CHAPTER IV: THE ANARCHISTS

The social creed of the anarchist is a curious fusion of Liberal and

socialist doctrines. Its economic criticism of the State, its enthusiasm

for individual initiative, as well as its conception of a spontaneous

economic order, are features which it owes to Liberalism; while its

hatred of private property and its theory of exploitation represent its

borrowings from socialism.

Doctrinal fusions of this kind which seek to combine two extreme

standpoints not infrequently outdo them both. Dunoyer, for example, was

the extremest of Liberals, but he took great care to remind his readers

of at least one function which none but the State could perform: no other

authority, he thought, could ever undertake to provide security. True

_bourgeois_ of 1830 that he was, Dunoyer always considered that “order”

was a prime social necessity.[1292] But, armed with the criticism of

the socialists, the anarchists soon get rid of this last vestige of the

State’s prerogative. In their opinion the security of which Dunoyer spoke

merely meant the security of proprietors; “order” is only necessary for

the defence of the possessors against the attack of the non-possessors.

The socialists themselves (with the exception of Fourier, perhaps, whom

the anarchists claim as one of themselves), however opposed to private

property, were exceedingly anxious to retain considerable powers in the

hands of the State, such as the superintendence of social production, for

example. Armed this time with the criticism of the Liberal school, the

anarchists experience no difficulty in demonstrating the economic and

administrative incapacity of the State. “Liberty without socialism means

privilege, and socialism without liberty means slavery and brutality”—so

writes Bakunin.[1293]

It is only fitting that a few pages at the end of this book should be

devoted to a doctrine that attempts to fuse the two great social currents

that strove so valiantly for the upper hand in nineteenth-century history.

It is not our first acquaintance with anarchy, however. It has already

been given a “local habitation and a name” by Proudhon, who is the

real father of modern anarchism. This does not imply that similar

doctrines may not be discovered in writings of a still earlier date,

as in Godwin’s, for example. But such writers remained solitary

exceptions,[1294] while the links connecting the anarchical teaching of

Proudhon with the political and social anarchy of the last thirty years

are easily traced. Not only is the similarity of ideas very striking, but

their transmission from Proudhon to Bakunin, and thence to Kropotkin,

Reclus, and Jean Grave, is by no means difficult to follow.

Alongside of the political and social anarchism which form the principal

subject of this chapter there is also the philosophical and literary

anarchism, whose predominant characteristic is an almost insane

exaltation of the individual. The best known representative of this

school, which hails from Germany, is Max Stirner, whose book entitled

_Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum_ appeared in 1844.[1295] The work was

forgotten for a long time, although it enjoyed a striking success

when it first appeared. Some twenty years ago, just when Nietzsche

was beginning to win that literary renown which is so unmistakably

his to-day, it was seen that in Stirner he had a precursor, although

Stirner’s works probably remained quite unknown to Nietzsche himself,

with the result that Stirner has since enjoyed posthumous fame as the

earliest _immoraliste_. A few words only are necessary to show the

difference between his doctrines and those of Proudhon, Bakunin, and

Kropotkin.[1296]

I: STIRNER’S PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM AND THE CULT OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Stirner’s book was written as the result of a wager. The nature of the

circumstances and the character of the epoch that gave birth to it were

briefly these. Stirner was a member of a group of young German Radicals

and democrats whom Bruno Bauer had gathered round him in 1840. They

drew their inspiration from Feuerbach, and accepted the more extreme

views of the Hegelian philosophy. Their ideal was the absolute freedom

of the human spirit, and in the sacred name of liberty they criticised

everything that seemed in any way opposed to this ideal, whether

nascent communism, dogmatic Christianity, or absolute government. The

intellectual leaders of the German Revolution of 1848 were drawn from

this group, but they were soon swept aside in the reaction of 1850. A few

of them who were in the habit of meeting regularly in one of the Berlin

restaurants assumed the name _die Freien_. Marx and Engels occasionally

joined them, but soon left in disgust. Their joint pamphlet, which bears

the ironical title of _The Holy Family_, is supposed to refer to Bauer

and his friends. A few of the German Liberal economists, including Julius

Faucher among others, paid occasional visits to the Hippel Restaurant.

Max Stirner, who was one of the most faithful members and a most

attentive listener, although it does not seem that he contributed much

to the discussion, conceived the idea of preparing a surprise for his

friends in the form of a book in which he attempted to prove that the

criticism of the supercritics was itself in need of criticism.

The extreme Radicals who formed the majority of the group were still

very strongly attached to a number of abstract ideas which to Stirner

seemed little better than phantoms. Humanity, Society, the Pure, and

the Good seemed so many extravagant abstractions; so many fetishes made

with hands before whom men bow the knee and show as much reverence as

ever the faithful have shown towards their God. Such abstractions, it

seemed to him, possess about as much reality as the gods of Olympus or

the ghosts that people the imagination of childhood. The only reality we

know is the individual; there is no other. Every individual constitutes

an independent original force, its only law its own personal interest,

and the only limit to his development consists in whatever threatens

that interest or weakens its force. Every man has a right to say, “I

want to become all that it is within my power to become, and to have

everything I am entitled to.”[1297] Bastiat had already expressed it as

his opinion that there could be no conflict of legitimate rights, and

Stirner declares that “every interest is legitimate provided only it is

possible.” “The crouching tiger is within his rights when he springs at

me; but so am I when I resist his attacks.” “Might is right, and there is

no right without might.”[1298]

Granting that the individual is the only reality, all those collective

unities that go by the name of the family, the State, society, or the

nation, and all of which tend to limit his individuality by making the

individual subservient to themselves, at once become meaningless. They

are devoid of substance and reality.[1299] Whatever authority they

possess has been ascribed to them by the individual. Mere creatures of

the imagination, they lose every right as soon as I cease to recognise

them, and it is only then that I become a really free man. “I have a

right to overthrow every authority, whether of Jesus, Jehovah, or God,

if I can. I have a right to commit a murder if I wish it—that is to

say, unless I shun a crime as I would a disease. I decide the limits of

my rights, for outside the ego there is nothing.… It may be that that

nothing belongs to no one else; but that is somebody else’s affair, not

mine. Self-defence is their own look-out.”[1300] The workers who complain

of exploitation, the poor who are deprived of all property, have just one

thing which they must do. They must recognise the right to property as

inherent in themselves and take as much of it as they want. “The egoist’s

method of solving the problem of poverty is not to say to the poor, ‘Just

wait patiently until a board of guardians shall give you something in the

name of the community,’ but ‘Lay your hands upon anything you want and

take that.’ The earth belongs to him who knows how to get hold of it, and

having got hold of it knows how to keep it. If he seizes it, not only has

he the land, but he has the right to it as well.”[1301]

But what kind of a society would we have under such conditions? It

would simply be a “Union of Egos,” each seeking his own and joining

the association merely with a view to greater personal satisfaction.

Present-day society dominates over the individual, making him its tool.

The “Union of Egos”—for we cannot call it a society—would be simply a

tool in the hand of the individual. No scruples would be felt by anyone

leaving the union if he thought something was to be gained by such

withdrawal. Every individual would just say to his neighbour, “I am not

anxious to recognise you or to show you any respect. I simply want you

to be of some service to me.”[1302] It would be a case of _bellum omnium

contra omnes_, with occasional precarious alliances. But it would at

least mean liberty for all.

Such strange, paradoxical doctrines are irrefutable if we accept

Stirner’s postulates. But we must reject his whole point of view and

dispute the stress laid upon the individual as the only reality, as well

as his denial of the reality of society. Granting that the individual

is the only reality, then society and the nation are mere abstractions

created by man and removable at his pleasure. But that is just the

mistake. The individual has no existence apart from society, nor has he

any greater degree of reality. He is simply an element, not a separate

entity. His existence or non-existence does not depend upon himself. Nor

is society merely an idea. It is a natural fact. The individual may be

quite as appropriately described as an abstraction or a mere phantom.

The fundamental difference between Stirner and the other anarchists who

will engage our attention is just this recognition of the reality of the

social fact which Stirner denies _in toto_. It also marks the cleavage

between literary and political anarchism.[1303]

II: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ANARCHISM AND THE CRITICISM OF AUTHORITY

Stirner spent his life between his study and the Hippel Restaurant, the

rendezvous of his friends. Bakunin and Kropotkin are men of a different

stamp who have risked their freedom, and even their lives, for the sake

of the cause which they have at heart. It is true that the seed sown in

the mind of the ignorant as the result of their teaching has often had

most deplorable results, but no one can deny the quality of courage to

either Kropotkin or Reclus, or withhold from them the title of greatness

both of mind and character.

Bakunin was reared in much the same intellectual atmosphere as

Stirner.[1304] By birth he belonged to the Russian nobility, and spent

the earliest years of his life in the Russian army. In 1834, at the

age of twenty, he resigned his commission in order to devote himself

to the study of philosophy, and, like Proudhon, Stirner, and Marx, he

came under the universal spell of Hegel. In 1840 he proceeded to Berlin,

where he became acquainted with the school of young Radicals of whom

we have already spoken. From 1844 to 1847 we find him in Paris, where

he used to spend whole nights in discussion with Proudhon. Proudhon’s

influence upon him is very marked, and one constantly meets with

passages in the writings of the Russian anarchist which are nothing

but paraphrases of ideas already put forward by Proudhon in the _Idée

générale de la Révolution au XIXe Siècle_. The year 1848 revealed to the

dilettante nobleman his true vocation, which he conceived to be that of

a revolutionary. He successively took part in the risings at Prague and

in the Saxon Revolution at Dresden. He was arrested and twice condemned

to death, in Saxony and again in Austria, but was finally handed over to

the Russian authorities, who imprisoned him in the fortress of St. Peter

and St. Paul, where an attack of scurvy caused him to lose all his teeth.

He was exiled to Siberia in 1857, but managed to escape in 1861. Making

his way to London, he undertook the direction of a vigorous revolutionary

campaign, which was carried on in Switzerland, Italy, and France. During

the years 1870 and 1871 he successfully planned a popular rising at

Lyons. Bernard Lazare has graphically described him as “a hirsute giant

with an enormous head which seems larger than it really is because of

the mass of bushy hair and untrimmed beard which surrounds it. He always

sleeps rough, has no roof above him, and no homeland which he can call

his own, and like an apostle is always prepared to set out on his sacred

mission at any hour of the night or day.”

The most striking fact in his history was his rupture with Karl Marx

at the last International Congress, held at The Hague in 1872. Bakunin

joined the International in 1869. Disgusted with the pontifical

tendencies of the General Council, which was entirely under the heel

of Marx, he proposed a scheme of federal organisation under which each

section would be left with considerable autonomy. The Jura Federation

supported his proposals, and so did several of the French, Belgian, and

Spanish delegates, as well as all the Italian. But he was expelled from

the International by Marx’s own friends. The official rupture between

Marxian socialism and anarchy, grown to considerable proportions since,

dates from that very moment. That Hague congress marks also the end of

the International. Marx soon afterwards transferred the centre of the

administration to the United States, and no conference has been held

since. Bakunin also retired from the struggle about the same time, but

not before he had set up a new association at Geneva, composed of a few

faithful friends. In 1876 Bakunin died at Berne.

It was in the region of the Jura, in the neighbourhood of Neuchâtel,

where Bakunin had still a few followers among the extremely

individualistic but somewhat mystical population of those parts, that

Kropotkin in the course of a short stay in the district in 1872 imbibed

those anarchist ideas to the propagation of which he has so strenuously

devoted his life.[1305] Although personally unacquainted with Bakunin,

Kropotkin must be regarded as his direct descendant.

Prince Kropotkin is also a Russian aristocrat, and he, like his master,

joined the army after a short period of study. He attracted public

notice first of all as the author of several remarkable works dealing

with natural history and geography, which showed him to be a confirmed

disciple of Darwin. But science was by no means his only interest.

By 1871 Hegelian influence was on the wane in Russia, and the more

thoughtful of the younger generation turned their attention to democracy.

The new watchword was, “Go, seek the people, live among them, educate

them and win their confidence if you want to get rid of the yoke of

autocracy.” Kropotkin caught the inspiration. He himself has told us how

one evening after dinner at the Winter Palace he drove off in a cab,

took off his fine clothes, and, putting on a cotton shirt instead of his

silk one, and boots such as the peasants wore, hurried away to another

quarter of the city and joined a number of working men whom he was trying

to educate. But his propaganda proved short-lived, for one evening when

he was leaving the headquarters of the Geographical Society, where he

had just been reading a paper and had been offered the presidency of one

of the sections, he was arrested on a charge of political conspiracy

and imprisoned in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. He managed to

escape in 1876, and found refuge in England. Afterwards he was wrongfully

condemned to three years’ imprisonment at Clairvaux on account of his

supposed complicity in an anarchist outbreak which took place at Lyons in

1884. But there was something extraordinary about a prisoner who could

get the libraries of Ernest Renan and the Paris Academy of Sciences

placed at his disposal during his term of imprisonment in order to

enable him to pursue his scientific investigations. During his previous

imprisonment in Russia the Geographical Society of St. Petersburg had

extended him a similar privilege. Kropotkin has since lived in England.

The best known French anarchists, Élisée Reclus, the geographer, and Jean

Grave, simply reproduce Kropotkin’s ideas, with an occasional admixture

of Bakunin’s or Proudhon’s.[1306]

Our concern is with the expression of anarchist ideas as we find them in

the best known writers of the school. Consequently we must pass over the

very striking but immature formulæ which are not infrequently to be met

with in the works of more obscure writers.[1307]

Here again the distinguishing features are the emphasis laid upon

individual rights and a passion for the free and full development of

personality, which, as we have seen, was the keynote of Stirner’s

system. “Obedience means abdication,” declares Élisée Reclus.[1308]

“Mankind’s subjection will continue just so long as it is tolerated. I

am ashamed of my fellow-men,” writes Proudhon in 1850 from his prison at

Doullens.[1309] “My liberty,” says Bakunin, “or what comes to the same

thing, my honour as a man, consists in obeying no other individual and

in performing only just those acts that carry conviction to me.”[1310]

Jean Grave declares that society can impose “no limitations upon the

individual save such as are derived from the natural conditions under

which he lives.”[1311]

But this cult of the individual which is present everywhere in anarchist

literature rests upon a conception which is the direct antithesis of

Stirner’s. To Stirner every man was a unique being whose will was his

only law. The anarchists who follow Proudhon, on the other hand, regard

man as a specimen of humanity, _i.e._ of something superior to the

individual. “What I respect in my neighbour is his manhood,”[1312]

wrote Proudhon. It is this humanity or manhood that the anarchist would

have us respect by respecting his liberty, for, as Bakunin declares,

“liberty is the supreme aim of all human development.”[1313] It is not

the triumph of the egoist but the triumph of humanity in the individual

that the anarchists would seek, and so they claim liberty not merely

for themselves but for all men. Far from wishing to be served by their

fellow-men, as Stirner desired, they want equal respect shown for human

dignity wherever found. “Treat others as you would that others should

treat you under similar circumstances,”[1314] writes Kropotkin, employing

Kantian and even Christian phraseology. Bakunin, a faithful disciple of

Proudhon’s, considered that “all morality is founded on human respect,

that is to say, upon the recognition of the humanity, of the human rights

and worth in all men, of whatever race or colour, degree of intellectual

or moral development”;[1315] and he adds that “the individual can only

become free when every other individual is free. Liberty is not an

isolated fact. It is the outcome of mutual goodwill; a principle not of

exclusion, but of inclusion, the liberty of each individual being simply

the reflection of his humanity or of his rights as a human being in the

conscience of every free man, his brother and equal.”[1316] This idea

of humanity, which the latest anarchists owe to Proudhon, is not simply

foreign to Stirner, but is just one of those phantoms which Stirner was

particularly anxious to waylay.[1317]

Along with this extravagant worship of individual liberty goes a

hatred of all authority. Here the political anarchists join hands with

Stirner. For the exercise of authority of one man over another means

the exploitation of one man by another and a denial of his humanity.

The State is the summation of all authority, and the full force of

anarchist hatred is focused upon the State. No human relation is too

sacred for State intervention, no citizen but is liable to have his

conduct minutely prescribed by law. There are officers to apply the law,

armies to enforce it, lecturers to interpret it, priests to inculcate

respect for it, and jurists to expound it and to justify everybody. Thus

has the State become the agent _par excellence_ of all exploitation and

oppression.[1318] It is the _one_ adversary, in the opinion of every

anarchist—“the sum total of all that negates the liberty of its members.”

“It is the grave where every trace of individuality is sacrificed and

buried.” Elsewhere, “it is a flagrant negation of humanity.”[1319]

Bakunin, who in this matter as well as in many others is a follower of

Bastiat, speaks of it as “the visible incarnation of infuriated force.”

That is enough to label it for ever with the evil things of life, for

the aim of humanity is liberty, but force is “a permanent negation of

liberty.”[1320]

A necessary agent of oppression, government always and inevitably becomes

the agent of corruption. It contaminates everything that comes into

contact with it, and the first to show signs of such contamination are

its own representatives. “The best man, whoever that may be, whatever

degree of intelligence, magnanimity, and purity of heart he may have, is

unavoidably corrupted by his trade. The person who enjoys any privilege,

whether political or economic, is intellectually and morally a depraved

character.” So Bakunin thought,[1321] and Elisée Reclus writes in a

similar strain. “Every tree in nature bears its own peculiar fruit, and

government, whatever be the form it take, always results in caprice or

tyranny, in misery, villainy, murder, and evil.”[1322] The governing

classes are inevitably demoralised, but so are the governed, and for

just the same reasons. Government is a worker of evil even when it would

do good, for “the good whenever it is enjoined becomes evil. Liberty,

morality, real human dignity consists in this, that man should do what is

good not because he is told to do it, but simply because he thinks that

it really is the best that he can ever wish or desire.”[1323]

It matters little what form government takes. Absolute or constitutional

monarchy, democratic or aristocratic republicanism, government on the

basis of a universal or a restricted suffrage, are all much the same,

for they all presuppose a State of some sort. Authority, whether of a

despot or of the majority of the community, is none the less authority,

and implies the exercise of a will other than the individual’s own. The

great error committed by all the revolutions of the past has been this:

one government has been turned out, but only to have its place usurped

by another. The only true revolution will be that which will get rid of

government itself—the fount and origin of all authority.

Still closer scrutiny reveals the interesting fact that the State, which

is naturally oppressive, gradually becomes employed as the instrument for

the subjugation of the weak by the strong, the poor by the rich. It was

Adam Smith who ventured to declare that “civil government … is in reality

instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those

who have some property against those who have none at all.”[1324] Pages

of anarchist literature simply consist of elaborate paraphrases of this

remark of Smith’s.

Kropotkin thinks that every law must belong to one or other of three

categories. To the first category belong all laws concerned with the

security of the individual; to the second all laws concerned with the

protection of government; and to the third all those enactments where

the chief object in view is the inviolability of private property.[1325]

In the opinion of the anarchist, all laws might more correctly be placed

under the last category only, for whenever the safety of the individual

is in any way threatened it is generally the result of some inequality

of fortune.[1326] Indirectly, that is to say, the attack is directed

against property. The real function of government is to defend property,

and every law which is instrumental in protecting property is also

effective in shielding the institution of government from attack.

Property itself is an organisation which enables a small minority of

proprietors to exploit and to hold in perpetual slavery the masses of

the people. In this instance the anarchists have not made any weighty

contribution of their own, but have merely adopted the criticisms of

the socialists.[1327] Proceeding in the usual fashion, they point to

the miserable wages which are usually paid to the workers, and show

how the masters always manage to reserve all the leisure, all the joys

of existence, all the culture and other benefits of civilisation for

themselves. Private property is of the essence of privilege—the parent

of every other kind of privilege. And the State becomes simply the

bulwark of privilege. “Exploitation and government,” says Bakunin,

“are correlative terms indispensable to political life of every kind.

Exploitation supplies the means as well as the foundation upon which

government is raised, and the aim which it follows, which is merely to

legalise and defend further exploitation.”[1328] “Experience teaches

us,” says Proudhon,[1329] “that government everywhere, however popular

at first, has always been on the side of the rich and the educated as

against the poor and ignorant masses.”[1330]

Whether the extinction of private property, which would free the worker

from the danger of being exploited by the rich, would also render the

State unnecessary is a question upon which the anarchists are not agreed.

Proudhon, we remember, had hoped by means of the Exchange Bank to reduce

the right of property to mere possession. Bakunin, on the contrary,

is under the spell of the Marxians, and, like a true collectivist, he

thinks that all the instruments of production, including land, should

be possessed by the community. Such instruments should always be at the

disposal of groups of working men expert in the details of agriculture

or industrial production, and such workers should be paid according to

their labour.[1331] Kropotkin, on the other hand, regards communism

as the ideal and looks upon the distinction drawn by the collectivist

between instruments of production and objects of consumption as utterly

futile. Food, clothing, and fuel are quite as necessary for production as

machinery or tools, and nothing is gained by emphasising the distinction

between them. Social resources of every kind should be freely placed at

the disposal of the workers.[1332]

But the State and the institution of private property by no means

exhausts the list of tyrannies. Individual liberty is as little

compatible with irrevocable vows—that is, with a present promise which

binds for ever the will of man—as it is with submission to external

authority. The present marriage law, for example, violates both these

conditions. Marriage ought to be a free union. A contract freely

entered upon and deliberately fulfilled is the only form of marriage

that is compatible with the true dignity and equality of both man

and woman.[1333] A free and not a legal contract is the only form of

engagement which the anarchists recognise. Free contract between man

and wife, between an individual and an association, between different

associations pursuing the same task, between one commune and another, or

between a commune and a whole country. But such engagements must always

be revocable, otherwise they would merely constitute another link in the

chain that has shackled humanity. Every contract that is not voluntarily

and frequently renewed becomes tyrannical and oppressive and constitutes

a standing menace to human liberty. “Because I was a fool yesterday, must

I remain one all my life?”[1334] asks Stirner; and on this point Bakunin,

Kropotkin, Reclus, Jean Grave, and even Proudhon are agreed.

To regard their social philosophy as nothing but pure caprice because of

the wonderful faith which they had in their fellow-men would, however, be

a great mistake.

Notwithstanding the merciless criticism of authority of every kind, there

was still left one autocrat, of a purely abstract character perhaps,

but none the less imperious in its demands. This was the authority of

reason or of science. The sovereignty of reason was one of the essential

features of Proudhon’s anarchist society.[1335] What Proudhon calls

reason Bakunin refers to as science, but his obeisance is not a whit

less devotional. “We recognise,” says he, “the absolute authority of

science and the futility of contending with natural law. No liberty is

possible for man unless he recognise this and seek to turn this law to

his own advantage. No one except a fool or a theologian, or perhaps a

metaphysician, a jurist, or a _bourgeois_ economist, would revolt against

the mathematical law which declares that 2 + 2 = 4.” The utmost that a

man can claim in this matter is that “he obeys the laws of nature because

he himself has come to regard them as necessary, and not because they

have been imposed upon him by some external authority.”[1336]

Not only does Bakunin bow the knee to science, but he also swears

allegiance to technical or scientific skill. “In the matter of boots I am

willing to accept the authority of the shoemaker; of clothes, the opinion

of the tailor; if it is a house, a canal, or a railway, I consult the

architect and the engineer. What I respect is not their office but

their science, not the man but his knowledge. I cannot, however, allow

any one of them to impose upon me, be he shoemaker, tailor, architect,

or savant. I listen to them willingly and with all the respect which

their intelligence, character, or knowledge deserves, but always

reserving my undisputed right of criticism and control.”[1337] Bakunin

has no doubt that most men willingly and spontaneously acknowledge the

natural authority of science. He agrees with Descartes and employs

almost identical terms[1338] when he declares that “common sense is

one of the commonest things in the world.” But common sense simply

means “the totality of the generally recognised laws of nature.” He

shares with the Physiocrats a belief in their obviousness, and invokes

their authority whenever he makes a vow. He is also anxious to make

them known and acceptable of all men through the instrumentality of a

general system of popular education. The moment they are accepted by

“the universal conscience of mankind the question of liberty will be

completely solved.”[1339] Let us again note how redolent all this is of

the rationalistic optimism of the eighteenth century, and how closely

Liberals and anarchists resemble one another in their absolute faith in

the “sweet reasonableness” of mankind. Bakunin only differs from the

Physiocrats in his hatred of the despot whom they had enthroned.

A society of free men, perfectly autonomous, each obeying only himself,

but subservient to the authority of reason and science—such is the

ideal which the anarchists propose, a preliminary consideration of its

realisation being the overthrow of every established authority. “No God

and no master,” says Jean Grave; “everyone obeying his own will.”[1340]

III: MUTUAL AID AND THE ANARCHIST CONCEPTION OF SOCIETY

At first sight it might seem that a conception of social existence which

would raise every individual on a pedestal and proclaim the complete

autonomy of each would speedily reduce society to a number of independent

personalities. Every social tie removed, there would remain just a few

individuals in juxtaposition, and society as a “collective being” would

disappear.

But it would be a grievous mistake to conceive of the anarchist ideal

in this light. There is no social doctrine where the words “solidarity”

and “fraternity” more frequently recur. Individual happiness and social

well-being are to them inseparable. Hobbes’ society, or Stirner’s, where

the hand of everyone is against his brother, fill the anarchists with

horror. To their mind that is a faithful picture of society as it exists

to-day. In reality, however, man is a social being. The individual and

society are correlative: it is impossible to imagine the one without

thinking of the other.

No one has given more forcible expression to this truth than Bakunin;

and this is possibly because no one ever had a keener sense of social

solidarity. “Let us do justice once for all,” he remarks, “to the

isolated or absolute individual of the idealists. But that individual

is as much a fiction as that other Absolute—God.… Society, however, is

prior to the individual, and will doubtless survive him, just as Nature

will. Society, like Nature, is eternal; born of the womb of Nature, it

will last as long as Nature herself.… Man becomes human and develops a

conscience only when he realises his humanity in society; and even then

he can only express himself through the collective action of society. Man

can only be freed from the yoke of external nature through the collective

or social effort of his fellow-men, who during their sojourn here have

transformed the surface of the earth and made the further development of

mankind possible. But freedom from the yoke of his own nature, from the

tyranny of his own instincts, is only possible when the bodily senses are

controlled by a well-trained, well-educated mind. Education and training

are essentially social functions. Outside the bounds of society, man

would for ever remain a savage beast.”[1341]

Whether we read Proudhon or Kropotkin, we always meet with the same

emphasis on the reality of the social being, on the pre-existence of

the State, or at least of its necessary coexistence, if the individual

is ever to reach full development. It is true that there are a few

anarchists, such as Jean Grave, who still seem to uphold the old futile

distinction between the individual and society, and who conceive of

society as made up of individuals just as a house is built of bricks.

But is there no element of contradiction between this idea and the

previous declaration of individual autonomy? How is it possible to exalt

social life and at the same time demand the abolition of all traditional

social links?[1342]

The apparent antinomy is resolved by emphasising a distinction which

Liberalism had drawn between government and society. Society is the

natural, spontaneous expression of social life. Government is an

artificial organ, or, to change the metaphor, a parasite preying upon

society.[1343] Liberals from the days of Smith onward had applied the

distinction to economic institutions; the anarchists were to apply it to

every social institution. Not only the economic but every form of social

life is the outcome of the social instinct which lies deep in the nature

of humanity. This instinct of solidarity urges men to seek the help of

their fellow-men and to act in concert with them. It is what Kropotkin

calls mutual aid, and seems as natural to man and as necessary for the

preservation of the species as the struggle for existence itself. What

really binds society together, what makes for real cohesion, is not

constraint (which, contrary to the time-honoured belief of the privileged

classes, is really only necessary to uphold their privileges), but

this profound instinct of mutual help and reciprocal friendship, whose

strength and force have never yet been adequately realised. “There is in

human nature,” says Kropotkin, “a nucleus of social habits inherited from

the past, which have not been as fully appreciated as they might. They

are not the result of any restraint and transcend all compulsion.”[1344]

Law, instead of creating the social instinct, simply presupposes it.

Laws can only be applied so long as the instinct exists, and fall into

desuetude as soon as the instinct refuses to sanction them. Government,

far from developing this instinct, opposes it with rigid, stereotyped

institutions which thwart its full and complete development. To free

the individual from external restraint is also to liberate society by

giving it greater plasticity and permitting it to assume new forms

which are obviously better adapted to the happiness and prosperity of

the race.[1345] Kropotkin in his delightful book _Mutual Aid_ gives

numerous examples of this spontaneous social instinct. He shows how

it assumes different forms in the economic, scientific, educational,

sporting, hygienic, and charitable associations of modern Europe; in the

municipalities and corporations of the Middle Ages; and how even among

animals this same instinct, which forms the real basis of all human

societies, has enabled them to overcome the natural dangers that threaten

their existence.

Anarchist society must not be conceived as a _bellum omnium contra

omnes_, but as a federation of free associations which everyone would

be at liberty to enter and to leave just as he liked. This society,

Kropotkin tells us, would be composed of a multitude of associations

bound together for all purposes that demand united action. A federation

of producers would have control of agricultural and industrial, and

even of intellectual and artistic, production; an association of

consumers would see to questions of housing, lighting, health, food, and

sanitation. In some cases the federation of producers would join hands

with the consumers’ league. Still wider groups would embrace a whole

country, or possibly several countries, and would include people employed

in the same kind of work, whether industrial, intellectual, or artistic,

for none of these pursuits would be confined to some one territory.

Mutual understanding would result in combined efforts, and complete

liberty would give plenty of scope for invention and new methods of

organisation. Individual initiative would be encouraged; every tendency

to uniformity and centralisation would be effectively checked.[1346]

In such a society as this complete concord between the general and

the individual interests, hitherto so vainly sought after by the

_bourgeoisie_, would be realised once for all in the absolute freedom

now the possession of both the individual and the group, and in the

total disappearance of all traces of antagonism between possessors and

non-possessing, between governors and governed. Again we note a revival

of the belief in the spontaneous harmony of interests which was so

prominent a feature of eighteenth-century philosophy.[1347]

Such an attractive picture of society was bound to invite criticism. The

anarchists foresaw this, and have tried to meet most of the arguments.

In the first place, would such extravagant freedom not beget abuse,

unjustifiable repudiation of contracts, crimes and misdemeanours? Would

it not give rise to chronic instability? and would the conscientious

never find themselves the victims of the fickle and the fraudulent?

The anarchists agree that there may be a few pranks played, or, as Grave

euphemistically calls them, “certain acts apparently altogether devoid

of logic.”[1348] But can we not reckon upon criticism and disapproval

checking such anti-social instincts? Public opinion, if it were once

freed from the warping influence of present-day institutions, would

possess far greater coercive force.[1349] Our present system of building

prisons, “those criminal universities,” as Kropotkin calls them, will

never check these anti-social instincts. “Liberty is still the best

remedy for the temporary excesses of liberty.”[1350] Moreover, such a

system would enjoy a superior sanction in the possible refusal of other

people to work with those who could not keep their word.[1351] “You are a

man and you have a right to live. But as you wish to live under special

conditions and leave the ranks, it is more than probable that you will

suffer for it in your daily relations with other citizens.”[1352]

But there is still a more serious objection. Were there no compulsion,

would anyone be found willing to work? The host of idlers is at the

present time vast, and without the sting of necessity it would become

still greater. Kropotkin remarks that “it is only about the sugar

plantations of the West Indies and the sugar refineries of Europe that

robbery, laziness, and very often drunkenness become quite usual with the

bees.”[1353] Is it not possible that men are just imitating the bee?

The anarchists point out that many a so-called idler to-day is simply a

madcap who will soon discover his true vocation in the free society of

the future, and will thus be gradually transformed into a useful member

of society.[1354] Moreover, does not the fact that so many people shun

work altogether prove that the present method of organising society must

be at once cruel and repugnant? The certainty of being confined in an

unhealthy workshop for ten or twelve hours every day, with mind and body

“to some unmeaning task-work given,” in return for a wage that is seldom

sufficient to keep a family in decent comfort, is hardly a prospect

that is likely to attract the worker. One of the principal aims of the

anarchist _régime_—and in this respect it resembles the Phalanstère of

Fourier—will be to make labour both attractive and productive.[1355]

Science will render the factory healthy well lighted and thoroughly

ventilated. Machinery will even come to the rescue of the housewife

and will relieve her of many a disagreeable task. Inventors, who are

generally ignorant of the unpleasant nature of many of these tasks, have

been inclined to ignore them altogether. “If a Huxley spent only five

hours in the sewers of London, rest assured that he would have found the

means of making them as sanitary as his physiological laboratory.”[1356]

Finally, and most important of all, the working day could then be

reduced to a matter of four or five hours, for there would no longer be

any idlers, and the systematic application of science would increase

production tenfold.

The wonderful expansion of production under the influence of applied

science is a favourite theme of the anarchists. Kropotkin has treated us

to some delightful illustrations of this in his _Conquest of Bread_.

He begins by pointing out the wonders already accomplished by market

gardeners living in the neighbourhood of Paris. One of these, employing

only three men working twelve to fifteen hours a day, was able, thanks

to intensive cultivation, to raise 110 tons of vegetables on one acre

of ground. Taking this as his basis, he calculates that the 3,600,000

inhabitants in the departments of the Seine and the Seine-et-Oise could

produce all the corn, milk, vegetables, and fruit which they could

possibly need in the year with fifty-eight half-days labour per man. By

parity of reasoning he arrives at the conclusion that twenty-eight to

thirty-six days’ work per annum would secure for each family a healthy,

comfortable home such as is occupied by English working men at the

present time. The same thing applies to clothing. American factories

produce on an average forty yards of cotton in ten hours. “Admitting that

a family needs two hundred yards a year at most, this would be equivalent

to fifty hours’ labour, or ten half-days of five hours each,[1357] and

that all adults save women bind themselves to work five hours a day from

the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty.… Such a society

could in return guarantee well-being to all its members.”[1358] Élisée

Reclus shares these hopes. It seems to him that “in the great human

family hunger is simply the result of a collective crime, and it becomes

an absurdity when we remember that the products are more than double

enough for all the needs of consumers.”[1359]

Amid such superabundant wealth, in a world thus transformed into a

land of milk and honey, distribution would not be a very difficult

problem. Nothing really could be easier. “No stint or limit to what the

community possesses in abundance, but equal sharing and dividing of those

commodities which are scarce or apt to run short.”[1360] Such was to be

the guiding principle. In practice the women and children, the aged and

the infirm, were to come first and the robust men last, for such even is

the etiquette of the soup kitchen, which has become a feature of some

recent strikes. As to the laws of value which are supposed to determine

the present distribution of wealth, and which the economists fondly

believe to be necessary and immutable, the anarchists regard them as

being no concern of theirs. The futility of such doctrines is a source of

some amusement to them.[1361]

IV: REVOLUTION

But how is the beautiful dream to be realised? The way thither, from the

miserable wilderness wherein we now dwell to the Promised Land of which

they have given us a glimpse, lies through Revolution—so the anarchist

tells us.

A theory of revolution forms a necessary part of the anarchist doctrine.

In the mind of the public it is too often thought to be the only message

which the anarchists have to give. We must content ourselves with a very

brief reference to it, for the non-economic ideas of anarchism have

already detained us sufficiently long.

Proudhon is soon out of the running. We have already had occasion to

refer to his disapproval of violence and revolution. It seemed to him

that the anarchic ideal was for ever impossible apart from a change of

heart and a reawakening of conscience. But his successors were somewhat

less patient. To their minds revolution seemed an unavoidable necessity

from which escape was impossible. Even if we could imagine all the

privileged individuals of to-day agreeing among themselves on the night

of some fourth of August to yield up every privilege which they possess

and to enter the ranks of the proletariat of their own free will, such a

deed would hardly be desirable. The people, says Reclus, with their usual

generosity, would simply let them do as they liked, but would say to

their former masters, “Keep your privileges.” “It is not because justice

should not be done, but things ought to find a natural equilibrium. The

oppressed should rise in their own strength, the despoiled seize their

own again, and the slaves regain their own liberty. Such things can only

really be attained as the result of a bitter struggle.”[1362]

It is not that Bakunin, Kropotkin, or their disciples revel in bloodshed

or welcome outbreaks of violence. Bloodshed, although inevitably and

inseparably connected with revolution, is none the less regrettable,

and should always be confined within the narrowest limits. “Bloody

revolutions are occasionally necessary because of the crass stupidity

of mankind; but they are always an evil, an immense evil, and a great

misfortune; not only because of their victims, but also because of

the pure and perfect character of the aims in view of which they are

carried out.”[1363] “The question,” says Kropotkin,[1364] “is not how

to avoid revolutions, but how to secure the best results by checking

civil war as far as possible, by reducing the number of victims, and by

restraining the more dangerous passions.” To do this we must rely upon

people’s instincts, who, far from being sanguinary, “are really too kind

at heart not to be very soon disgusted with cruelty.”[1365] The attack

must be directed not against men but against their position, and the

aim must be not individuals but their status. Hence Bakunin lays great

stress upon setting fire to the national archives, and to papers of all

kinds relating to title in property, upon the immediate suppression

of all law courts and police, upon the disbanding of the army, and

the instant confiscation of all instruments of production—factories,

mines, etc. Kropotkin in the _Conquest of Bread_ gives us a picture of

an insurgent commune laying hold of houses and occupying them, seizing

drapers’ establishments and taking whatever they need, confiscating the

land, cultivating it, and distributing its products. If revolutionists

only proceeded in this fashion, never respecting the rights of property

at all (which was the great mistake made by the Commune in its dealing

with the Bank of France during the rising of 1871), the revolution would

soon be over and society would speedily reorganise itself on a new and

indestructible basis and with a minimum of bloodshed.

But the tone is not always equally pacific. Bakunin during at least one

period of his life preached a savage and merciless revolution against

privilege of every kind. At that time, indeed, he might justly have

passed as the inventor of the active propaganda which, strenuously

pursued for many years by a few exasperated fanatics, had the effect

of rousing public opinion everywhere against anarchism. “We understand

revolution,” someone has remarked, “in the sense of an upheaval of what

we call the worst passions, and we can imagine its resulting in the

destruction of what we to-day term public order.” “Brigandage,” it is

remarked elsewhere, “is an honourable method of political propaganda

in Russia, where the brigand is a hero, a defender and saviour of the

people.”[1366] In a kind of proclamation entitled _The Principles of

Revolution_, which, as some writers point out, ought not to be attributed

to Bakunin, but which at any rate appears to give a fair representation

of his ideas at this period of his life, we meet with the following

words: “The present generation should blindly and indiscriminately

destroy all that at present exists, with this single thought in mind—to

destroy as much and as quickly as possible.”[1367] The means advocated

are of a most varied description: “Poison, the dagger, and the sword …

revolution makes them all equally sacred. The whole field is free for

action.”[1368] Bakunin had always shown a good deal of sympathy for

the _rôle_ of the conspirator. In the _Statutes of the International

Brotherhood_, which prescribed the rules of conduct for a kind of

revolutionary association created by Bakunin in 1864, are some passages

advocating violence which are as bloodcurdling as anything contained in

Netchaieff’s famous _Revolutionary Catechism_. It is difficult to find

lines more full of violent revolutionary exasperation than that passage

of the _Statutes of the International Socialist Alliance_ which forms the

real programme of the anarchists. Since it also seems to us to give a

fairly faithful expression of Bakunin’s thoughts on the matter, it will

afford a fitting close to our exposition.

“We want a universal revolution that will shake the social and political,

the economic and philosophical basis of society, so that of the present

order, which is founded upon property, exploitation, dominion, and

authority, and supported either by religion or philosophy, by _bourgeois_

economics or by revolutionary Jacobinism, there may not be left, either

in Europe or anywhere else, a single stone standing. The workers’

prayer for peace we would answer by demanding the freedom of all the

oppressed and the death of everyone who lords it over them, exploiters

and guardians of every kind. Every State and every Church would be

destroyed, together with all their various institutions, their religious,

political, judicial, and financial regulations; the police system, all

university regulations, all social and economic rules whatsoever, so

that the millions of poor human beings who are now being cheated and

gagged, tormented and exploited, delivered from the cruellest of official

directors and officious curates, from all collective and individual

tyranny, would for once be able to breathe freely.”[1369]

A discussion of anarchist doctrine lies beyond our province. Moreover,

such sweeping generalisations disarm all criticism. Their theories are

too often the outbursts of passionate feeling and scarcely need refuting.

Let us, then, try to discover the kind of influence they have had.

We are not going to speak of the criminal outrages which unfortunately

have resulted from their teaching. Untutored minds already exasperated by

want found themselves incapable of resisting the temptations to violence

in face of such doctrines. Such deeds, or active propaganda as they call

it, can have no manner of justification, but find an explanation in the

extreme fanaticism of the authors. It is not very easy to attribute such

violence to a social doctrine which, according to the circumstances,

may on the one hand be considered as the philosophy of outrage and

violence, and on the other as an ideal expression of human fraternity and

individual progress.

The influence of which we would speak is the influence which anarchy

has had upon the working classes in general. Undoubtedly it has led

to a revival of individualism and has begotten a reaction against the

centralising socialism of Marx. Its success has been especially great

among the Latin nations and in Austria, where it seemed for a time as

if it would supplant socialism altogether. Very marked progress has

also been made in France, Italy, and Spain. Is it because individuality

is stronger in those countries than elsewhere? We think not. The

fact is that wherever liberty has only recently been achieved, order

and discipline, even when freely accepted, seem little better than

intolerable signs of slavery.

An anarchist party came into being between 1880 and 1895. But since

1895 it seems to have declined. This does not mean that the influence

of anarchism has been on the wane, but simply that it has changed its

character. In France especially many of the older anarchists have

joined the Trade Union movement, and have occasionally managed to get

the control of affairs into their own hands, and under their influence

the trade unions have tried to get rid of the socialist yoke. The

Confédération générale du Travail has for its motto two words that are

always coupled together in anarchist literature, namely, “Welfare and

liberty.” It has also advocated “direct action”—that is, action which is

of a definitely revolutionary character and in defiance of public order.

Finally, it betrays the same impatience with merely political action, and

would have the workers concentrate upon the economic struggle.

The prophets of revolutionary syndicalism deny any alliance with anarchy.

But, despite their protests, it would be a comparatively easy matter to

point to numerous analogies in the writings of Bakunin and Kropotkin.

Moreover, they admit that Proudhon, as well as Marx, has contributed

something to the syndicalist doctrine; and we have already noted the

intimate connection which exists between Proudhon and the anarchists.

The first resemblance consists in their advocacy of violence as a method

of regenerating and purifying social life. “It is to violence,” writes

M. Sorel, “that socialism owes those great moral victories that have

brought salvation to the modern world.”[1370] The anarchists in a similar

fashion liken revolution to the storm that clears the threatening sky

of summer, making the air once more pure and calm. Kropotkin longs for

a revolution because it would not merely renew the economic order, but

would also “stir up society both morally and intellectually, shake it out

of its lethargy, and revive its morals. The vile and narrow passion of

the moment would be swept aside by the strong breath of a nobler passion,

a greater enthusiasm, and a more generous devotion.”[1371]

In the second place, moral considerations, which find no place in the

social philosophy of Marx, are duly recognised by Sorel and by the

anarchist authors. Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Proudhon especially demand a

due respect for human worth as the condition of every man’s liberty. They

also proclaim the sovereignty of reason as the only power that can make

men really free. M. Sorel, after showing how the new school may be easily

distinguished from official socialism by the greater stress which it lays

upon the perfection of morals, proceeds to add that on this point he is

entirely at one with the anarchists.[1372]

Finally, their social and political ideals are the same. In both

cases the demand is for the abolition of personal property and the

extinction of the State. “The syndicalist hates the State just as much

as the anarchist. He sees in the State nothing but an unproductive

parasite borne upon the shoulder of the producer and living upon his

substance.”[1373] And Sorel regards socialism as a tool in the hands of

the workers which will some day enable them to get rid of the State and

abolish the rights of private property.[1374] “Free producers working

in a factory where there will be no masters”[1375]—such is the ideal of

syndicalism, according to Sorel. There is also the same hostility shown

towards democracy as at present constituted and its alliance with the

State.

But despite many resemblances the two conceptions are really quite

distinct. The hope of anarchy is that spontaneous action and universal

liberty will somehow regenerate society. Syndicalism builds its faith

upon a particular institution, the trade union, which it regards as the

most effective instrument of class war. On this basis there would be

set up an ideal society of producers founded upon labour, from which

intellectualism would be banished. Anarchy, on the other hand, contents

itself with a vision of a kind of natural society, which the syndicalist

thinks both illusory and dangerous.

It has not been altogether useless, perhaps, to note the striking

analogy that exists between these two currents of thought which have had

such a profound influence upon the working-class movement during the

last fifteen years, and which have resulted in a remarkable revival of

individualism.

CONCLUSION

Can a history of economic doctrines really be said to have a conclusion?

It is obviously impossible to regard the history of any science as

complete so long as that science itself is not definitely constituted.

This applies to all sciences alike, even to the more advanced—physics,

chemistry, and mathematics, for example, all of which are continuously

undergoing some modification, abandoning in the course of their progress

certain conceptions that were formerly regarded as useful, but which now

appear antiquated, and adopting others which, if not entirely new, are

at least more comprehensive and more fruitful. And not only is this true

of individual sciences, but it is equally true of the very conception

of science itself. Progress in the sciences involves a modification of

our ideas concerning science. The savant, to-day as of yore, is engaged

in the pursuit of truth, but the conception of scientific truth at the

beginning of the twentieth century is not what it was at the beginning

of the nineteenth, and everything points to still further modifications

of that conception in the future. It is scarcely to be expected that

political economy, a young science hardly out of its swaddling-clothes,

will prove itself less mutable than the sciences already mentioned. All

that the historian is permitted to do is to point to the distance already

traversed, without pretending to be able to guess the character of the

road that still remains to be covered. His object must be to appreciate

the nature of the tasks that now await the economist, and for this his

study of the efforts put forth in the past, to which the preceding

chapters bear record, should prove of some assistance.

A simple analogy will perhaps help us to gauge the kind of impression

left upon us by a study of a century and a half of economic ideas.

Imagine ourselves looking at a fan spread out in front of us. At the

handle the separate radii are so closely packed together that they appear

to form a single block. But as the eye travels towards the circumference

the branches gradually separate from one another until they finally

assume quite divergent positions. But their separation is not complete,

and the more they are spread out the easier it is to detect the presence

of the tissue that forms a common bond between the various sections

of the fan and constitutes the basis of a new unity which is quite as

powerful, if not perhaps more so, than the unity which results from their

superposition at the base.

So it was with the Physiocrats, and still more with Adam Smith, whose

theory of political economy was a doctrine of such beautiful simplicity

that the human mind could grasp it at a single glance. But as time went

on and the science progressed it was realised that the unity which

characterised it at first was more apparent than real. The contradictory

theories which Smith had seemed able to reconcile gave rise to new

currents of thought, which tended to drift farther and farther apart as

they assumed a greater degree of independence. Conflicting theories of

distribution and of value began to take the field, and quarrels arose

over the relative merits of the abstract and the historical method, or

the claims of society and the rights of the individual. With a view

to self-defence, each of these schools took its own path, which it

followed with varied fortune, including not a few setbacks. Each of them

also surrounded itself with a network of observations and inductions,

thus bringing into the common fund a wealth of new truths and useful

conclusions. All this has resulted in the gradual formation, around each

great current of economic thought, of a thick enveloping layer of great

resistance and of increasing extent, which constitutes a kind of common

scientific matrix uniting them together, and underneath which may still

be detected the salient features of the great systems. What strikes us

now is not the multiplicity of branches which go to make up the fan,

but the presence of the common tissue in which, especially towards

the circumference, the different radii seem to lose themselves and to

disappear altogether. In other words, the sum total of acquired truths is

the only legacy left us by the various systems of the past, and this is

the only thing that interests us to-day.

Hence one result of so much discussion and polemical warfare has been

the discovery of some common ground upon which all economists, whatever

their social and political aspirations, can meet. This common ground is

the domain of economic science—a science that is concerned, not with

the presentation of what ought to be, but with the explanation and the

thorough understanding of what actually exists. The superiority of a

theory is measured solely by its explanatory power. It matters little

whether its author be Interventionist or Liberal, Protectionist or Free

Trader, Socialist or Individualist—everyone must necessarily bow before

an exact observation or a scientific explanation.

But while these divergent schools tend to be lost in the unity of a more

fully comprehended science, we see the emergence of other divisions, less

scientific perhaps, but much more fertile so far as the progress of the

science itself is concerned. It seems as if a new kind of fan arrangement

were making its appearance underneath the old.

This is obviously the case with regard to method, for example, where

the separation between pure and descriptive economics, or between

the theoretical systematisation and the mere observation of concrete

phenomena, is becoming very pronounced. Both kinds of research are

equally necessary, and demand different mental qualities which are very

seldom found combined in the same person. Economic science, however,

cannot afford to dispense either with theory or observation. The desire

to seize hold of the chain of economic phenomena and to unravel its

secret connections is as strong as ever it was. On the other hand, in

view of the transformation and the daily modifications which industry

everywhere seems to be undergoing, it is useless to imagine that we can

dispense with the task of observing and describing these. The two methods

are developing and progressing together, and the violent quarrels as to

their respective merits appear to be definitely laid at rest.

Accordingly what we find is a segmentation of economic science into

a number of distinct sciences, each of which tends to become more or

less autonomous. Such separation does not necessarily imply a conflict

of opinion, but is simply the outcome of division of labour. At the

outset of its career the whole of political economy was included within

the compass of one or two volumes, and all those facts and theories

of which an economist was supposed to have special knowledge were,

according to Say and his disciples, easily grouped under the three

heads of Production, Consumption, and Distribution. But since then

the science has been broken up into a number of distinct branches.

The term “physics,” which was formerly employed as a name for one of

the exact sciences, is just now little better than a collective name

used to designate a number of special sciences, such as electricity,

optics, etc., each of which might claim the lifelong devotion of the

student. Similarly “political economy” has just become a vague but

useful term to denote a number of studies which often differ widely from

one another. The theory of prices and the theory of distribution have

undergone such modifications as entitle them to be regarded as separate

studies. Social economics has carved out a domain of its own and is now

leading a separate existence, the theory of population has assumed the

dimensions of a special science known as demography, and the theory of

taxation is now known as the science of finance. Statistics, occupying

the borderland of these various sciences, has its own peculiar method

of procedure. Descriptions of the commercial and industrial mechanism of

banks and exchanges, the classification of the forms of industry and the

study of its transformations are related to political economy much as

zoology, descriptive botany, and morphology are related to the science

of natural history. And although a different name must not always be

taken as evidence of a different science, there is little doubt about the

existence of the separate sciences already enumerated. The difficulty

rather is to grasp the connection between them and to realise the nature

of that fundamental unity which binds them all together.

But there still remains a wide region over the whole of which divergences

exist and conflicts continue, and where, moreover, they will probably

never cease. This is the realm of _social_ and _political_ economics.

Despite the gradual rise of a consensus of scientific opinion among

economists, the divergences concerning the object that should be pursued

and the means employed to achieve that end are as pronounced as ever.

Each of the chief doctrines of which we have given an exposition in

the course of this work has its body of representatives. Liberals,

Communists, Interventionists, State and Christian Socialists continue

to preach their differing ideals and to advocate different methods of

procedure. On the question of the science itself, however, they are all

united. The arguments upon which they base their contentions are largely

borrowed from sources other than scientific. Moral and religious beliefs,

political or social convictions, individual preference or sentiment,

personal experience or interest—these are among the considerations

determining the orientation of each. The earlier half of the nineteenth

century witnessed the science of political economy making common cause

with one particular doctrine, namely, Liberalism. The alliance proved

most unfortunate. The time when economic doctrines were expected to lend

support to some given policy is for ever gone by. But the lesson has not

been lost, and everybody realises that nothing could be more dangerous

for the development of the science than to link its teaching to the

tenets of some particular school. At the same time the science might

conceivably furnish valuable information to the politician by enabling

him to foresee the results of such and such a measure; and it is to be

hoped that such predictions, all too uncertain as yet, may, accordingly,

become more precise in the future.

We cannot, then, suppose that the various currents of opinion to-day

known as Liberalism, Socialism, Solidarism, Syndicalism, and Anarchism

are likely to disappear in the immediate future. They may be given other

names, perhaps, but they will always continue to exist in some form or

other, simply because they correspond to some profound tendency in human

nature or to certain permanent collective interests which alternately

sway mankind.

We cannot pretend to regret this. Uniformity of belief is an illusory

ideal, and from a purely practical point of view we should be sorry to

see the day when there will be no conflict of opinion even about those

causes or those methods which we hold most dear.

We may sum up our conclusions as follows: From a scientific standpoint

unity is likely to become more pronounced and collaboration much more

general than in the past, thanks to the adoption of more scientific

methods.

In the domain of practice the variety of economic ideals and the conflict

between them is likely to continue.

Such, it seems to us, will be the spectacle presented by the political

economy of the future.

Thus the impression obtained from a perusal of this history of economic

doctrines is, if not somewhat melancholy, at least sufficient to

justify a certain degree of humility. So many doctrines that we thought

definitely established have disappeared altogether, and so many that we

thought completely overthrown have been rehabilitated. Those that die do

not seem altogether dead, somehow, and those that are revived are not

quite the same.

What the science and its teachers need most of all is full and complete

liberty—liberty to follow whatever method suits them best and to

accept whatever theory attracts them most; liberty to choose their own

ideals and to formulate their own systems—for systems and ideals, by

bringing sentiment into play, may occasionally prove very stimulating

even to scientific research. Nothing could be more harmful than the

dogmatism which the science has only recently escaped. In this matter,

unfortunately, no school and no country is entirely above criticism.

Sismondi used to complain that Liberalism, after it had achieved its

triumph, had attempted to convert political economy into a system of

orthodoxy. But Liberalism is not the only doctrine against which a

similar charge might be brought. It is only a few years since Schmoller,

the chief of the German Historical school, in an address delivered as

Rector of Berlin University, declared that neither Marxians nor the

disciples of Smith could in future be regarded as accredited teachers

of the science. Does the German Historical school really wish to revive

that ostracism from which it was itself one of the first to suffer?

Neither can we, as Frenchmen, pride ourselves upon having been less

exclusive. The indifference or even the actual hostility with which the

Historical school was for a long time treated does very little credit to

us. Moreover, that same intolerance of which “_bourgeois_ economics” was

so justly accused, is it not to be met with in an equally extravagant

fashion in the socialism of to-day? The ultra-dogmatism of the Liberal

school can be easily paralleled from the history of Marxism and the

frantic efforts made by some socialists to prevent other Marxians making

a breach in the doctrine. If there is one lesson more than another that

emerges from a study of the history of economic doctrines it is the

necessity for a more critical spirit and a more watchful attitude, always

ready to test any new truths that present themselves, to extend a hearty

welcome to every fresh observation or new experience, thus enabling the

science to enlarge its scope and gain a deeper significance without

sacrificing any of its essential tenets.

FOOTNOTES

[1] See an article by M. Deschamps in the _Réforme sociale_ of October 1,

1902, on the value of this kind of teaching.

[2] In an article on the teaching of the history of economic doctrines

(_Revue de l’Enseignement_, March 15, 1900) M. Deschamps declares that

it is unpardonable that we should be unable to make better use of the

marvellous economic teachings of which both ancient and mediæval history

are full, but he adds that “as far as the history of the science is

concerned there is no need to go farther back than the Physiocrats.”

[3] In the new edition of M. Espinas’s work an entire volume is devoted

to the study of economic doctrines in ancient and mediæval times.

[4] “What useful purpose can be served by the study of absurd opinions

and doctrines that have long ago been exploded, and deserved to be? It

is mere useless pedantry to attempt to revive them. The more perfect a

science becomes the shorter becomes its history. Alembert truly remarks

that the more light we have on any subject the less need is there to

occupy ourselves with the false or doubtful opinions to which it may have

given rise. Our duty with regard to errors is not to revive them, but

simply to forget them.” (_Traité pratique_, vol. ii, p. 540.)

[5] _Wealth of Nations_, vol. i, p. 351.

[6] Quesnay’s first economic articles, written for the _Grande

Encyclopédie_, were on _Les Grains_ and _Les Fermiers_.

[7] Professor Hector Denis, speaking of the Physiocratic doctrine,

remarks that its imperfections are easily demonstrated, but that we

seldom recognise its incomparable greatness.

[8] “The genuine economists are easily depicted. In Dr. Quesnay they

have a common master; a common doctrine in the _Philosophie rurale_ and

the _Analyse économique_. Their classical literature is summed up in

the generic term Physiocracy. In the _Tableau économique_ they possess

a formula with technical terms as precise as old Chinese characters.”

This definition of the Physiocrats, given by one of themselves, the

Abbé Baudeau (_Éphémérides_, April 1776)—writing, we may be sure, in no

malicious spirit—shows us that the school possessed not a little of the

dogmatism of the Chinee.

[9] The first not only in chronological order but the chief recognised

by all was Dr. Quesnay (1694-1774), the physician of Louis XV and of

Mme. de Pompadour. He had already published numerous works on medicine,

especially the _Essai physique sur l’Économie animale_ (1736) before

turning his attention to economic questions and more especially to

problems of “rural economy.” His first contributions, the essays on _Les

Grains_ and _Les Fermiers_, which appeared in the _Grande Encyclopédie_

in 1756 and 1757, were followed by his famous _Tableau économique_ in

1758, when he was sixty-four years of age, and in 1760 by his _Maximes

générales du Gouvernement économique d’un Royaume agricole_, which is

merely a development of the preceding work.

His writings were not numerous, but his influence, like that of Socrates,

disseminated as it was by his disciples, became very considerable.

The best edition of his works is that published by Professor Oncken

of Berne, _Œuvres économiques et philosophiques de F. Quesnay_ (Paris

and Frankfort, 1888). Our quotations from the founders are taken from

_Collections des Principaux Économistes_, published by Daire.

The Marquis de Mirabeau, father of the great orator of the Revolution, a

man of a fiery temperament like his son, published at about the same date

as the production of the _Tableau_ his _L’Ami des Hommes_. This book,

which created a great sensation, does not strictly belong to Physiocratic

literature, for it ignores the fundamental doctrine of the school. _La

Théorie de l’Impôt_ (1760) and _La Philosophie rurale_ (1763), on the

other hand, owe their inspiration to Physiocracy.

Mercier de la Rivière, a parliamentary advocate, published _L’Ordre

natural et essentiel des Sociétés politiques_ in 1767. Dupont de

Nemours refers to this as a “sublime work,” and though it does not,

perhaps, deserve that epithet it contains, nevertheless, the code of the

Physiocratic doctrine.

Dupont de Nemours, as he is called after his native town published about

the same time, 1768, when he was only twenty-nine, a book entitled

_Physiocratie, ou Constitution essentielle du Gouvernement le plus

avantageux au Genre humain_. To him we owe the term from which the school

took its name—Physiocracy, which signifies “the rule of nature.” But the

designation “Physiocrats” was unfortunate and was almost immediately

abandoned for “Économistes.” Quesnay and his disciples were the first

“Économistes.” It was only much later, when the name “Economist” became

generic and useless as a distinctive mark for a special school, that

writers made a practice of reverting to the older term “Physiocrat.”

An enthusiastic disciple of Quesnay, Dupont’s _rôle_ was chiefly that of

a propagandist of Physiocratic doctrines, and he made little original

contribution to the science. At an early date, moreover, the great

political events in which he took an active part proved a distraction. He

survived all his colleagues, and was the only one of them who lived long

enough to witness the Revolution, in which he played a prominent part.

He successively became a deputy in the Tiers État, a president of the

Constituent Assembly, and later on, under the Directoire, President du

Conseil des Anciens. He even assisted in the restoration of the Empire,

and political economy was first honoured at the hands of the Institut

when he became a member of that body.

In 1777 Le Trosne, an advocate at the Court of Orleans, published a book

entitled _De l’Intérêt social, par rapport à la Valuer, à la Circulation,

à l’Industrie et au Commerce_, which is perhaps the best or at least the

most strictly economic of all. Mention must also be made of the Abbé

Baudeau, who has no less than eighty volumes to his credit, chiefly

dealing with the corn trade, but whose principal work is _L’Introduction

à la Philosophie économique_ (1771); and of the Abbé Roubaud, afterwards

Margrave of Baden, who had the advantage of being not merely a writer but

a prince, and who carried out some Physiocratic experiments in some of

the villages of his small principality.

We have not yet mentioned the most illustrious member of the school, both

in respect of his talent and his position, namely, Turgot (1727-81).

His name is generally coupled with that of the Physiocrats, and this

classification is sufficiently justified by the similarity of their

ideas. Still, as we shall see, in many respects he stands by himself,

and bears a close resemblance to Adam Smith. Moreover, he commenced

writing before the Physiocrats. His essay on paper money dates from 1748,

when he was only twenty-one years of age, but his most important work,

_Réflexions sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses_, belongs

to 1766. As the Intendant of Limoges and again as a minister of Louis XVI

he possessed the necessary authority to enable him to realise his ideas

of economic liberty, which he did by his famous edicts abolishing taxes

upon corn passing from one province to another, and by the abolition of

the rights of wardenship and privilege.

Unlike the other Physiocrats, who swore only by Dr. Quesnay, Turgot owed

a great deal to a prominent business man, Vincent de Gournay, who at a

later date became the Intendant of Commerce. Gournay died in 1759, at

the early age of forty-seven. Of Gournay we know next to nothing beyond

what Turgot says of him in his eulogy (See Schelle, _Vincent de Gournay_,

1897).

_Bibliography._ Books dealing with the Physiocratic system, both in

French and other languages, are fairly numerous. A very detailed

account of these may be found in M. Weulersse’s work, _Le Mouvement

physiocratique en France de 1756 à 1770_, published in 1910, which also

contains a very complete exposition of the Physiocratic doctrine. In

English there is a succinct account of the system in Higgs’ _Physiocrats_

(1897).

[10] Especially in the celebrated pamphlet, _L’Homme aux Quarante Écus_.

[11] J. J. Rousseau, the author of the _Contrat Social_ (1762), was a

contemporary of the Physiocrats, but he never became a member of the

school. Mirabeau’s attempt to win his allegiance proved a failure.

The “natural order” and the “social contract” seem incompatible, for

the natural and spontaneous can never be the subject of contract. One

might even be tempted to think that Rousseau’s celebrated theory was

formulated in opposition to Physiocracy, unless we remembered that the

social contract theory is much older than Rousseau’s work. Traces of

the same idea may be found in many writings, especially those inspired

by Calvinism. To Rousseau the social question seemed to be a kind of

mathematical problem, and any proposed solution must satisfy certain

complicated conditions, which are formulated thus: “To find a form of

association which protects with the whole common force the person and

property of each associate, and in virtue of which everyone, while

uniting himself to all, obeys only himself and remains as free as

before.” Nothing could well be further from the Physiocratic view. Their

belief was that there was nothing to find and nothing to create. The

“natural order” was self-evident.

It is true that Rousseau was an equally enthusiastic believer in a

natural order, in the voice of nature, and in the native kindness of

mankind. “The eternal laws of nature and order have a real existence.

For the wise they serve as positive laws, and they are engraved on the

innermost tablets of the heart by both conscience and reason.” (_Émile_,