rights,' the 'duties of the State' and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best conditions for realising the greatest happiness of humanity. He follows, on the contrary, the course traced by the modern philosophy of evolution. …. He studies human society as it is now, and was in the past; and, without either endowing men altogether, or separate individuals, with superior qualities which they do not possess, he merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of co-operation for the welfare of the species. He studies society and tries to discover its tendencies, past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economical, and in this he merely points out in which direction evolution goes."[1]
So the Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with the Utopians. They do not, in the elaborating of their "ideal," turn to metaphysical conceptions like "natural rights," "duties of the State," etc. Is this really so?
So far as the "duties of the State" are concerned, Kropotkine is quite right; it would be too absurd if the Anarchists invited the State to disappear in the name of its own "duties." But as to "natural rights" he is altogether mistaken. A few quotations will suffice to prove this.
Already in the Bulletin de la Fédération Jurasienne (No. 3, 1877 ), we find the following very significant declaration: "The sovereignty of the people can only exist through the most complete autonomy of individuals and of groups." This "most complete autonomy," is it not also a "metaphysical conception?"
The Bulletin de la Fédération Jurasienne was an organ of Collectivist Anarchism. At bottom there is no difference between "Collectivist" and "Communist" Anarchism.
- ↑ "Anarchist-Communism; its Basis and Principles," by Peter Kropotkine, republished by permission of the Editor of the Nineteenth Century. February and August, 1887, London.
