these will be composed of human beings
who will combine freely, and after having performed their share of
productive labour will meet together, either for the purpose of
consumption, or to produce objects of art or luxury, or to advance
science in a new direction. This is the tendency of the nineteenth
century, and we follow it; we only ask to develop it freely, without any
governmental interference. Individual liberty! "Take pebbles," said
Fourrier, "put them into a box and shake them, and they will arrange
themselves in a mosaic that you could never get by entrusting to anyone
the work of arranging them harmoniously."