ANARCHISM: WHAT IT REALLY STANDS FOR
Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."
O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven
The truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word's right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! Thine secure
When each at least unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
I cannot tell--but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!
THE history of human growth and development is at the same time the
history of the terrible struggle of every new idea heralding the
approach of a brighter dawn. In its tenacious hold on tradition, the
Old has never hesitated to make use of the foulest and cruelest means
to stay the advent of the New, in whatever form or period the latter
may have asserted itself. Nor need we retrace our steps into the
distant past to realize the enormity of opposition, difficulties, and
hardships placed in the path of every progressive idea. The rack, the
thumbscrew, and the knout are still with us; so are the convict's garb
and the social wrath, all conspiring against the spirit that is
serenely marching on.
Anarchism could not hope to escape the fate of all other ideas of
innovation. Indeed, as the most revolutionary and uncompromising
innovator, Anarchism must needs meet with the combined ignorance and
venom of the world it aims to reconstruct.
To deal even remotely with all that is being said and done against
Anarchism would necessitate the writing of a whole volume. I shall
therefore meet only two of the principal objections. In so doing, I
shall attempt to elucidate what Anarchism really stands for.
The strange phenomenon of the opposition to Anarchism is that it
brings to light the relation between so-called intelligence and
ignorance. And yet this is not so very strange when we consider the
relativity of all things. The ignorant mass has in its favor that it
makes no pretense of knowledge or tolerance. Acting, as it always
does, by mere impulse, its reasons are like those of a child. "Why?"
"Because." Yet the opposition of the uneducated to Anarchism deserves
the same consideration as that of the intelligent man.
What, then, are the objections? First, Anarchism is impractical,
though a beautiful ideal. Second, Anarchism stands for violence and
destruction, hence it must be repudiated as vile and dangerous. Both
the intelligent man and the ignorant mass judge not from a thorough
knowledge of the subject, but either from hearsay or false
interpretation.
A practical scheme, says Oscar Wilde, is either one already in
existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under the existing
conditions; but it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects
to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and
foolish. The true criterion of the practical, therefore, is not
whether the latter can keep intact the wrong or foolish; rather is it
whether the scheme has vitality enough to leave the stagnant waters of
the old, and build, as well as sustain, new life. In the light of this
conception, Anarchism is indeed practical. More than any other idea,
it is helping to do away with the wrong and foolish; more than any
other idea, it is building and sustaining new life.
The emotions of the ignorant man are continuously kept at a pitch
by the most blood-curdling stories about Anarchism. Not a thing too
outrageous to be employed against this philosophy and its exponents.
Therefore Anarchism represents to the unthinking what the proverbial
bad man does to the child,--a black monster bent on swallowing
everything; in short, destruction and violence.
Destruction and violence! How is the ordinary man to know that the
most violent element in society is ignorance; that its power of
destruction is the very thing Anarchism is combating? Nor is he aware
that Anarchism, whose roots, as it were, are part of nature's forces,
destroys, not healthful tissue, but parasitic growths that feed on the
life's essence of society. It is merely clearing the soil from weeds
and sagebrush, that it may eventually bear healthy fruit.
Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn
than to think. The widespread mental indolence, so prevalent in
society, proves this to be only too true. Rather than to go to the
bottom of any given idea, to examine into its origin and meaning, most
people will either condemn it altogether, or rely on some superficial
or prejudicial definition of non-essentials.
Anarchism urges man to think, to investigate, to analyze every
proposition; but that the brain capacity of the average reader be not
taxed too much, I also shall begin with a definition, and then
elaborate on the latter.
ANARCHISM:--The philosophy of a new social order based on
liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of
government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as
well as unnecessary.
The new social order rests, of course, on the materialistic basis
of life; but while all Anarchists agree that the main evil today is an
economic one, they maintain that the solution of that evil can be
brought about only through the consideration of every phase of
life,--individual, as well as the collective; the internal, as well as
the external phases.
A thorough perusal of the history of human development will
disclose two elements in bitter conflict with each other; elements
that are only now beginning to be understood, not as foreign to each
other, but as closely related and truly harmonious, if only placed in
proper environment: the individual and social instincts. The
individual and society have waged a relentless and bloody battle for
ages, each striving for supremacy, because each was blind to the value
and importance of the other. The individual and social instincts,--the
one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth,
aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for
mutual helpfulness and social well-being.
The explanation of the storm raging within the individual, and
between him and his surroundings, is not far to seek. The primitive
man, unable to understand his being, much less the unity of all life,
felt himself absolutely dependent on blind, hidden forces ever ready
to mock and taunt him. Out of that attitude grew the religious
concepts of man as a mere speck of dust dependent on superior powers
on high, who can only be appeased by complete surrender. All the early
sagas rest on that idea, which continues to be the Leitmotiv of
the biblical tales dealing with the relation of man to God, to the
State, to society. Again and again the same motif, man is nothing,
the powers are everything. Thus Jehovah would only endure man on
condition of complete surrender. Man can have all the glories of the
earth, but he must not become conscious of himself. The State,
society, and moral laws all sing the same refrain: Man can have all
the glories of the earth, but he must not become conscious of
himself.
Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the
consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and
society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since
they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination. Anarchism is
therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but
in man. There is no conflict between the individual and the social
instincts, any more than there is between the heart and the lungs: the
one the receptacle of a precious life essence, the other the
repository of the element that keeps the essence pure and strong. The
individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social
life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep
the life essence--that is, the individual--pure and strong.
"The one thing of value in the world," says Emerson,
"is the active soul; this every man contains within him. The soul
active sees absolute truth and utters truth and creates." In
other words, the individual instinct is the thing of value in the
world. It is the true soul that sees and creates the truth alive, out
of which is to come a still greater truth, the re-born social
soul.
Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that
have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two
forces for individual and social harmony. To accomplish that unity,
Anarchism has declared war on the pernicious influences which have so
far prevented the harmonious blending of individual and social
instincts, the individual and society.
Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion
of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct,
represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it
entails. Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and
degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion.
But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so
tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and
tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began. Anarchism
rouses man to rebellion against this black monster. Break your mental
fetters, says Anarchism to man, for not until you think and judge for
yourself will you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest
obstacle to all progress.
Property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial of the right to
satisfy his needs. Time was when property claimed a divine right, when
it came to man with the same refrain, even as religion,
"Sacrifice! Abnegate! Submit!" The spirit of Anarchism has
lifted man from his prostrate position. He now stands erect, with his
face toward the light. He has learned to see the insatiable,
devouring, devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to
strike the monster dead.
"Property is robbery," said the great French Anarchist
Proudhon. Yes, but without risk and danger to the robber. Monopolizing
the accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his
birthright, and has turned him loose a pauper and an outcast. Property
has not even the time-worn excuse that man does not create enough to
satisfy all needs. The A B C student of economics knows that the
productivity of labor within the last few decades far exceeds normal
demand. But what are normal demands to an abnormal institution? The
only demand that property recognizes is its own gluttonous appetite
for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue,
to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade.
America is particularly boastful of her great power, her enormous
national wealth. Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the
individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in
squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless,
soilless army of human prey.
It is generally conceded that unless the returns of any business
venture exceed the cost, bankruptcy is inevitable. But those engaged
in the business of producing wealth have not yet learned even this
simple lesson. Every year the cost of production in human life is
growing larger (50,000 killed, 100,000 wounded in America last year);
the returns to the masses, who help to create wealth, are ever getting
smaller. Yet America continues to be blind to the inevitable
bankruptcy of our business of production. Nor is this the only crime
of the latter. Still more fatal is the crime of turning the producer
into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than
his master of steel and iron. Man is being robbed not merely of the
products of his labor, but of the power of free initiative, of
originality, and the interest in, or desire for, the things he is
making.
Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things
that help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings
inspiring to live in. But if man is doomed to wind cotton around a
spool, or dig coal, or build roads for thirty years of his life, there
can be no talk of wealth. What he gives to the world is only gray and
hideous things, reflecting a dull and hideous existence,--too weak to
live, too cowardly to die. Strange to say, there are people who extol
this deadening method of centralized production as the proudest
achievement of our age. They fail utterly to realize that if we are to
continue in machine subserviency, our slavery is more complete than
was our bondage to the King. They do not want to know that
centralization is not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of
health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in a
clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.
Anarchism cannot but repudiate such a method of production: its
goal is the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the
individual. Oscar Wilde defines a perfect personality as "one who
develops under perfect conditions, who is not wounded, maimed, or in
danger." A perfect personality, then, is only possible in a state
of society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the
conditions of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of
a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what
the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist,--the
result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work
as a creative force. That being the ideal of Anarchism, its economic
arrangements must consist of voluntary productive and distributive
associations, gradually developing into free communism, as the best
means of producing with the least waste of human energy. Anarchism,
however, also recognizes the right of the individual, or numbers of
individuals, to arrange at all times for other forms of work, in
harmony with their tastes and desires.
Such free display of human energy being possible only under
complete individual and social freedom, Anarchism directs its forces
against the third and greatest foe of all social equality; namely, the
State, organized authority, or statutory law,--the dominion of human
conduct.
Just as religion has fettered the human mind, and as property, or
the monopoly of things, has subdued and stifled man's needs, so has
the State enslaved his spirit, dictating every phase of conduct.
"All government in essence," says Emerson, "is
tyranny." It matters not whether it is government by divine right
or majority rule. In every instance its aim is the absolute
subordination of the individual.
Referring to the American government, the greatest American
Anarchist, David Thoreau, said: "Government, what is it but a
tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself
unimpaired to posterity, but each instance losing its integrity; it
has not the vitality and force of a single living man. Law never made
man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the
well disposed are daily made agents of injustice."
Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance
and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments
ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses,
while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the
annihilation of individual liberty. Thus Ouida is right when she
maintains that "the State only aims at instilling those qualities
in its public by which its demands are obeyed, and its exchequer is
filled. Its highest attainment is the reduction of mankind to
clockwork. In its atmosphere all those finer and more delicate
liberties, which require treatment and spacious expansion, inevitably
dry up and perish. The State requires a taxpaying machine in which
there is no hitch, an exchequer in which there is never a deficit, and
a public, monotonous, obedient, colorless, spiritless, moving humbly
like a flock of sheep along a straight high road between two
walls."
Yet even a flock of sheep would resist the chicanery of the State,
if it were not for the corruptive, tyrannical, and oppressive methods
it employs to serve its purposes. Therefore Bakunin repudiates the
State as synonymous with the surrender of the liberty of the
individual or small minorities,--the destruction of social
relationship, the curtailment, or complete denial even, of life
itself, for its own aggrandizement. The State is the altar of
political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for
the purpose of human sacrifice.
In fact, there is hardly a modern thinker who does not agree that
government, organized authority, or the State, is necessary
only to maintain or protect property and monopoly. It has
proven efficient in that function only.
Even George Bernard Shaw, who hopes for the miraculous from the
State under Fabianism, nevertheless admits that "it is at present
a huge machine for robbing and slave-driving of the poor by brute
force." This being the case, it is hard to see why the clever
prefacer wishes to uphold the State after poverty shall have ceased to
exist.
Unfortunately, there are still a number of people who continue in
the fatal belief that government rests on natural laws, that it
maintains social order and harmony, that it diminishes crime, and that
it prevents the lazy man from fleecing his fellows. I shall therefore
examine these contentions.
A natural law is that factor in man which asserts itself freely
and spontaneously without any external force, in harmony with the
requirements of nature. For instance, the demand for nutrition, for
sex gratification, for light, air, and exercise, is a natural law. But
its expression needs not the machinery of government, needs not the
club, the gun, the handcuff, or the prison. To obey such laws, if we
may call it obedience, requires only spontaneity and free opportunity.
That governments do not maintain themselves through such harmonious
factors is proven by the terrible array of violence, force, and
coercion all governments use in order to live. Thus Blackstone is
right when he says, "Human laws are invalid, because they are
contrary to the laws of nature."
Unless it be the order of Warsaw after the slaughter of thousands
of people, it is difficult to ascribe to governments any capacity for
order or social harmony. Order derived through submission and
maintained by terror is not much of a safe guaranty; yet that is the
only "order" that governments have ever maintained. True
social harmony grows naturally out of solidarity of interests. In a
society where those who always work never have anything, while those
who never work enjoy everything, solidarity of interests is
non-existent; hence social harmony is but a myth. The only way
organized authority meets this grave situation is by extending still
greater privileges to those who have already monopolized the earth,
and by still further enslaving the disinherited masses. Thus the
entire arsenal of government--laws, police, soldiers, the courts,
legislatures, prisons,--is strenuously engaged in
"harmonizing" the most antagonistic elements in society.
The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve
to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the
greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in
the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment,
it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has
failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its
own creation.
Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every
institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral,
conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as
most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living
a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws
on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. What
does society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the
poverty, the horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass on
its way to crime and degradation. Who that knows this terrible process
can fail to see the truth in these words of Peter Kropotkin:
"Those who will hold the balance between the benefits thus attributed
to law and punishment and the degrading effect of the latter on
humanity; those who will estimate the torrent of depravity poured
abroad in human society by the informer, favored by the Judge even,
and paid for in clinking cash by governments, under the pretext of
aiding to unmask crime; those who will go within prison walls and
there see what human beings become when deprived of liberty, when
subjected to the care of brutal keepers, to coarse, cruel words, to a
thousand stinging, piercing humiliations, will agree with us that the
entire apparatus of prison and punishment is an abomination which
ought to be brought to an end."
The deterrent influence of law on the lazy man is too absurd to
merit consideration. If society were only relieved of the waste and
expense of keeping a lazy class, and the equally great expense of the
paraphernalia of protection this lazy class requires, the social
tables would contain an abundance for all, including even the
occasional lazy individual. Besides, it is well to consider that
laziness results either from special privileges, or physical and
mental abnormalities. Our present insane system of production fosters
both, and the most astounding phenomenon is that people should want to
work at all now. Anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening,
dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to make work an
instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony, so that the
poorest sort of a man should find in work both recreation and
hope.
To achieve such an arrangement of life, government, with its
unjust, arbitrary, repressive measures, must be done away with. At
best it has but imposed one single mode of life upon all, without
regard to individual and social variations and needs. In destroying
government and statutory laws, Anarchism proposes to rescue the
self-respect and independence of the individual from all restraint and
invasion by authority. Only in freedom can man grow to his full
stature. Only in freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the
very best in him. Only in freedom will he realize the true force of
the social bonds which knit men together, and which are the true
foundation of a normal social life.
But what about human nature? Can it be changed? And if not, will
it endure under Anarchism?
Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy
name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson
to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak
authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the
more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human
nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a
prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?
John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in
captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their
appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil
in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space,
whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its
potentialities?
Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose,
alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all
its wonderful possibilities.
Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human
mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body
from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and
restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on
the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real
social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free
access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life,
according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.
This is not a wild fancy or an aberration of the mind. It is the
conclusion arrived at by hosts of intellectual men and women the world
over; a conclusion resulting from the close and studious observation
of the tendencies of modern society: individual liberty and economic
equality, the twin forces for the birth of what is fine and true in
man.
As to methods. Anarchism is not, as some may suppose, a theory of
the future to be realized through divine inspiration. It is a living
force in the affairs of our life, constantly creating new conditions.
The methods of Anarchism therefore do not comprise an iron-clad
program to be carried out under all circumstances. Methods must grow
out of the economic needs of each place and clime, and of the
intellectual and temperamental requirements of the individual. The
serene, calm character of a Tolstoy will wish different methods for
social reconstruction than the intense, overflowing personality of a
Michael Bakunin or a Peter Kropotkin. Equally so it must be apparent
that the economic and political needs of Russia will dictate more
drastic measures than would England or America. Anarchism does not
stand for military drill and uniformity; it does, however, stand for
the spirit of revolt, in whatever form, against everything that
hinders human growth. All Anarchists agree in that, as they also agree
in their opposition to the political machinery as a means of bringing
about the great social change.
"All voting," says Thoreau, "is a sort of gaming, like checkers, or
backgammon, a playing with right and wrong; its obligation never
exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right thing is doing
nothing for it. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of
chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority." A
close examination of the machinery of politics and its achievements
will bear out the logic of Thoreau.
What does the history of parliamentarism show? Nothing but failure
and defeat, not even a single reform to ameliorate the economic and
social stress of the people. Laws have been passed and enactments made
for the improvement and protection of labor. Thus it was proven only
last year that Illinois, with the most rigid laws for mine protection,
had the greatest mine disasters. In States where child labor laws
prevail, child exploitation is at its highest, and though with us the
workers enjoy full political opportunities, capitalism has reached the
most brazen zenith.
Even were the workers able to have their own representatives, for
which our good Socialist politicians are clamoring, what chances are
there for their honesty and good faith? One has but to bear in mind
the process of politics to realize that its path of good intentions is
full of pitfalls: wire-pulling, intriguing, flattering, lying,
cheating; in fact, chicanery of every description, whereby the
political aspirant can achieve success. Added to that is a complete
demoralization of character and conviction, until nothing is left that
would make one hope for anything from such a human derelict. Time and
time again the people were foolish enough to trust, believe, and
support with their last farthing aspiring politicians, only to find
themselves betrayed and cheated.
It may be claimed that men of integrity would not become corrupt
in the political grinding mill. Perhaps not; but such men would be
absolutely helpless to exert the slightest influence in behalf of
labor, as indeed has been shown in numerous instances. The State is
the economic master of its servants. Good men, if such there be, would
either remain true to their political faith and lose their economic
support, or they would cling to their economic master and be utterly
unable to do the slightest good. The political arena leaves one no
alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.
The political superstition is still holding sway over the hearts
and minds of the masses, but the true lovers of liberty will have no
more to do with it. Instead, they believe with Stirner that man has as
much liberty as he is willing to take. Anarchism therefore stands for
direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and
restrictions, economic, social, and moral. But defiance and resistance
are illegal. Therein lies the salvation of man. Everything illegal
necessitates integrity, self-reliance, and courage. In short, it calls
for free, independent spirits, for "men who are men, and who have
a bone in their backs which you cannot pass your hand
through."
Universal suffrage itself owes its existence to direct action. If
not for the spirit of rebellion, of the defiance on the part of the
American revolutionary fathers, their posterity would still wear the
King's coat. If not for the direct action of a John Brown and his
comrades, America would still trade in the flesh of the black man.
True, the trade in white flesh is still going on; but that, too, will
have to be abolished by direct action. Trade-unionism, the economic
arena of the modern gladiator, owes its existence to direct action. It
is but recently that law and government have attempted to crush the
trade-union movement, and condemned the exponents of man's right to
organize to prison as conspirators. Had they sought to assert their
cause through begging, pleading, and compromise, trade-unionism would
today be a negligible quantity. In France, in Spain, in Italy, in
Russia, nay even in England (witness the growing rebellion of English
labor unions), direct, revolutionary, economic action has become so
strong a force in the battle for industrial liberty as to make the
world realize the tremendous importance of labor's power. The General
Strike, the supreme expression of the economic consciousness of the
workers, was ridiculed in America but a short time ago. Today every
great strike, in order to win, must realize the importance of the
solidaric general protest.
Direct action, having proven effective along economic lines, is
equally potent in the environment of the individual. There a hundred
forces encroach upon his being, and only persistent resistance to them
will finally set him free. Direct action against the authority in the
shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action
against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the
logical, consistent method of Anarchism.
Will it not lead to a revolution? Indeed, it will. No real social
change has ever come about without a revolution. People are either not
familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that
revolution is but thought carried into action.
Anarchism, the great leaven of thought, is today permeating every
phase of human endeavor. Science, art, literature, the drama, the
effort for economic betterment, in fact every individual and social
opposition to the existing disorder of things, is illumined by the
spiritual light of Anarchism. It is the philosophy of the sovereignty
of the individual. It is the theory of social harmony. It is the
great, surging, living truth that is reconstructing the world, and
that will usher in the Dawn.
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