1. Prince Peter Alexeyevitch Kropotkin was born at Moscow in 1842. From 1862 to 1867 he was an officer of the Cossacks of the Amur; during this time he traveled over a great part of Siberia and Manchuria. From 1867 to 1871 he studied mathematics at St. Petersburg; at this time he was also secretary of the Geographical Society; under its commission he explored the glaciers of Finland and Sweden in 1871.
In 1872 Kropotkin visited Belgium and Switzerland, where he joined theAssociation internationale des travailleurs. In the same year he returned to St. Petersburg and became a prominent member of the Tchaikoffski secret society. This was found out in 1874. He was arrested and kept in prison until in 1876 he succeeded in escaping to England.
From England Kropotkin went to Switzerland in 1877, but was expelled from that country in 1881. Thenceforth he resided alternately in England and France. In France, in 1883, he was condemned to five years' imprisonment for membership in a prohibited association; he was kept in prison till 1886, and then pardoned. Since then he has lived in England.
Kropotkin has published geographical works and accounts of travel, and also writings in the spheres ofeconomics, politics, and the philosophy of law.
2. For Kropotkin's teaching about law, the State, and property, the most important sources are his many short works, newspaper articles, and lectures. The articles that he published from 1879 to 1882 in "Le Révolté" of Geneva, appeared in 1885 as a book under the title "Paroles d'un révolté." The only large work in which he develops his teaching is "La conquête du pain" (1892).
3. Kropotkin calls his teaching "Anarchism." "When in the bosom of the International there was formed a party which no more acknowledged an authority inside that association than any other authority, this party called itself at first federalist, then anti-authoritarian or hostile to the State. At that time it avoided describing itself as Anarchistic. The wordan-archie(it was so written at that time) seemed to identify the party too much with the adherents of Proudhon, whose reform ideas the International was opposing. But for this very reason its opponents delighted in using this designation in order to produce confusion; besides, the name made the assertion possible that from the very name of the Anarchists it was evident that they aimed merely at disorder and chaos, without thinking any farther. The Anarchistic party was not slow to adopt the designation that was given to it. At first it still insisted on the hyphen betweenanandarchie, with the explanation that in this form the wordan-archie, being of Greek origin, denoted absence of dominion and not 'disorder'; but it soon decided to spare the proof-reader his useless trouble and the reader his lesson in Greek, and used the name as itstood."[431]And in fact "the wordanarchie, which negates the whole of this so-called order and reminds us of the fairest moments in the lives of the nations, is well chosen for a party that looks forward to conquering a better future."[432]
According to Kropotkin, the law which has supreme validity for man is the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible; from this law he derives the commandment of justice and the commandment of energy.
1. The supreme law for man is the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible.
There is "only one scientific method, the method of the natural sciences,"[433]and we apply this method also "in the sciences that relate to man,"[434]particularly in the "science of society."[435]Now, a mighty revolution is at present taking place[436]in the entire realm of science; it is the result of the "philosophy of evolution."[437]"The idea hitherto prevalent, that everything in nature stands fast, is fallen, destroyed, annihilated. Everything in nature changes; nothing remains: neither the rock which appears to us to be immovable and the continent which we callterra firma, nor the inhabitants, their customs, habits, and thoughts. All that we see about us is a transitory phenomenon, and must change, becausemotionlessness would be death."[438]In the case of organisms this evolution is progress, in consequence of "their admirable adaptivity to their conditions of life. They develop such faculties as render more complete both the adaptations of the aggregates to their surroundings and those of each of the constituent parts of the aggregate to the needs of free co-operation."[439]"This is the 'struggle for existence,' which, therefore, must not be conceived merely in its restricted sense of a struggle between individuals for the means of subsistence."[440]
"Evolution never advances so slowly and evenly as has been asserted. Evolution and revolution alternate, and the revolutions—that is, the times of accelerated evolution—belong to the unity of nature just as much as do the times in which evolution takes place more slowly."[441]"Order is the free equilibrium of all forces that operate upon the same point; if any of these forces are interfered with in their operation by a human will, they operate none the less, but their effects accumulate till some day they break the artificial dam and provoke a revolution."[442]
Kropotkin applies these general propositions to the social life of men.[443]"A society is an aggregation of organisms trying to combine the wants of the individual with those of co-operation for the welfare of the species";[444]it is "a whole which serves toward the purpose of attaining the largest possible amount of happiness at the least possible expense of humanforce."[445]Now human societies evolve,[446]and one may try to determine the direction of this evolution.[447]Societies advance from lower to higher forms of organization;[448]but the goal of this evolution—that is, the point towards which it directs itself—consists in "establishing the best conditions for realizing the greatest happiness of humanity."[449]What we call progress is the right path to this goal;[450]humanity may for the time err from this path, but will always be brought back to it at last.[451]
But not even here does evolution take place without revolutions. What is true of a man's views, of the climate of a country, of the characteristics of a species, is true also of societies: "they evolve slowly, but there are also times of the quickest transformation."[452]For circumstances of many kinds may oppose themselves to the effort of human associations to attain to the greatest possible measure of happiness.[453]"New thoughts germinate everywhere, try to get to the light, try to get themselves applied in life; but they are kept back by the inertia of those who have an interest in keeping up the old conditions, they are stifled under long-established prejudices and traditions."[454]"Political, economic, and social institutions fall in ruins, and the building which has become uninhabitable hinders the development of what is sprouting in its crevices and around it."[455]Then there is need of "great events which rudely break the thread of history andhurl mankind out of its ruts into new roads";[456]"the Revolution becomes a peremptory necessity."[457]—"Man has recognized his place in nature; he has recognized that his institutions are his work and can be refashioned by him alone."[458]"What has not the engineer's art dared, and what do not literature, painting, music, the drama dare to-day?"[459]Thus must we also, where any institutions hinder the progress of society, "dare the fight, to make a rich and overflowing life possible to all."[460]
2. From the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to the happiest existence possible Kropotkin derives the commandment of justice and the commandment of energy.
In the struggle for existence human societies evolve toward a condition in which there are given the best conditions for the attainment of the greatest happiness of mankind.[461]When we describe anything as "good," we mean by this that it favors the attainment of the goal; that is, it is beneficial to the society in which we live; and we call that "evil" which in our opinion hinders the attainment of the goal, that is, is harmful to the society we live in.[462]
Now, men's views as to what favors and what hinders the establishment of the best conditions for the attainment of mankind's greatest happiness, and hence as to what is beneficial or harmful to society, may certainly change.[463]But one fundamental requisite for the attainment of the goal will always have to be recognized as such, whatever the diversity of opinions.It "may be summed up in the sentence 'Do to others as you would have it done to you in the like case'."[464]But this sentence "is nothing else than the principle of equality";[465]and equality, in turn, "means the same as equity,"[466]"solidarity,"[467]"justice."[468]
But there is indisputably yet another fundamental requisite for the attainment of the goal. This is "something greater, finer, and mightier than mere equality";[469]it may be expressed in the sentence "Be strong; overflow with the passion of thought and action: so shall your understanding, your love, your energy, pour itself into others."[470]
I.In mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible, one of the next steps, according to Kropotkin, will be the disappearance—not indeed of law, but—of enacted law.
1. Enacted law has become a hindrance to mankind's progress toward an existence as happy as possible.
"For thousands of years those who govern have been repeating again and again, 'Respect the law!'";[471]"in the States of to-day a new law isregarded as the cure for all evils."[472]But "the law has no claim to men's respect."[473]"It is an adroit mixture of such customs as are beneficial to society, and would be observed even without a law, with others which are to the advantage only of a ruling minority, but are harmful to the masses and can be upheld only by terror."[474]"The law, which first made its appearance as a collection of customs which serve for the maintenance of society, is now merely an instrument to keep up the exploitation and domination of the industrious masses by wealthy idlers. It has now no longer any civilizing mission; its only mission is to protect exploitation."[475]"It puts rigid immobility in the place of progressive development,"[476]"it seeks to confirm permanently the customs that are advantageous to the ruling minority."[477]
"If one looks over the millions of laws which mankind obeys, one can distinguish three great classes: protection of property, protection of government, protection of persons. But in examining these three classes one comes in every case to the necessary conclusion that the law is valueless and harmful. What the protection of property is worth, the Socialists know only too well. The laws about property do not exist to secure to individuals or to society the product of their labor. On the contrary, they exist to rob the producer of a part of his product, and to protect a few in the enjoyment of what they have stolen from the producer or from the whole of society."[478]And as regards the laws for the protection of government, "weknow well that all governments, without exception, have it for their mission to uphold by force the privileges of the propertied classes—the nobility, the clergy, and thebourgeoisie. A man has only to examine all these laws, only to observe their every-day working, and he will be convinced that not one is worth keeping."[479]Equally "superfluous and harmful, finally, are the laws for the protection of persons, for the punishment and prevention of 'crimes'. The fear of punishment never yet restrained a murderer. He who would kill his neighbor, for revenge or for necessity, does not beat his brains about the consequences; and every murderer hitherto has had the firm conviction that he would escape prosecution. If murder were declared not punishable, the number of murders would not increase even by one; rather it would decrease to the extent that murders are at present committed by habitual criminals who have been corrupted in prison."[480]
2. The stage of evolution to which enacted law belongs will soon be left behind by man.
"The law is a comparatively young formation. Mankind lived for ages without any written law. At that time the relations of men to each other were regulated by mere habits, by customs and usages, which age made venerable, and which every one learned from his childhood in the same way as he learned hunting, cattle-raising, or agriculture."[481]"But when society came to be more and more split into two hostile classes, of which the one wanted to rule and the other to escape from rule, the victor of the momentsought to give permanence to the accomplished fact and to hallow it by all that was venerable to the defeated. Consecrated by the priest and protected by the strong hand of the warrior, law appeared."[482]
But its days are already numbered. "Everywhere we find insurgents who will no longer obey the law till they know where it comes from, what it is good for, by what right it demands obedience, and for what reason it is held in honor. They bring under their criticism everything that has until now been respected as the foundation of society, but first and foremost the fetish, law."[483]The moment of its disappearance, for the hastening of which we must fight,[484]is close at hand,[485]perhaps even at the end of the nineteenth century.[486]
II.In the next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, mankind must soon reach, there will indeed be no enacted law, but there will be law even there."The laws will be totally abrogated;"[487]"unwritten customs,"[488]"'customary law,' as jurists say,"[489]will "suffice to maintain a good understanding."[490]These norms of the next stage of evolution will be based on a general will;[491]and conformity to them will be adequately assured "by the necessity, which every one feels, of finding co-operation, support, and sympathy"[492]and by the fear of expulsion from the fellowship,[493]but also, if necessary, by theintervention of the individual citizen[494]or of the masses;[495]they will therefore be legal norms.
Of legal norms of the next stage of evolution Kropotkin mentions in the first place this,—that contracts must be lived up to.[496]
Furthermore, according to Kropotkin there will obtain in the next stage of evolution a legal norm by virtue of which not only the means of production, but all things, are common property.[497]
An additional legal norm in the next stage of evolution will, according to Kropotkin, be that by virtue of which "every one who co-operates in production to a certain extent has, for one thing, the right to live; for another, the right to live comfortably."[498]
I.According to Kropotkin, in mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible the State will shortly disappear.
1. The State has become a hindrance to mankind's evolution toward a happiness as great as possible.
"What does this monstrous engine serve for, that we call 'State'? For preventing the exploitation of the laborer by the capitalist, of the peasant by the landlord? or for assuring us of work? for providing us food when the mother has nothing but water left for her child? No, a thousand times no."[499]But instead of this the State "meddles in all our affairs, pinions usfrom cradle to grave. It prescribes all our actions, it piles up mountains of laws and ordinances that bewilder the shrewdest lawyer. It creates an army of office-holders who sit like spiders in their webs and have never seen the world except through the dingy panes of their office-window. The immense and ever-increasing sums that the State collects from the people are never sufficient: it lives at the expense of future generations, and steers with all its might toward bankruptcy. 'State' is tantamount to 'war'; one State seeks to weaken and ruin another in order to force upon the latter its law, its policy, its commercial treaties, and to enrich itself at its expense; war is to-day the usual condition in Europe, there is a thirty years' supply of causes of war on hand. And civil war rages at the same time with foreign war; the State, which was originally to be a protection for all and especially for the weak, has to-day become a weapon of the rich against the exploited, of the propertied against the propertyless."[500]
In these respects there is no distinction to be made between the different forms of the State. "Toward the end of the last century the French people overthrew the monarchy, and the last absolute king expiated on the scaffold his own crimes and those of his predecessors."[501]"Later all the countries of the Continent went through the same evolution: they overthrew their absolute monarchies and flung themselves into the arms of parliamentarism."[502]"Now it is being perceived that parliamentarism, which was entered upon with such great hopes, has everywherebecome a tool for intrigue and personal enrichment, for efforts hostile to the people and to evolution."[503]"Precisely like any despot, the body of representatives of the people—be it called Parliament, Convention, or anything else; be it appointed by the prefects of a Bonaparte or elected with all conceivable freedom by an insurgent city—will always try to enlarge its competence, to strengthen its power by all sorts of meddling, and to displace the activity of the individual and the group by the law."[504]"It was only a forty years' movement, which occasionally even set fire to grain-fields, that could bring the English Parliament to secure to the tenant the value of the improvements made by him. But if it is a question of protecting the capitalist's interest, threatened by a disturbance or even by agitation,—ah, then every representative of the people is on hand, then it acts with more recklessness and cowardice than any despot. The six-hundred-headed beast without a name has outdone Louis IX and Ivan IV."[505]"Parliamentarism is nauseating to any one who has seen it near at hand."[506]
"The dominion of men, which calls itself 'government,' is incompatible with a morality founded on solidarity."[507]This is best shown by "the so-called civil rights, whose value and importance thebourgeoispress is daily praising to us in every key."[508]"Are they made for those who alone need them? Certainly not. Universal suffrage may under some circumstances afford to thebourgeoisiea certain protection against encroachments by the central authority, itmay establish a balance between two authorities without its being necessary for the rivals to draw the knife on each other as formerly; but it is valueless when the object is to overthrow authority or even to set bounds to it. For the rulers it is an excellent means of deciding their disputes; but of what use is it to the ruled? Just so with the freedom of the press. To the mind of thebourgeoisie, what is the best thing that has been alleged in its favor? Its impotence. 'Look at England, Switzerland, the United States,' they say. 'There the press is free and yet the dominion of capital is more assured than in any other country.' Just so they think about the right of association. 'Why should we not grant full right of association?' says thebourgeoisie. 'It will not impair our privileges. What we have to fear is secret societies; public unions are the best means to cripple them.' 'The inviolability of the home? Yes, this we must proclaim aloud, this we must inscribe in the statute-books,' say the slybourgeois, 'the police certainly must not be looking into our pots and kettles. If things go wrong some day, we will snap our fingers at a man's right to his own house, rummage everything, and, if necessary, arrest people in their beds.' 'The secrecy of letters? Yes, just proclaim its inviolability aloud everywhere, our little privacies certainly must not come to the light. If we scent a plot against our privileges, we shall not stand much on ceremony. And if anybody objects, we shall say what an English minister lately said among the applause of Parliament: "Yes, gentlemen, it is with a heavy heart and with the deepestreluctance that we are having letters opened, but the country (that is, the aristocracy andbourgeoisie) is in danger!"' That is what political rights are. Freedom of the press and freedom of association, the inviolability of the home, and all the rest, are respected only so long as the people make no use of them against the privileged classes. But on the day when the people begin to use them for the undermining of privileges all these 'rights' are thrown overboard."[509]
2. The stage of evolution to which the State belongs will soon be left behind by man. The State is doomed.[510]
It is "of a relatively modern origin."[511]"The State is a historic formation which, in the life of all nations, has at a certain time gradually taken the place of free associations. Church, law, military power, and wealth acquired by plunder, have for centuries made common cause, have in slow labor piled stone on stone, encroachment on encroachment, and thus created the monstrous institution which has finally fixed itself in every corner of social life—nay, in the brains and hearts of men—and which we call the State."[512]
It has now begun to decompose. "The peoples—especially those of the Latin races—are bent on destroying its authority, which merely hampers their free development; they want the independence of provinces, communes, and groups of laborers; theywant not to submit to any dominion, but to league themselves together freely."[513]"The dissolution of the States is advancing at frightful speed. They have become decrepit graybeards, with wrinkled skins and tottering feet, gnawed by internal diseases and without understanding for the new thoughts; they are squandering the little strength that they still had left, living at the expense of their numbered years, and hastening their end by falling foul of each other like old women."[514]The moment of the State's disappearance is therefore close at hand.[515]Kropotkin says now that it will come in a few years,[516]now that it will come at the end of the nineteenth century.[517]
II.In the next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, mankind must soon reach, the place of the State will be taken by a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to.Anarchism is the "inevitable"[518]"next phase,"[519]"higher form,"[520]of society.
1. Even after the State is done away men will live together socially; but they will no longer be held together in society by a governmental authority, but by the legally binding force of contract. "Free expansion of individuals into groups and of groups into associations, free organization from the simple to the complex as need and inclination are felt,"[521]will be the future form of society.
We can at present perceive a growing Anarchisticmovement; that is, "a movement towards limiting more and more the sphere of action of government. After having tried all kinds of government, humanity is trying now to free itself from the bonds of any government whatever, and to respond to its needs of organization by the free understanding between individuals prosecuting the same common aims."[522]"Free associations are beginning to take to themselves the entire field of human activity."[523]"The large organizations resulting merely and simply from free agreement have grown recently. The railway net of Europe—a confederation of so many scores of separate societies—is an instance; the DutchBeurden, or associations of ship and boat owners, are extending now their organizations over the rivers of Germany, and even to the shipping trade of the Baltic; the numberless amalgamated manufacturers' associations, and thesyndicatsof France, are so many instances in point. But there also is no lack of free organizations for nobler pursuits: the Lifeboat Association, the Hospitals Association, and hundreds of like organizations. One of the most remarkable societies which has[524]recently arisen is the Red Cross Society. To slaughter men on the battle-fields, that remains the duty of the State; but these very States recognize their inability to take care of their own wounded; they abandon the task, to a great extent, to private initiative."[525]"These endeavors will attain to free play, will find a new and vast field for theirapplication, and will form the foundation of the future society."[526]
"The agreement between the hundreds of companies to which the European railroads belong has been entered into directly, without the meddling of any central authority that prescribed laws to the several companies. It has been kept up by conventions at which delegates met to consult together and then to lay before their principals plans, not laws. This is a new procedure, utterly different from any government whether monarchical or republican, absolute or constitutional. It is an innovation which at first makes its way into European manners only by hesitating steps, but to which the future belongs."[527]
2. "To rack our brains to-day about the details of the form which public life shall take in the future society, would be silly. Yet we must come to an agreement now about the main outlines."[528]"We must not forget that perhaps in a year or two we shall be called on to decide all questions of the organization of society."[529]
Communes will continue to exist; but "these communes are not agglomerations of men in a territory, and know neither walls nor boundaries; the commune is a clustering of like-minded persons, not a closed integer. The various groups in one commune will feel themselves drawn to similar groups in other communes; they will unite themselves with these as firmly as with their fellow-citizens; and thus there will come about communities of interest whose members arescattered over a thousand cities and villages."[530]
Men will join themselves together by "contracts"[531]to form such communes. They will "take upon themselves duties to society,"[532]which on its part engages to do certain things for them.[533]It will not be necessary to compel the fulfilment of these contracts,[534]there will be no need of penalties and judges.[535]Fulfilment will be sufficiently assured by "the necessity, which every one feels, of finding co-operation, support, and sympathy among his neighbors;"[536]he who does not live up to his obligations can of course be expelled from fellowship.[537]
In the commune every one will "do what is necessary himself, without waiting for a government's orders."[538]"The commune will not first destroy the State and then set it up again."[539]"People will see that they are freest and happiest when they have no plenipotentiary agents and depend as little on the wisdom of representatives as on that of Providence."[540]Nor will there be prisons or other penal institutions;[541]"for the few anti-social acts that may still take place the best remedy will consist in loving treatment, moral influence, and liberty."[542]
The communes on their part will join themselves together by contracts[543]quite in the same way as do the members of the individual communes. "Thecommune will recognize nothing above it except the interests of the league that it has of its own accord made with other communes."[544]"Owing to the multiplicity of our needs, a single league will soon not be enough; the commune will feel the necessity of entering into other connections also, joining this or that other league. For the purpose of obtaining food it is already a member of one group; now it must join a second in order to obtain other objects that it needs,—metal, for instance,—and then a third and fourth too, that will supply it with cloth and works of art. If one takes up an economic atlas of any country, one sees that there are no economic boundaries: the areas of production and exchange for the different objects are blended, interlaced, superimposed. Thus the combinations of the communes also, if they followed their natural development, would soon intertwine in the same way and form an infinitely denser network and a far more consummate 'unity' than the States, whose individual parts, after all, only lie side by side like the rods around the lictor's axe."[545]
3. The future society will be able easily to accomplish the tasks that the State accomplishes at present.
"Suppose there is need of a street. Well, then let the inhabitants of the neighboring communes come to an understanding about it, and they will do their business better than the Minister of Public Works would do it. Or a railroad is needed. Here too the communes that are concerned will produce something very different from the work of the promoters who only build bad pieces of track and make millions by it.Or schools are required. People can fit them up for themselves at least as well as the gentlemen at Paris. Or the enemy invades the country. Then we defend ourselves instead of relying on generals who would merely betray us. Or the farmer must have tools and machines. Then he comes to an understanding with the city workingmen, these supply him with them at cost in return for his products, and the middleman, who now robs both the farmer and the workingman, is superfluous."[546]"Or there comes up a little dispute, or a stronger man tries to push down a weaker. In the first case the people will know enough to create a court of arbitration, and in the second every citizen will regard it as his duty to interfere himself and not wait for the police; there will be as little need of constables as of judges and turnkeys."[547]
I.According to Kropotkin, the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible will shortly bring us to the disappearance not indeed of property, but of its present form, private property.
1. Private property has become a hindrance to the evolution of mankind toward a happiness as great as possible.
What are the effects of private property to-day? "The crisis, which was formerly acute, has become chronic; the crisis in the cotton trade, the crisis in the production of metals, the crisis in watchmaking, all the crises, rage concurrently now and do not cometo an end. The unemployed in Europe to-day are estimated at several million; those who beg their way from city to city, or gather in mobs to demand 'work or bread' with threats, are estimated at tens of thousands. Great branches of industry are destroyed; great cities, like Sheffield, forsaken. Everything is at a standstill, want and misery prevail everywhere: the children are pale, the wife has grown five years older in one winter, disease and death are rife among the workingmen—and people talk of over-production!"[548]One might reply that in peasant ownership of land, at least, private property has good effects.[549]"But the golden age is over for the small farmer. To-day he hardly knows how to make both ends meet. He gets into debt, becomes a victim of the cattle-dealer, the real-estate jobber, the usurer; notes and mortgages ruin whole villages, even more than the frightful taxes imposed by State and commune. Small proprietorship is in a desperate condition; and even if the small farmer is still owner in name, he is in fact nothing more than a tenant paying rent to money-dealers and usurers."[550]
But private property has still more sweeping indirect effects. "So long as we have a caste of idlers who have us feed them under the pretext that they must lead us, so long these idlers will always be a focus of pestilence to general morality. He who lives his life in dull laziness, who is always bent merely on getting new pleasures, who by the very basis of his existence can know no solidarity, and who by his course of life cultivates the vilest self-seeking,—he willalways pursue the coarsest sensual pleasures and debase everything around him. With his bag full of dollars and his bestial impulses he will go and dishonor women and children, degrade art, the drama, the press, sell his country and its defenders, and, because he is too cowardly to murder with his own hands, will have his proxies murder the choicest of his nation when, some day, he is afraid for his darling money-bag."[551]"Year by year thousands of children grow up in the physical and moral filth of our great cities, among a population corrupted by the struggle for daily bread, and at the same time they daily see the immorality, idleness, prodigality, and ostentation of which these same cities are full."[552]"Thus society is incessantly bringing forth beings who are incapable of an honorable and industrious life, and who are full of anti-social feelings. It does homage to them when success crowns their crimes, and sends them to the penitentiary when they are unlucky."[553]
Private property offends against justice. "The labor of all has produced the entire accumulated mass of wealth, that of the present generation as well as that of all that went before. The house in which we happen to be together has value only by its being in Paris, this glorious city in which the labor of twenty generations is piled layer upon layer. If it were removed to the snow-fields of Siberia, it would be worth substantially nothing. This machine, invented and patented by you, has in it the labor of five or six generations; it has a value only as a part of the vast whole that we call nineteenth-century industry. Takeyour lace-making machine to the Papuans in New Guinea, and it is valueless."[554]"Science and industry; theory and practice; the invention and the putting the invention in operation, which leads to new inventions again; head work and hand work,—all is connected. Every discovery, every progress, every increase in our wealth, has its origin in the total bodily and mental activity of the past and present. Then by what right can any one appropriate to himself the smallest fraction of this vast total and say 'this belongs to me and not to you'?"[555]—But this unjust appropriation of what belongs to all has nevertheless taken place. "Among the changes of time a few have taken possession of all that is made possible to man by the production of goods and the increase of his productive power. To-day the land, though it owes its value to the needs of a ceaselessly increasing population, belongs to a minority which can hinder the people from cultivating it, and which does so—or at least does not permit the people to cultivate it in a manner accordant with modern needs. The mines, which represent the toil of centuries, and whose value is based solely on the needs of industry and the necessities of population, belong likewise to a few, and these few limit the mining of coal, or entirely forbid it when they find a better investment for their money. The machines, too, are the property of a handful of men; and, even if a machine has indubitably been brought to its present perfection by three generations of workers, it nevertheless belongs to a few givers of work.The roads, which would be scrap-iron but for Europe's dense population, industry, trade, and travel, are in the possession of a few shareholders who perhaps do not even know the location of the lines from which they draw princely incomes."[556]
2. Mankind will soon have passed the stage of evolution to which private property belongs. Private property is doomed.[557]
Private property is a historic formation: it "has developed parasitically amidst the free institutions of our earliest ancestors,"[558]and this in the closest connection with the State. "The political constitution of a society is always the expression, and at the same time the consecration, of its economic constitution."[559]"The origin of the State, and its reason for existence, lie in the fact that it interferes in favor of the propertied and to the disadvantage of the propertyless."[560]"The omnipotence of the State constitutes the foundation of the strength of thebourgeoisie."[561]
But private property is already on the way to dissolution. "The economic chaos can last no longer. The people are tired of the crises which the greed of the ruling classes provokes. They want to work and live, not first drudge a few years for scanty wages and then become for many years victims of want and objects of charity. The workingman sees the incapacity of the ruling classes: he sees how unable they are either to understand his efforts or to manage theproduction and exchange of goods."[562]Hence "one of the leading features of our century is the growth of Socialism and the rapid spreading of Socialist views among the working classes."[563]The moment when private property is to disappear is near, therefore: be it in a few years,[564]be it at the end of the nineteenth century,[565]in any case it will come soon.[566]
II.In mankind's next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, must soon be attained, property will take such form that only property of society shall exist.The "next phase of evolution,"[567]"higher form of social organization,"[568]will "inevitably"[569]be not only Anarchism, but "Anarchistic Communism."[570]"The tendencies towards economical and political freedom are two different manifestations of the very same need of equality which constitutes the very essence of all struggles mentioned by history";[571]"these two powerful currents of thought characterize our century."[572]
In this way a comfortable life will be guaranteed to every person who co-operates in production to a certain extent.
1. Mankind's next stage of evolution will no longer know any but the property of society.
"In our century the Communist tendency is continually reasserting itself. The penny bridge disappears before the public bridge; and the turnpike roadbefore the free road. The same spirit pervades thousands of other institutions. Museums, free libraries, and free public schools; parks and pleasure grounds; paved and lighted streets, free for everybody's use; water supplied to private dwellings, with a growing tendency towards disregarding the exact amount of it used by the individual; tramways and railways which have already begun to introduce the season ticket or the uniform tax, and will surely go much further on this line when they are no longer private property: all these are tokens showing in what direction further progress is to be expected."[573]
So will the future society be Communistic. "The first act of the nineteenth-century commune will consist in laying hands on the entire capital accumulated in its bosom."[574]This applies "to the materials for consumption as well as to those for production."[575]"People have tried to make a distinction between the capital that serves for the production of goods and that which satisfies the wants of life, and have said that machines, factories, raw materials, the means of transportation, and the land are destined to become the property of the community; while dwellings, finished products, clothing, and provisions will remain private property. This distinction is erroneous and impracticable. The house that shelters us, the coal and gas that we burn, the nutriment that our body burns up, the clothing that covers us, and the book from which we draw instruction, are all essential to our existence and are just as necessary for successfulproduction and for the further development of mankind as are machines, factories, raw materials, and other factors of production. With private property in the former goods, there would still remain inequality, oppression, and exploitation; a half-way abolition of private property would have its effectiveness crippled in advance."[576]
There is no fear that the Communistic communes will isolate themselves.[577]"If to-day a great city transforms itself into a Communistic commune, and introduces community of the materials for both work and enjoyment, then in a very few days, if it is not shut in by hostile armies, trains of wagons will appear in its markets, and raw materials will arrive from distant ports; and the city's industrial products, when once the wants of the population are satisfied, will go to the ends of the earth seeking purchasers; throngs of strangers will stream in from near and far, and will afterward tell at home of the marvelous life of the free city where everybody works, where there are neither poor nor oppressed, where every one enjoys the fruit of his toil, and no one interferes with another's doing so."[578]
2. The Communism of the future society will "not be the Communism of the convent or the barrack, such as was formerly preached, but a free Communism which puts the joint products at the disposal of all while leaving to every one the liberty of using them at home."[579]To get an entirely clear idea of every detail of it, indeed, is not as yet possible; "nevertheless wemust come to an agreement about the fundamental features at least."[580]
What form will production take?
That must first be produced which is requisite "for the satisfaction of man's most urgent wants."[581]For this it suffices "that all adults, with the exception of those women who are occupied with the education of children, engage to do five hours a day, from the age of twenty or twenty-two to the age of forty-five or fifty, of any one (at their option) of the labors that are regarded as necessary."[582]"For instance, a society would enter into the following contract with each of its members: 'We will guarantee to you the enjoyment of our houses, stores of goods, streets, conveyances, schools, museums, etc., on condition that from your twentieth year to your forty-fifth or fiftieth you apply five hours every day to one of the labors necessary to life. Every moment you will have your choice of the groups you will join, or you may found a new one provided that it proposes to do necessary service. For the rest of your time you may associate yourself with whom you like for the purpose of scientific or artistic recreation at your pleasure. We ask of you, therefore, nothing but twelve or fifteen hundred hours' work annually in one of the groups which produce food, clothing, and shelter, or which care for health, transportation, etc.; and in return we insure to you all that these groups produce or have produced'."[583]
There will be time enough, therefore, to produce what is requisite for the satisfaction of less urgentwants. "When one has done in the field or the factory the work that he is under obligation to do for society, he can devote the other half of his day, his week, or his year, to the satisfaction of artistic or scientific wants."[584]"The lover of music who wishes a piano will enter the association of instrument-makers; he will devote part of his half-days, and will soon possess the longed-for piano. Or the enthusiast in astronomy will join the astronomers' association with its philosophers, observers, calculators, and opticians, its scholars and amateurs; and he will obtain the telescope he wishes, if only he dedicates some work to the common cause—for there is a deal of rough work necessary for an observatory, masons' work, carpenters' work, founders' work, machinists' work—the final polish, to be sure, can be given to the instrument of precision by none but the artist. In a word, the five to seven hours that every one has left, after he has first devoted some hours to the production of the necessary, are quite sufficient to render possible for him every kind of luxury."[585]
"The separation of agriculture from manufactures will pass away. The factory workmen will be at the same time field workmen."[586]"As an eminently periodic industry, which at certain times (and even more in the making of improvements than in harvest) needs a large additional force, agriculture will form the link between village and city."[587]And "the separation of mental from bodily labor will come to an end"[588]too. "Poets and scientists will no longer find poor devilswho will sell their energies to them for a plate of soup; they will have to get together and print their writings themselves. Then the authors, and their admirers of both sexes, will soon acquire the art of handling the type-case and composing-stick; they will learn the pleasure of producing jointly, with their own hands, a work that they value."[589]"Every labor will be agreeable."[590]"If there is still work which is really disagreeable in itself, it is only because our scientific men have never cared to consider the means of rendering it less so: they have always known that there were plenty of starving men who would do it for a few pence a day."[591]"Factories, smelters, mines, can be as sanitary and as splendid as the best laboratories of our universities; and the more perfectly they are fitted up the more they will produce."[592]And the product of such labor will be "infinitely better, and considerably greater, than the mass of goods hitherto produced under the goad of slavery, serfdom, and wage-slavery."[593]
How will distribution take place?
Every one who contributes his part to production will also have his share in the product. But it must not be assumed that this share in the product will correspond to that share in the production. "Each according to his powers; to each according to his wants."[594]"Need will be put above service; it will be recognized that every one who co-operates in production to a certain extent has in the first place theright to live, and in the second place the right to live comfortably."[595]"Every one, no matter how strong or weak, how competent or incompetent he may be, will have the right to live,"[596]and "to have a comfortable life; he will furthermore have the right to decide for himself what belongs to a comfortable life."[597]
Society's stock of goods will quite permit this. "If one considers on the one hand the rapidity with which the productive power of civilized nations is increasing, and on the other hand the limits that are directly or indirectly set to its production by present conditions, one comes to the conclusion that even a moderately sensible economic constitution would permit the civilized nations to heap up in a few years so many useful things that we should have to cry out 'Enough! enough coal! enough bread! enough clothes! Let us rest, take recreation, put our strength to a better use, spend our time in a better way!'"[598]
However, what if the stock should in fact not suffice for all wants? "The solution is—free taking of everything that exists in superfluity, and rations of that in which there is a possibility of dearth: rations according to needs, with preference to children, the aged, and the weak in general. That is what is done even now in the country. What commune thinks of limiting the use of the meadows so long as there are enough of them? what commune, so long as there are chestnuts and brushwood enough, hinders those who belong to it from taking as much as they please?And what does the peasant introduce when there is a prospect that firewood will give out? Rationing."[599]