XII.
ANARCHISM—(Continued).
If the revolt against the State, so long as it was advocated, before 1848 and later on till the Paris Commune, by middle-class writers, took the character of a revolt of the individual against society and its hypocrisy,—now, when a similar revolt began to take place among the-working men, it took a deeper character. It became a research of those forms of society which might get rid of the oppression and exploitation of men by other men which is now going on with the aid of the State. In the International Working Men's Association its founders saw the embryo of that society which would be called into existence by a social revolution—a society where the functions now belonging to Government would be substituted by free agreements growing out of the direct relations between free groups of producers and consumers. In these surroundings the ideal of the Anarchist ceased to be individual: it became social.
In proportion as the workers of Europe and America began to know each other directly, without the intermediary of Governments, they grew more and more convinced of their own forces and of their capacity for rebuilding society on new bases. They saw that if the people resumed possession of the land and of all that is required for producing all sorts of necessaries of life, and if the associations of men and women who would work on the land, in the factories, in the mines, and so on, became themselves the managers of production, they would be able, in such conditions, to produce with the greatest ease all that is necessary for the life of society, so as to guarantee well-being for all, and also some leisure for all. The recent progress in science and technics rendered this point more and more evident. Besides, in a vast international organisation of producers and consumers, the exchange of produce could be organised with the same ease—once it would not be done for the enrichment of the few.
At the same time, the ever-growing thinking portion of the workers saw that the State, with its traditions, its hierarchy, and its narrow nationalism, would always stand in the way of the development of such an organisation; and the experiments made in different countries with the view of partially alleviating the social evils within the present middle class State proved more and more the fallacy of such tactics.
The wider the sphere of those experiments, the more evident it was that the machinery of the State could not be utilised as an instrument of emancipation. The State is an institution which was developed for the very purpose of establishing monopolies in favour of the slave and serf owners, the landed proprietors, canonic and laic, the merchant guilds and the moneylenders, the kings, the military commanders, the "noble-men," and finally, in the nineteenth century, the industrial capitalists, whom the State supplied with "hands" driven away from the land. Consequently the State would be, to say the least, a useless institution, once these monopolies ceased to exist. Life would be simplified, once the mechanism created for the exploitation of the poor by the rich would have been done away with.
The idea of independent Communes for the territorial organisation, and of federations of Trade Unions for the organisation of men in accordance with their different functions, gave a concrete conception of society regenerated by a social revolution. There remained only to add to these two modes of organisation a third, which we saw rapidly developing during the last fifty years, since a little liberty was conquered in this direction: the thousands upon thousands of free combines and societies growing up everywhere for the satisfaction of all possible and imaginable needs, economic, sanitary, and educational; for mutual protection, for the propaganda of ideas, for art, for amusement, and so on. All of them covering each other, and all of them always ready to meet the new needs by new organisations and adjustments.
More than that. It begins to be understood now that if human societies go on developing on these lines, coercion and punishment must necessarily fall into decay. The greatest obstacle to the maintenance of a certain moral level in our present societies lies in the absence of social equality. Without real equality, the sense of justice can never be universally developed, because Justice implies the recognition of Equality; while in a society in which the principles of justice would not be contradicted at every step by the existing inequalities of rights and possibilities of development, they would be bound to spread and to enter into the habits of the people.
In such a case the individual would be free, in the sense that his freedom would not be limited any more by fear: by the fear of a social or a mystical punishment, or by obedience, either to other men reputed to be his superiors, or to mystical and metaphysical entities—which leads in both eases to intellectual servility (one of the greatest curses of mankind) and to the lowering of the moral level of men.
In free surroundings based upon Equality, man might with full confidence let himself be guided by his own reason (which, of course, by necessity, would bear the stamp of his social surroundings). And he might also attain the full development of his individuality; while the "individualism" considered now by middle-class intellectuals as the means for the development of the better-gifted individuals, is, as every one may himself see, the chief obstacle to this development. Not only because, with a low productivity, which is kept at a low level by Capitalism and the State, the immense majority of gifted men have neither the leisure nor the chance to develop their higher gifts; but also because those who have that leisure are recognised and rewarded by the present society on the condition of never going "too far" in their criticisms of that society, and especially—never going over to acts that may lead to its destruction, or even to a serious reform. Those only are allowed to attain a certain "development of their individualities" who are not dangerous in this respect—those who are merely "interesting," but not dangerous to the Philistine.
The Anarchists, we have said, build their previsions of the future upon those data which are supplied by the observation of life at the present time.
Thus, when we examine into the tendencies that have prevailed in the life of civilised countries since the end of the eighteenth century, we certainly do not fail to see how strong the centralising and authoritarian tendency was during that time, both among the middle classes and those working men who have been educated in the ideas of the middle classes and now strive to enter the ranks of their present rulers and exploiters.
But at the same time it is a fact that the anti-centralist and anti-militarist ideas, as well as the ideas of a free understanding, grow stronger and stronger nowadays both among the working men and the better educated and more or less intellectually free portions of the middle classes—especially in Western Europe.
I have shown, indeed, elsewhere (in "Conquest of Bread" and in "Mutual Aid") how strong at the present time is the tendency to constitute freely, outside the State and the Churches, thousands upon thousands of free organisations for all sorts of needs: economic (agreements between the railway companies, the Labour Syndicates, trusts of employers, agricultural co-operation, co-operation for export, etc.), political, intellectual, artistic, educational, and so on. What formerly belonged without a shadow of doubt to the functions of the State, or the Church, enters now into the domain of free organisation.
This tendency develops with a striking rapidity under our very eyes. It was sufficient that a breath of emancipation should have slightly limited the powers of Church and State in their never-satisfied tendency towards further extension—and voluntary organisations have already germinated by the thousand. And we may be sure that every new limitation that may be imposed upon State and Church—the two inveterate enemies of freedom—will still further widen the sphere of action of the free organisations.
Future progress lies in this direction, and Anarchism works precisely that way.
Passing now to the economic views of Anarchists, three different conceptions must be distinguished.
So long as Socialism was understood in its wide, generic, and true sense—as an effort to abolish the exploitation of Labour by Capital—the Anarchists were marching hand-in-hand with the Socialists of that time. But they were compelled to separate from them when the Socialists began to say that there is no possibility of abolishing capitalist exploitation within the lifetime of our generation: that during that phase of economic evolution which we are now living through we have only to mitigate the exploitation, and to impose upon the capitalists certain legal limitations.
Contrarily to this tendency of the present-day Socialists, we maintain that already now, without waiting for the coming of new phases and forms of the capitalist exploitation of Labour, we must work for its abolition. We must, already now, tend to transfer all that is needed for production—the soil, the mines, the factories, the means of communication, and the means of existence, too—from the hands of the individual capitalist into those of the communities of producers and consumers.
As for the political organisation—i.e., the forms of the commonwealth in the midst of which an economic revolution could be accomplished—we entirely differ from all the sections of State Socialists in that we do not see in the system of State Capitalism, which is now preached under the name of Collectivism, a solution of the social question. 'VS e see in the organisation of the poets and telegraphs, in the State railways, and the like—which are represented as illustrations of a society without capitalists—nothing but a new, perhaps improved, but still undesirable form of the Wage System. We even think that such a solution of the social problem would so much run against the present libertarian tendencies of civilised mankind, that it simply would be unrealisable.
We maintain that the State organisation, having been the force to which the minorities resorted for establishing and organising their power over the masses, cannot be the force which will serve to destroy these privileges. The lessons of history tell us that a new form of economic life always calls forth a new form of political organisation; and a Socialist society (whether Communist or Collectivist) cannot be an exception to this rule. Just as the Churches cannot be utilised for freeing man from his old superstitions, and just as the feeling of human solidarity will have to find other channels for its expression besides the Churches, so also the economic and political liberation of man will have to create new forms for its expression in life, instead of those established by the State.
Consequently, the chief aim of Anarchism is to awaken those constructive powers of the labouring masses of the people which at all great moments of history came forward to accomplish the necessary changes, and which, aided by the now accumulated knowledge, will accomplish the change that is called forth by all the best men of our own time.
This is also why the Anarchists refuse to accept the functions of legislators or servants of the State. We know that the social revolution will not be accomplished by means of laws. Laws can only follow the accomplished facts; and even if they honestly do follow them—which usually is not the case—a law remains a dead letter so long as there are not on the spot the living forces required for making of the tendencies expressed in the law an accomplished fact.
On the other hand, since the times of the International Working Men's Association, the Anarchists have always advised taking an active part in those workers' organisations which carry on the direct struggle of Labour against Capital and its protector,—the State.
Such a struggle, they say, better than any other indirect means, permits the worker to obtain some temporary improvements in the present conditions of work, while it opens his eyes to the evil that is done by Capitalism and the State that supports it, and wakes up his thoughts concerning the possibility of organising consumption, production, and exchange without the intervention of the capitalist and the State.
The opinions of the Anarchists concerning the form which the remuneration of labour may take in a society freed from the yoke of Capital and State still remain divided.
To begin with, all are agreed in repudiating the now form of the Wage System which would be established if the State became the owner of all the land, the mines, the factories, the railways, and so on, and the great organiser and manager of agriculture and all the industries. If these powers were added to those which the State already possesses (taxes, defence of the territory, subsidised religions, etc.), we should create a new tyranny, even more terrible than the old one.
The greater number of Anarchists accept the Communist solution. They see that the only form of Communism that would be acceptable in a civilised society is one which would exist without the continual interference of Government, i.e., the Anarchist form. And they realise also that an Anarchist society of a large size would be impossible, unless it would begin by guaranteeing to all its members a certain minimum of well-being produced in common. Communism and Anarchy thus complete each other.
However, by the side of this main current there are those who see in Anarchism a rehabilitation of Individualism.
This last current is, in our opinion, a survival from those times when the power of production of food stuffs and of all industrial commodities had not yet reached the perfection they have attained now. In those times Communism was truly considered as equivalent to general poverty and misery, and well-being was looked at as something which is accessible to a very small number only. But this quite real and extremely important obstacle to Communism exists no more. Owing to the immense productivity of human labour which has been reached nowadays in all directions—agricultural and industrial—it is quite certain, on the contrary, that a very high degree of well-being can easily be obtained in a few years by Communist work.
Be this as it may, the Individualist Anarchists sub-divide into two branches. There are, first, the pure Individualists, in the sense of Max Stirner, who have lately gained some support in the beautiful poetical form of the writings of Nietzsche. But we have already said once how metaphysical and remote from real life is this "self-assertion of the individual"; how it runs against the feelings of equality of most of us; and how it brings the would-be "Individualists" dangerously near to those who imagine themselves to represent a "superior breed"—those to whom we owe the State, the Church, modern legislation, the police, militarism, Imperialism, and all other forms of oppression.
The other branch of Individualist Anarchists comprises the Mutualists, in the sense of Proudhon, of whom we spoke in a previous chapter, and whose ideas, we have seen, have had a certain success in the United States, so that there are still organisations of farmers who exchange their produce on the principle of the hour-for-an-hour cheques. However, there will always be against this system the objection that it could hardly be compatible with a system of common ownership of land and the necessaries for production. Communism in the possession of land, factories, etc., and Individualism in production are too contradictory to co-exist in the same society—to say nothing of the difficulty of estimating the market value, or the selling value, of a product by the average time that is necessary, or the time that was actually used, in producing it. To bring men to agree upon such an estimation of their work would already require a deep penetration of the Communist principle into their ideas—at least, for all produce of first necessity. And if a community introduced, as a further concession to Individualism, a higher payment for skilled work, or chances of promotion in a hierarchy of functionaries, this would reintroduce all those inconveniences of the present Wage System which are combatted now by the workers.
To some extent the same remark applies to the American Anarchist Individualists who were represented in the "fifties" by S. P. Andrews and W. Greene, later on by Lysander Spooner, and now are represented by Benjamin Tucker, the well-known editor of the New York Liberty. Their ideas are partly those of Proudhon, but partly also those of Herbert Spencer. They start from the principle that the only law which is obligatory for the Anarchist is to mind his own business, and not to meddle with that of others; that each individual and each group have the right, to oppress all mankind—if they have the force to do so; and that if this only law, of minding one’s own business, had received a general and complete application, it would offer no danger, because the rights of each individual would have been limited by the equal rights of all others.
But, to reason in this way is to pay, in our opinion, too large a tribute to metaphysical dialectics, and to ignore the facts of real life. It is impossible to conceive a society in which the affairs of any one of its members would not concern many other members, if not all; still less a society in which a continual contact between its members would not have established an interest of every one towards all others, which would render it impossible to act without thinking of the effects which our actions may have on others.
This is why Tucker, like Spencer, after his admirable criticism of the State and a vigorous defence of the rights of the individual, comes to recognise the right of defence of its members by the State. But it was precisely by assuming the function of "defence" of its weaker members that the State, in its historical evolution, developed all its aggressive functions, which Spencer and Tucker have so brilliantly criticised.
This contradiction is probably the reason why Anarchist Individualism, while it finds followers amongst the middle-class intellectuals, does not spread amongst the workers. It must, however, be said that it renders a real service in preventing the Anarchist Communists from making too many concessions to the old idea of State officialism. Old ideas are so difficult to get rid of.
As to Anarchist Communism, it is certain that this solution wins more and more ground nowaday among those working men who try to get a clear conception as to the forthcoming revolutionary action. The Syndicalist and Trade Union movements, which permit the working men to realise their solidarity and to feel the community of their interests, much better than any elections, prepare the way for these conceptions. And it is hardly too much to hope that when some serious movement for the emancipation of Labour begins in Europe and America, attempts will be made, at least in the Latin countries, in the Anarchist Communist direction—much deeper than anything that was done by the French nation in 1793–91.