certain, that all your needs are satisfied, and, in a word, that production, thanks to free agreement, is getting on swimmingly.
What wonderful logicians these "companions" are, and what a beautiful ideal is that which has no other foundation than an illogical assumption!
"It has been objected that in leaving individuals free to organise as they like, there would arise that competition between groups which to-day exists between individuals. This is a mistake, for in the society we desire money would be abolished, consequently there would no longer be any exchange of products, but exchange of services. Besides, in order that such a social revolution as we contemplate can have been accomplished we must assume that a certain evolution of ideas will have taken place in the mind of the masses, or, at the least, of a considerable minority among them. But if the workers have been sufficiently intelligent to destroy bourgeois exploitation, it will not be in order to re-establish it among themselves, especially when they are assured all their wants will be supplied."[1]
It is incredible, but it is incontestably true: the only basis for the "Ideal" of the Anarchist-Communists, is this petitio principii, this "assumption" of the very thing that has to be proved. Companion Grave, the "profound thinker," is particularly rich in assumptions. As soon as any difficult problem presents itself, he "assumes" that it is already solved, and then everything is for the best in the best of ideals.
The "profound" Grave is less circumspect than the "learned" Kropotkine. And so it is only he who succeeds in reducing the "ideal" to "absolute" absurdity.
He asks himself what will be done if in "the society of the day after the revolution" there should be a papa who should refuse his child all education. The papa is an individual with unlimited rights. He follows the Anarchist rule, "Do as thou wouldst." No one has any right, there-
- ↑ Ibid., p. 47
