{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_23428/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_23428","id":"gutenberg_23428","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23428","summary":null,"tags":["Anarchism","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Communism"],"text":"The Conquest of Bread\n\n_By_ PETER KROPOTKIN\n\n_Author of \"Fields, Factories, and Workshops\"\n\"The Memoirs of a Revolutionist,\" Etc._\n\n[Illustration]\n\nNEW YORK\nVANGUARD PRESS\n\nMCMXXVI\n\n\nPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN (1842-1921):\n\n\n_Prince Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin_, revolutionary and scientist, was\ndescended from the old Russian nobility, but decided, at the age of\nthirty, to throw in his lot with the social rebels not only of his own\ncountry, but of the entire world. He became the intellectual leader of\nAnarchist-Communism; took part in the labor movement; wrote many books\nand pamphlets; established _Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9_ in Geneva and _Freedom_ in\nLondon; contributed to the _Encyclopedia Britannica_; was twice\nimprisoned because of his radical activities; and twice visited America.\nAfter the Bolshevist revolution he returned to Russia, kept himself\napart from Soviet activities, and died true to his ideals.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK:\n\n_The Conquest of Bread_ is a revolutionary idyl, a beautiful outline\nsketch of a future society based on liberty, equality and fraternity. It\nis, in Kropotkin's own words, \"a study of the needs of humanity, and of\nthe economic means to satisfy them.\" Read in conjunction with the same\nauthor's \"Fields, Factories and Workshops,\" it meets all the\ndifficulties of the social inquirer who says: \"The Anarchist ideal is\nalluring, but how could you work it out?\"\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER                                      PAGE\n\n     I. OUR RICHES                              1\n\n    II. WELL-BEING FOR ALL                     12\n\n   III. ANARCHIST COMMUNISM                    23\n\n    IV. EXPROPRIATION                          34\n\n     V. FOOD                                   47\n\n    VI. DWELLINGS                              73\n\n   VII. CLOTHING                               84\n\n  VIII. WAYS AND MEANS                         87\n\n    IX. THE NEED FOR LUXURY                    95\n\n     X. AGREEABLE WORK                        110\n\n    XI. FREE AGREEMENT                        119\n\n   XII. OBJECTIONS                            134\n\n  XIII. THE COLLECTIVIST WAGES SYSTEM         152\n\n   XIV. CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION            168\n\n    XV. THE DIVISION OF LABOUR                176\n\n   XVI. THE DECENTRALIZATION OF INDUSTRY      180\n\n  XVII. AGRICULTURE                           191\n\n        NOTES                                 213\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nOne of the current objections to Communism, and Socialism altogether, is\nthat the idea is so old, and yet it has never been realized. Schemes of\nideal States haunted the thinkers of Ancient Greece; later on, the early\nChristians joined in communist groups; centuries later, large communist\nbrotherhoods came into existence during the Reform movement. Then, the\nsame ideals were revived during the great English and French\nRevolutions; and finally, quite lately, in 1848, a revolution, inspired\nto a great extent with Socialist ideals, took place in France. \"And yet,\nyou see,\" we are told, \"how far away is still the realization of your\nschemes. Don't you think that there is some fundamental error in your\nunderstanding of human nature and its needs?\"\n\nAt first sight this objection seems very serious. However, the moment we\nconsider human history more attentively, it loses its strength. We see,\nfirst, that hundreds of millions of men have succeeded in maintaining\namongst themselves, in their village communities, for many hundreds of\nyears, one of the main elements of Socialism--the common ownership of\nthe chief instrument of production, the land, and the apportionment of\nthe same according to the labour capacities of the different families;\nand we learn that if the communal possession of the land has been\ndestroyed in Western Europe, it was not from within, but from without,\nby the governments which created a land monopoly in favour of the\nnobility and the middle classes. We learn, moreover, that the medieval\ncities succeeded in maintaining in their midst, for several centuries in\nsuccession, a certain socialized organization of production and trade;\nthat these centuries were periods of a rapid intellectual, industrial,\nand artistic progress; while the decay of these communal institutions\ncame mainly from the incapacity of men of combining the village with the\ncity, the peasant with the citizen, so as jointly to oppose the growth\nof the military states, which destroyed the free cities.\n\nThe history of mankind, thus understood, does not offer, then, an\nargument against Communism. It appears, on the contrary, as a succession\nof endeavours to realize some sort of communist organization, endeavours\nwhich were crowned here and there with a partial success of a certain\nduration; and all we are authorized to conclude is, that mankind has not\nyet found the proper form for combining, on communistic principles,\nagriculture with a suddenly developed industry and a rapidly growing\ninternational trade. The latter appears especially as a disturbing\nelement, since it is no longer individuals only, or cities, that enrich\nthemselves by distant commerce and export; but whole nations grow rich\nat the cost of those nations which lag behind in their industrial\ndevelopment.\n\nThese conditions, which began to appear by the end of the eighteenth\ncentury, took, however, their full development in the nineteenth century\nonly, after the Napoleonic wars came to an end. And modern Communism has\nto take them into account.\n\nIt is now known that the French Revolution, apart from its political\nsignificance, was an attempt made by the French people, in 1793 and\n1794, in three different directions more or less akin to Socialism. It\nwas, first, _the equalization of fortunes_, by means of an income tax\nand succession duties, both heavily progressive, as also by a direct\nconfiscation of the land in order to sub-divide it, and by heavy war\ntaxes levied upon the rich only. The second attempt was a sort of\n_Municipal Communism_ as regards the consumption of some objects of\nfirst necessity, bought by the municipalities, and sold by them at cost\nprice. And the third attempt was to introduce a wide _national system of\nrationally established prices of all commodities_, for which the real\ncost of production and moderate trade profits had to be taken into\naccount. The Convention worked hard at this scheme, and had nearly\ncompleted its work, when reaction took the upper hand.\n\nIt was during this remarkable movement, which has never yet been\nproperly studied, that modern Socialism was born--Fourierism with\nL'Ange, at Lyons, and authoritarian Communism with Buonarroti, Babeuf,\nand their comrades. And it was immediately after the Great Revolution\nthat the three great theoretical founders of modern Socialism--Fourier,\nSaint Simon, and Robert Owen, as well as Godwin (the No-State\nSocialism)--came forward; while the secret communist societies,\noriginated from those of Buonarroti and Babeuf, gave their stamp to\nmilitant, authoritarian Communism for the next fifty years.\n\nTo be correct, then, we must say that modern Socialism is not yet a\nhundred years old, and that, for the first half of these hundred years,\ntwo nations only, which stood at the head of the industrial movement,\ni.e., Britain and France, took part in its elaboration. Both--bleeding\nat that time from the terrible wounds inflicted upon them by fifteen\nyears of Napoleonic wars, and both enveloped in the great European\nreaction that had come from the East.\n\nIn fact, it was only after the Revolution of July, 1830, in France, and\nthe Reform movement of 1830-1832 in this country, had begun to shake off\nthat terrible reaction, that the discussion of Socialism became possible\nfor a few years before the revolution of 1848. And it was during those\nyears that the aspirations of Fourier, St. Simon, and Robert Owen,\nworked out by their followers, took a definite shape, and the different\nschools of Socialism which exist nowadays were defined.\n\nIn Britain, Robert Owen and his followers worked out their schemes of\ncommunist villages, agricultural and industrial at the same time;\nimmense co-operative associations were started for creating with their\ndividends more communist colonies; and the Great Consolidated Trades'\nUnion was founded--the forerunner of both the Labour Parties of our\ndays and the International Working-men's Association.\n\nIn France, the Fourierist Consid\u00e9rant issued his remarkable manifesto,\nwhich contains, beautifully developed, all the theoretical\nconsiderations upon the growth of Capitalism, which are now described as\n\"Scientific Socialism.\" Proudhon worked out his idea of Anarchism and\nMutualism, without State interference. Louis Blanc published his\n_Organization of Labour_, which became later on the programme of\nLassalle. Vidal in France and Lorenz Stein in Germany further developed,\nin two remarkable works, published in 1846 and 1847 respectively, the\ntheoretical conceptions of Consid\u00e9rant; and finally Vidal, and\nespecially Pecqueur, developed in detail the system of Collectivism,\nwhich the former wanted the National Assembly of 1848 to vote in the\nshape of laws.\n\nHowever, there is one feature, common to all Socialist schemes of that\nperiod, which must be noted. The three great founders of Socialism who\nwrote at the dawn of the nineteenth century were so entranced by the\nwide horizons which it opened before them, that they looked upon it as a\nnew revelation, and upon themselves as upon the founders of a new\nreligion. Socialism had to be a religion, and they had to regulate its\nmarch, as the heads of a new church. Besides, writing during the period\nof reaction which had followed the French Revolution, and seeing more\nits failures than its successes, they did not trust the masses, and they\ndid not appeal to them for bringing about the changes which they thought\nnecessary. They put their faith, on the contrary, into some great ruler,\nsome Socialist Napoleon. He would understand the new revelation; he\nwould be convinced of its desirability by the successful experiments of\ntheir phalansteries, or associations; and he would peacefully accomplish\nby his own authority the revolution which would bring well-being and\nhappiness to mankind. A military genius, Napoleon, had just been ruling\nEurope. Why should not a social genius come forward, carry Europe with\nhim and translate the new Gospel into life? That faith was rooted very\ndeep, and it stood for a long time in the way of Socialism; its traces\nare even seen amongst us, down to the present day.\n\nIt was only during the years 1840-48, when the approach of the\nRevolution was felt everywhere, and the proletarians were beginning to\nplant the banner of Socialism on the barricades, that faith in the\npeople began to enter once more the hearts of the social schemers:\nfaith, on the one side, in Republican Democracy, and on the other side\nin _free_ association, in the organizing powers of the working-men\nthemselves.\n\nBut then came the Revolution of February, 1848, the middle-class\nRepublic, and--with it, shattered hopes. Four months only after the\nproclamation of the Republic, the June insurrection of the Paris\nproletarians broke out, and it was crushed in blood. The wholesale\nshooting of the working-men, the mass deportations to New Guinea, and\nfinally the Napoleonian _coup d'\u00eatat_ followed. The Socialists were\nprosecuted with fury, and the weeding out was so terrible and so\nthorough that for the next twelve or fifteen years the very traces of\nSocialism disappeared; its literature vanished so completely that even\nnames, once so familiar before 1848, were entirely forgotten; ideas\nwhich were then current--the stock ideas of the Socialists before\n1848--were so wiped out as to be taken, later on, by our generation, for\nnew discoveries.\n\nHowever, when a new revival began, about 1866, when Communism and\nCollectivism once more came forward, it appeared that the conception as\nto the means of their realization had undergone a deep change. The old\nfaith in Political Democracy was dying out, and the first principles\nupon which the Paris working-men agreed with the British trade-unionists\nand Owenites, when they met in 1862 and 1864, at London, was that \"the\nemancipation of the working-men must be accomplished by the working-men\nthemselves.\" Upon another point they also were agreed. It was that the\nlabour unions themselves would have to get hold of the instruments of\nproduction, and organize production themselves. The French idea of the\nFourierist and Mutualist \"Association\" thus joined hands with Robert\nOwen's idea of \"The Great Consolidated Trades' Union,\" which was\nextended now, so as to become an International Working-men's\nAssociation.\n\nAgain this new revival of Socialism lasted but a few years. Soon came\nthe war of 1870-71, the uprising of the Paris Commune--and again the\nfree development of Socialism was rendered impossible in France. But\nwhile Germany accepted now from the hands of its German teachers, Marx\nand Engels, the Socialism of the French \"forty-eighters\" that is, the\nSocialism of Consid\u00e9rant and Louis Blanc, and the Collectivism of\nPecqueur,--France made a further step forward.\n\nIn March, 1871, Paris had proclaimed that henceforward it would not wait\nfor the retardatory portions of France: that it intended to start within\nits Commune its own social development.\n\nThe movement was too short-lived to give any positive result. It\nremained communalist only; it merely asserted the rights of the Commune\nto its full autonomy. But the working-classes of the old International\nsaw at once its historical significance. They understood that the free\ncommune would be henceforth the medium in which the ideas of modern\nSocialism may come to realization. The free agro-industrial communes, of\nwhich so much was spoken in England and France before 1848, need not be\nsmall phalansteries, or small communities of 2000 persons. They must be\nvast agglomerations, like Paris, or, still better, small territories.\nThese communes would federate to constitute nations in some cases, even\nirrespectively of the present national frontiers (like the Cinque Ports,\nor the Hansa). At the same time large labour associations would come\ninto existence for the inter-communal service of the railways, the\ndocks, and so on.\n\nSuch were the ideas which began vaguely to circulate after 1871 amongst\nthe thinking working-men, especially in the Latin countries. In some\nsuch organization, the details of which life itself would settle, the\nlabour circles saw the medium through which Socialist forms of life\ncould find a much easier realization than through the seizure of all\nindustrial property by the State, and the State organization of\nagriculture and industry.\n\nThese are the ideas to which I have endeavoured to give a more or less\ndefinite expression in this book.\n\nLooking back now at the years that have passed since this book was\nwritten, I can say in full conscience that its leading ideas must have\nbeen correct. State Socialism has certainly made considerable progress.\nState railways, State banking, and State trade in spirits have been\nintroduced here and there. But every step made in this direction, even\nthough it resulted in the cheapening of a given commodity, was found to\nbe a new obstacle in the struggle of the working-men for their\nemancipation. So that we find growing amongst the working-men,\nespecially in Western Europe, the idea that even the working of such a\nvast national property as a railway-net could be much better handled by\na Federated Union of railway employ\u00e9s, than by a State organization.\n\nOn the other side, we see that countless attempts have been made all\nover Europe and America, the leading idea of which is, on the one side,\nto get into the hands of the working-men themselves wide branches of\nproduction, and, on the other side, to always widen in the cities the\ncircles of the functions which the city performs in the interest of its\ninhabitants. Trade-unionism, with a growing tendency towards organizing\nthe different trades internationally, and of being not only an\ninstrument for the improvement of the conditions of labour, but also of\nbecoming an organization which might, at a given moment, take into its\nhands the management of production; Co-operation, both for production\nand for distribution, both in industry and agriculture, and attempts at\ncombining both sorts of co-operation in experimental colonies; and\nfinally, the immensely varied field of the so-called Municipal\nSocialism--these are the three directions in which the greatest amount\nof creative power has been developed lately.\n\nOf course, none of these may, in any degree, be taken as a substitute\nfor Communism, or even for Socialism, both of which imply the common\npossession of the instruments of production. But we certainly must look\nat all these attempts as upon _experiments_--like those which Owen,\nFourier, and Saint Simon tried in their colonies--experiments which\nprepare human thought to conceive some of the practical forms in which a\ncommunist society might find its expression. The synthesis of all these\npartial experiments will have to be made some day by the constructive\ngenius of some one of the civilized nations. But samples of the bricks\nout of which the great synthetic building will have to be built, and\neven samples of some of its rooms, are being prepared by the immense\neffort of the constructive genius of man.\n\n  BRIGHTON.\n\n     _January, 1913._\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONQUEST OF BREAD\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nOUR RICHES\n\n\nI\n\nThe human race has travelled a long way, since those remote ages when\nmen fashioned their rude implements of flint and lived on the precarious\nspoils of hunting, leaving to their children for their only heritage a\nshelter beneath the rocks, some poor utensils--and Nature, vast,\nunknown, and terrific, with whom they had to fight for their wretched\nexistence.\n\nDuring the long succession of agitated ages which have elapsed since,\nmankind has nevertheless amassed untold treasures. It has cleared the\nland, dried the marshes, hewn down forests, made roads, pierced\nmountains; it has been building, inventing, observing, reasoning; it has\ncreated a complex machinery, wrested her secrets from Nature, and\nfinally it pressed steam and electricity into its service. And the\nresult is, that now the child of the civilized man finds at its birth,\nready for its use, an immense capital accumulated by those who have gone\nbefore him. And this capital enables man to acquire, merely by his own\nlabour combined with the labour of others, riches surpassing the dreams\nof the fairy tales of the Thousand and One Nights.\n\nThe soil is cleared to a great extent, fit for the reception of the best\nseeds, ready to give a rich return for the skill and labour spent upon\nit--a return more than sufficient for all the wants of humanity. The\nmethods of rational cultivation are known.\n\nOn the wide prairies of America each hundred men, with the aid of\npowerful machinery, can produce in a few months enough wheat to maintain\nten thousand people for a whole year. And where man wishes to double his\nproduce, to treble it, to multiply it a hundred-fold, he _makes_ the\nsoil, gives to each plant the requisite care, and thus obtains enormous\nreturns. While the hunter of old had to scour fifty or sixty square\nmiles to find food for his family, the civilized man supports his\nhousehold, with far less pains, and far more certainty, on a thousandth\npart of that space. Climate is no longer an obstacle. When the sun\nfails, man replaces it by artificial heat; and we see the coming of a\ntime when artificial light also will be used to stimulate vegetation.\nMeanwhile, by the use of glass and hot water pipes, man renders a given\nspace ten and fifty times more productive than it was in its natural\nstate.\n\nThe prodigies accomplished in industry are still more striking. With the\nco-operation of those intelligent beings, modern machines--themselves\nthe fruit of three or four generations of inventors, mostly unknown--a\nhundred men manufacture now the stuff to provide ten thousand persons\nwith clothing for two years. In well-managed coal mines the labour of a\nhundred miners furnishes each year enough fuel to warm ten thousand\nfamilies under an inclement sky. And we have lately witnessed the\nspectacle of wonderful cities springing up in a few months for\ninternational exhibitions, without interrupting in the slightest degree\nthe regular work of the nations.\n\nAnd if in manufactures as in agriculture, and as indeed through our\nwhole social system, the labour, the discoveries, and the inventions of\nour ancestors profit chiefly the few, it is none the less certain that\nmankind in general, aided by the creatures of steel and iron which it\nalready possesses, could already procure an existence of wealth and ease\nfor every one of its members.\n\nTruly, we are rich--far richer than we think; rich in what we already\npossess, richer still in the possibilities of production of our actual\nmechanical outfit; richest of all in what we might win from our soil,\nfrom our manufactures, from our science, from our technical knowledge,\nwere they but applied to bringing about the well-being of all.\n\n\nII\n\nIn our civilized societies we are rich. Why then are the many poor? Why\nthis painful drudgery for the masses? Why, even to the best paid\nworkman, this uncertainty for the morrow, in the midst of all the wealth\ninherited from the past, and in spite of the powerful means of\nproduction, which could ensure comfort to all, in return for a few hours\nof daily toil?\n\nThe Socialists have said it and repeated it unwearyingly. Daily they\nreiterate it, demonstrating it by arguments taken from all the sciences.\nIt is because all that is necessary for production--the land, the mines,\nthe highways, machinery, food, shelter, education, knowledge--all have\nbeen seized by the few in the course of that long story of robbery,\nenforced migration and wars, of ignorance and oppression, which has been\nthe life of the human race before it had learned to subdue the forces of\nNature. It is because, taking advantage of alleged rights acquired in\nthe past, these few appropriate to-day two-thirds of the products of\nhuman labour, and then squander them in the most stupid and shameful\nway. It is because, having reduced the masses to a point at which they\nhave not the means of subsistence for a month, or even for a week in\nadvance, the few can allow the many to work, only on the condition of\nthemselves receiving the lion's share. It is because these few prevent\nthe remainder of men from producing the things they need, and force them\nto produce, not the necessaries of life for all, but whatever offers the\ngreatest profits to the monopolists. In this is the substance of all\nSocialism.\n\nTake, indeed, a civilized country. The forests which once covered it\nhave been cleared, the marshes drained, the climate improved. It has\nbeen made habitable. The soil, which bore formerly only a coarse\nvegetation, is covered to-day with rich harvests. The rock-walls in the\nvalleys are laid out in terraces and covered with vines. The wild\nplants, which yielded nought but acrid berries, or uneatable roots, have\nbeen transformed by generations of culture into succulent vegetables or\ntrees covered with delicious fruits. Thousands of highways and railroads\nfurrow the earth, and pierce the mountains. The shriek of the engine is\nheard in the wild gorges of the Alps, the Caucasus, and the Himalayas.\nThe rivers have been made navigable; the coasts, carefully surveyed, are\neasy of access; artificial harbours, laboriously dug out and protected\nagainst the fury of the sea, afford shelter to the ships. Deep shafts\nhave been sunk in the rocks; labyrinths of underground galleries have\nbeen dug out where coal may be raised or minerals extracted. At the\ncrossings of the highways great cities have sprung up, and within their\nborders all the treasures of industry, science, and art have been\naccumulated.\n\nWhole generations, that lived and died in misery, oppressed and\nill-treated by their masters, and worn out by toil, have handed on this\nimmense inheritance to our century.\n\nFor thousands of years millions of men have laboured to clear the\nforests, to drain the marshes, and to open up highways by land and\nwater. Every rood of soil we cultivate in Europe has been watered by the\nsweat of several races of men. Every acre has its story of enforced\nlabour, of intolerable toil, of the people's sufferings. Every mile of\nrailway, every yard of tunnel, has received its share of human blood.\n\nThe shafts of the mine still bear on their rocky walls the marks made by\nthe pick of the workman who toiled to excavate them. The space between\neach prop in the underground galleries might be marked as a miner's\ngrave; and who can tell what each of these graves has cost, in tears, in\nprivations, in unspeakable wretchedness to the family who depended on\nthe scanty wage of the worker cut off in his prime by fire-damp,\nrock-fall, or flood?\n\nThe cities, bound together by railroads and waterways, are organisms\nwhich have lived through centuries. Dig beneath them and you find, one\nabove another, the foundations of streets, of houses, of theatres, of\npublic buildings. Search into their history and you will see how the\ncivilization of the town, its industry, its special characteristics,\nhave slowly grown and ripened through the co-operation of generations of\nits inhabitants before it could become what it is to-day. And even\nto-day, the value of each dwelling, factory, and warehouse, which has\nbeen created by the accumulated labour of the millions of workers, now\ndead and buried, is only maintained by the very presence and labour of\nlegions of the men who now inhabit that special corner of the globe.\nEach of the atoms composing what we call the Wealth of Nations owes its\nvalue to the fact that it is a part of the great whole. What would a\nLondon dockyard or a great Paris warehouse be if they were not situated\nin these great centres of international commerce? What would become of\nour mines, our factories, our workshops, and our railways, without the\nimmense quantities of merchandise transported every day by sea and land?\n\nMillions of human beings have laboured to create this civilization on\nwhich we pride ourselves to-day. Other millions, scattered through the\nglobe, labour to maintain it. Without them nothing would be left in\nfifty years but ruins.\n\nThere is not even a thought, or an invention, which is not common\nproperty, born of the past and the present. Thousands of inventors,\nknown and unknown, who have died in poverty, have co-operated in the\ninvention of each of these machines which embody the genius of man.\n\nThousands of writers, of poets, of scholars, have laboured to increase\nknowledge, to dissipate error, and to create that atmosphere of\nscientific thought, without which the marvels of our century could never\nhave appeared. And these thousands of philosophers, of poets, of\nscholars, of inventors, have themselves been supported by the labour of\npast centuries. They have been upheld and nourished through life, both\nphysically and mentally, by legions of workers and craftsmen of all\nsorts. They have drawn their motive force from the environment.\n\nThe genius of a S\u00e9guin, a Mayer, a Grove, has certainly done more to\nlaunch industry in new directions than all the capitalists in the world.\nBut men of genius are themselves the children of industry as well as of\nscience. Not until thousands of steam-engines had been working for years\nbefore all eyes, constantly transforming heat into dynamic force, and\nthis force into sound, light, and electricity, could the insight of\ngenius proclaim the mechanical origin and the unity of the physical\nforces. And if we, children of the nineteenth century, have at last\ngrasped this idea, if we know now how to apply it, it is again because\ndaily experience has prepared the way. The thinkers of the eighteenth\ncentury saw and declared it, but the idea remained undeveloped, because\nthe eighteenth century had not grown up like ours, side by side with the\nsteam-engine. Imagine the decades that might have passed while we\nremained in ignorance of this law, which has revolutionized modern\nindustry, had Watt not found at Soho skilled workmen to embody his ideas\nin metal, bringing all the parts of his engine to perfection, so that\nsteam, pent in a complete mechanism, and rendered more docile than a\nhorse, more manageable than water, became at last the very soul of\nmodern industry.\n\nEvery machine has had the same history--a long record of sleepless\nnights and of poverty, of disillusions and of joys, of partial\nimprovements discovered by several generations of nameless workers, who\nhave added to the original invention these little nothings, without\nwhich the most fertile idea would remain fruitless. More than that:\nevery new invention is a synthesis, the resultant of innumerable\ninventions which have preceded it in the vast field of mechanics and\nindustry.\n\nScience and industry, knowledge and application, discovery and practical\nrealization leading to new discoveries, cunning of brain and of hand,\ntoil of mind and muscle--all work together. Each discovery, each\nadvance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to\nthe physical and mental travail of the past and the present.\n\nBy what right then can any one whatever appropriate the least morsel of\nthis immense whole and say--This is mine, not yours?\n\n\nIII\n\nIt has come about, however, in the course of the ages traversed by the\nhuman race, that all that enables man to produce and to increase his\npower of production has been seized by the few. Some time, perhaps, we\nwill relate how this came to pass. For the present let it suffice to\nstate the fact and analyze its consequences.\n\nTo-day the soil, which actually owes its value to the needs of an\never-increasing population, belongs to a minority who prevent the people\nfrom cultivating it--or do not allow them to cultivate it according to\nmodern methods.\n\nThe mines, though they represent the labour of several generations, and\nderive their sole value from the requirements of the industry of a\nnation and the density of the population--the mines also belong to the\nfew; and these few restrict the output of coal, or prevent it entirely,\nif they find more profitable investments for their capital. Machinery,\ntoo, has become the exclusive property of the few, and even when a\nmachine incontestably represents the improvements added to the original\nrough invention by three or four generations of workers, it none the\nless belongs to a few owners. And if the descendants of the very\ninventor who constructed the first machine for lace-making, a century\nago, were to present themselves to-day in a lace factory at B\u00e2le or\nNottingham, and claim their rights, they would be told: \"Hands off! this\nmachine is not yours,\" and they would be shot down if they attempted to\ntake possession of it.\n\nThe railways, which would be useless as so much old iron without the\nteeming population of Europe, its industry, its commerce, and its marts,\nbelong to a few shareholders, ignorant perhaps of the whereabouts of\nthe lines of rails which yield them revenues greater than those of\nmedieval kings. And if the children of those who perished by thousands\nwhile excavating the railway cuttings and tunnels were to assemble one\nday, crowding in their rags and hunger, to demand bread from the\nshareholders, they would be met with bayonets and grapeshot, to disperse\nthem and safeguard \"vested interests.\"\n\nIn virtue of this monstrous system, the son of the worker, on entering\nlife, finds no field which he may till, no machine which he may tend, no\nmine in which he may dig, without accepting to leave a great part of\nwhat he will produce to a master. He must sell his labour for a scant\nand uncertain wage. His father and his grandfather have toiled to drain\nthis field, to build this mill, to perfect this machine. They gave to\nthe work the full measure of their strength, and what more could they\ngive? But their heir comes into the world poorer than the lowest savage.\nIf he obtains leave to till the fields, it is on condition of\nsurrendering a quarter of the produce to his master, and another quarter\nto the government and the middlemen. And this tax, levied upon him by\nthe State, the capitalist, the lord of the manor, and the middleman, is\nalways increasing; it rarely leaves him the power to improve his system\nof culture. If he turns to industry, he is allowed to work--though not\nalways even that--only on condition that he yield a half or two-thirds\nof the product to him whom the land recognizes as the owner of the\nmachine.\n\nWe cry shame on the feudal baron who forbade the peasant to turn a clod\nof earth unless he surrendered to his lord a fourth of his crop. We\ncalled those the barbarous times. But if the forms have changed, the\nrelations have remained the same, and the worker is forced, under the\nname of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. For, turn where he\nwill, he can find no better conditions. Everything has become private\nproperty, and he must accept, or die of hunger.\n\nThe result of this state of things is that all our production tends in a\nwrong direction. Enterprise takes no thought for the needs of the\ncommunity. Its only aim is to increase the gains of the speculator.\nHence the constant fluctuations of trade, the periodical industrial\ncrises, each of which throws scores of thousands of workers on the\nstreets.\n\nThe working people cannot purchase with their wages the wealth which\nthey have produced, and industry seeks foreign markets among the monied\nclasses of other nations. In the East, in Africa, everywhere, in Egypt,\nTonkin or the Congo, the European is thus bound to promote the growth of\nserfdom. And so he does. But soon he finds that everywhere there are\nsimilar competitors. All the nations evolve on the same lines, and wars,\nperpetual wars, break out for the right of precedence in the market.\nWars for the possession of the East, wars for the empire of the sea,\nwars to impose duties on imports and to dictate conditions to\nneighbouring states; wars against those \"blacks\" who revolt! The roar of\nthe cannon never ceases in the world, whole races are massacred, the\nstates of Europe spend a third of their budgets in armaments; and we\nknow how heavily these taxes fall on the workers.\n\nEducation still remains the privilege of a small minority, for it is\nidle to talk of education when the workman's child is forced, at the age\nof thirteen, to go down into the mine or to help his father on the farm.\nIt is idle to talk of studying to the worker, who comes home in the\nevening wearied by excessive toil, and its brutalizing atmosphere.\nSociety is thus bound to remain divided into two hostile camps, and in\nsuch conditions freedom is a vain word. The Radical begins by demanding\na greater extension of political rights, but he soon sees that the\nbreath of liberty leads to the uplifting of the proletariat, and then he\nturns round, changes his opinions, and reverts to repressive legislation\nand government by the sword.\n\nA vast array of courts, judges, executioners, policemen, and gaolers is\nneeded to uphold these privileges; and this array gives rise in its turn\nto a whole system of espionage, of false witness, of spies, of threats\nand corruption.\n\nThe system under which we live checks in its turn the growth of the\nsocial sentiment. We all know that without uprightness, without\nself-respect, without sympathy and mutual aid, human kind must perish,\nas perish the few races of animals living by rapine, or the\nslave-keeping ants. But such ideas are not to the taste of the ruling\nclasses, and they have elaborated a whole system of pseudo-science to\nteach the contrary.\n\nFine sermons have been preached on the text that those who have should\nshare with those who have not, but he who would carry out this principle\nwould be speedily informed that these beautiful sentiments are all very\nwell in poetry, but not in practice. \"To lie is to degrade and besmirch\noneself,\" we say, and yet all civilized life becomes one huge lie. We\naccustom ourselves and our children to hypocrisy, to the practice of a\ndouble-faced morality. And since the brain is ill at ease among lies, we\ncheat ourselves with sophistry. Hypocrisy and sophistry become the\nsecond nature of the civilized man.\n\nBut a society cannot live thus; it must return to truth, or cease to\nexist.\n\nThus the consequences which spring from the original act of monopoly\nspread through the whole of social life. Under pain of death, human\nsocieties are forced to return to first principles: the means of\nproduction being the collective work of humanity, the product should be\nthe collective property of the race. Individual appropriation is neither\njust nor serviceable. All belongs to all. All things are for all men,\nsince all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the\nmeasure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible\nto evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth.\n\nAll things for all. Here is an immense stock of tools and implements;\nhere are all those iron slaves which we call machines, which saw and\nplane, spin and weave for us, unmaking and remaking, working up raw\nmatter to produce the marvels of our time. But nobody has the right to\nseize a single one of these machines and say: \"This is mine; if you\nwant to use it you must pay me a tax on each of your products,\" any more\nthan the feudal lord of medieval times had the right to say to the\npeasant: \"This hill, this meadow belong to me, and you must pay me a tax\non every sheaf of corn you reap, on every brick you build.\"\n\nAll is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of work,\nthey have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all,\nand that share is enough to secure them well-being. No more of such\nvague formulas as \"The right to work,\" or \"To each the whole result of\nhis labour.\" What we proclaim is THE RIGHT TO WELL-BEING: WELL-BEING FOR\nALL!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nWELL-BEING FOR ALL\n\n\nI\n\nWell-being for all is not a dream. It is possible, realizable, owing to\nall that our ancestors have done to increase our powers of production.\n\nWe know, indeed, that the producers, although they constitute hardly\none-third of the inhabitants of civilized countries, even now produce\nsuch quantities of goods that a certain degree of comfort could be\nbrought to every hearth. We know further that if all those who squander\nto-day the fruits of others' toil were forced to employ their leisure in\nuseful work, our wealth would increase in proportion to the number of\nproducers, and more. Finally, we know that contrary to the theory\nenunciated by Malthus--that Oracle of middle-class Economics--the\nproductive powers of the human race increase at a much more rapid ratio\nthan its powers of reproduction. The more thickly men are crowded on the\nsoil, the more rapid is the growth of their wealth-creating power.\n\nThus, although the population of England has only increased from 1844 to\n1890 by 62 per cent., its production has grown, even at the lowest\nestimate, at double that rate--to wit, by 130 per cent. In France, where\nthe population has grown more slowly, the increase in production is\nnevertheless very rapid. Notwithstanding the crises through which\nagriculture is frequently passing, notwithstanding State interference,\nthe blood-tax (conscription), and speculative commerce and finance, the\nproduction of wheat in France has increased four-fold, and industrial\nproduction more than tenfold, in the course of the last eighty years. In\nthe United States this progress is still more striking. In spite of\nimmigration, or rather precisely because of the influx of surplus\nEuropean labour, the United States have multiplied their wealth tenfold.\n\nHowever, these figures give but a very faint idea of what our wealth\nmight become under better conditions. For alongside of the rapid\ndevelopment of our wealth-producing powers we have an overwhelming\nincrease in the ranks of the idlers and middlemen. Instead of capital\ngradually concentrating itself in a few hands, so that it would only be\nnecessary for the community to dispossess a few millionaires and enter\nupon its lawful heritage--instead of this Socialist forecast proving\ntrue, the exact reverse is coming to pass: the swarm of parasites is\never increasing.\n\nIn France there are not ten actual producers to every thirty\ninhabitants. The whole agricultural wealth of the country is the work of\nless than seven millions of men, and in the two great industries, mining\nand the textile trades, you will find that the workers number less than\ntwo and one-half millions. But the exploiters of labour, how many are\nthey? In the United Kingdom a little over one million workers--men,\nwomen, and children, are employed in all the textile trades; less than\nnine hundred thousand work the mines; much less than two million till\nthe ground, and it appeared from the last industrial census that only a\nlittle over four million men, women and children were employed in all\nthe industries.[1] So that the statisticians have to exaggerate all the\nfigures in order to establish a maximum of eight million producers to\nforty-five million inhabitants. Strictly speaking the creators of the\ngoods exported from Britain to all the ends of the earth comprise only\nfrom six to seven million workers. And what is the number of the\nshareholders and middlemen who levy the first fruits of labour from far\nand near, and heap up unearned gains by thrusting themselves between\nthe producer and the consumer?\n\nNor is this all. The owners of capital constantly reduce the output by\nrestraining production. We need not speak of the cartloads of oysters\nthrown into the sea to prevent a dainty, hitherto reserved for the rich,\nfrom becoming a food for the people. We need not speak of the thousand\nand one luxuries--stuffs, foods, etc., etc.--treated after the same\nfashion as the oysters. It is enough to remember the way in which the\nproduction of the most necessary things is limited. Legions of miners\nare ready and willing to dig out coal every day, and send it to those\nwho are shivering with cold; but too often a third, or even one-half, of\ntheir number are forbidden to work more than three days a week, because,\nforsooth, the price of coal must be kept up! Thousands of weavers are\nforbidden to work the looms, although their wives and children go in\nrags, and although three-quarters of the population of Europe have no\nclothing worthy the name.\n\nHundreds of blast-furnaces, thousands of factories periodically stand\nidle, others only work half-time--and in every civilized nation there is\na permanent population of about two million individuals who ask only for\nwork, but to whom work is denied.\n\nHow gladly would these millions of men set to work to reclaim waste\nlands, or to transform ill-cultivated land into fertile fields, rich in\nharvests! A year of well-directed toil would suffice to multiply\nfivefold the produce of those millions of acres in this country which\nlie idle now as \"permanent pasture,\" or of those dry lands in the south\nof France which now yield only about eight bushels of wheat per acre.\nBut men, who would be happy to become hardy pioneers in so many branches\nof wealth-producing activity, must remain idle because the owners of the\nsoil, the mines and the factories prefer to invest their capital--taken\nin the first place from the community--in Turkish or Egyptian bonds, or\nin Patagonian gold mines, and so make Egyptian fellahs, Italian\nemigrants, and Chinese coolies their wage-slaves.\n\nThis is the direct and deliberate limitation of production; but there\nis also a limitation indirect and not of set purpose, which consists in\nspending human toil on objects absolutely useless, or destined only to\nsatisfy the dull vanity of the rich.\n\nIt is impossible to reckon in figures the extent to which wealth is\nrestricted indirectly, the extent to which energy is squandered, while\nit might have served to produce, and above all to prepare the machinery\nnecessary to production. It is enough to cite the immense sums spent by\nEurope in armaments, for the sole purpose of acquiring control of\nmarkets, and so forcing her own goods on neighbouring territories, and\nmaking exploitation easier at home; the millions paid every year to\nofficials of all sorts, whose function it is to maintain the \"rights\" of\nminorities--the right, that is, of a few rich men--to manipulate the\neconomic activities of the nation; the millions spent on judges,\nprisons, policemen, and all the paraphernalia of so-called\njustice--spent to no purpose, because we know that every alleviation,\nhowever slight, of the wretchedness of our great cities is always\nfollowed by a considerable diminution of crime; lastly, the millions\nspent on propagating pernicious doctrines by means of the press, and\nnews \"cooked\" in the interest of this or that party, of this politician\nor of that group of speculators.\n\nBut over and above this we must take into account all the labour that\ngoes to sheer waste,--here, in keeping up the stables, the kennels, and\nthe retinue of the rich; there, in pandering to the caprices of society\nand the depraved tastes of the fashionable mob; there again, in forcing\nthe consumer to buy what he does not need, or foisting an inferior\narticle upon him by means of puffery, and in producing on the other hand\nwares which are absolutely injurious, but profitable to the\nmanufacturer. What is squandered in this manner would be enough to\ndouble the production of useful things, or so to plenish our mills and\nfactories with machinery that they would soon flood the shops with all\nthat is now lacking to two-thirds of the nation. Under our present\nsystem a full quarter of the producers in every nation are forced to be\nidle for three or four months in the year, and the labour of another\nquarter, if not of the half, has no better results than the amusement of\nthe rich or the exploitation of the public.\n\nThus, if we consider on the one hand the rapidity with which civilized\nnations augment their powers of production, and on the other hand the\nlimits set to that production, be it directly or indirectly, by existing\nconditions, we cannot but conclude that an economic system a trifle more\nreasonable would permit them to heap up in a few years so many useful\nproducts that they would be constrained to say--\"Enough! We have enough\ncoal and bread and raiment! Let us rest and consider how best to use our\npowers, how best to employ our leisure.\"\n\nNo, plenty for all is not a dream--though it was a dream indeed in those\ndays when man, for all his pains, could hardly win a few bushels of\nwheat from an acre of land, and had to fashion by hand all the\nimplements he used in agriculture and industry. Now it is no longer a\ndream, because man has invented a motor which, with a little iron and a\nfew sacks of coal, gives him the mastery of a creature strong and docile\nas a horse, and capable of setting the most complicated machinery in\nmotion.\n\nBut, if plenty for all is to become a reality, this immense\ncapital--cities, houses, pastures, arable lands, factories, highways,\neducation--must cease to be regarded as private property, for the\nmonopolist to dispose of at his pleasure.\n\nThis rich endowment, painfully won, builded, fashioned, or invented by\nour ancestors, must become common property, so that the collective\ninterests of men may gain from it the greatest good for all.\n\nThere must be EXPROPRIATION. The well-being of all--the end;\nexpropriation--the means.\n\n\nII\n\nExpropriation, such then is the problem which History has put before the\nmen of the twentieth century: the return to Communism in all that\nministers to the well-being of man.\n\nBut this problem cannot be solved by means of legislation. No one\nimagines that. The poor, as well as the rich, understand that neither\nthe existing Governments, nor any which might arise out of possible\npolitical changes, would be capable of finding such a solution. They\nfeel the necessity of a social revolution; and both rich and poor\nrecognize that this revolution is imminent, that it may break out in a\nfew years.\n\nA great change in thought has taken place during the last half of the\nnineteenth century; but suppressed, as it was, by the propertied\nclasses, and denied its natural development, this new spirit must now\nbreak its bonds by violence and realize itself in a revolution.\n\nWhence will the revolution come? how will it announce its coming? No one\ncan answer these questions. The future is hidden. But those who watch\nand think do not misinterpret the signs: workers and exploiters,\nRevolutionists and Conservatives, thinkers and men of action, all feel\nthat a revolution is at our doors.\n\nWell, then,--What are we going to do when the thunderbolt has fallen?\n\nWe have all been bent on studying the dramatic side of revolutions so\nmuch, and the practical work of revolutions so little, that we are apt\nto see only the stage effects, so to speak, of these great movements;\nthe fight of the first days; the barricades. But this fight, this first\nskirmish, is soon ended, and it only after the breakdown of the old\nsystem that the real work of revolution can be said to begin.\n\nEffete and powerless, attacked on all sides, the old rulers are soon\nswept away by the breath of insurrection. In a few days the middle-class\nmonarchy of 1848 was no more, and while Louis Philippe was making good\nhis escape in a cab, Paris had already forgotten her \"citizen king.\" The\ngovernment of Thiers disappeared, on the 18th of March, 1871, in a few\nhours, leaving Paris mistress of her destinies. Yet 1848 and 1871 were\nonly insurrections. Before a popular revolution the masters of \"the old\norder\" disappear with a surprising rapidity. Its upholders fly the\ncountry, to plot in safety elsewhere and to devise measures for their\nreturn.\n\nThe former Government having disappeared, the army, hesitating before\nthe tide of popular opinion, no longer obeys its commanders, who have\nalso prudently decamped. The troops stand by without interfering, or\njoin the rebels. The police, standing at ease, are uncertain whether to\nbelabour the crowd, or to cry: \"Long live the Commune!\" while some\nretire to their quarters to \"await the pleasure of the new Government.\"\nWealthy citizens pack their trunks and betake themselves to places of\nsafety. The people remain. This is how a revolution is ushered in.\n\nIn several large towns the Commune is proclaimed. In the streets wander\nscores of thousands of men, and in the evening they crowd into\nimprovised clubs, asking: \"What shall we do?\" and ardently discuss\npublic affairs. All take an interest in them; those who yesterday were\nquite indifferent are perhaps the most zealous. Everywhere there is\nplenty of good-will and a keen desire to make victory certain. It is a\ntime when acts of supreme devotion are occurring. The masses of the\npeople are full of the desire of going forward.\n\nAll this is splendid, sublime; but still, it is not a revolution. Nay,\nit is only now that the work of the revolutionist begins.\n\nDoubtless there will be acts of vengeance. The Watrins and the Thomases\nwill pay the penalty of their unpopularity; but these are mere incidents\nof the struggle--not the revolution.\n\nSocialist politicians, radicals, neglected geniuses of journalism, stump\norators--both middle-class people and workmen--will hurry to the Town\nHall, to the Government offices, to take possession of the vacant seats.\nSome will decorate themselves with gold and silver lace to their hearts'\ncontent, admire themselves in ministerial mirrors, and study to give\norders with an air of importance appropriate to their new position. How\ncould they impress their comrades of the office or the workshop without\nhaving a red sash, an embroidered cap, and magisterial gestures! Others\nwill bury themselves in official papers, trying, with the best of\nwills, to make head or tail of them. They will indite laws and issue\nhigh-flown worded decrees that nobody will take the trouble to carry\nout--because revolution has come.\n\nTo give themselves an authority which they have not they will seek the\nsanction of old forms of Government. They will take the names of\n\"Provisional Government,\" \"Committee of Public Safety,\" \"Mayor,\"\n\"Governor of the Town Hall,\" \"Commissioner of Public Safety,\" and what\nnot. Elected or acclaimed, they will assemble in Boards or in Communal\nCouncils, where men of ten or twenty different schools will come\ntogether, representing--not as many \"private chapels,\" as it is often\nsaid, but as many different conceptions regarding the scope, the\nbearing, and the goal of the revolution. Possibilists, Collectivists,\nRadicals, Jacobins, Blanquists, will be thrust together, and waste time\nin wordy warfare. Honest men will be huddled together with the ambitious\nones, whose only dream is power and who spurn the crowd whence they are\nsprung. All coming together with diametrically opposed views,\nall--forced to enter into ephemeral alliances, in order to create\nmajorities that can but last a day. Wrangling, calling each other\nreactionaries, authoritarians, and rascals, incapable of coming to an\nunderstanding on any serious measure, dragged into discussions about\ntrifles, producing nothing better than bombastic proclamations; all\ngiving themselves an awful importance while the real strength of the\nmovement is in the streets.\n\nAll this may please those who like the stage, but it is not revolution.\nNothing has been accomplished as yet.\n\nAnd meanwhile the people suffer. The factories are idle, the workshops\nclosed; trade is at a standstill. The worker does not even earn the\nmeagre wage which was his before. Food goes up in price. With that\nheroic devotion which has always characterized them, and which in great\ncrises reaches the sublime, the people will wait patiently. \"We place\nthese three months of want at the service of the Republic,\" they said in\n1848, while \"their representatives\" and the gentlemen of the new\nGovernment, down to the meanest Jack-in-office received their salary\nregularly.\n\nThe people suffer. With the childlike faith, with the good humour of the\nmasses who believe in their leaders, they think that \"yonder,\" in the\nHouse, in the Town Hall, in the Committee of Public Safety, their\nwelfare is being considered. But \"yonder\" they are discussing everything\nunder the sun except the welfare of the people. In 1793, while famine\nravaged France and crippled the Revolution; whilst the people were\nreduced to the depths of misery, although the Champs Elys\u00e9es were lined\nwith luxurious carriages where women displayed their jewels and\nsplendour, Robespierre was urging the Jacobins to discuss his treatise\non the English Constitution. While the worker was suffering in 1848 from\nthe general stoppage of trade, the Provisional Government and the\nNational Assembly were wrangling over military pensions and prison\nlabour, without troubling how the people managed to live during the\nterrible crisis. And could one cast a reproach at the Paris Commune,\nwhich was born beneath the Prussian cannon, and lasted only seventy\ndays, it would be for this same error--this failure to understand that\nthe Revolution could not triumph unless those who fought on its side\nwere fed: that on fifteen pence a day a man cannot fight on the ramparts\nand at the same time support a family.\n\nThe people will suffer and say: \"How is a way out of these difficulties\nto be found?\"\n\n\nIII\n\nIt seems to us that there is only one answer to this question: We must\nrecognize, and loudly proclaim, that every one, whatever his grade in\nthe old society, whether strong or weak, capable or incapable, has,\nbefore everything, THE RIGHT TO LIVE, and that society is bound to share\namongst all, without exception, the means of existence it has at its\ndisposal. We must acknowledge this, and proclaim it aloud, and act up to\nit.\n\nAffairs must be managed in such a way that from the first day of the\nrevolution the worker shall know that a new era is opening before him;\nthat henceforward none need crouch under the bridges, while palaces are\nhard by, none need fast in the midst of plenty, none need perish with\ncold near shops full of furs; that all is for all, in practice as well\nas in theory, and that at last, for the first time in history, a\nrevolution has been accomplished which considers the NEEDS of the people\nbefore schooling them in their DUTIES.\n\nThis cannot be brought about by Acts of Parliament, but only by taking\nimmediate and effective possession of all that is necessary to ensure\nthe well-being of all; this is the only really scientific way of going\nto work, the only way which can be understood and desired by the mass of\nthe people. We must take possession, in the name of the people, of the\ngranaries, the shops full of clothing and the dwelling houses. Nothing\nmust be wasted. We must organize without delay a way to feed the hungry,\nto satisfy all wants, to meet all needs, to produce not for the special\nbenefit of this one or that one, but so as to ensure to society as a\nwhole its life and further development.\n\nEnough of ambiguous words like \"the right to work,\" with which the\npeople were misled in 1848, and which are still resorted to with the\nhope of misleading them. Let us have the courage to recognise that\n_Well-being for all_, henceforward possible, must be realized.\n\nWhen the workers claimed the right to work in 1848, national and\nmunicipal workshops were organized, and workmen were sent to drudge\nthere at the rate of 1s. 8d. a day! When they asked the \"Organization of\nLabour,\" the reply was: \"Patience, friends, the Government will see to\nit; meantime here is your 1s. 8d. Rest now, brave toiler, after your\nlife-long struggle for food!\" And in the meantime the cannons were\noverhauled, the reserves called out, and the workers themselves\ndisorganized by the many methods well known to the middle classes, till\none fine day, in June, 1848, four months after the overthrow of the\nprevious Government, they were told to go and colonize Africa, or be\nshot down.\n\nVery different will be the result if the workers claim the RIGHT TO\nWELL-BEING! In claiming that right they claim the right to take\npossession of the wealth of the community--to take houses to dwell in\naccording to the needs of each family; to socialize the stores of food\nand learn the meaning of plenty, after having known famine too well.\nThey proclaim their right to all social wealth--fruit of the labour of\npast and present generations--and learn by its means to enjoy those\nhigher pleasures of art and science which have too long been monopolized\nby the rich.\n\nAnd while asserting their right to live in comfort, they assert, what is\nstill more important, their right to decide for themselves what this\ncomfort shall be, what must be produced to ensure it, and what discarded\nas no longer of value.\n\nThe \"right to well-being\" means the possibility of living like human\nbeings, and of bringing up children to be members of a society better\nthan ours, whilst the \"right to work\" only means the right to be always\na wage-slave, a drudge, ruled over and exploited by the middle class of\nthe future. The right to well-being is the Social Revolution, the right\nto work means nothing but the Treadmill of Commercialism. It is high\ntime for the worker to assert his right to the common inheritance, and\nto enter into possession of it.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] 4,013,711 now employed in all the 53 branches of different\nindustries, including the State Ordnance Works, and 241,530 workers\nengaged in the Construction and Maintenance of Railways, their aggregate\nproduction reaching the value of \u00a31,041,037,000, and the net output\nbeing \u00a3406,799,000.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nANARCHIST COMMUNISM\n\n\nI\n\nEvery society, on abolishing private property will be forced, we\nmaintain, to organize itself on the lines of Communistic Anarchy.\nAnarchy leads to Communism, and Communism to Anarchy, both alike being\nexpressions of the predominant tendency in modern societies, the pursuit\nof equality.\n\nTime was when a peasant family could consider the corn it sowed and\nreaped, or the woolen garments woven in the cottage, as the products of\nits own soil. But even then this way of looking at things was not quite\ncorrect. There were the roads and the bridges made in common, the swamps\ndrained by common toil, the communal pastures enclosed by hedges which\nwere kept in repair by each and all. If the looms for weaving or the\ndyes for colouring fabrics were improved by somebody, all profited; and\neven in those days a peasant family could not live alone, but was\ndependent in a thousand ways on the village or the commune.\n\nBut nowadays, in the present state of industry, when everything is\ninterdependent, when each branch of production is knit up with all the\nrest, the attempt to claim an Individualist origin for the products of\nindustry is absolutely untenable. The astonishing perfection attained by\nthe textile or mining industries in civilized countries is due to the\nsimultaneous development of a thousand other industries, great and\nsmall, to the extension of the railroad system, to inter-oceanic\nnavigation, to the manual skill of thousands of workers, to a certain\nstandard of culture reached by the working class as a whole--to the\nlabours, in short, of men in every corner of the globe.\n\nThe Italians who died of cholera while making the Suez Canal, or of\nanchylosis in the St. Gothard Tunnel, and the Americans mowed down by\nshot and shell while fighting for the abolition of slavery, have helped\nto develop the cotton industry of France and England, as well as the\nwork-girls who languish in the factories of Manchester and Rouen, and\nthe inventor who (following the suggestion of some worker) succeeds in\nimproving the looms.\n\nHow then, shall we estimate the share of each in the riches which ALL\ncontribute to amass?\n\nLooking at production from this general, synthetic point of view, we\ncannot hold with the Collectivists that payment proportionate to the\nhours of labour rendered by each would be an ideal arrangement, or even\na step in the right direction.\n\nWithout discussing whether exchange value of goods is really measured in\nexisting societies by the amount of work necessary to produce\nit--according to the teaching of Adam Smith and Ricardo, in whose\nfootsteps Marx has followed--suffice it to say here, leaving ourselves\nfree to return to the subject later, that the Collectivist ideal appears\nto us untenable in a society which considers the instruments of labour\nas a common inheritance. Starting from this principle, such a society\nwould find itself forced from the very outset to abandon all forms of\nwages.\n\nThe migrated individualism of the Collectivist system certainly could\nnot maintain itself alongside a partial communism--the socialization of\nland and the instruments of production. A new form of property requires\na new form of remuneration. A new method of production cannot exist side\nby side with the old forms of consumption, any more than it can adapt\nitself to the old forms of political organization.\n\nThe wage system arises out of the individual ownership of the land and\nthe instruments of labour. It was the necessary condition for the\ndevelopment of capitalist production, and will perish with it, in spite\nof the attempt to disguise it as \"profit-sharing.\" The common\npossession of the instruments of labour must necessarily bring with it\nthe enjoyment in common of the fruits of common labour.\n\nWe hold further that Communism is not only desirable, but that existing\nsocieties, founded on Individualism, _are inevitably impelled in the\ndirection of Communism_. The development of Individualism during the\nlast three centuries is explained by the efforts of the individual to\nprotect himself from the tyranny of Capital and of the State. For a time\nhe imagined, and those who expressed his thought for him declared, that\nhe could free himself entirely from the State and from society. \"By\nmeans of money,\" he said, \"I can buy all that I need.\" But the\nindividual was on a wrong track, and modern history has taught him to\nrecognize that, without the help of all, he can do nothing, although his\nstrong-boxes are full of gold.\n\nIn fact, along this current of Individualism, we find in all modern\nhistory a tendency, on the one hand to retain all that remains of the\npartial Communism of antiquity, and, on the other, to establish the\nCommunist principle in the thousand developments of modern life.\n\nAs soon as the communes of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries\nhad succeeded in emancipating themselves from their lords,\necclesiastical or lay, their communal labour and communal consumption\nbegan to extend and develop rapidly. The township--and not private\npersons--freighted ships and equipped expeditions, for the export of\ntheir manufacture, and the benefit arising from the foreign trade did\nnot accrue to individuals, but was shared by all. At the outset, the\ntownships also bought provisions for all their citizens. Traces of these\ninstitutions have lingered on into the nineteenth century, and the\npeople piously cherish the memory of them in their legends.\n\nAll that has disappeared. But the rural township still struggles to\npreserve the last traces of this Communism, and it succeeds--except when\nthe State throws its heavy sword into the balance.\n\nMeanwhile new organizations, based on the same principle--_to every man\naccording to his needs_--spring up under a thousand different forms; for\nwithout a certain leaven of Communism the present societies could not\nexist. In spite of the narrowly egoistic turn given to men's minds by\nthe commercial system, the tendency towards Communism is constantly\nappearing, and it influences our activities in a variety of ways.\n\nThe bridges, for the use of which a toll was levied in the old days,\nhave become public property and are free to all; so are the high roads,\nexcept in the East, where a toll is still exacted from the traveller for\nevery mile of his journey. Museums, free libraries, free schools, free\nmeals for children; parks and gardens open to all; streets paved and\nlighted, free to all; water supplied to every house without measure or\nstint--all such arrangements are founded on the principle: \"Take what\nyou need.\"\n\nThe tramways and railways have already introduced monthly and annual\nseason tickets, without limiting the number of journeys taken; and two\nnations, Hungary and Russia, have introduced on their railways the zone\nsystem, which permits the holder to travel five hundred or eight hundred\nmiles for the same price. It is but a short step from that to a uniform\ncharge, such as already prevails in the postal service. In all these\ninnovations, and in a thousand others, the tendency is not to measure\nthe individual consumption. One man wants to travel eight hundred miles,\nanother five hundred. These are personal requirements. There is no\nsufficient reason why one should pay twice as much as the other because\nhis need is twice as great. Such are the signs which appear even now in\nour individualist societies.\n\nMoreover, there is a tendency, though still a feeble one, to consider\nthe needs of the individual, irrespective of his past or possible\nservices to the community. We are beginning to think of society as a\nwhole, each part of which is so intimately bound up with the others that\na service rendered to one is a service rendered to all.\n\nWhen you go to a public library--not indeed the National Library of\nParis, but, say, into the British Museum or the Berlin Library--the\nlibrarian does not ask what services you have rendered to society before\ngiving you the book, or the fifty books, which you require; he even\ncomes to your assistance if you do not know how to manage the catalogue.\nBy means of uniform credentials--and very often a contribution of work\nis preferred--the scientific society opens its museums, its gardens, its\nlibrary, its laboratories, and its annual conversaziones to each of its\nmembers, whether he be a Darwin, or a simple amateur.\n\nAt St. Petersburg, if you are elaborating an invention, you go into a\nspecial laboratory, where you are given a place, a carpenter's bench, a\nturning lathe, all the necessary tools and scientific instruments,\nprovided only you know how to use them; and you are allowed to work\nthere as long as you please. There are the tools; interest others in\nyour idea; join with fellow workers skilled in various crafts, or work\nalone if you prefer it. Invent a flying machine, or invent nothing--that\nis your own affair. You are pursuing an idea--that is enough.\n\nIn the same way, those who man the lifeboat do not ask credentials from\nthe crew of a sinking ship; they launch their boat, risk their lives in\nthe raging waves, and sometimes perish, all to save men whom they do not\neven know. And what need to know them? \"They are human beings, and they\nneed our aid--that is enough, that establishes their right---- To the\nrescue!\"\n\nThus we find a tendency, eminently communistic, springing up on all\nsides, and in various guises, in the very heart of theoretically\nindividualist societies.\n\nSuppose that one of our great cities, so egotistic in ordinary times,\nwere visited to-morrow by some calamity--a siege, for instance--that\nsame selfish city would decide that the first needs to satisfy were\nthose of the children and the aged. Without asking what services they\nhad rendered, or were likely to render to society, it would first of all\nfeed them. Then the combatants would be cared for, irrespective of the\ncourage or the intelligence which each had displayed, and thousands of\nmen and women would outvie each other in unselfish devotion to the\nwounded.\n\nThis tendency exists, and is felt as soon as the most pressing needs of\neach are satisfied, and in proportion as the productive power of the\nrace increases. It becomes an active force every time a great idea comes\nto oust the mean preoccupations of everyday life.\n\nHow can we doubt, then, that when the instruments of production are\nplaced at the service of all, when business is conducted on Communist\nprinciples, when labour, having recovered its place of honour in\nsociety, produces much more than is necessary to all--how can we doubt\nthat this force (already so powerful), will enlarge its sphere of action\ntill it becomes the ruling principle of social life?\n\nFollowing these indications, and considering further the practical side\nof expropriation, of which we shall speak in the following chapters, we\nare convinced that our first obligation, when the revolution shall have\nbroken the power upholding the present system, will be to realize\nCommunism without delay.\n\nBut ours is neither the Communism of Fourier and the Phalansteriens, nor\nof the German State Socialists. It is Anarchist Communism, Communism\nwithout government--the Communism of the Free. It is the synthesis of\nthe two ideals pursued by humanity throughout the ages--Economic and\nPolitical Liberty.\n\n\nII\n\nIn taking \"Anarchy\" for our ideal of political organization we are only\ngiving expression to another marked tendency of human progress. Whenever\nEuropean societies have developed up to a certain point, they have\nshaken off the yoke of authority and substituted a system founded more\nor less on the principles of individual liberty. And history shows us\nthat these periods of partial or general revolution, when the old\ngovernments were overthrown, were also periods of sudden, progress both\nin the economic and the intellectual field. So it was after the\nenfranchisement of the communes, whose monuments, produced by the free\nlabour of the guilds, have never been surpassed; so it was after the\ngreat peasant uprising which brought about the Reformation and\nimperilled the papacy; and so it was again with the society, free for a\nbrief space, which was created on the other side of the Atlantic by the\nmalcontents from the Old world.\n\nAnd, if we observe the present development of civilized nations, we see,\nmost unmistakably, a movement ever more and more marked tending to limit\nthe sphere of action of the Government, and to allow more and more\nliberty to the individual. This evolution is going on before our eyes,\nthough cumbered by the ruins and rubbish of old institutions and old\nsuperstitions. Like all evolutions, it only waits a revolution to\noverthrow the old obstacles which block the way, that it may find free\nscope in a regenerated society.\n\nAfter having striven long in vain to solve the insoluble problem--the\nproblem of constructing a government \"which will constrain the\nindividual to obedience without itself ceasing to be the servant of\nsociety,\" men at last attempt to free themselves from every form of\ngovernment and to satisfy their need for organization by free contacts\nbetween individuals and groups pursuing the same aim. The independence\nof each small territorial unit becomes a pressing need; mutual agreement\nreplaces law in order to regulate individual interests in view of a\ncommon object--very often disregarding the frontiers of the present\nStates.\n\nAll that was once looked on as a function of the Government is to-day\ncalled in question. Things are arranged more easily and more\nsatisfactorily without the intervention of the State. And in studying\nthe progress made in this direction, we are led to conclude that the\ntendency of the human race is to reduce Government interference to zero;\nin fact, to abolish the State, the personification of injustice,\noppression, and monopoly.\n\nWe can already catch glimpses of a world in which the bonds which bind\nthe individual are no longer laws, but social habits--the result of the\nneed felt by each one of us to seek the support, the co-operation, the\nsympathy of his neighbours.\n\nAssuredly the idea of a society without a State will give rise to at\nleast as many objections as the political economy of a society without\nprivate capital. We have all been brought up from our childhood to\nregard the State as a sort of Providence; all our education, the Roman\nhistory we learned at school, the Byzantine code which we studied later\nunder the name of Roman law, and the various sciences taught at the\nuniversities, accustom us to believe in Government and in the virtues of\nthe State providential.\n\nTo maintain this superstition whole systems of philosophy have been\nelaborated and taught; all politics are based on this principle; and\neach politician, whatever his colours, comes forward and says to the\npeople, \"Give my party the power; we can and we will free you from the\nmiseries which press so heavily upon you.\"\n\nFrom the cradle to the grave all our actions are guided by this\nprinciple. Open any book on sociology or jurisprudence, and you will\nfind there the Government, its organization, its acts, filling so large\na place that we come to believe that there is nothing outside the\nGovernment and the world of statesmen.\n\nThe Press teaches us the same in every conceivable way. Whole columns\nare devoted to parliamentary debates and to political intrigues; while\nthe vast everyday life of a nation appears only in the columns given to\neconomic subjects, or in the pages devoted to reports of police and law\ncases. And when you read the newspapers, your hardly think of the\nincalculable number of beings--all humanity, so to say--who grow up and\ndie, who know sorrow, who work and consume, think and create outside the\nfew encumbering personages who have been so magnified that humanity is\nhidden by their shadows, enlarged by our ignorance.\n\nAnd yet as soon as we pass from printed matter to life itself, as soon\nas we throw a glance at society, we are struck by the infinitesimal part\nplayed by the Government. Balzac already has remarked how millions of\npeasants spend the whole of their lives without knowing anything about\nthe State, save the heavy taxes they are compelled to pay. Every day\nmillions of transactions are made without Government intervention, and\nthe greatest of them--those of commerce and of the Exchange--are carried\non in such a way that the Government could not be appealed to if one of\nthe contracting parties had the intention of not fulfilling his\nagreement. Should you speak to a man who understands commerce, he will\ntell you that the everyday business transacted by merchants would be\nabsolutely impossible were it not based on mutual confidence. The habit\nof keeping his word, the desire not to lose his credit, amply suffice to\nmaintain this relative honesty. The man who does not feel the slightest\nremorse when poisoning his customers with noxious drugs covered with\npompous labels, thinks he is in honour bound to keep his engagements.\nBut if this relative morality has developed under present conditions,\nwhen enrichment is the only incentive and the only aim, can we doubt its\nrapid progress when appropriation of the fruits of others' labour will\nno longer be the basis of society?\n\nAnother striking fact, which especially characterizes our generation,\nspeaks still more in favour of our ideas. It is the continual extension\nof the field of enterprise due to private initiative, and the prodigious\ndevelopment of free organizations of all kinds. We shall discuss this\nmore at length in the chapter devoted to _Free Agreement_. Suffice it to\nmention that the facts are so numerous and so customary that they are\nthe essence of the second half of the nineteenth century, even though\npolitical and socialist writers ignore them, always preferring to talk\nto us about the functions of the Government.\n\nThese organizations, free and infinitely varied, are so natural an\noutcome of our civilization; they expand so rapidly and federate with\nso much ease; they are so necessary a result of the continual growth of\nthe needs of civilized man; and lastly, they so advantageously replace\ngovernmental interference, that we must recognize in them a factor of\ngrowing importance in the life of societies. If they do not yet spread\nover the whole of the manifestations of life, it is that they find an\ninsurmountable obstacle in the poverty of the worker, in the divisions\nof present society, in the private appropriation of capital, and in the\nState. Abolish these obstacles, and you will see them covering the\nimmense field of civilized man's activity.\n\nThe history of the last fifty years furnishes a living proof that\nRepresentative Government is impotent to discharge all the functions we\nhave sought to assign to it. In days to come the nineteenth century will\nbe quoted as having witnessed the failure of parliamentarianism.\n\nThis impotence is becoming so evident to all; the faults of\nparliamentarianism, and the inherent vices of the representative\nprinciple, are so self-evident, that the few thinkers who have made a\ncritical study of them (J. S. Mill, Leverdays), did but give literary\nform to the popular dissatisfaction. It is not difficult, indeed, to see\nthe absurdity of naming a few men and saying to them, \"Make laws\nregulating all our spheres of activity, although not one of you knows\nanything about them!\"\n\nWe are beginning to see that government by majorities means abandoning\nall the affairs of the country to the tide-waiters who make up the\nmajorities in the House and in election committees; to those, in a word,\nwho have no opinion of their own.\n\nMankind is seeking and already finding new issues. The International\nPostal Union, the railway unions, and the learned societies give us\nexamples of solutions based on free agreement in place and stead of law.\n\nTo-day, when groups scattered far and wide wish to organize themselves\nfor some object or other, they no longer elect an international\nparliament of Jacks-of-all-trades. They proceed in a different way.\nWhere it is not possible to meet directly or come to an agreement by\ncorrespondence, delegates versed in the question at issue are sent, and\nthey are told: \"Endeavour to come to an agreement on such or such a\nquestion, and then return, not with a law in your pocket, but with a\nproposition of agreement which we may or may not accept.\"\n\nSuch is the method of the great industrial companies, the learned\nsocieties, and numerous associations of every description, which already\ncover Europe and the United States. And such will be the method of a\nfree society. A society founded on serfdom is in keeping with absolute\nmonarchy; a society based on the wage system and the exploitation of the\nmasses by the capitalists finds its political expression in\nparliamentarianism. But a free society, regaining possession of the\ncommon inheritance, must seek in free groups and free federations of\ngroups, a new organization, in harmony with the new economic phase of\nhistory.\n\nEvery economic phase has a political phase corresponding to it, and it\nwould be impossible to touch private property unless a new mode of\npolitical life be found at the same time.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nEXPROPRIATION\n\n\nI\n\nIt is told of Rothschild that, seeing his fortune threatened by the\nRevolution of 1848, he hit upon the following stratagem: \"I am quite\nwilling to admit,\" said he, \"that my fortune has been accumulated at the\nexpense of others; but if it were divided to-morrow among the millions\nof Europe, the share of each would only amount to four shillings. Very\nwell, then, I undertake to render to each his four shillings if he asks\nme for it.\"\n\nHaving given due publicity to his promise, our millionaire proceeded as\nusual to stroll quietly through the streets of Frankfort. Three or four\npassers-by asked for their four shillings, which he disbursed with a\nsardonic smile. His stratagem succeeded, and the family of the\nmillionaire is still in possession of its wealth.\n\nIt is in much the same fashion that the shrewed heads among the middle\nclasses reason when they say, \"Ah, Expropriation! I know what that\nmeans. You take all the overcoats and lay them in a heap, and every one\nis free to help himself and fight for the best.\"\n\nBut such jests are irrelevant as well as flippant. What we want is not a\nredistribution of overcoats, although it must be said that even in such\na case, the shivering folk would see advantage in it. Nor do we want to\ndivide up the wealth of the Rothschilds. What we do want is so to\narrange things that every human being born into the world shall be\nensured the opportunity, in the first instance of learning some useful\noccupation, and of becoming skilled in it; and next, that he shall be\nfree to work at his trade without asking leave of master or owner, and\nwithout handing over to landlord or capitalist the lion's share of what\nhe produces. As to the wealth held by the Rothschilds or the\nVanderbilts, it will serve us to organize our system of communal\nproduction.\n\nThe day when the labourer may till the ground without paying away half\nof what he produces, the day when the machines necessary to prepare the\nsoil for rich harvests are at the free disposal of the cultivators, the\nday when the worker in the factory produces for the community and not\nthe monopolist--that day will see the workers clothed and fed, and there\nwill be no more Rothschilds or other exploiters.\n\nNo one will then have to sell his working power for a wage that only\nrepresents a fraction of what he produces.\n\n\"So far, so good,\" say our critics, \"but you will have Rothschilds\ncoming in from the outside. How are you to prevent a person from\namassing millions in China, and then settling amongst you? How are you\ngoing to prevent such a one from surrounding himself with lackeys and\nwage-slaves--from exploiting them and enriching himself at their\nexpense?\n\n\"You cannot bring about a revolution all over the world at the same\ntime. Well, then--are you going to establish custom-houses on your\nfrontiers to search all who enter your country and confiscate the money\nthey bring with them?--Anarchist policemen firing on travellers would be\na fine spectacle!\"\n\nBut at the root of this argument there is a great error. Those who\npropound it have never paused to inquire whence come the fortunes of the\nrich. A little thought would, however, suffice to show them that these\nfortunes have their beginnings in the poverty of the poor. When there\nare no longer any destitute, there will no longer be any rich to exploit\nthem.\n\nLet us glance for a moment at the Middle Ages, when great fortunes began\nto spring up.\n\nA feudal baron seizes on a fertile valley. But as long as the fertile\nvalley is empty of folk our baron is not rich. His land brings him in\nnothing; he might as well possess a property in the moon.\n\nWhat does our baron do to enrich himself? He looks out for peasants--for\npoor peasants!\n\nIf every peasant-farmer had a piece of land, free from rent and taxes,\nif he had in addition the tools and the stock necessary for farm\nlabour--Who would plough the lands of the baron? Everyone would look\nafter his own. But there are thousands of destitute persons ruined by\nwars, or drought, or pestilence. They have neither horse nor plough.\n(Iron was very costly in the Middle Ages, and a draught-horse still more\nso.)\n\nAll these destitute creatures are trying to better their condition. One\nday they see on the road at the confines of our baron's estate a\nnotice-board indicating by certain signs adapted to their comprehension\nthat the labourer who is willing to settle on his estate will receive\nthe tools and materials to build his cottage and sow his fields, and a\nportion of land rent free for a certain number of years. The number of\nyears is represented by so many crosses on the sign-board, and the\npeasant understands the meaning of these crosses.\n\nSo the poor wretches come to settle on the baron's lands. They make\nroads, drain the marshes, build villages. In nine or ten years the baron\nbegins to tax them. Five years later he increases the rent. Then he\ndoubles it, and the peasant accepts these new conditions because he\ncannot find better ones elsewhere. Little by little, with the aid of\nlaws made by the barons, the poverty of the peasant becomes the source\nof the landlord's wealth. And it is not only the lord of the manor who\npreys upon him. A whole host of usurers swoop down upon the villages,\nmultiplying as the wretchedness of the peasants increases. That is how\nthese things happened in the Middle Ages. And to-day is it not still the\nsame thing? If there were free lands which the peasant could cultivate\nif he pleased, would he pay \u00a350 to some \"shabble of a Duke\"[2] for\ncondescending to sell him a scrap? Would he burden himself with a lease\nwhich absorbed a third of the produce? Would he--on the _m\u00e9tayer_\nsystem--consent to give half of his harvest to the landowner?\n\nBut he has nothing. So he will accept any conditions, if only he can\nkeep body and soul together, while he tills the soil and enriches the\nlandlord.\n\nSo in the nineteenth century, just as in the Middle Ages, the poverty of\nthe peasant is a source of wealth to the landed proprietor.\n\n\nII\n\nThe landlord owes his riches to the poverty of the peasants, and the\nwealth of the capitalist comes from the same source.\n\nTake the case of a citizen of the middle class, who somehow or other\nfinds himself in possession of \u00a320,000. He could, of course, spend his\nmoney at the rate of \u00a32,000 a year, a mere bagatelle in these days of\nfantastic, senseless luxury. But then he would have nothing left at the\nend of ten years. So, being a \"practical person,\" he prefers to keep his\nfortune intact, and win for himself a snug little annual income as well.\n\nThis is very easy in our society, for the good reason that the towns and\nvillages swarm with workers who have not the wherewithal to live for a\nmonth, or even a fortnight. So our worthy citizen starts a factory. The\nbanks hasten to lend him another \u00a320,000, especially if he has a\nreputation for \"business ability\"; and with this round sum he can\ncommand the labour of five hundred hands.\n\nIf all the men and women in the countryside had their daily bread\nassured, and their daily needs already satisfied, who would work for our\ncapitalist at a wage of half a crown a day, while the commodities one\nproduces in a day sell in the market for a crown or more?\n\nUnhappily--we know it all too well--the poor quarters of our towns and\nthe neighbouring villages are full of needy wretches, whose children\nclamour for bread. So, before the factory is well finished, the workers\nhasten to offer themselves. Where a hundred are required three hundred\nbesiege the doors, and from the time his mill is started, the owner, if\nhe only has average business capacities, will clear \u00a340 a year out of\neach mill-hand he employs.\n\nHe is thus able to lay by a snug little fortune; and if he chooses a\nlucrative trade, and has \"business talents,\" he will soon increase his\nincome by doubling the number of men he exploits.\n\nSo he becomes a personage of importance. He can afford to give dinners\nto other personages--to the local magnates, the civic, legal, and\npolitical dignitaries. With his money he can \"marry money\"; by and by he\nmay pick and choose places for his children, and later on perhaps get\nsomething good from the Government--a contract for the army or for the\npolice. His gold breeds gold; till at last a war, or even a rumour of\nwar, or a speculation on the Stock Exchange, gives him his great\nopportunity.\n\nNine-tenths of the great fortunes made in the United States are (as\nHenry George has shown in his \"Social Problems\") the result of knavery\non a large scale, assisted by the State. In Europe, nine-tenths of the\nfortunes made in our monarchies and republics have the same origin.\nThere are not two ways of becoming a millionaire.\n\nThis is the secret of wealth: find the starving and destitute, pay them\nhalf a crown, and make them produce five shillings worth in the day,\namass a fortune by these means, and then increase it by some lucky\nspeculation, made with the help of the State.\n\nNeed we go on to speak of small fortunes attributed by the economists to\nforethought and frugality, when we know that mere saving in itself\nbrings in nothing, so long as the pence saved are not used to exploit\nthe famishing?\n\nTake a shoemaker, for instance. Grant that his work is well paid, that\nhe has plenty of custom, and that by dint of strict frugality he\ncontrives to lay by from eighteen pence to two shillings a day, perhaps\ntwo pounds a month.\n\nGrant that our shoemaker is never ill, that he does not half starve\nhimself, in spite of his passion for economy; that he does not marry or\nthat he has no children; that he does not die of consumption; suppose\nanything and everything you please!\n\nWell, at the age of fifty he will not have scraped together \u00a3800; and\nhe will not have enough to live on during his old age, when he is past\nwork. Assuredly this is not how fortunes are made. But suppose our\nshoemaker, as soon as he has laid by a few pence, thriftily conveys them\nto the savings bank and that the savings bank lends them to the\ncapitalist who is just about to \"employ labour,\" i.e., to exploit the\npoor. Then our shoemaker takes an apprentice, the child of some poor\nwretch, who will think himself lucky if in five years' time his son has\nlearned the trade and is able to earn his living.\n\nMeanwhile our shoemaker does not lose by him, and if trade is brisk he\nsoon takes a second, and then a third apprentice. By and by he will take\ntwo or three working men--poor wretches, thankful to receive half a\ncrown a day for work that is worth five shillings, and if our shoemaker\nis \"in luck,\" that is to say, if he is keen enough and mean enough, his\nworking men and apprentices will bring him in nearly one pound a day,\nover and above the product of his own toil. He can then enlarge his\nbusiness. He will gradually become rich, and no longer have any need to\nstint himself in the necessaries of life. He will leave a snug little\nfortune to his son.\n\nThat is what people call \"being economical and having frugal, temperate\nhabits.\" At bottom it is nothing more nor less than grinding the face of\nthe poor.\n\nCommerce seems an exception to this rule. \"Such a man,\" we are told,\n\"buys tea in China, brings it to France, and realizes a profit of thirty\nper cent. on his original outlay. He has exploited nobody.\"\n\nNevertheless the case is quite similar. If our merchant had carried his\nbales on his back, well and good! In early medieval times that was\nexactly how foreign trade was conducted, and so no one reached such\ngiddy heights of fortune as in our days. Very few and very hardly earned\nwere the gold coins which the medieval merchant gained from a long and\ndangerous voyage. It was less the love of money than the thirst of\ntravel and adventure that inspired his undertakings.\n\nNowadays the method is simpler. A merchant who has some capital need not\nstir from his desk to become wealthy. He telegraphs to an agent telling\nhim to buy a hundred tons of tea; he freights a ship, and in a few\nweeks, in three months if it is a sailing ship, the vessels brings him\nhis cargo. He does not even take the risks of the voyage, for his tea\nand his vessel are insured, and if he has expended four thousand pounds\nhe will receive more than five or six thousand; that is to say, if he\nhas not attempted to speculate in some novel commodities, in which case\nhe runs a chance of either doubling his fortune or losing it altogether.\n\nNow, how could he find men willing to cross the sea, to travel to China\nand back, to endure hardship and slavish toil and to risk their lives\nfor a miserable pittance? How could he find dock labourers willing to\nload and unload his ships for \"starvation wages\"? How? Because they are\nneedy and starving. Go to the seaports, visit the cook-shops and taverns\non the quays, and look at these men who have come to hire themselves,\ncrowding round the dock-gates, which they besiege from early dawn,\nhoping to be allowed to work on the vessels. Look at these sailors,\nhappy to be hired for a long voyage, after weeks and months of waiting.\nAll their lives long they have gone to the sea in ships, and they will\nsail in others still, until they have perished in the waves.\n\nEnter their homes, look at their wives and children in rags, living one\nknows not how till the father's return, and you will have the answer to\nthe question.\n\nMultiply examples, choose them where you will, consider the origin of\nall fortunes, large or small, whether arising out of commerce, finance,\nmanufacturers, or the land. Everywhere you will find that the wealth of\nthe wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor. This is why an\nanarchist society need not fear the advent of a Rothschild who would\nsettle in its midst. If every member of the community knows that after a\nfew hours of productive toil he will have a right to all the pleasures\nthat civilization procures, and to those deeper sources of enjoyment\nwhich art and science offer to all who seek them, he will not sell his\nstrength for a starvation wage. No one will volunteer to work for the\nenrichment of your Rothschild. His golden guineas will be only so many\npieces of metal--useful for various purposes, but incapable of breeding\nmore.\n\nIn answering the above objection we have at the same time indicated the\nscope of Expropriation. It must apply to everything that enables any\nman--be he financier, mill-owner, or landlord--to appropriate the\nproduct of others' toil. Our formula is simple and comprehensive.\n\nWe do not want to rob any one of his coat, but we wish to give to the\nworkers all those things the lack of which makes them fall an easy prey\nto the exploiter, and we will do our utmost that none shall lack aught,\nthat not a single man shall be forced to sell the strength of his right\narm to obtain a bare subsistence for himself and his babes. This is what\nwe mean when we talk of Expropriation; this will be our duty during the\nRevolution, for whose coming we look, not two hundred years hence, but\nsoon, very soon.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe ideas of Anarchism in general and of Expropriation in particular\nfind much more sympathy than we are apt to imagine among men of\nindependent character, and those for whom idleness is not the supreme\nideal. \"Still,\" our friends often warn us, \"take care you do not go too\nfar! Humanity cannot be changed in a day, so do not be in to great a\nhurry with your schemes of Expropriation and Anarchy, or you will be in\ndanger of achieving no permanent result.\"\n\nNow, what we fear with regard to Expropriation is exactly the contrary.\nWe are afraid of not going far enough, of carrying out Expropriation on\ntoo small a scale to be lasting. We would not have the revolutionary\nimpulse arrested in mid-career, to exhaust itself in half measures,\nwhich would content no one, and while producing a tremendous confusion\nin society, and stopping its customary activities, would have no vital\npower--would merely spread general discontent and inevitably prepare the\nway for the triumph of reaction.\n\nThere are, in fact, in a modern State established relations which it is\npractically impossible to modify if one attacks them only in detail.\nThere are wheels within wheels in our economic organization--the\nmachinery is so complex and interdependent that no one part can be\nmodified without disturbing the whole. This becomes clear as soon as an\nattempt is made to expropriate anything.\n\nLet us suppose that in a certain country a limited form of expropriation\nis effected. For example, that, as it has been suggested more than once,\nonly the property of the great landlords is socialized, whilst the\nfactories are left untouched; or that, in a certain city, house property\nis taken over by the Commune, but everything else is left to private\nownership; or that, in some manufacturing centre, the factories are\ncommunalized, but the land is not interfered with.\n\nThe same result would follow in each case--a terrible shattering of the\nindustrial system, without the means of reorganizing it on new lines.\nIndustry and finance would be at a deadlock, yet a return to the first\nprinciples of justice would not have been achieved, and society would\nfind itself powerless to construct a harmonious whole.\n\nIf agriculture were freed from great landowners, while industry still\nremained the bond-slave of the capitalist, the merchant, and the banker,\nnothing would be accomplished. The peasant suffers to-day not only in\nhaving to pay rent to the landlord; he is oppressed on all hands by\nexisting conditions. He is exploited by the tradesman, who makes him\npay half a crown for a spade which, measured by the labour spent on it,\nis not worth more than sixpence. He is taxed by the State, which cannot\ndo without its formidable hierarchy of officials, and finds it necessary\nto maintain an expensive army, because the traders of all nations are\nperpetually fighting for the markets, and any day a little quarrel\narising from the exploitation of some part of Asia or Africa may result\nin war.\n\nThen again the peasant suffers from the depopulation of country places:\nthe young people are attracted to the large manufacturing towns by the\nbait of high wages paid temporarily by the producers of articles of\nluxury, or by the attractions of a more stirring life. The artificial\nprotection of industry, the industrial exploitation of foreign\ncountries, the prevalence of stock-jobbing, the difficulty of improving\nthe soil and the machinery of production--all these agencies combine\nnowadays to work against agriculture, which is burdened not only by\nrent, but by the whole complex of conditions in a society based on\nexploitation. Thus, even if the expropriation of land were accomplished,\nand every one were free to till the soil and cultivate it to the best\nadvantage, without paying rent, agriculture, even though it should\nenjoy--which can by no means be taken for granted--a momentary\nprosperity, would soon fall back into the slough in which it finds\nitself to-day. The whole thing would have to be begun over again, with\nincreased difficulties.\n\nThe same holds true of industry. Take the converse case: instead of\nturning the agricultural labourers into peasant-proprietors,\nmake over the factories to those who work in them. Abolish the\nmaster-manufacturers, but leave the landlord his land, the banker his\nmoney, the merchant his Exchange; maintain the swarm of idlers who live\non the toil of the workmen, the thousand and one middlemen, the State\nwith its numberless officials,--and industry would come to a standstill.\nFinding no purchasers in the mass of peasants who would remain poor; not\npossessing the raw material, and unable to export their produce, partly\non account of the stoppage of trade, and still more so because\nindustries spread all over the world, the manufacturers would feel\nunable to struggle, and thousands of workers would be thrown upon the\nstreets. These starving crowds would be ready and willing to submit to\nthe first schemer who came to exploit them; they would even consent to\nreturn to the old slavery, under promise of guaranteed work.\n\nOr, finally, suppose you oust the landowners, and hand over the mills\nand factories to the worker, without interfering with the swarm of\nmiddlemen who drain the product of our manufacturers, and speculate in\ncorn and flour, meat and groceries, in our great centres of commerce.\nThen, as soon as the exchange of produce is slackened; as soon as the\ngreat cities are left without bread, while the great manufacturing\ncentres find no buyers for the articles of luxury they produce,--the\ncounter-revolution is bound to take place, and it would come, treading\nupon the slain, sweeping the towns and villages with shot and shell;\nindulging in orgies of proscriptions and deportations, such as were seen\nin France in 1815, 1848, and 1871.\n\nAll is interdependent in a civilized society; it is impossible to reform\nany one thing without altering the whole. Therefore, on the day a nation\nwill strike at private property, under any one of its forms, territorial\nor industrial, it will be obliged to attack them all. The very success\nof the Revolution will impose it.\n\nBesides, even if it were desired, it would be impossible to confine the\nchange to a partial expropriation. Once the principle of the \"Divine\nRight of Property\" is shaken, no amount of theorizing will prevent its\noverthrow, here by the slaves of the field, there by the slaves of the\nmachine.\n\nIf a great town, Paris for example, were to confine itself to taking\npossession of the dwelling houses of the factories, it would be forced\nalso to deny the right of the bankers to levy upon the Commune a tax\namounting to \u00a32,000,000, in the form of interest for former loans. The\ngreat city would be obliged to put itself in touch with the rural\ndistricts, and its influence would inevitably urge the peasants to free\nthemselves from the landowner. It would be necessary to communalize the\nrailways, that the citizens might get food and work, and lastly, to\nprevent the waste of supplies; and to guard against the trusts of\ncorn-speculators, like those to whom the Paris Commune of 1793 fell a\nprey, it would have to place in the hands of the City the work of\nstocking its warehouses with commodities, and apportioning the produce.\n\nSome Socialists still seek, however, to establish a distinction. \"Of\ncourse,\" they say, \"the soil, the mines, the mills, and manufacturers\nmust be expropriated, these are the instruments of production, and it is\nright we should consider them public property. But articles of\nconsumption--food, clothes, and dwellings--should remain private\nproperty.\"\n\nPopular common sense has got the better of this subtle distinction. We\nare not savages who can live in the woods, without other shelter than\nthe branches. The civilized man needs a roof, a room, a hearth, and a\nbed. It is true that the bed, the room, and the house is a home of\nidleness for the non-producer. But for the worker, a room, properly\nheated and lighted, is as much an instrument of production as the tool\nor the machine. It is the place where the nerves and sinews gather\nstrength for the work of the morrow. The rest of the workman is the\ndaily repairing of the machine.\n\nThe same argument applies even more obviously to food. The so-called\neconomists, who make the just-mentioned distinction, would hardly deny\nthat the coal burnt in a machine is as necessary to production as the\nraw material itself. How then can food, without which the human machine\ncould do no work, be excluded from the list of things indispensable to\nthe producer? Can this be a relic of religious metaphysics? The rich\nman's feast is indeed a matter of luxury, but the food of the worker is\njust as much a part of production as the fuel burnt by the steam-engine.\n\nThe same with clothing. We are not New Guinea savages. And if the dainty\ngowns of our ladies must rank as objects of luxury, there is\nnevertheless a certain quantity of linen, cotton, and woolen stuff which\nis a necessity of life to the producer. The shirt and trousers in which\nhe goes to his work, the jacket he slips on after the day's toil is\nover, are as necessary to him as the hammer to the anvil.\n\nWhether we like it or not, this is what the people mean by a revolution.\nAs soon as they have made a clean sweep of the Government, they will\nseek first of all to ensure to themselves decent dwellings and\nsufficient food and clothes--free of capitalist rent.\n\nAnd the people will be right. The methods of the people will be much\nmore in accordance with science than those of the economists who draw so\nmany distinctions between instruments of production and articles of\nconsumption. The people understand that this is just the point where the\nRevolution ought to begin; and they will lay the foundations of the only\neconomic science worthy the name--a science which might be called: \"_The\nStudy of the Needs of Humanity, and of the Economic Means to satisfy\nthem_.\"\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[2] \"Shabble of a Duke\" is an expression coined by Carlyle; it is a\nsomewhat free rendering of Kropotkine's \"Monsieur le Vicomte,\" but I\nthink it expresses his meaning.--_Trans._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nFOOD\n\n\nI\n\nIf the coming Revolution is to be a Social Revolution, it will be\ndistinguished from all former uprisings not only by its aim, but also by\nits methods. To attain a new end, new means are required.\n\nThe three great popular movements which we have seen in France during\nthe last hundred years differ from each other in many ways, but they\nhave one common feature.\n\nIn each case the people strove to overturn the old regime, and spent\ntheir heart's blood for the cause. Then, after having borne the brunt of\nthe battle, they sank again into obscurity. A Government, composed of\nmen more or less honest, was formed and undertook to organize a new\nregime: the Republic in 1793, Labour in 1848, the Free Commune in 1871.\nImbued with Jacobin ideas, this Government occupied itself first of all\nwith political questions, such as the reorganization of the machinery of\ngovernment, the purifying of the administration, the separation of\nChurch and State, civic liberty, and such matters. It is true the\nworkmen's clubs kept an eye on the members of the new Government, and\noften imposed their ideas on them. But even in these clubs, whether the\nleaders belonged to the middle or the working classes, it was always\nmiddle-class ideas which prevailed. They discussed various political\nquestions at great length, but forgot to discuss the question of bread.\n\nGreat ideas sprang up at such times, ideas that have moved the world;\nwords were spoken which still stir our hearts, at the interval of more\nthan a century. But the people were starving in the slums.\n\nFrom the very Commencement of the Revolution industry inevitably came to\na stop--the circulation of produce was checked, and capital concealed\nitself. The master--the employer--had nothing to fear at such times, he\nfattened on his dividends, if indeed he did not speculate on the\nwretchedness around; but the wage-earner was reduced to live from hand\nto mouth. Want knocked at the door.\n\nFamine was abroad in the land--such famine as had hardly been seen under\nthe old regime.\n\n\"The Girondists are starving us!\" was the cry in the workmen's quarters\nin 1793, and thereupon the Girondists were guillotined, and full powers\nwere given to \"the Mountain\" and to the Commune. The Commune indeed\nconcerned itself with the question of bread, and made heroic efforts to\nfeed Paris. At Lyons, Fouch\u00e9 and Collot d'Herbois established city\ngranaries, but the sums spent on filling them were woefully\ninsufficient. The town councils made great efforts to procure corn; the\nbakers who hoarded flour were hanged--and still the people lacked bread.\n\nThen they turned on the royalist conspirators and laid the blame at\ntheir door. They guillotined a dozen or fifteen a day--servants and\nduchesses alike, especially servants, for the duchesses had gone to\nCoblentz. But if they had guillotined a hundred dukes and viscounts\nevery day, it would have been equally hopeless.\n\nThe want only grew. For the wage-earner cannot live without his wage,\nand the wage was not forthcoming. What difference could a thousand\ncorpses more or less make to him?\n\nThen the people began to grow weary. \"So much for your vaunted\nRevolution! You are more wretched than ever before,\" whispered the\nreactionary in the ears of the worker. And little by little the rich\ntook courage, emerged from their hiding-places, and flaunted their\nluxury in the face of the starving multitude. They dressed up like\nscented fops and said to the workers: \"Come, enough of this foolery!\nWhat have you gained by your Revolution?\"\n\nAnd, sick at heart, his patience at an end, the revolutionary had at\nlast to admit to himself that the cause was lost once more. He retreated\ninto his hovel and awaited the worst.\n\nThen reaction proudly asserted itself, and accomplished a\ncounter-revolutionary stroke. The Revolution dead, nothing remained but\nto trample its corpse under foot.\n\nThe White Terror began. Blood flowed like water, the guillotine was\nnever idle, the prisons were crowded, while the pageant of rank and\nfashion resumed its old course, and went on as merrily as before.\n\nThis picture is typical of all our revolutions. In 1848 the workers of\nParis placed \"three months of starvation\" at the service of the\nRepublic, and then, having reached the limit of their powers, they made,\nin June, one last desperate effort--an effort which was drowned in\nblood. In 1871 the Commune perished for lack of combatants. It had taken\nmeasures for the separation of Church and State, but it neglected, alas,\nuntil too late, to take measures for providing the people with bread.\nAnd so it came to pass in Paris that _\u00e9l\u00e9gantes_ and fine gentlemen\ncould spurn the confederates, and bid them go sell their lives for a\nmiserable pittance, and leave their \"betters\" to feast at their ease in\nfashionable restaurants.\n\nAt last the Commune saw its mistake, and opened communal kitchens. But\nit was too late. Its days were already numbered, and the troops of\nVersailles were on the ramparts.\n\n\n\"Bread, it is bread that the Revolution needs!\"\n\nLet others spend their time in issuing pompous proclamations, in\ndecorating themselves lavishly with official gold lace, and in talking\nabout political liberty!...\n\nBe it ours to see, from the first day of the Revolution to the last, in\nall the provinces fighting for freedom, that there is not a single man\nwho lacks bread, not a single woman compelled to stand with the wearied\ncrowd outside the bakehouse-door, that haply a coarse loaf may be\nthrown to her in charity, not a single child pining for want of food.\n\nIt has always been the middle-class idea to harangue about \"great\nprinciples\"--great lies rather!\n\nThe idea of the people will be to provide bread for all. And while\nmiddle-class citizens, and workmen infested with middle-class ideas\nadmire their own rhetoric in the \"Talking Shops,\" and \"practical people\"\nare engaged in endless discussions on forms of government, we, the\n\"Utopian dreamers\"--we shall have to consider the question of daily\nbread.\n\nWe have the temerity to declare that all have a right to bread, that\nthere is bread enough for all, and that with this watchword of _Bread\nfor All_ the Revolution will triumph.\n\n\nII\n\nThat we are Utopians is well known. So Utopian are we that we go the\nlength of believing that the Revolution can and ought to assure shelter,\nfood, and clothes to all--an idea extremely displeasing to middle-class\ncitizens, whatever their party colour, for they are quite alive to the\nfact that it is not easy to keep the upper hand of a people whose hunger\nis satisfied.\n\nAll the same, we maintain our contention: bread must be found for the\npeople of the Revolution, and the question of bread must take precedence\nof all other questions. If it is settled in the interests of the people,\nthe Revolution will be on the right road; for in solving the question of\nBread we must accept the principle of equality, which will force itself\nupon us to the exclusion of every other solution.\n\nIt is certain that the coming Revolution--like in that respect to the\nRevolution of 1848--will burst upon us in the middle of a great\nindustrial crisis. Things have been seething for half a century now, and\ncan only go from bad to worse. Everything tends that way--new nations\nentering the lists of international trade and fighting for possession\nof the world's markets, wars, taxes ever increasing. National debts,\nthe insecurity of the morrow, and huge colonial undertakings in every\ncorner of the globe.\n\nThere are millions of unemployed workers in Europe at this moment. It\nwill be still worse when Revolution has burst upon us and spread like\nfire laid to a train of gunpowder. The number of the out-of-works will\nbe doubled as soon as the barricades are erected in Europe and the\nUnited States. What is to be done to provide these multitudes with\nbread?\n\nWe do not know whether the folk who call themselves \"practical people\"\nhave ever asked themselves this question in all its nakedness. But we do\nknow that they wish to maintain the wage system, and we must therefore\nexpect to have \"national workshops\" and \"public works\" vaunted as a\nmeans of giving food to the unemployed.\n\nBecause national workshops were opened in 1789 and 1793; because the\nsame means were resorted to in 1848; because Napoleon III. succeeded in\ncontenting the Parisian proletariat for eighteen years by giving them\npublic works--which cost Paris to-day its debt of \u00a380,000,000 and its\nmunicipal tax of three or four pounds a-head;[3] because this excellent\nmethod of \"taming the beast\" was customary in Rome, and even in Egypt\nfour thousand years ago; and lastly, because despots, kings, and\nemperors have always employed the ruse of throwing a scrap of food to\nthe people to gain time to snatch up the whip--it is natural that\n\"practical\" men should extol this method of perpetuating the wage\nsystem. What need to rack our brains when we have the time-honoured\nmethod of the Pharaohs at our disposal?\n\nYet should the Revolution be so misguided as to start on this path, it\nwould be lost.\n\nIn 1848, when the national workshops were opened on February 27, the\nunemployed of Paris numbered only 8,000; a fortnight later they had\nalready increased to 49,000. They would soon have been 100,000, without\ncounting those who crowded in from the provinces.\n\nYet at that time trade and manufacturers in France employed half as many\nhands as to-day. And we know that in time of Revolution exchange and\nindustry suffer most from the general upheaval. We have only to think,\nindeed, of the number of workmen whose labour depends directly or\nindirectly upon export trade, or of the number of hands employed in\nproducing luxuries, whose consumers are the middle-class minority.\n\nA revolution in Europe means, then, the unavoidable stoppage of at least\nhalf the factories and workshops. It means millions of workers and their\nfamilies thrown on the streets. And our \"practical men\" would seek to\navert this truly terrible situation by means of national relief works;\nthat is to say, by means of new industries created on the spot to give\nwork to the unemployed!\n\nIt is evident, as Proudhon had already pointed out more than fifty years\nago, that the smallest attack upon property will bring in its train the\ncomplete disorganization of the system based upon private enterprise and\nwage labour. Society itself will be forced to take production in hand,\nin its entirety, and to reorganize it to meet the needs of the whole\npeople. But this cannot be accomplished in a day, or even in a month; it\nmust take a certain time to reorganize the system of production, and\nduring this time millions of men will be deprived of the means of\nsubsistence. What then is to be done?\n\nThere is only one really _practical_ solution of the problem--boldly to\nface the great task which awaits us, and instead of trying to patch up a\nsituation which we ourselves have made untenable, to proceed to\nreorganize production on a new basis.\n\nThus the really practical course of action, in our view, would be that\nthe people should take immediate possession of all the food of the\ninsurgent communes, keeping strict account of it all, that none might be\nwasted, and that by the aid of these accumulated resources every one\nmight be able to tide over the crisis. During that time an agreement\nwould have to be made with the factory workers, the necessary raw\nmaterial given them, and the means of subsistence assured to them, while\nthey worked to supply the needs of the agricultural population. For we\nmust not forget that while France weaves silks and satins to deck the\nwives of German financiers, the Empress of Russia, and the Queen of the\nSandwich Islands, and while Paris fashions wonderful trinkets and\nplaythings for rich folk all the world over, two-thirds of the French\npeasantry have not proper lamps to give them light, or the implements\nnecessary for modern agriculture. Lastly, unproductive land, of which\nthere is plenty, would have to be turned to the best advantage, poor\nsoils enriched, and rich soils, which yet, under the present system, do\nnot yield a quarter, no, nor a tenth of what they might produce, would\nbe submitted to intensive culture, and tilled with as much care as a\nmarket garden or a flower pot. It is impossible to imagine any other\npractical solution of the problem; and, whether we like it or not, sheer\nforce of circumstances will bring it to pass.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe most prominent characteristic of our present capitalism is _the wage\nsystem_, which in brief amounts to this:--\n\nA man, or a group of men, possessing the necessary capital, starts some\nindustrial enterprise; he undertakes to supply the factory or workshops\nwith raw material, to organize production, to pay the employes a fixed\nwage, and lastly, to pocket the surplus value or profits, under pretext\nof recouping himself for managing the concern, for running the risks it\nmay involve, and for the fluctuations of price in the market value of\nthe wares.\n\nTo preserve this system, those who now monopolize capital would be ready\nto make certain concessions; to share, for example, a part of the\nprofits with the workers, or rather to establish a \"sliding scale,\"\nwhich would oblige them to raise wages when prices were high; in brief\nthey would consent to certain sacrifices on condition that they were\nstill allowed to direct industry and to take its first fruits.\n\nCollectivism, as we know, does not abolish the wage system, though it\nintroduces considerable modifications into the existing order of things.\nIt only substitutes the State, that is to say, some form of\nRepresentative Government, national or local, for the individual\nemployer of labour. Under Collectivism it is the representatives of the\nnation, or of the Commune, and their deputies and officials who are to\nhave the control of industry. It is they who reserve to themselves the\nright of employing the surplus of production--in the interests of all.\nMoreover, Collectivism draws a very subtle but very far-reaching\ndistinction between the work of the labourer and of the man who has\nlearned a craft. Unskilled labour in the eyes of the collectivist is\n_simple_ labour, while the work of the craftsman, the mechanic, the\nengineer, the man of science, etc., is what Marx calls _complex_ labour,\nand is entitled to a higher wage. But labourers and craftsmen, weavers\nand men of science, are all wage-servants of the State--\"all officials,\"\nas was said lately, to gild the pill.\n\nWell, then, the coming Revolution could render no greater service to\nhumanity than by making the wage system, in all its forms, an\nimpossibility, and by rendering Communism, which is the negation of\nwage-slavery, the only possible solution.\n\nFor even admitting that the Collectivist modification of the present\nsystem is possible, if introduced gradually during a period of\nprosperity and peace--though for my part I question its practicability\neven under such conditions--it would become impossible in a period of\nRevolution, when the need of feeding hungry millions would spring up\nwith the first call to arms. A political revolution can be accomplished\nwithout shaking the foundations of industry, but a revolution where the\npeople lay hands upon property will inevitably paralyse exchange and\nproduction. The millions of public money flowing into the Treasury\nwould not suffice for paying wages to the millions of out-of-works.\n\nThis point cannot be too much insisted upon; the reorganization of\nindustry on a new basis (and we shall presently show how tremendous this\nproblem is) cannot be accomplished in a few days; nor, on the other\nhand, will the people submit to be half starved for years in order to\noblige the theorists who uphold the wage system. To tide over the period\nof stress they will demand what they have always demanded in such\ncases--communization of supplies--the giving of rations.\n\nIt will be in vain to preach patience. The people will be patient no\nlonger, and if food is not forthcoming they will plunder the bakeries.\n\nThen, if the people are not strong enough to carry all before them, they\nwill be shot down, to give Collectivism a fair field for experiment. To\nthis end \"_order_\" must be maintained at any price--order, discipline,\nobedience! And as the capitalists will soon realize that when the people\nare shot down by those who call themselves Revolutionists, the\nRevolution itself will become hateful in the eyes of the masses, they\nwill certainly lend their support to the champions of _order_--even\nthough they are collectivists. In such a line of conduct, the\ncapitalists will see a means of hereafter crushing the collectivists in\ntheir turn. And if \"order is established\" in this fashion, the\nconsequences are easy to foresee. Not content with shooting down the\n\"marauders,\" the faction of \"order\" will search out the \"ringleaders of\nthe mob.\" They will set up again the law courts and reinstate the\nhangman. The most ardent revolutionists will be sent to the scaffold. It\nwill be 1793 over again.\n\nDo not let us forget how reaction triumphed in the last century. First\nthe \"H\u00e9bertists\" and \"the madmen,\" were guillotined--those whom Mignet,\nwith the memory of the struggle fresh upon him, still called\n\"Anarchists.\" The Dantonists soon followed them; and when the party of\nRobespierre had guillotined these revolutionaries, they in their turn\nhad to mount the scaffold; whereupon the people, sick of bloodshed, and\nseeing the revolution lost, threw up the sponge, and let the\nreactionaries do their worst.\n\nIf \"order is restored,\" we say, the social democrats will hang the\nanarchists; the Fabians will hang the social democrats, and will in\ntheir turn be hanged by the reactionaries; and the Revolution will come\nto an end.\n\nBut everything confirms us in the belief that the energy of the people\nwill carry them far enough, and that, when the Revolution takes place,\nthe idea of anarchist Communism will have gained ground. It is not an\nartificial idea. The people themselves have breathed it in our ear, and\nthe number of communists is ever increasing, as the impossibility of any\nother solution becomes more and more evident.\n\nAnd if the impetus of the people is strong enough, affairs will take a\nvery different turn. Instead of plundering the bakers' shops one day,\nand starving the next, the people of the insurgent cities will take\npossession of the warehouses, the cattle markets,--in fact of all the\nprovision stores and of all the food to be had. The well-intentioned\ncitizens, men and women both, will form themselves into bands of\nvolunteers and address themselves to the task of making a rough general\ninventory of the contents of each shop and warehouse.\n\nIf such a revolution breaks out in France, namely in Paris, then in\ntwenty-four hours the Commune will know what Paris has not found out\nyet, in spite of its statistical committees, and what it never did find\nout during the siege of 1871--the quantity of provisions it contains. In\nforty-eight hours millions of copies will be printed of the tables\ngiving a sufficiently exact account of the available food, the places\nwhere it is stored, and the means of distribution.\n\nIn every block of houses, in every street, in every town ward, groups of\nvolunteers will have been organized, and these commissariat volunteers\nwill find it easy to work in unison and keep in touch with each other.\nIf only the Jacobin bayonets do not get in the way; if only the\nself-styled \"scientific\" theorists do not thrust themselves in to\ndarken counsel! Or rather let them expound their muddle-headed theories\nas much as they like, provided they have no authority, no power! And\nthat admirable spirit of organization inherent in the people, above all\nin every social grade of the French nation, but which they have so\nseldom been allowed to exercise, will initiate, even in so huge a city\nas Paris, and in the midst of a Revolution, an immense guild of free\nworkers, ready to furnish to each and all the necessary food.\n\nGive the people a free hand, and in ten days the food service will be\nconducted with admirable regularity. Only those who have never seen the\npeople hard at work, only those who have passed their lives buried among\nthe documents, can doubt it. Speak of the organizing genius of the\n\"Great Misunderstood,\" the people, to those who have seen it in Paris in\nthe days of the barricades, or in London during the great dockers'\nstrike, when half a million of starving folk had to be fed, and they\nwill tell you how superior it is to the official ineptness of Bumbledom.\n\nAnd even supposing we had to endure a certain amount of discomfort and\nconfusion for a fortnight or a month, surely that would not matter very\nmuch. For the mass of the people it would still be an improvement on\ntheir former condition; and, besides, in times of Revolution one can\ndine contentedly enough on a bit of bread and cheese while eagerly\ndiscussing events.\n\nIn any case, a system which springs up spontaneously, under stress of\nimmediate need, will be infinitely preferable to anything invented\nbetween four walls by hide-bound theorists sitting on any number of\ncommittees.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe people of the great towns will be driven by force of circumstances\nto take possession of all the provisions, beginning with the barest\nnecessaries, and gradually extending Communism to other things, in order\nto satisfy the needs of all the citizens. The sooner it is done the\nbetter; the sooner it is done the less misery there will be and the less\nstrife.\n\nBut upon what basis must society be organized in order that all may have\ntheir due share of food produce? This is the question that meets us at\nthe outset.\n\nWe answer that there are no two ways of it. There is only one way in\nwhich Communism can be established equitably, only one way which\nsatisfies our instincts of justice and is at the same time practical;\nnamely, the system already adopted by the agrarian communes of Europe.\n\nTake for example a peasant commune, no matter where, even in France,\nwhere the Jacobins have done their best to destroy all communal usage.\nIf the commune possesses woods and copses, then, so long as there is\nplenty of wood for all, every one can take as much as he wants, without\nother let or hindrance than the public opinion of his neighbours. As to\nthe timber-trees, which are always scarce, they have to be carefully\napportioned.\n\nThe same with the communal pasture land; while there is enough and to\nspare, no limit is put to what the cattle of each homestead may consume,\nnor to the number of beasts grazing upon the pastures. Grazing grounds\nare not divided, nor is fodder doled out, unless there is scarcity. All\nthe Swiss communes, and scores of thousands in France and Germany,\nwherever there is communal pasture land, practise this system.\n\nAnd in the countries of Eastern Europe, where there are great forests\nand no scarcity of land, you will find the peasants felling the trees as\nthey need them, and cultivating as much of the soil as they require,\nwithout any thought of limiting each man's share of timber or of land.\nBut the timber will be allowanced, and the land parcelled out, to each\nhousehold according to its needs, as soon as either becomes scarce, as\nis already the case in Russia.\n\nIn a word, the system is this: no stint or limit to what the community\npossesses in abundance, but equal sharing and dividing of those\ncommodities which are scarce or apt to run short. Of the 350 millions\nwho inhabit Europe, 200 millions still follow this system of natural\nCommunism.\n\nIt is a fact worth remarking that the same system prevails in the great\ntowns in the distribution of one commodity at least, which is found in\nabundance, the water supplied to each house.\n\nAs long as there is no fear of the supply running short, no water\ncompany thinks of checking the consumption of water in each house. Take\nwhat you please! But during the great droughts, if there is any fear of\nthe supply failing, the water companies know that all they have to do is\nto make known the fact, by means of a short advertisement in the papers,\nand the citizens will reduce their consumption of water and not let it\nrun to waste.\n\nBut if water were actually scarce, what would be done? Recourse would be\nhad to a system of rations. Such a measure is so natural, so inherent in\ncommon sense, that Paris twice asked to be put on rations during the two\nsieges which it underwent in 1871.\n\nIs it necessary to go into details, to prepare tables, showing how the\ndistribution of rations may work, to prove that it is just and\nequitable, infinitely more just and equitable than the existing state of\nthings? All these tables and details will not serve to convince those of\nthe middle classes, nor, alas, those of the workers tainted with\nmiddle-class prejudices, who regard the people as a mob of savages ready\nto fall upon and devour each other, as soon as the Government ceases to\ndirect affairs. But those only who have never seen the people resolve\nand act on their own initiative could doubt for a moment that if the\nmasses were masters of the situation, they would distribute rations to\neach and all in strictest accordance with justice and equity.\n\nIf you were to give utterance, in any gathering of people, to the\nopinion that delicacies--game and such-like--should be reserved for the\nfastidious palates of aristocratic idlers, and black bread given to the\nsick in the hospitals, you would be hissed. But say at the same\ngathering, preach at the street corners and in the market places, that\nthe most tempting delicacies ought to be kept for the sick and\nfeeble--especially for the sick. Say that if there are only five brace\nof partridge in the entire city, and only one case of sherry, they\nshould go to sick people and convalescents. Say that after the sick come\nthe children. For them the milk of the cows and goats should be reserved\nif there is not enough for all. To the children and the aged the last\npiece of meat, and to the strong man dry bread, if the community be\nreduced to that extremity.\n\nSay, in a word, that if this or that article of consumption runs short,\nand has to be doled out, to those who have most need most should be\ngiven. Say that and see if you do not meet with universal agreement.\n\nThe man who is full-fed does not understand this, but the people do\nunderstand, and have always understood it; and even the child of luxury,\nif he is thrown on the street and comes into contact with the masses,\neven he will learn to understand.\n\nThe theorists--for whom the soldier's uniform and the barrack mess table\nare civilization's last word--would like no doubt to start a regime of\nNational Kitchens and \"Spartan Broth.\" They would point out the\nadvantages thereby gained, the economy in fuel and food, if such huge\nkitchens were established, where every one could come for their rations\nof soup and bread and vegetables.\n\nWe do not question these advantages. We are well aware that important\neconomies have already been achieved in this direction--as, for\ninstance, when the handmill, or quern, and the baker's oven attached to\neach house were abandoned. We can see perfectly well that it would be\nmore economical to cook broth for a hundred families at once, instead of\nlighting a hundred separate fires. We know, besides, that there are a\nthousand ways of preparing potatoes, but that cooked in one huge pot for\na hundred families they would be just as good.\n\nWe know, in fact, that variety in cooking being a matter of the\nseasoning introduced by each cook or housewife, the cooking together of\na hundredweight of potatoes would not prevent each cook or housewife\nfrom dressing and serving them in any way she pleased. And we know that\nstock made from meat can be converted into a hundred different soups to\nsuit a hundred different tastes.\n\nBut though we are quite aware of all these facts, we still maintain that\nno one has a right to force a housewife to take her potatoes from the\ncommunal kitchen ready cooked if she prefers to cook them herself in her\nown pot on her own fire. And, above all, we should wish each one to be\nfree to take his meals with his family, or with his friends, or even in\na restaurant, if it seemed good to him.\n\nNaturally large public kitchens will spring up to take the place of the\nrestaurants, where people are poisoned nowadays. Already the Parisian\nhousewife gets the stock for her soup from the butcher, and transforms\nit into whatever soup she likes, and London housekeepers know that they\ncan have a joint roasted, or an apple or rhubarb tart baked at the\nbaker's for a trifling sum, thus economizing time and fuel. And when the\ncommunal kitchen--the common bakehouse of the future--is established,\nand people can get their food cooked without the risk of being cheated\nor poisoned, the custom will no doubt become general of going to the\ncommunal kitchen for the fundamental parts of the meal, leaving the last\ntouches to be added as individual taste shall suggest.\n\nBut to make a hard and fast rule of this, to make a duty of taking home\nour food ready cooked, that would be as repugnant to our modern minds as\nthe ideas of the convent or the barrack--morbid ideas born in brains\nwarped by tyranny or superstition.\n\nWho will have a right to the food of the commune? will assuredly be the\nfirst question which we shall have to ask ourselves. Every township will\nanswer for itself, and we are convinced that the answers will all be\ndictated by the sentiment of justice. Until labour is reorganized, as\nlong as the disturbed period lasts, and while it is impossible to\ndistinguish between inveterate idlers and genuine workers thrown out of\nwork, the available food ought to be shared by all without exception.\nThose who have been enemies to the new order will hasten of their own\naccord to rid the commune of their presence. But it seems to us that the\nmasses of the people, which have always been magnanimous, and have\nnothing of vindictiveness in their disposition, will be ready to share\ntheir bread with all who remain with them, conquered and conquerers\nalike. It will be no loss to the Revolution to be inspired by such an\nidea, and, when work is set agoing again, the antagonists of yesterday\nwill stand side by side in the same workshops. A society where work is\nfree will have nothing to fear from idlers.\n\n\"But provisions will run short in a month!\" our critics at once exclaim.\n\n\"So much the better,\" say we. It will prove that for the first time on\nrecord the people have had enough to eat. As to the question of\nobtaining fresh supplies, we shall discuss the means in our next\nchapter.\n\n\nV\n\nBy what means could a city in a state of revolution be supplied with\nfood? We shall answer this question, but it is obvious that the means\nresorted to will depend on the character of the Revolution in the\nprovinces, and in neighbouring countries. If the entire nation, or,\nbetter still, if all Europe should accomplish the Social Revolution\nsimultaneously, and start with thorough-going Communism, our procedure\nwould be simplified; but if only a few communities in Europe make the\nattempt, other means will have to be chosen. The circumstances will\ndictate the measures.\n\nWe are thus led, before we proceed further, to glance at the State of\nEurope, and, without pretending to prophesy, we may try to foresee what\ncourse the Revolution will take, or at least what will be its essential\nfeatures.\n\nCertainly it would be very desirable that all Europe should rise at\nonce, that expropriation should be general, and that communistic\nprinciples should inspire all and sundry. Such a universal rising would\ndo much to simplify the task of our century.\n\nBut all the signs lead us to believe that it will not take place. That\nthe Revolution will embrace Europe we do not doubt. If one of the four\ngreat continental capitals--Paris, Vienna, Brussels, or Berlin--rises in\nrevolution and overturns its Government, it is almost certain that the\nthree others will follow its example within a few weeks' time. It is,\nmoreover, highly probable that the Peninsulas and even London and St.\nPetersburg would not be long in following suit. But whether the\nRevolution would everywhere exhibit the same characteristics is highly\ndoubtful.\n\nIt is more than probable that expropriation will be everywhere carried\ninto effect on a larger scale, and that this policy carried out by any\none of the great nations of Europe will influence all the rest; yet the\nbeginnings of the Revolution will exhibit great local differences, and\nits course will vary in different countries. In 1789-93, the French\npeasantry took four years to finally rid themselves of the redemption of\nfeudal rights, and the bourgeois to overthrow royalty. Let us keep that\nin mind, and therefore be prepared to see the Revolution develop itself\nsomewhat gradually. Let us not be disheartened if here and there its\nsteps should move less rapidly. Whether it would take an avowedly\nsocialist character in all European nations, at any rate at the\nbeginning, is doubtful. Germany, be it remembered, is still realizing\nits dream of a United Empire. Its advanced parties see visions of a\nJacobin Republic like that of 1848, and of the organization of labour\naccording to Louis Blanc; while the French people, on the other hand,\nwant above all things a free Commune, whether it be a communist Commune\nor not.\n\nThere is every reason to believe that, when the coming Revolution takes\nplace, Germany will go further than France went in 1793. The\neighteenth-century Revolution in France was an advance on the English\nRevolution of the seventeenth, abolishing as it did at one stroke the\npower of the throne and the landed aristocracy, whose influence still\nsurvives in England. But, if Germany goes further and does greater\nthings than France did in 1793, there can be no doubt that the ideas\nwhich will foster the birth of her Revolution will be those of 1848;\nwhile the ideas which will inspire the Revolution in Russia will\nprobably be a combination of those of 1789 with those of 1848.\n\nWithout, however, attaching to these forecasts a greater importance than\nthey merit, we may safely conclude this much: the Revolution will take a\ndifferent character in each of the different European nations; the point\nattained in the socialization of wealth will not be everywhere the same.\n\nWill it therefore be necessary, as is sometimes suggested, that the\nnations in the vanguard of the movement should adapt their pace to those\nwho lag behind? Must we wait till the Communist Revolution is ripe in\nall civilized countries? Clearly not! Even if it were a thing to be\ndesired, it is not possible. History does not wait for the laggards.\n\nBesides, we do not believe that in any one country the Revolution will\nbe accomplished at a stroke, in the twinkling of an eye, as some\nsocialists dream.[4] It is highly probable that if one of the five or\nsix large towns of France--Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Lille,\nSaint-Etienne, Bordeaux--were to proclaim the Commune, the others would\nfollow its example, and that many smaller towns would do the same.\nProbably also various mining districts and industrial centres would\nhasten to rid themselves of \"owners\" and \"masters,\" and form themselves\ninto free groups.\n\nBut many country places have not advanced to that point. Side by side\nwith the revolutionized communes such places would remain in an\nexpectant attitude, and would go on living on the Individualist system.\nUndisturbed by visits of the bailiff or the tax-collector, the peasants\nwould not be hostile to the revolutionaries, and thus, while profiting\nby the new state of affairs, they would defer the settlement of accounts\nwith the local exploiters. But with that practical enthusiasm which\nalways characterizes agrarian uprisings (witness the passionate toil of\n1792) they would throw themselves into the task of cultivating the land,\nwhich, freed from taxes and mortgages, would become so much dearer to\nthem.\n\nAs to other countries, revolution would break out everywhere, but\nrevolution under divers aspects; in one country State Socialism, in\nanother Federation; everywhere more or less Socialism, not conforming to\nany particular rule.\n\n\nVI\n\nLet us now return to our city in revolt, and consider how its citizens\ncan provide foodstuffs for themselves. How are the necessary provisions\nto be obtained if the nation as a whole has not accepted Communism? This\nis the question to be solved. Take, for example, one of the large French\ntowns--take the capital itself, for that matter. Paris consumes every\nyear thousands of tons of grain, 400,000 head of oxen, 300,000 calves,\n400,000 swine, and more than two millions of sheep, besides great\nquantities of game. This huge city devours, besides, more than 20\nmillion pounds of butter, 200 million eggs, and other produce in like\nproportion.\n\nIt imports flour and grain from the United States and from Russia,\nHungary, Italy, Egypt, and the Indies; live stock from Germany, Italy,\nSpain--even Roumania and Russia; and as for groceries, there is not a\ncountry in the world that it does not lay under contribution.\n\nNow, let us see how Paris or any other great town could be revictualled\nby home-grown produce, supplies of which could be readily and willingly\nsent in from the provinces.\n\nTo those who put their trust in \"authority\" the question will appear\nquite simple. They would begin by establishing a strongly centralized\nGovernment, furnished with all the machinery of coercion--the police,\nthe army, the guillotine. This Government would draw up a statement of\nall the produce contained in France. It would divide the country into\ndistricts of supply, and then _command_ that a prescribed quantity of\nsome particular foodstuff be sent to such a place on such a day, and\ndelivered at such a station, to be there received on a given day by a\nspecified official and stored in particular warehouses.\n\nNow, we declare with the fullest conviction, not merely that such a\nsolution is undesirable, but that it never could by any possibility be\nput into practice. It is wildly Utopian!\n\nPen in hand, one may dream such a dream in the study, but in contact\nwith reality it comes to nothing,--this was proved in 1793; for, like\nall such theories, it leaves out of account the spirit of independence\nthat is in man. The attempt would lead to a universal uprising, to three\nor four _Vend\u00e9es_, to the villages rising against the towns, all the\ncountry up in arms defying the city for its arrogance in attempting to\nimpose such a system upon the country.\n\nWe have already had too much of Jacobin Utopias! Let us see if some\nother form of organization will meet the case.\n\nDuring the great French Revolution, the provinces starved the large\ntowns, and killed the Revolution. And yet it is a known fact that the\nproduction of grain in France during 1792-3 had not diminished; indeed,\nthe evidence goes to show that it had increased. But after having taken\npossession of the manorial lands, after having reaped a harvest from\nthem, the peasants would not part with their grain for paper-money. They\nwithheld their produce, waiting for a rise in the price, or the\nintroduction of gold. The most rigorous measures of the National\nConvention were without avail, and her executions failed to break up the\nring, or force the farmers to sell their corn. For it is a matter of\nhistory that the commissaries of the Convention did not scruple to\nguillotine those who withheld their grain from the market, and\npitilessly executed those who speculated in foodstuffs. All the same,\nthe corn was not forthcoming, and the townsfolk suffered from famine.\n\nBut what was offered to the husbandman in exchange for his hard toil?\n_Assignats_, scraps of paper decreasing in value every day, promises of\npayment, which could not be kept. A forty-pound note would not purchase\na pair of boots, and the peasant, very naturally, was not anxious to\nbarter a year's toil for a piece of paper with which he could not even\nbuy a shirt.\n\nAs long as worthless paper-money--whether called assignats or labour\nnotes--is offered to the peasant-producer it will always be the same.\nThe country will withhold its produce, and the towns will suffer want,\neven if the recalcitrant peasants are guillotined as before.\n\nWe must offer to the peasant in exchange for his toil not worthless\npaper-money, but the manufactured articles of which he stands in\nimmediate need. He lacks the proper implements to till the land, clothes\nto protect him from the inclemencies of the weather, lamps and oil to\nreplace his miserable rushlight or tallow dip, spades, rakes, ploughs.\nAll these things, under present conditions, the peasant is forced to do\nwithout, not because he does not feel the need of them, but because, in\nhis life of struggle and privation, a thousand useful things are beyond\nhis reach; because he has not money to buy them.\n\nLet the town apply itself, without loss of time, to manufacturing all\nthat the peasant needs, instead of fashioning geegaws for the wives of\nrich citizens. Let the sewing machines of Paris be set to work on\nclothes for the country folk workaday clothes and clothes for Sunday\ntoo, instead of costly evening dresses for the English and Russian\nlandlords and the African gold-magnates' wives. Let the factories and\nfoundries turn out agricultural implements, spades, rakes, and\nsuch-like, instead of waiting till the English send them to France, in\nexchange for French wines!\n\nLet the towns send no more inspectors to the villages, wearing red,\nblue, or rainbow-coloured scarves, to convey to the peasant orders to\ntake his produce to this place or that, but let them send friendly\nembassies to the countryfolk and bid them in brotherly fashion: \"Bring\nus your produce, and take from our stores and shops all the manufactured\narticles you please.\"--Then provisions would pour in on every side. The\npeasant would only withhold what he needed for his own use, and would\nsend the rest into the cities, feeling _for the first time in the course\nof history_ that these toiling townsfolk were his comrades--his\nbrethren, and not his exploiters.\n\nWe shall be told, perhaps, that this would necessitate a complete\ntransformation of industry. Well, yes, that is true of certain\ndepartments; but there are other branches which could be rapidly\nmodified in such a way as to furnish the peasant with clothes, watches,\nfurniture, and the simple implements for which the towns make him pay\nsuch exorbitant prices at the present time. Weavers, tailors,\nshoemakers, tinsmiths, cabinet-makers, and many other trades and crafts\ncould easily direct their energies to the manufacture of useful and\nnecessary articles, and abstain from producing mere luxuries. All that\nis needed is that the public mind should be thoroughly convinced of the\nnecessity of this transformation, and should come to look upon it as an\nact of justice and of progress, and that it should no longer allow\nitself to be cheated by that dream, so dear to the theorists--the dream\nof a revolution which confines itself to taking possession of the\nprofits of industry, and leaves production and commerce just as they are\nnow.\n\nThis, then, is our view of the whole question. Cheat the peasant no\nlonger with scraps of paper--be the sums inscribed upon them ever so\nlarge; but offer him in exchange for his produce the very _things_ of\nwhich he, the tiller of the soil, stands in need. Then the fruits of the\nland will be poured into the towns. If this is not done there will be\nfamine in our cities, and reaction and despair will follow in its train.\n\n\nVII\n\nAll the great towns, we have said, buy their grain, their flour, and\ntheir meat, not only from the provinces, but also from abroad. Foreign\ncountries send Paris not only spices, fish, and various dainties, but\nalso immense quantities of corn and meat.\n\nBut when the Revolution comes these cities will have to depend on\nforeign countries as little as possible. If Russian wheat, Italian or\nIndian rice, and Spanish or Hungarian wines abound in the markets of\nwestern Europe, it is not that the countries which export them have a\nsuperabundance, or that such a produce grows there of itself, like the\ndandelion in the meadows. In Russia for instance, the peasant works\nsixteen hours a day, and half starves from three to six months every\nyear, in order to export the grain with which he pays the landlord and\nthe State. To-day the police appears in the Russian village as soon as\nthe harvest is gathered in, and sells the peasant's last horse and last\ncow for arrears of taxes and rent due to the landlord, unless the victim\nimmolates himself of his own accord by selling the grain to the\nexporters. Usually, rather than part with his livestock at a\ndisadvantage, he keeps only a nine-months' supply of grain, and sells\nthe rest. Then, in order to sustain life until the next harvest, he\nmixes birch-bark and tares with his flour for three months, if it has\nbeen a good year, and for six months if it has been bad, while in London\nthey are eating biscuits made of his wheat.\n\nBut as soon as the Revolution comes, the Russian peasant will keep bread\nenough for himself and his children; the Italian and Hungarian peasants\nwill do the same; the Hindoo, let us hope, will profit by these good\nexamples; and the farmers of America will hardly be able to cover all\nthe deficit in grain which Europe will experience. So it will not do to\ncount on their contributions of wheat and maize satisfying all the\nwants.\n\nSince all our middle-class civilization is based on the exploitation of\ninferior races and countries with less advanced industrial systems, the\nRevolution will confer a boon at the very outset, by menacing that\n\"civilization,\" and allowing the so-called inferior races to free\nthemselves.\n\nBut this great benefit will manifest itself by a steady and marked\ndiminution of the food supplies pouring into the great cities of western\nEurope.\n\nIt is difficult to predict the course of affairs in the provinces. On\nthe one hand the slave of the soil will take advantage of the Revolution\nto straighten his bowed back. Instead of working fourteen or fifteen\nhours a day, as he does at present, he will be at liberty to work only\nhalf that time, which of course would have the effect of decreasing the\nproduction of the principal articles of consumption--grain and meat.\n\nBut, on the other hand, there will be an increase of production as soon\nas the peasant realizes that he is no longer forced to support the idle\nrich by his toil. New tracts of land will be cleared, new and improved\nmachines set a-going.\n\n\"Never was the land so energetically cultivated as in 1792, when the\npeasant had taken back from the landlord the soil which he had coveted\nso long,\" Michelet tells us speaking of the Great Revolution.\n\nOf course, before long, intensive culture would be within the reach of\nall. Improved machinery, chemical manures, and all such matters would\nsoon be supplied by the Commune. But everything tends to indicate that\nat the outset there would be a falling off in agricultural products, in\nFrance and elsewhere.\n\nIn any case it would be wisest to count upon such a falling off of\ncontributions from the provinces as well as from abroad.--How is this\nfalling off to be made good?\n\nWhy! by setting to work ourselves! No need to rack our brains for\nfar-fetched panaceas when the remedy lies close at hand.\n\nThe large towns, as well as the villages, must undertake to till the\nsoil. We must return to what biology calls \"the integration of\nfunctions\"--after the division of labour, the taking up of it as a\nwhole--this is the course followed throughout Nature.\n\nBesides, philosophy apart, the force of circumstances would bring about\nthis result. Let Paris see that at the end of eight months it will be\nrunning short of bread, and Paris will set to work to grow wheat.\n\nLand will not be wanting, for it is round the great towns, and round\nParis especially, that the parks and pleasure grounds of the landed\ngentry are to be found. These thousands of acres only await the skilled\nlabour of the husbandman to surround Paris with fields infinitely more\nfertile and productive than the steppes of southern Russia, where the\nsoil is dried up by the sun. Nor will labour be lacking. To what should\nthe two million citizens of Paris turn their attention, when they would\nbe no longer catering for the luxurious fads and amusements of Russian\nprinces, Roumanian grandees, and wives of Berlin financiers?\n\nWith all the mechanical inventions of the century; with all the\nintelligence and technical skill of the worker accustomed to deal with\ncomplicated machinery; with inventors, chemists, professors of botany,\npractical botanists like the market gardeners of Gennevilliers; with all\nthe plant that they could use for multiplying and improving machinery;\nand, finally, with the organizing spirit of the Parisian people, their\npluck and energy--with all these at its command, the agriculture of the\nanarchist Commune of Paris would be a very different thing from the rude\nhusbandry of the Ardennes.\n\nSteam, electricity, the heat of the sun, and the breath of the wind,\nwill ere long be pressed into service. The steam plough and the steam\nharrow will quickly do the rough work of preparation, and the soil, thus\ncleaned and enriched, will only need the intelligent care of man, and of\nwoman even more than man, to be clothed with luxuriant vegetation--not\nonce but three or four times in the year.\n\nThus, learning the art of horticulture from experts, and trying\nexperiments in different methods on small patches of soil reserved for\nthe purpose, vying with each other to obtain the best returns, finding\nin physical exercise, without exhaustion or overwork, the health and\nstrength which so often flags in cities,--men, women and children will\ngladly turn to the labour of the fields, when it is no longer a slavish\ndrudgery, but has become a pleasure, a festival, a renewal of health and\njoy.\n\n\"There are no barren lands; the earth is worth what man is worth\"--that\nis the last word of modern agriculture. Ask of the earth, and she will\ngive you bread, provided that you ask aright.\n\nA district, though it were as small as the two departments of the Seine\nand the Seine-et-Oise, and with so great a city as Paris to feed, would\nbe practically sufficient to grow upon it all the food supplies, which\notherwise might fail to reach it.\n\nThe combination of agriculture and industry, the husbandman and the\nmechanic in the same individual--this is what anarchist communism will\ninevitably lead us to, if it starts fair with expropriation.\n\nLet the Revolution only get so far, and famine is not the enemy it will\nhave to fear. No, the danger which will menace it lies in timidity,\nprejudice, and half-measures. The danger is where Danton saw it when he\ncried to France: \"De l'audace, de l'audace, et encore de l'audace.\" The\nbold thought first, and the bold deed will not fail to follow.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] The municipal debt of Paris amounted in 1904 to 2,266,579,100\nfrancs, and the charges for it were 121,000,000 francs.\n\n[4] No fallacy more harmful has ever been spread than the fallacy of a\n\"One-day Revolution,\" which is propagated in superficial Socialist\npamphlets speaking of the Revolution of the 18th of March at Berlin,\nsupposed (which is absolutely wrong) to have given Prussia its\nrepresentative Government. We saw well the harm made by such fallacies\nin Russia in 1905-1907. The truth is that up to 1871 Prussia, like\nRussia of the present day, had a scrap of paper which could be described\nas a \"Constitution,\" but it had no representative Government. The\nMinistry imposed upon the nation, up till 1870, the budget it chose to\npropose.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nDWELLINGS\n\n\nI\n\nThose who have closely watched the growth of Socialist ideas among the\nworkers must have noticed that on one momentous question--the housing of\nthe people--a definite conclusion is being imperceptibly arrived at. It\nis a fact that in the large towns of France, and in many of the smaller\nones, the workers are coming gradually to the conclusion that\ndwelling-houses are in no sense the property of those whom the State\nrecognizes as their owners.\n\nThis idea has evolved naturally in the minds of the people, and nothing\nwill ever convince them again that the \"rights of property\" ought to\nextend to houses.\n\nThe house was not built by its owner. It was erected, decorated and\nfurnished by innumerable workers in the timber yard, the brick field,\nand the workshop, toiling for dear life at a minimum wage.\n\nThe money spent by the owner was not the product of his own toil. It was\namassed, like all other riches, by paying the workers two-thirds or only\na half of what was their due.\n\nMoreover--and it is here that the enormity of the whole proceeding\nbecomes most glaring--the house owes its actual value to the profit\nwhich the owner can make out of it. Now, this profit results from the\nfact that his house is built in a town--that is, in an agglomeration of\nthousands of other houses, possessing paved streets, bridges, quays, and\nfine public buildings, well lighted, and affording to its inhabitants a\nthousand comforts and conveniences unknown in villages; a town in\nregular communication with other towns, and itself a centre of\nindustry, commerce, science, and art; a town which the work of twenty or\nthirty generations has made habitable, healthy, and beautiful.\n\nA house in certain parts of Paris is valued at many thousands of pounds\nsterling, not because thousands of pounds' worth of labour have been\nexpended on that particular house, but because it is in Paris; because\nfor centuries workmen, artists, thinkers, and men of learning and\nletters have contributed to make Paris what it is to-day--a centre of\nindustry, commerce, politics, art, and science; because Paris has a\npast; because, thanks to literature, the names of its streets are\nhousehold words in foreign countries as well as at home; because it is\nthe fruit of eighteen centuries of toil, the work of fifty generations\nof the whole French nation.\n\nWho, then, can appropriate to himself the tiniest plot of ground, or the\nmeanest building in such a city, without committing a flagrant\ninjustice? Who, then, has the right to sell to any bidder the smallest\nportion of the common heritage?\n\nOn that point, as we have said, the workers begin to be agreed. The idea\nof free dwellings showed its existence very plainly during the siege of\nParis, when the cry was for an abatement pure and simple of the terms\ndemanded by the landlords. It appeared again during the Commune of 1871,\nwhen the Paris workmen expected the Council of the Commune to decide\nboldly on the abolition of rent. And when the New Revolution comes, it\nwill be the first question with which the poor will concern themselves.\n\nWhether in time of revolution or in time of peace, the worker must be\nhoused somehow or other; he must have some sort of roof over his head.\nBut, however tumble-down and squalid his dwelling may be, there is\nalways a landlord who can evict him. True, during the Revolution the\nlandlord cannot find bailiffs and police-sergeants to throw the\nworkman's rags and chattels into the street, but who knows what the new\nGovernment will do to-morrow? Who can say that it will not call coercion\nto its aid again, and set the police pack upon the tenant to hound him\nout of his hovels? Have we not seen the commune of Paris proclaim the\nremission of rents due up to the first of April only![5] After that,\nrent had to be paid, though Paris was in a state of chaos, and industry\nat a standstill; so that the \"federate\" who had taken arms to defend the\nindependence of Paris had absolutely nothing to depend upon--he and his\nfamily--but an allowance of fifteen pence a day!\n\nNow the worker must be made to see clearly that in refusing to pay rent\nto a landlord or owner he is not simply profiting by the disorganization\nof authority. He must understand that the abolition of rent is a\nrecognized principle, sanctioned, so to speak, by popular assent; that\nto be housed rent-free is a right proclaimed aloud by the people.\n\nAre we going to wait till this measure, which is in harmony with every\nhonest man's sense of justice, is taken up by the few socialists\nscattered among the middle class elements, of which the Provisionary\nGovernment will be composed? If it were so, the people should have to\nwait long--till the return of reaction, in fact!\n\nThis is why, refusing uniforms and badges--those outward signs of\nauthority and servitude--and remaining people among the people, the\nearnest revolutionists will work side by side with the masses, that the\nabolition of rent, the expropriation of houses, may become an\naccomplished fact. They will prepare the ground and encourage ideas to\ngrow in this direction; and when the fruit of their labours is ripe, the\npeople will proceed to expropriate the houses without giving heed to the\ntheories which will certainly be thrust in their way--theories about\npaying compensation to landlords, and finding first the necessary funds.\n\nOn the day that the expropriation of houses takes place, on that day,\nthe exploited workers will have realized that new times have come, that\nLabour will no longer have to bear the yoke of the rich and powerful,\nthat Equality has been openly proclaimed, that this Revolution is a\nreal fact, and not a theatrical make-believe, like so many others\npreceding it.\n\n\nII\n\nIf the idea of expropriation be adopted by the people it will be carried\ninto effect in spite of all the \"insurmountable\" obstacles with which we\nare menaced.\n\nOf course, the good folk in new uniforms, seated in the official\narm-chairs of the H\u00f4tel de Ville, will be sure to busy themselves in\nheaping up obstacles. They will talk of giving compensation to the\nlandlords, of preparing statistics, and drawing up long reports. Yes,\nthey would be capable of drawing up reports long enough to outlast the\nhopes of the people, who, after waiting and starving in enforced\nidleness, and seeing nothing come of all these official researches,\nwould lose heart and faith in the Revolution and abandon the field to\nthe reactionaries. The new bureaucracy would end by making expropriation\nhateful in the eyes of all.\n\nHere, indeed, is a rock which might shipwreck our hopes. But if the\npeople turn a deaf ear to the specious arguments used to dazzle them,\nand realize that new life needs new conditions, and if they undertake\nthe task themselves, then expropriation can be effected without any\ngreat difficulty.\n\n\"But how? How can it be done?\" you ask us. We shall try to reply to this\nquestion, but with a reservation. We have no intention of tracing out\nthe plans of expropriation in their smallest details. We know beforehand\nthat all that any man, or group of men, could suggest to-day would be\nfar surpassed by the reality when it comes. Man will accomplish greater\nthings, and accomplish them better and by simpler methods than those\ndictated to him beforehand. Thus we shall merely indicate the manner by\nwhich expropriation _might_ be accomplished without the intervention of\nGovernment. We do not propose to go out of our way to answer those who\ndeclare that the thing is impossible. We confine ourselves to replying\nthat we are not the upholders of any particular method of organization.\nWe are only concerned to demonstrate that expropriation _could_ be\neffected by popular initiative, and _could not_ be effected by any other\nmeans whatever.\n\nIt seems very likely that, as soon as expropriation is fairly started,\ngroups of volunteers will spring up in every district, street, and block\nof houses, and undertake to inquire into the number of flats and houses\nwhich are empty and of those which are overcrowded, the unwholesome\nslums, and the houses which are too spacious for their occupants and\nmight well be used to house those who are stifled in swarming tenements.\nIn a few days these volunteers would have drawn up complete lists for\nthe street and the district of all the flats, tenements, family mansions\nand villa residences, all the rooms and suites of rooms, healthy and\nunhealthy, small and large, foetid dens and homes of luxury.\n\nFreely communicating with each other, these volunteers would soon have\ntheir statistics complete. False statistics can be manufactured in board\nrooms and offices, but true and exact statistics must begin with the\nindividual and mount up from the simple to the complex.\n\nThen, without waiting for anyone's leave, those citizens will probably\ngo and find their comrades who were living in miserable garrets and\nhovels and will say to them simply: \"It is a real Revolution this time,\ncomrades, and no mistake about it. Come to such a place this evening;\nall the neighbourhood will be there; we are going to redistribute the\ndwelling-houses. If you are tired of your slum-garret, come and choose\none of the flats of five rooms that are to be disposed of, and when you\nhave once moved in you shall stay, never fear. The people are up in\narms, and he who would venture to evict you will have to answer to\nthem.\"\n\n\"But every one will want a fine house or a spacious flat!\" we are\ntold.--No, you are quite mistaken. It is not the people's way to clamour\nfor the moon. On the contrary, every time we have seen them set about\nrepairing a wrong we have been struck by the good sense and instinct for\njustice which animates the masses. Have we ever known them demand the\nimpossible? Have we ever seen the people of Paris fighting among\nthemselves while waiting for their rations of bread or firewood during\nthe two sieges or during the terrible years of 1792-1794? The patience\nand resignation which prevailed among them in 1871 was constantly\npresented for admiration by the foreign Press correspondents; and yet\nthese patient waiters knew full well that the last comers would have to\npass the day without food or fire.\n\nWe do not deny that there are plenty of egotistic instincts in isolated\nindividuals. We are quite aware of it. But we contend that the very way\nto revive and nourish these instincts would be to confine such questions\nas the housing of the people to any board or committee, in fact, to the\ntender mercies of officialism in any shape or form. Then indeed all the\nevil passions spring up, and it becomes a case of who is the most\ninfluential person on the board. The least inequality causes wranglings\nand recriminations. If the smallest advantage is given to any one, a\ntremendous hue and cry is raised--and not without reason.\n\nBut if the people themselves, organized by streets, districts, and\nparishes, undertake to move the inhabitants of the slums into the\nhalf-empty dwellings of the middle classes, the trifling inconveniences,\nthe little inequalities will be easily tided over. Rarely has appeal\nbeen made to the good instincts of the masses--only as a last resort, to\nsave the sinking ship in times of revolution--but never has such an\nappeal been made in vain; the heroism, the self-devotion of the toiler\nhas never failed to respond to it. And thus it will be in the coming\nRevolution.\n\nBut, when all is said and done, some inequalities, some inevitable\ninjustices, undoubtedly will remain. There are individuals in our\nsocieties whom no great crisis can lift out of the deep mire of egoism\nin which they are sunk. The question, however, is not whether there will\nbe injustices or no, but rather how to limit the number of them.\n\nNow all history, all the experience of the human race, and all social\npsychology, unite in showing that the best and fairest way is to trust\nthe decision to those whom it concerns most nearly. It is they alone who\ncan consider and allow for the hundred and one details which must\nnecessarily be overlooked in any merely official redistribution.\n\n\nIII\n\nMoreover, it is by no means necessary to make straightway an absolutely\nequal redistribution of all the dwellings. There will no doubt be some\ninconveniences at first, but matters will soon be righted in a society\nwhich has adopted expropriation.\n\nWhen the masons, and carpenters, and all who are concerned in house\nbuilding, know that their daily bread is secured to them, they will ask\nnothing better than to work at their old trades a few hours a day. They\nwill adapt the fine houses, which absorbed the time of a whole staff of\nservants, for giving shelter to several families, and in a few months\nhomes will have sprung up, infinitely healthier and more conveniently\narranged than those of to-day. And to those who are not yet comfortably\nhoused the anarchist Commune will be able to say: \"Patience, comrades!\nPalaces fairer and finer than any the capitalists built for themselves\nwill spring from the ground of our enfranchised city. They will belong\nto those who have most need of them. The anarchist Commune does not\nbuild with an eye to revenues. These monuments erected to its citizens,\nproducts of the collective spirit, will serve as models to all humanity;\nthey will be yours.\"\n\nIf the people of the Revolution expropriate the houses and proclaim free\nlodgings--the communalizing of houses and the right of each family to a\ndecent dwelling--then the Revolution will have assumed a communistic\ncharacter from the first, and started on a course from which it will be\nby no means easy to turn it. It will have struck a fatal blow at\nindividual property.\n\nFor the expropriation of dwellings contains in germ the whole social\nrevolution. On the manner of its accomplishment depends the character of\nall that follows. Either we shall start on a good road leading straight\nto anarchist communism, or we shall remain sticking in the mud of\ndespotic individualism.\n\nIt is easy to see the numerous objections--theoretic on the one hand,\npractical on the other--with which we are sure to be met. As it will be\na question of maintaining iniquity at any price, our opponents will of\ncourse protest \"in the name of justice.\" \"Is it not a crying shame,\"\nthey will exclaim, \"that the people of Paris should take possession of\nall these fine houses, while the peasants in the country have only\ntumble-down huts to live in?\" But do not let us make a mistake. These\nenthusiasts for justice forget, by a lapse of memory to which they are\nsubject, the \"crying shame\" which they themselves are tacitly defending.\nThey forget that in this same city the worker, with his wife and\nchildren, suffocates in a noisome garret, while from his window he sees\nthe rich man's palace. They forget that whole generations perish in\ncrowded slums, starving for air and sunlight, and that to redress this\ninjustice ought to be the first task of the Revolution.\n\nDo not let these disingenuous protests hold us back. We know that any\ninequality which may exist between town and country in the early days of\nthe Revolution will be transitory and of a nature that will right itself\nfrom day to day; for the village will not fail to improve its dwellings\nas soon as the peasant has ceased to be the beast of burden of the\nfarmer, the merchant, the money-lender, and the State. In order to avoid\nan accidental and transitory inequality, shall we stay our hand from\nrighting an ancient wrong?\n\nThe so-called practical objections are not very formidable either. We\nare bidden to consider the hard case of some poor fellow who by dint of\nprivation has contrived to buy a house just large enough to hold his\nfamily. And we are going to deprive him of his hard-earned happiness,\nto turn him into the street! Certainly not. If his house is only just\nlarge enough for his family, by all means let him stay there. Let him\nwork in his little garden, too; our \"boys\" will not hinder him--nay,\nthey will lend him a helping hand if need be. But suppose he lets\nlodgings, suppose he has empty rooms in his house; then the people will\nmake the lodger understand that he need not pay his former landlord any\nmore rent. Stay where you are, but rent free. No more duns and\ncollectors; Socialism has abolished all that!\n\nOr again, suppose that the landlord has a score of rooms all to himself,\nand some poor woman lives near by with five children in one room. In\nthat case the people would see whether, with some alterations, these\nempty rooms could not be converted into a suitable home for the poor\nwoman and her five children. Would not that be more just and fair than\nto leave the mother and her five little ones languishing in a garret,\nwhile Sir Gorgeous Midas sat at his ease in an empty mansion? Besides,\ngood Sir Gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his own accord; his\nwife will be delighted to be freed from half her big, unwieldy house\nwhen there is no longer a staff of servants to keep it in order.\n\n\"So you are going to turn everything upside down,\" say the defenders of\nlaw and order. \"There will be no end to the evictions and removals.\nWould it not be better to start fresh by turning everybody out of doors\nand redistributing the houses by lot?\" Thus our critics; but we are\nfirmly persuaded that if no Government interferes in the matter, if all\nthe changes are entrusted to these free groups which have sprung up to\nundertake the work, the evictions and removals will be less numerous\nthan those which take place in one year under the present system, owing\nto the rapacity of landlords.\n\nIn the first place, there are in all large towns almost enough empty\nhouses and flats to lodge all the inhabitants of the slums. As to the\npalaces and suites of fine apartments, many working people would not\nlive in them if they could. One could not \"keep up\" such houses without\na large staff of servants. Their occupants would soon find themselves\nforced to seek less luxurious dwellings. The fine ladies would find that\npalaces were not well adapted to self-help in the kitchen. Gradually\npeople would shake down. There would be no need to conduct Dives to a\ngarret at the bayonet's point, or install Lazarus in Dives's palace by\nthe help of an armed escort. People would shake down amicably into the\navailable dwellings with the least possible friction and disturbance.\nHave we not the example of the village communes redistributing fields\nand disturbing the owners of the allotments so little that one can only\npraise the intelligence and good sense of the methods they employ? Fewer\nfields change hands under the management of the Russian Commune than\nwhere personal property holds sway, and is for ever carrying its\nquarrels into courts of law. And are we to believe that the inhabitants\nof a great European city would be less intelligent and less capable of\norganization than Russian or Hindoo peasants?\n\nMoreover, we must not blink at the fact that every revolution means a\ncertain disturbance to everyday life, and those who expect this\ntremendous climb out of the old grooves to be accomplished without so\nmuch as jarring the dishes on their dinner tables will find themselves\nmistaken. It is true that Governments can change without disturbing\nworthy citizens at dinner, but the crimes of society towards those who\nhave nourished and supported it are not to be redressed by any such\npolitical sleight of parties.\n\nUndoubtedly there will be a disturbance, but it must not be one of pure\nloss; it must be minimized. And again--it is impossible to lay too much\nstress on this maxim--it will be by addressing ourselves to the\ninterested parties, and not to boards and committees, that we shall best\nsucceed in reducing the sum of inconveniences for everybody.\n\nThe people commit blunder on blunder when they have to choose by ballot\nsome hare-brained candidate who solicits the honour of representing\nthem, and takes upon himself to know all, to do all, and to organize\nall. But when they take upon themselves to organize what they know, what\ntouches them directly, they do it better than all the \"talking-shops\"\nput together. Is not the Paris Commune an instance in point? and the\ngreat dockers' strike? and have we not constant evidence of this fact in\nevery village commune?\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[5] The decree of the 30 March: by this decree rents due up to the terms\nof October, 1870, and January and April, 1871, were annulled.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCLOTHING\n\n\nWhen the houses have become the common heritage of the citizens, and\nwhen each man has his daily supply of food, another forward step will\nhave to be taken. The question of clothing will of course demand\nconsideration next, and again the only possible solution will be to take\npossession, in the name of the people, of all the shops and warehouses\nwhere clothing is sold or stored, and to throw open the doors to all, so\nthat each can take what he needs. The communalization of clothing--the\nright of each to take what he needs from the communal stores, or to have\nit made for him at the tailors and outfitters--is a necessary corollary\nof the communalization of houses and food.\n\nObviously we shall not need for that to despoil all citizens of their\ncoats, to put all the garments in a heap and draw lots for them, as our\ncritics, with equal wit and ingenuity, suggest. Let him who has a coat\nkeep it still--nay, if he have ten coats it is highly improbable that\nany one will want to deprive him of them, for most folk would prefer a\nnew coat to one that has already graced the shoulders of some fat\nbourgeois; and there will be enough new garments, and to spare, without\nhaving recourse to second-hand wardrobes.\n\nIf we were to take an inventory of all the clothes and stuff for\nclothing accumulated in the shops and stores of the large towns, we\nshould find probably that in Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Marseilles,\nthere was enough to enable the commune to offer garments to all the\ncitizens, of both sexes; and if all were not suited at once, the\ncommunal outfitters would soon make good these shortcomings. We know how\nrapidly our great tailoring and dressmaking establishments work\nnowadays, provided as they are with machinery specially adapted for\nproduction on a large scale.\n\n\"But every one will want a sable-lined coat or a velvet gown!\" exclaim\nour adversaries.\n\nFrankly, we do not believe it. Every woman does not dote on velvet nor\ndoes every man dream of sable linings. Even now, if we were to ask each\nwoman to choose her gown, we should find some to prefer a simple,\npractical garment to all the fantastic trimmings the fashionable world\naffects.\n\nTastes change with the times, and the fashion in vogue at the time of\nthe Revolution will certainly make for simplicity. Societies, like\nindividuals, have their hours of cowardice, but also their heroic\nmoments; and though the society of to-day cuts a very poor figure sunk\nin the pursuit of narrow personal interests and second-rate ideas, it\nwears a different air when great crises come. It has its moments of\ngreatness and enthusiasm. Men of generous nature will gain the power\nwhich to-day is in the hand of jobbers. Self-devotion will spring up,\nand noble deeds beget their like; even the egotists will be ashamed of\nhanging back, and will be drawn in spite of themselves to admire, if not\nto imitate, the generous and brave.\n\nThe great Revolution of 1793 abounds in examples of this kind, and it is\nalways during such times of spiritual revival--as natural to societies\nas to individuals--that the spring-tide of enthusiasm sweeps humanity\nonwards.\n\nWe do not wish to exaggerate the part played by such noble passions, nor\nis it upon them that we would found our ideal of society. But we are not\nasking too much if we expect their aid in tiding over the first and most\ndifficult moments. We cannot hope that our daily life will be\ncontinuously inspired by such exalted enthusiasms, but we may expect\ntheir aid at the first, and that is all we need.\n\nIt is just to wash the earth clean, to sweep away the shards and refuse,\naccumulated by centuries of slavery and oppression, that the new\nanarchist society will have need of this wave of brotherly love. Later\non it can exist without appealing to the spirit of self-sacrifice,\nbecause it will have eliminated oppression, and thus created a new world\ninstinct with all the feelings of solidarity.\n\nBesides, should the character of the Revolution be such as we have\nsketched here, the free initiative of individuals would find an\nextensive field of action in thwarting the efforts of the egotists.\nGroups would spring up in every street and quarter to undertake the\ncharge of the clothing. They would make inventories of all that the city\npossessed, and would find out approximately what were the resources at\ntheir disposal. It is more than likely that in the matter of clothing\nthe citizens would adopt the same principle as in the matter of\nprovisions--that is to say, they would offer freely from the common\nstore everything which was to be found in abundance, and dole out\nwhatever was limited in quantity.\n\nNot being able to offer to each man a sable-lined coat and to every\nwoman a velvet gown, society would probably distinguish between the\nsuperfluous and the necessary, and, provisionally at least class sable\nand velvet among the superfluities of life, ready to let time prove\nwhether what is a luxury to-day may not become common to all to-morrow.\nWhile the necessary clothing would be guaranteed to each inhabitant of\nthe anarchist city, it would be left to private activity to provide for\nthe sick and feeble those things, provisionally considered as luxuries,\nand to procure for the less robust such special articles, as would not\nenter into the daily consumption of ordinary citizens.\n\n\"But,\" it may be urged, \"this means grey uniformity and the end of\neverything beautiful in life and art.\"\n\n\"Certainly not,\" we reply. And, still basing our reasonings on what\nalready exists, we are going to show how an Anarchist society could\nsatisfy the most artistic tastes of its citizens without allowing them\nto amass the fortunes of millionaires.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nWAYS AND MEANS\n\n\nI\n\nIf a society, a city or a territory were to guarantee the necessaries of\nlife to its inhabitants (and we shall see how the conception of the\nnecessaries of life can be so extended as to include luxuries), it would\nbe compelled to take possession of what is absolutely needed for\nproduction; that is to say--land, machinery, factories, means of\ntransport, etc. Capital in the hands of private owners would be\nexpropriated, to be returned to the community.\n\nThe great harm done by bourgeois society, as we have already mentioned,\nis not only that capitalists seize a large share of the profits of each\nindustrial and commercial enterprise, thus enabling themselves to live\nwithout working, but that all production has taken a wrong direction, as\nit is not carried on with a view to securing well-being to all. There is\nthe reason why it must be condemned.\n\nIt is absolutely impossible that mercantile production should be carried\non in the interest of all. To desire it would be to expect the\ncapitalist to go beyond his province and to fulfil duties that he\n_cannot_ fulfil without ceasing to be what he is--a private manufacturer\nseeking his own enrichment. Capitalist organization, based on the\npersonal interest of each individual employer of labour, has given to\nsociety all that could be expected of it: it has increased the\nproductive force of Labour. The capitalist, profiting by the revolution\neffected in industry by steam, by the sudden development of chemistry\nand machinery, and by other inventions of our century, has worked in his\nown interest to increase the yield of human labour, and in a great\nmeasure he has succeeded so far. But to attribute other duties to him\nwould be unreasonable. For example, to expect that he should use this\nsuperior yield of labour in the interest of society as a whole, would be\nto ask philanthropy and charity of him, and a capitalist enterprise\ncannot be based on charity.\n\nIt now remains for society, first, to extend this greater productivity,\nwhich is limited to certain industries, and to apply it to the general\ngood. But it is evident that to utilize this high productivity of\nlabour, so as to guarantee well-being to all, Society must itself take\npossession of all means of production.\n\nEconomists, as is their wont, will not fail to remind us of the\ncomparative well-being of a certain category of young robust workmen,\nskilled in certain special branches of industry which has been obtained\nunder the present system. It is always this minority that is pointed out\nto us with pride. But even this well-being, which is the exclusive right\nof a few, is it secure? To-morrow, maybe, negligence, improvidence, or\nthe greed of their employers, will deprive these privileged men of their\nwork, and they will pay for the period of comfort they have enjoyed with\nmonths and years of poverty or destitution. How many important\nindustries--the textiles, iron, sugar, etc.--without mentioning all\nsorts of short-lived trades, have we not seen decline or come to a\nstandstill on account of speculations, or in consequence of natural\ndisplacement of work, or from the effects of competition amongst the\ncapitalists themselves! If the chief textile and mechanical industries\nhad to pass through such a crisis as they have passed through in 1886,\nwe hardly need mention the small trades, all of which have their periods\nof standstill.\n\nWhat, too, shall we say to the price which is paid for the relative\nwell-being of certain categories of workmen? Unfortunately, it is paid\nfor by the ruin of agriculture, the shameless exploitation of the\npeasants, the misery of the masses. In comparison with the feeble\nminority of workers who enjoy a certain comfort, how many millions of\nhuman beings live from hand to mouth, without a secure wage, ready to\ngo wherever they are wanted; how many peasants work fourteen hours a day\nfor a poor pittance! Capital depopulates the country, exploits the\ncolonies and the countries where industries are but little developed,\ndooms the immense majority of workmen to remain without technical\neducation, to remain mediocre even in their own trade.\n\nThis is not merely accidental, it is a _necessity_ of the capitalist\nsystem. In order well to remunerate certain classes of workmen, peasants\n_must_ become the beasts of burden of society; the country _must_ be\ndeserted for the town; small trades must agglomerate in the foul suburbs\nof large cities, and manufacture a thousand little things for next to\nnothing, so as to bring the goods of the greater industries within reach\nof buyers with small salaries. That bad cloth may be sold to ill-paid\nworkers, garments are made by tailors who are satisfied with a\nstarvation wage! Eastern lands in a backward state are exploited by the\nWest, in order that, under the capitalist system, workers in a few\nprivileged industries may obtain certain limited comforts of life.\n\nThe evil of the present system is therefore not that the \"surplus-value\"\nof production goes to the capitalist, as Rodbertus and Marx said, thus\nnarrowing the Socialist conception and the general view of the\ncapitalist system; the surplus-value itself is but a consequence of\ndeeper causes. The evil lies _in the possibility of a surplus-value\nexisting_, instead of a simple surplus not consumed by each generation;\nfor, that a surplus-value should exist, means that men, women and\nchildren are compelled by hunger to sell their labour for a small part\nof what this labour produces, and still more so, of what their labour is\ncapable of producing: But this evil will last as long as the instruments\nof production belong to the few. As long as men are compelled to pay a\nheavy tribute to property holders for the right of cultivating land or\nputting machinery into action, and the owners of the land and the\nmachine are free to produce what bids fair to bring them in the largest\nprofits--rather than the greatest amount of useful\ncommodities--well-being can only be temporarily guaranteed to a very\nfew; it is only to be bought by the poverty of a large section of\nsociety. It is not sufficient to distribute the profits realized by a\ntrade in equal parts, if at the same time thousands of other workers are\nexploited. It is a case of PRODUCING THE GREATEST AMOUNT OF GOODS\nNECESSARY TO THE WELL-BEING OF ALL, WITH THE LEAST POSSIBLE WASTE OF\nHUMAN ENERGY.\n\nThis generalized aim cannot be the aim of a private owner; and this is\nwhy society as a whole, if it takes this view of production as its\nideal, will be compelled to expropriate all that enhances well-being\nwhile producing wealth. It will have to take possession of land,\nfactories, mines, means of communication, etc., and besides, it will\nhave to study what products will promote general well-being, as well as\nthe ways and means of an adequate production.\n\n\nII\n\nHow many hours a day will man have to work to produce nourishing food, a\ncomfortable home, and necessary clothing for his family? This question\nhas often preoccupied Socialists, and they generally came to the\nconclusion that four or five hours a day would suffice, on condition, be\nit well understood, that all men work. At the end of last century,\nBenjamin Franklin fixed the limit at five hours; and if the need of\ncomfort is greater now, the power of production has augmented too, and\nfar more rapidly.\n\nIn speaking of agriculture further on, we shall see what the earth can\nbe made to yield to man when he cultivates it in a reasonable way,\ninstead of throwing seed haphazard in a badly ploughed soil as he mostly\ndoes to-day. In the great farms of Western America, some of which cover\n30 square miles, but have a poorer soil than the manured soil of\ncivilized countries, only 10 to 15 English bushels per English acre are\nobtained; that is to say, half the yield of European farms or of\nAmerican farms in the Eastern States. And nevertheless, thanks to\nmachines which enable 2 men to plough 4 English acres a day, 100 men can\nproduce in a year all that is necessary to deliver the bread of 10,000\npeople at their homes during a whole year.\n\nThus it would suffice for a man to work under the same conditions for\n_30 hours, say 6 half-days of five hours each, to have bread for a whole\nyear_; and to work 30 half-days to guarantee the same to a family of 5\npeople.\n\nWe shall also prove by results obtained nowadays, that if we took\nrecourse to intensive agriculture, less than 6 half-days' work could\nprocure bread, meat, vegetables, and even luxurious fruit for a whole\nfamily.\n\nAgain, if we study the cost of workmen's dwellings, built in large towns\nto-day, we can ascertain that to obtain, in a large English city, a\nsemi-detached little house, as they are built for workmen for \u00a3250, from\n1400 to 1800 half-days' work of 5 hours would be sufficient. And as a\nhouse of that kind lasts 50 years at least, it follows that 28 to 36\nhalf-days' work a year would provide well-furnished, healthy quarters,\nwith all necessary comfort for a family. Whereas when hiring the same\napartment from an employer, a workman pays from 75 to 100 days' work per\nyear.\n\nMark that these figures represent the maximum of what a house costs in\nEngland to-day, being given the defective organization of our societies.\nIn Belgium, workmen's houses in the _cit\u00e9s ouvri\u00e8res_ have been built at\na much smaller cost. So that, taking everything into consideration, we\nare justified in affirming that in a well-organized society 30 or 40\nhalf-days' work a year will suffice to guarantee a perfectly comfortable\nhome.\n\nThere now remains clothing, the exact value of which is almost\nimpossible to fix, because the profits realized by a swarm of middlemen\ncannot be estimated. Let us take cloth, for example, and add up all the\ntribute levied on every yard of it by the landowners, the sheep owners,\nthe wool merchants, and all their intermediate agents, then by the\nrailway companies, mill-owners, weavers, dealers in ready-made clothes,\nsellers and commission agents, and we shall get then an idea of what we\npay to a whole swarm of capitalists for each article of clothing. That\nis why it is perfectly impossible to say how many days' work an overcoat\nthat you pay \u00a33 or \u00a34 for in a large London shop represents.\n\nWhat is certain is that with present machinery it is possible to\nmanufacture an incredible amount of goods both cheaply and quickly.\n\nA few examples will suffice. Thus in the United States, in 751 cotton\nmills (for spinning and weaving), 175,000 men and women produce\n2,033,000,000 yards of cotton goods, besides a great quantity of thread.\nOn the average, more than 12,000 yards of cotton goods alone are\nobtained by a 300 days' work of nine and one-half hours each, say 40\nyards of cotton in 10 hours. Admitting that a family needs 200 yards a\nyear at most, this would be equivalent to 50 hours' work, say _10\nhalf-days of 5 hours each_. And we should have thread besides; that is\nto say, cotton to sew with, and thread to weave cloth with, so as to\nmanufacture woolen stuffs mixed with cotton.\n\nAs to the results obtained by weaving alone, the official statistics of\nthe United States teach us that in 1870, if workmen worked 13 or 14\nhours a day, they made 10,000 yards of white cotton goods in a year;\nsixteen years later (1886) they wove 30,000 yards by working only 55\nhours a week.\n\nEven in printed cotton goods they obtained, weaving and printing\nincluded, 32,000 yards in 2670 hours of work a year--say about 12 yards\nan hour. Thus to have your 200 yards of white and printed cotton goods\n_17 hours' work a year_ would suffice. It is necessary to remark that\nraw material reaches these factories in about the same state as it comes\nfrom the fields, and that the transformations gone through by the piece\nbefore it is converted into goods are completed in the course of these\n17 hours. But to _buy_ these 200 yards from the tradesman, a well-paid\nworkman must give _at the very least_ 10 to 15 days' work of 10 hours\neach, say 100 to 150 hours. And as to the English peasant, he would\nhave to toil for a month, or a little more, to obtain this luxury.\n\nBy this example we already see that by working _50 half-days per year_\nin a well-organized society we could dress better than the lower middle\nclasses do to-day.\n\nBut with all this we have only required 60 half-days' work of 5 hours\neach to obtain the fruits of the earth, 40 for housing, and 50 for\nclothing, which only makes half a year's work, as the year consists of\n300 working-days if we deduct holidays.\n\nThere remain still 150 half-days' work which could be made use of for\nother necessaries of life--wine, sugar, coffee, tea, furniture,\ntransport, etc., etc.\n\nIt is evident that these calculations are only approximative, but they\ncan also be proved in another way. When we take into account how many,\nin the so-called civilized nations, produce nothing, how many work at\nharmful trades, doomed to disappear, and lastly, how many are only\nuseless middlemen, we see that in each nation the number of real\nproducers could be doubled. And if, instead of every 10 men, 20 were\noccupied in producing useful commodities, and if society took the\ntrouble to economize human energy, those 20 people would only have to\nwork 5 hours a day without production decreasing. And it would suffice\nto reduce the waste of human energy which is going on in the rich\nfamilies with the scores of useless servants, or in the administrations\nwhich occupy one official to every ten or even six inhabitants, and to\nutilize those forces, to augment immensely the productivity of a nation.\nIn fact, work could be reduced to four or even three hours a day, to\nproduce all the goods that are produced now.\n\nAfter studying all these facts together, we may arrive, then, at the\nfollowing conclusion: Imagine a society, comprising a few million\ninhabitants, engaged in agriculture and a great variety of\nindustries--Paris, for example, with the Department of Seine-et-Oise.\nSuppose that in this society all children learn to work with their hands\nas well as with their brains. Admit that all adults, save women, engaged\nin the education of their children, bind themselves to work _5 hours a\nday_ from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and\nthat they follow occupations they have chosen themselves in any one of\nthose branches of human work which in this city are considered\n_necessary_. Such a society could in return guarantee well-being to all\nits members, a well-being more substantial than that enjoyed to-day by\nthe middle classes. And, moreover, each worker belonging to this society\nwould have at his disposal at least 5 hours a day which he could devote\nto science, art, and individual needs which do not come under the\ncategory of _necessities_, but will probably do so later on, when man's\nproductivity will have augmented, and those objects will no longer\nappear luxurious or inaccessible.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE NEED FOR LUXURY\n\n\nI\n\nMan is not a being whose exclusive purpose in life is eating, drinking,\nand providing a shelter for himself. As soon as his material wants are\nsatisfied, other needs, which, generally speaking, may be described as\nof an artistic character, will thrust themselves forward. These needs\nare of the greatest variety; they vary with each and every individual;\nand the more society is civilized, the more will individuality be\ndeveloped, and the more will desires be varied.\n\nEven to-day we see men and women denying themselves necessaries to\nacquire mere trifles, to obtain some particular gratification, or some\nintellectual or material enjoyment. A Christian or an ascetic may\ndisapprove of these desires for luxury; but it is precisely these\ntrifles that break the monotony of existence and make it agreeable.\nWould life, with all its inevitable drudge and sorrows, be worth living,\nif, besides daily work, man could never obtain a single pleasure\naccording to his individual tastes?\n\nIf we wish for a Social Revolution, it is no doubt, first of all, to\ngive bread to everyone; to transform this execrable society, in which we\ncan every day see capable workmen dangling their arms for want of an\nemployer who will exploit them; women and children wandering shelterless\nat night; whole families reduced to dry bread; men, women, and children\ndying for want of care and even for want of food. It is to put an end to\nthese iniquities that we rebel.\n\nBut we expect more from the Revolution. We see that the worker,\ncompelled to struggle painfully for bare existence, is reduced to\nignore the higher delights, the highest within man's reach, of science,\nand especially of scientific discovery; of art, and especially of\nartistic creation. It is in order to obtain for all of us joys that are\nnow reserved to a few; in order to give leisure and the possibility of\ndeveloping everyone's intellectual capacities, that the social\nrevolution must guarantee daily bread to all. After bread has been\nsecured, leisure is the supreme aim.\n\nNo doubt, nowadays, when hundreds and thousands of human beings are in\nneed of bread, coal, clothing, and shelter, luxury is a crime; to\nsatisfy it, the worker's child must go without bread! But in a society\nin which all have the necessary food and shelter, the needs which we\nconsider luxuries to-day will be the more keenly felt. And as all men do\nnot and cannot resemble one another (the variety of tastes and needs is\nthe chief guarantee of human progress) there will always be, and it is\ndesirable that there should always be, men and women whose desire will\ngo beyond those of ordinary individuals in some particular direction.\n\nEverybody does not need a telescope, because, even if learning were\ngeneral, there are people who prefer to examine things through a\nmicroscope to studying the starry heavens. Some like statues, some like\npictures. A particular individual has no other ambition than to possess\na good piano, while another is pleased with an accordion. The tastes\nvary, but the artistic needs exist in all. In our present, poor\ncapitalistic society, the man who has artistic needs cannot satisfy them\nunless he is heir to a large fortune, or by dint of hard work\nappropriates to himself an intellectual capital which will enable him to\ntake up a liberal profession. Still he cherishes the _hope_ of some day\nsatisfying his tastes more or less, and for this reason he reproaches\nthe idealist Communist societies with having the material life of each\nindividual as their sole aim. \"In your communal stores you may perhaps\nhave bread for all,\" he says to us, \"but you will not have beautiful\npictures, optical instruments, luxurious furniture, artistic jewelry--in\nshort, the many things that minister to the infinite variety of human\ntastes. And you suppress the possibility of obtaining anything besides\nthe bread and meat which the commune can offer to all, and the drab\nlinen in which all your lady citizens will be dressed.\"\n\nThese are the objections which all communist systems have to consider,\nand which the founders of new societies, established in American\ndeserts, never understood. They believed that if the community could\nprocure sufficient cloth to dress all its members, a music-room in which\nthe \"brothers\" could strum a piece of music, or act a play from time to\ntime, it was enough. They forgot that the feeling for art existed in the\nagriculturist as well as in the burgher, and, notwithstanding that the\nexpression of artistic feeling varies according to the difference in\nculture, in the main it remains the same. In vain did the community\nguarantee the common necessaries of life, in vain did it suppress all\neducation that would tend to develop individuality, in vain did it\neliminate all reading save the Bible. Individual tastes broke forth, and\ncaused general discontent; quarrels arose when somebody proposed to buy\na piano or scientific instruments; and the elements of progress flagged.\nThe society could only exist on condition that it crushed all individual\nfeeling, all artistic tendency, and all development.\n\nWill the anarchist Commune be impelled by the same direction?--Evidently\nnot, if it understands that while it produces all that is necessary to\nmaterial life, it must also strive to satisfy all manifestations of the\nhuman mind.\n\n\nII\n\nWe frankly confess that when we think of the abyss of poverty and\nsuffering that surrounds us, when we hear the heartrending cry of the\nworker walking the streets begging for work, we are loth to discuss the\nquestion: How will men act in a society, whose members are properly fed,\nto satisfy certain individuals desirous of possessing a piece of S\u00e8vres\nchina or a velvet dress?\n\nWe are tempted to answer: Let us make sure of bread to begin with, we\nshall see to china and velvet later on.\n\nBut as we must recognize that man has other needs besides food, and as\nthe strength of Anarchy lies precisely in that that it understands _all_\nhuman faculties and _all_ passions, and ignores none, we shall, in a few\nwords, explain how man can contrive to satisfy all his intellectual and\nartistic needs.\n\nWe have already mentioned that by working 4 or 5 hours a day till the\nage of forty-five or fifty, man could easily produce _all_ that is\nnecessary to guarantee comfort to society.\n\nBut the day's work of a man accustomed to toil does not consist of 5\nhours; it is a 10 hours' day for 300 days a year, and lasts all his\nlife. Of course, when a man is harnessed to a machine, his health is\nsoon undermined and his intelligence is blunted; but when man has the\npossibility of varying occupations, and especially of alternating manual\nwith intellectual work, he can remain occupied without fatigue, and even\nwith pleasure, for 10 or 12 hours a day. Consequently, the man who will\nhave done the 4 or 5 hours of manual work that are necessary for his\nexistence, will have before him 5 or 6 hours which he will seek to\nemploy according to his tastes. And these 5 or 6 hours a day will fully\nenable him to procure for himself, if he associates with others, all he\nwishes for, in addition to the necessaries guaranteed to all.\n\nHe will discharge first his task in the field, the factory, and so on,\nwhich he owes to society as his contribution to the general production.\nAnd he will employ the second half of his day, his week, or his year, to\nsatisfy his artistic or scientific needs, or his hobbies.\n\nThousands of societies will spring up to gratify every taste and every\npossible fancy.\n\nSome, for example, will give their hours of leisure to literature. They\nwill then form groups comprising authors, compositors, printers,\nengravers, draughtsmen, all pursuing a common aim--the propagation of\nideas that are dear to them.\n\nNowadays an author knows that there is a beast of burden, the worker, to\nwhom, for the sum of a few shillings a day, he can entrust the printing\nof his books; but he hardly cares to know what a printing office is\nlike. If the compositor suffers from lead-poisoning, and if the child\nwho sees to the machine dies of an\u00e6mia, are there not other poor\nwretches to replace them?\n\nBut when there will be no more starvelings ready to sell their work for\na pittance, when the exploited worker of to-day will be educated, and\nwill have his _own_ ideas to put down in black and white and to\ncommunicate to others, then the authors and scientific men will be\ncompelled to combine among themselves and with the printers, in order to\nbring out their prose and their poetry.\n\nSo long as men consider fustian and manual labour a mark of inferiority,\nit will appear amazing to them to see an author setting up his own book\nin type, for has he not a gymnasium or games by way of diversion? But\nwhen the opprobrium connected with manual labor has disappeared, when\nall will have to work with their hands, there being no one to do it for\nthem, then the authors as well as their admirers will soon learn the art\nof handling composing-sticks and type; they will know the pleasure of\ncoming together--all admirers of the work to be printed--to set up the\ntype, to shape it into pages, to take it in its virginal purity from the\npress. These beautiful machines, instruments of torture to the child who\nattends on them from morn till night, will be a source of enjoyment for\nthose who will make use of them in order to give voice to the thoughts\nof their favourite author.\n\nWill literature lose by it? Will the poet be less a poet after having\nworked out of doors or helped with his hands to multiply his work? Will\nthe novelist lose his knowledge of human nature after having rubbed\nshoulders with other men in the forest or the factory, in the laying out\nof a road or on a railway line? Can there be two answers to these\nquestions?\n\nMaybe some books will be less voluminous; but then, more will be said on\nfewer pages. Maybe fewer waste-sheets will be published; but the matter\nprinted will be more attentively read and more appreciated. The book\nwill appeal to a larger circle of better educated readers, who will be\nmore competent to judge.\n\nMoreover, the art of printing, that has so little progressed since\nGutenberg, is still in its infancy. It takes two hours to compose in\ntype what is written in ten minutes, but more expeditious methods of\nmultiplying thought are being sought after and will be discovered.[6]\n\nWhat a pity every author does not have to take his share in the printing\nof his works! What progress printing would have already made! We should\nno longer be using movable letters, as in the seventeenth century.\n\n\nIII\n\nIs it a dream to conceive a society in which--all having become\nproducers, all having received an education that enables them to\ncultivate science or art, and all having leisure to do so--men would\ncombine to publish the works of their choice, by contributing each his\nshare of manual work? We have already hundreds of learned, literary, and\nother societies; and these societies are nothing but voluntary groups of\nmen, interested in certain branches of learning, and associated for the\npurpose of publishing their works. The authors who write for the\nperiodicals of these societies are not paid, and the periodicals, apart\nfrom a limited number of copies, are not for sale; they are sent gratis\nto all quarters of the globe, to other societies, cultivating the same\nbranches of learning. This member of the Society may insert in its\nreview a one-page note summarizing his observations; another may publish\ntherein an extensive work, the results of long years of study; while\nothers will confine themselves to consulting the review as a\nstarting-point for further research. It does not matter: all these\nauthors and readers are associated for the production of works in which\nall of them take an interest.\n\nIt is true that a learned society, like the individual author, goes to a\nprinting office where workmen are engaged to do the printing. Nowadays,\nthose who belong to the learned societies despise manual labour which\nindeed is carried on under very bad conditions; but a community which\nwould give a generous philosophic and _scientific_ education to all its\nmembers, would know how to organize manual labour in such a way that it\nwould be the pride of humanity. Its learned societies would become\nassociations of explorers, lovers of science, and workers--all knowing a\nmanual trade and all interested in science.\n\nIf, for example, the Society is studying geology, all will contribute to\nthe exploration of the earth's strata; each member will take his share\nin research, and ten thousand observers, where we have now only a\nhundred, will do more in a year than we can do in twenty years. And when\ntheir works are to be published, ten thousand men and women, skilled in\ndifferent trades, will be ready to draw maps, engrave designs, compose,\nand print the books. With gladness will they give their leisure--in\nsummer to exploration, in winter to indoor work. And when their works\nappear, they will find not only a hundred, but ten thousand readers\ninterested in their common work.\n\nThis is the direction in which progress is already moving. Even to-day,\nwhen England felt the need of a complete dictionary of the English\nlanguage, the birth of a Littr\u00e9, who would devote his life to this work,\nwas not waited for. Volunteers were appealed to, and a thousand men\noffered their services, spontaneously and gratuitously, to ransack the\nlibraries, to take notes, and to accomplish in a few years a work which\none man could not complete in his lifetime. In all branches of human\nintelligence the same spirit is breaking forth, and we should have a\nvery limited knowledge of humanity could we not guess that the future is\nannouncing itself in such tentative co-operation, which is gradually\ntaking the place of individual work.\n\nFor this dictionary to be a really collective work, it would have been\nnecessary that many volunteer authors, printers, and printers' readers\nshould have worked in common; but something in this direction is done\nalready in the Socialist Press, which offers us examples of manual and\nintellectual work combined. It happens in our newspapers that a\nSocialist author composes in lead his own article. True, such attempts\nare rare, but they indicate in which direction evolution is going.\n\nThey show the road of liberty. In future, when a man will have something\nuseful to say--a word that goes beyond the thoughts of his century, he\nwill not have to look for an editor who might advance the necessary\ncapital. He will look for collaborators among those who know the\nprinting trade, and who approve the idea of his new work. Together they\nwill publish the new book or journal.\n\nLiterature and journalism will cease to be a means of money-making and\nliving at the cost of others. But is there any one who knows literature\nand journalism from within, and who does not ardently desire that\nliterature should at last be able to free itself from those who formerly\nprotected it, and who now exploit it, and from the multitude, which,\nwith rare exceptions, pays for it in proportion to its mediocrity, or to\nthe ease with which it adapts itself to the bad taste of the greater\nnumber?\n\nLetters and science will only take their proper place in the work of\nhuman development when, freed from all mercenary bondage, they will be\nexclusively cultivated by those who love them, and for those who love\nthem.\n\n\nIV\n\nLiterature, science, and art must be cultivated by free men. Only on\nthis condition will they succeed in emancipating themselves from the\nyoke of the State, of Capital, and of the bourgeois mediocrity which\nstifles them.\n\nWhat means has the scientist of to-day to make researches that interest\nhim? Should he ask help of the State, which can only be given to one\ncandidate in a hundred, and which only he may obtain who promises\nostensibly to keep to the beaten track? Let us remember how the Academy\nof Sciences of France repudiated Darwin, how the Academy of St.\nPetersburg treated Mendel\u00e9eff with contempt, and how the Royal Society\nof London refused to publish Joule's paper, in which he determined the\nmechanical equivalent of heat, finding it \"unscientific.\"[7]\n\nIt was why all great researches, all discoveries revolutionizing\nscience, have been made outside academies and universities, either by\nmen rich enough to remain independent, like Darwin and Lyell, or by men\nwho undermined their health by working in poverty, and often in great\nstraits, losing endless time for want of a laboratory, and unable to\nprocure the instruments or books necessary to continue their researches,\nbut persevering against hope, and often dying before they had reached\nthe end in view. Their name is legion.\n\nAltogether, the system of help granted by the State is so bad that\nscience has always endeavoured to emancipate itself from it. For this\nvery reason there are thousands of learned societies organized and\nmaintained by volunteers in Europe and America,--some having developed\nto such a degree that all the resources of subventioned societies, and\nall the wealth of millionaires, would not buy their treasures. No\ngovernmental institution is as rich as the Zoological Society of London,\nwhich is supported by voluntary contributions.\n\nIt does not buy the animals which in thousands people its gardens: they\nare sent by other societies and by collectors of the entire world. The\nZoological Society of Bombay will send an elephant as a gift; another\ntime a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros is offered by Egyptian naturalists.\nAnd these magnificent presents are pouring in every day, arriving from\nall quarters of the globe--birds, reptiles, collections of insects, etc.\nSuch consignments often comprise animals that could not be bought for\nall the gold in the world; thus a traveller who has captured an animal\nat life's peril, and now loves it as he would love a child, will give it\nto the Society because he is sure it will be cared for. The entrance fee\npaid by visitors, and they are numberless, suffices for the maintenance\nof that immense institution.\n\nWhat is defective in the Zoological Society of London, and in other\nkindred societies, is that the member's fee cannot be paid in work; that\nthe keepers and numerous employes of this large institution are not\nrecognized as members of the Society, while many have no other incentive\nto joining the society than to put the cabalistic letters F.Z.S (Fellow\nof the Zoological Society) on their cards. In a word, what is needed is\na more perfect co-operation.\n\nWe may say the same about inventors, that we have said of scientists.\nWho does not know what sufferings nearly all great inventions have cost?\nSleepless nights, families deprived of bread, want of tools and\nmaterials for experiments, this is the history of nearly all those who\nhave enriched industry with inventions which are the truly legitimate\npride of our civilization.\n\nBut what are we to do to alter the conditions that everybody is\nconvinced are bad? Patents have been tried, and we know with what\nresults. The inventor sells his patent for a few pounds, and the man who\nhas only lent the capital pockets the enormous profits often resulting\nfrom the invention. Besides, patents isolate the inventor. They compel\nhim to keep secret his researches which therefore end in failure;\nwhereas the simplest suggestion, coming from a brain less absorbed in\nthe fundamental idea, sometimes suffices to fertilize the invention and\nmake it practical. Like all State control, patents hamper the progress\nof industry. Thought being incapable of being patented, patents are a\ncrying injustice in theory, and in practice they result in one of the\ngreat obstacles to the rapid development of invention.\n\nWhat is needed to promote the spirit of invention is, first of all, the\nawakening of thought, the boldness of conception, which our entire\neducation causes to languish; it is the spreading of a scientific\neducation, which would increase the number of inquirers a hundredfold;\nit is faith that humanity is going to take a step forward, because it is\nenthusiasm, the hope of doing good, that has inspired all the great\ninventors. The Social Revolution alone can give this impulse to thought,\nthis boldness, this knowledge, this conviction of working for all.\n\nThen we shall have vast institutes supplied with motor-power and tools\nof all sorts, immense industrial laboratories open to all inquirers,\nwhere men will be able to work out their dreams, after having acquitted\nthemselves of their duty towards society; machinery palaces where they\nwill spend their five or six hours of leisure; where they will make\ntheir experiments; where they will find other comrades, experts in other\nbranches of industry, likewise coming to study some difficult problem,\nand therefore able to help and enlighten each other,--the encounter of\ntheir ideas and experience causing the longed-for solution to be found.\nAnd yet again, this is no dream. Solan\u00f3y Gorod\u00f3k, in Petersburg, has\nalready partially realized it as regards technical matters. It is a\nfactory well furnished with tools and free to all; tools and motor-power\nare supplied gratis, only metals and wood are charged for at cost price.\nUnfortunately workmen only go there at night when worn out by ten hours'\nlabour in the workshop. Moreover, they carefully hide their inventions\nfrom each other, as they are hampered by patents and Capitalism--that\nbane of present society, that stumbling-block in the path of\nintellectual and moral progress.\n\n\nV\n\nAnd what about art? From all sides we hear lamentations about the\ndecadence of art. We are, indeed, far behind the great masters of the\nRenaissance. The technicalities of art have recently made great\nprogress; thousands of people gifted with a certain amount of talent\ncultivate every branch, but art seems to fly from civilization!\nTechnicalities make headway, but inspiration frequents artists' studios\nless than ever.\n\nWhere, indeed, should it come from? Only a grand idea can inspire art.\n_Art_ is in our ideal synonymous with creation, it must look ahead; but\nsave a few rare, very rare exceptions, the professional artist remains\ntoo philistine to perceive new horizons.\n\nMoreover, this inspiration cannot come from books; it must be drawn from\nlife, and present society cannot arouse it.\n\nRaphael and Murillo painted at a time when the search of a new ideal\ncould be pursued while retaining the old religious traditions. They\npainted to decorate churches which themselves represented the pious work\nof several generations of a given city. The basilic with its mysterious\naspect, its grandeur, was connected with the life itself of the city,\nand could inspire a painter. He worked for a popular monument; he spoke\nto his fellow-citizens, and in return he received inspiration; he\nappealed to the multitude in the same way as did the nave, the pillars,\nthe stained windows, the statues, and the carved doors. Nowadays the\ngreatest honour a painter can aspire to is to see his canvas, framed in\ngilded wood, hung in a museum, a sort of old curiosity shop, where you\nsee, as in the Prado, Murillo's Ascension next to a beggar of Velasquez\nand the dogs of Philip II. Poor Velasquez and poor Murillo! Poor Greek\nstatues which _lived_ in the Acropolis of their cities, and are now\nstifled beneath the red cloth hangings of the Louvre!\n\nWhen a Greek sculptor chiseled his marble he endeavored to express the\nspirit and heart of the city. All its passions, all its traditions of\nglory, were to live again in the work. But to-day the _united_ city has\nceased to exist; there is no more communion of ideas. The town is a\nchance agglomeration of people who do not know one another, who have no\ncommon interest, save that of enriching themselves at the expense of one\nanother. The fatherland does not exist.... What fatherland can the\ninternational banker and the rag-picker have in common? Only when\ncities, territories, nations, or groups of nations, will have renewed\ntheir harmonious life, will art be able to draw its inspiration from\n_ideals held in common_. Then will the architect conceive the city's\nmonument which will no longer be a temple, a prison, or a fortress;\nthen will the painter, the sculptor, the carver, the ornament-worker\nknow where to put their canvases, their statues, and their decoration;\nderiving their power of execution from the same vital source, and\ngloriously marching all together towards the future.\n\nBut till then art can only vegetate. The best canvases of modern artists\nare those that represent nature, villages, valleys, the sea with its\ndangers, the mountain with its splendours. But how can the painter\nexpress the poetry of work in the fields if he has only contemplated it,\nimagined it, if he has never delighted in it himself? If he only knows\nit as a bird of passage knows the country he soars over in his\nmigrations? If, in the vigour of early youth, he has not followed the\nplough at dawn, and enjoyed mowing grass with a large sweep of the\nscythe next to hardy haymakers vying in energy with lively young girls\nwho fill the air with their songs? The love of the soil and of what\ngrows on it is not acquired by sketching with a paint-brush--it is only\nin its service; and without loving it, how paint it? This is why all\nthat the best painters have produced in this direction is still so\nimperfect, not true to life, nearly always merely sentimental. There is\nno _strength_ in it.\n\nYou must have seen a sunset when returning from work. You must have been\na peasant among peasants to keep the splendour of it in your eye. You\nmust have been at sea with fishermen at all hours of the day and night,\nhave fished yourself, struggled with the waves, faced the storm, and\nafter rough work experienced the joy of hauling a heavy net, or the\ndisappointment of seeing it empty, to understand the poetry of fishing.\nYou must have spent time in a factory, known the fatigues and the joys\nof creative work, forged metals by the vivid light of a blast furnace,\nhave felt the life in a machine, to understand the power of man and to\nexpress it in a work of art. You must, in fact, be permeated with\npopular feelings, to describe them.\n\nBesides, the works of future artists who will have lived the life of\nthe people, like the great artists of the past, will not be destined for\nsale. They will be an integral part of a living whole that would not be\ncomplete without them, any more than they would be complete without it.\nMen will go to the artist's own city to gaze at his work, and the\nspirited and serene beauty of such creations will produce its beneficial\neffect on heart and mind.\n\nArt, in order to develop, must be bound up with industry by a thousand\nintermediate degrees, blended, so to say, as Ruskin and the great\nSocialist poet Morris have proved so often and so well. Everything that\nsurrounds man, in the street, in the interior and exterior of public\nmonuments, must be of a pure artistic form.\n\nBut this can only be realized in a society in which all enjoy comfort\nand leisure. Then only shall we see art associations, of which each\nmember will find room for his capacity; for art cannot dispense with an\ninfinity of purely manual and technical supplementary works. These\nartistic associations will undertake to embellish the houses of their\nmembers, as those kind volunteers, the young painters of Edinburgh, did\nin decorating the walls and ceilings of the great hospital for the poor\nin their city.\n\nA painter or sculptor who has produced a work of personal feeling will\noffer it to the woman he loves, or to a friend. Executed for love's\nsake,--will his work, inspired by love, be inferior to the art that\nto-day satisfies the vanity of the philistine, because it has cost much\nmoney?\n\nThe same will be done as regards all pleasures not comprised in the\nnecessaries of life. He who wishes for a grand piano will enter the\nassociation of musical instrument makers. And by giving the association\npart of his half-days' leisure, he will soon possess the piano of his\ndreams. If he is fond of astronomical studies he will join the\nassociation of astronomers, with its philosophers, its observers, its\ncalculators, with its artists in astronomical instruments, its\nscientists and amateurs, and he will have the telescope he desires by\ntaking his share of the associated work, for it is especially the rough\nwork that is needed in an astronomical observatory--bricklayer's,\ncarpenter's, founder's, mechanic's work, the last touch being given to\nthe instrument of precision by the artist.\n\nIn short, the five or seven hours a day which each will have at his\ndisposal, after having consecrated several hours to the production of\nnecessities, would amply suffice to satisfy all longings for luxury,\nhowever varied. Thousands of associations would undertake to supply\nthem. What is now the privilege of an insignificant minority would be\naccessible to all. Luxury, ceasing to be a foolish and ostentatious\ndisplay of the bourgeois class, would become an artistic pleasure.\n\nEveryone would be the happier for it. In collective work, performed with\na light heart to attain a desired end, a book, a work of art, or an\nobject of luxury, each will find an incentive and the necessary\nrelaxation that makes life pleasant.\n\nIn working to put an end to the division between master and slave, we\nwork for the happiness of both, for the happiness of humanity.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[6] They _have_ already been discovered since the above lines were\nwritten.\n\n[7] We know this from Playfair, who mentioned it at Joule's death.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nAGREEABLE WORK\n\n\nI\n\nWhen Socialists maintain that a society, freed from the rule of the\ncapitalists, would make work agreeable, and would suppress all repugnant\nand unhealthy drudgery, they are laughed at. And yet even to-day we can\nsee the striking progress that is being made in this direction; and\nwherever this progress has been achieved, employers congratulate\nthemselves on the economy of energy obtained thereby.\n\nIt is evident that a factory could be made as healthy and pleasant as a\nscientific laboratory. And it is no less evident that it would be\nadvantageous to make it so. In a spacious and well-ventilated factory\nthe work is better; it is easy to introduce many small ameliorations, of\nwhich each represents an economy of time or of manual labour. And if\nmost of the workshops we know are foul and unhealthy, it is because the\nworkers are of no account in the organization of factories, and because\nthe most absurd waste of human energy is the distinctive feature of the\npresent industrial organization.\n\nNevertheless, now and again, we already find, even now, some factories\nso well managed that it would be a real pleasure to work in them, if the\nwork, be it well understood, were not to last more than four or five\nhours a day, and if every one had the possibility of varying it\naccording to his tastes.\n\nThere are immense works, which I know, in one of the Midland counties,\nunfortunately consecrated to engines of war. They are perfect as regards\nsanitary and intelligent organization. They occupy fifty English acres\nof land, fifteen of which are roofed with glass. The pavement of\nfire-proof bricks is as clean as that of a miner's cottage, and the\nglass roof is carefully cleaned by a gang of workmen who do nothing\nelse. In these works are forged steel ingots or blooms weighing as much\nas twenty tons; and when you stand thirty feet from the immense furnace,\nwhose flames have a temperature of more than a thousand degrees, you do\nnot guess its presence save when its great doors open to let out a steel\nmonster. And the monster is handled by only three or four workmen, who\nnow here, now there, open a tap causing immense cranes to move one way\nor another by the pressure of water.\n\nYou enter these works expecting to hear the deafening noise of stampers,\nand you find that there are no stampers. The immense hundred-ton guns\nand the crank-shafts of transatlantic steamers are forged by hydraulic\npressure, and the worker has but to turn a tap to give shape to the\nimmense mass of steel, which makes a far more homogeneous metal, without\ncrack or flaw, of the blooms, whatever be their thickness.\n\nI expected an infernal grating, and I saw machines which cut blocks of\nsteel thirty feet long with no more noise than is needed to cut cheese.\nAnd when I expressed my admiration to the engineer who showed us round,\nhe answered--\n\n\"A mere question of economy! This machine, that planes steel, has been\nin use for forty-two years. It would not have lasted ten years if its\nparts, badly adjusted, 'interfered' and creaked at each movement of the\nplane!\n\n\"And the blast-furnaces? It would be a waste to let heat escape instead\nof utilizing it. Why roast the founders, when heat lost by radiation\nrepresents tons of coal?\n\n\"The stampers that made buildings shake five leagues off were also\nwaste. Is it not better to forge by pressure than by impact, and it\ncosts less--there is less loss.\n\n\"In these works, light, cleanliness, the space allotted to each bench,\nare but a simple question of economy. Work is better done when you can\nsee what you do, and have elbow-room.\n\n\"It is true,\" he said, \"we were very cramped before coming here. Land\nis so expensive in the vicinity of large towns--landlords are so\ngrasping!\"\n\nIt is even so in mines. We know what mines are like nowadays from Zola's\ndescriptions and from newspaper reports. But the mine of the future will\nbe well ventilated, with a temperature as easily regulated as that of a\nlibrary; there will be no horses doomed to die below the earth:\nunderground traction will be carried on by means of an automatic cable\nput into motion at the pit's mouth. Ventilators will be always working,\nand there will never be explosions. This is no dream, such a mine is\nalready to be seen in England; I went down it. Here again the excellent\norganization is simply a question of economy. The mine of which I speak,\nin spite of its immense depth (466 yards), has an output of a thousand\ntons of coal a day, with only two hundred miners--five tons a day per\neach worker, whereas the average for the two thousand pits in England at\nthe time I visited this mine in the early 'nineties, was hardly three\nhundred tons a year per man.\n\nIf necessary, it would be easy to multiply examples proving that as\nregards the material organization Fourier's dream was not a Utopia.\n\nThis question has, however, been so frequently discussed in Socialist\nnewspapers that public opinion should already be educated on this point.\nFactory, forge and mine _can_ be as healthy and magnificent as the\nfinest laboratories in modern universities, and the better the\norganization the more will man's labour produce.\n\nIf it be so, can we doubt that work will become a pleasure and a\nrelaxation in a society of equals, in which \"hands\" will not be\ncompelled to sell themselves to toil, and to accept work under any\nconditions? Repugnant tasks will disappear, because it is evident that\nthese unhealthy conditions are harmful to society as a whole. Slaves can\nsubmit to them, but free men will create new conditions, and their work\nwill be pleasant and infinitely more productive. The exceptions of\nto-day will be the rule of to-morrow.\n\nThe same will come to pass as regards domestic work, which to-day\nsociety lays on the shoulders of that drudge of humanity--woman.\n\n\nII\n\nA society regenerated by the Revolution will make domestic slavery\ndisappear--this last form of slavery, perhaps the most tenacious,\nbecause it is also the most ancient. Only it will not come about in the\nway dreamt of by Phalansterians, nor in the manner often imagined by\nauthoritarian Communists.\n\nPhalansteries are repugnant to millions of human beings. The most\nreserved man certainly feels the necessity of meeting his fellows for\nthe purpose of common work, which becomes the more attractive the more\nhe feels himself a part of an immense whole. But it is not so for the\nhours of leisure, reserved for rest and intimacy. The phalanstery and\nthe familystery do not take this into account, or else they endeavour to\nsupply this need by artificial groupings.\n\nA phalanstery, which is in fact nothing but an immense hotel, can please\nsome, and even all at a certain period of their life, but the great mass\nprefers family life (family life of the future, be it understood). They\nprefer isolated apartments, Anglo-Saxons even going as far as to prefer\nhouses of from six to eight rooms, in which the family, or an\nagglomeration of friends, can live apart. Sometimes a phalanstery is a\nnecessity, but it would be hateful, were it the general rule. Isolation,\nalternating with time spent in society, is the normal desire of human\nnature. This is why one of the greatest tortures in prison is the\nimpossibility of isolation, much as solitary confinement becomes torture\nin its turn, when not alternated with hours of social life.\n\nAs to considerations of economy, which are sometimes laid stress on in\nfavour of phalansteries, they are those of a petty tradesman. The most\nimportant economy, the only reasonable one, is to make life pleasant for\nall, because the man who is satisfied with his life produces infinitely\nmore than the man who curses his surroundings.[8]\n\nOther Socialists reject the phalanstery. But when you ask them how\ndomestic work can be organized, they answer: \"Each can do 'his own\nwork.' My wife manages the house; the wives of bourgeois will do as\nmuch.\" And if it is a bourgeois playing at Socialism who speaks, he will\nadd, with a gracious smile to his wife: \"Is it not true, darling, that\nyou would do without a servant in the Socialist society? You would work\nlike the wife of our good comrade Paul or the wife of John the\ncarpenter?\"\n\nServant or wife, man always reckons on woman to do the house-work.\n\nBut woman, too, at last claims her share in the emancipation of\nhumanity. She no longer wants to be the beast of burden of the house.\nShe considers it sufficient work to give many years of her life to the\nrearing of her children. She no longer wants to be the cook, the mender,\nthe sweeper of the house! And, owing to American women taking the lead\nin obtaining their claims, there is a general complaint of the dearth of\nwomen who will condescend to domestic work in the United States. My lady\nprefers art, politics, literature, or the gaming tables; as to the\nwork-girls, they are few, those who consent to submit to apron-slavery,\nand servants are only found with difficulty in the States. Consequently,\nthe solution, a very simple one, is pointed out by life itself.\nMachinery undertakes three-quarters of the household cares.\n\nYou black your boots, and you know how ridiculous this work is. What can\nbe more stupid than rubbing a boot twenty or thirty times with a brush?\nA tenth of the European population must be compelled to sell itself in\nexchange for a miserable shelter and insufficient food, and woman must\nconsider herself a slave, in order that millions of her sex should go\nthrough this performance every morning.\n\nBut hairdressers have already machines for brushing glossy or woolly\nheads of hair. Why should we not apply, then, the same principle to the\nother extremity? So it has been done, and nowadays the machine for\nblacking boots is in general use in big American and European hotels.\nIts use is spreading outside hotels. In large English schools, where the\npupils are boarding in the houses of the teachers, it has been found\neasier to have one single establishment which undertakes to brush a\nthousand pairs of boots every morning.\n\nAs to washing up! Where can we find a housewife who has not a horror of\nthis long and dirty work, that is usually done by hand, solely because\nthe work of the domestic slave is of no account.\n\nIn America they do better. There are already a number of cities in which\nhot water is conveyed to the houses as cold water is in Europe. Under\nthese conditions the problem was a simple one, and a woman--Mrs.\nCochrane--solved it. Her machine washes twelve dozen plates or dishes,\nwipes them and dries them, in less than three minutes. A factory in\nIllinois manufactures these machines and sells them at a price within\nreach of the average middle-class purse. And why should not small\nhouseholds send their crockery to an establishment as well as their\nboots? It is even probable that the two functions, brushing and washing\nup, will be undertaken by the same association.\n\nCleaning, rubbing the skin off your hands when washing and wringing\nlinen; sweeping floors and brushing carpets, thereby raising clouds of\ndust which afterwards occasion much trouble to dislodge from the places\nwhere they have settled down, all this work is still done because woman\nremains a slave, but it tends to disappear as it can be infinitely\nbetter done by machinery. Machines of all kinds will be introduced into\nhouseholds, and the distribution of motor-power in private houses will\nenable people to work them without muscular effort.\n\nSuch machines cost little to manufacture. If we still pay very much for\nthem, it is because they are not in general use, and chiefly because an\nexorbitant tax is levied upon every machine by the gentlemen who wish to\nlive in grand style and who have speculated on land, raw material,\nmanufacture, sale, patents, and duties.\n\nBut emancipation from domestic toil will not be brought about by small\nmachines only. Households are emerging from their present state of\nisolation; they begin to associate with other households to do in common\nwhat they did separately.\n\nIn fact, in the future we shall not have a brushing machine, a machine\nfor washing up plates, a third for washing linen, and so on, in each\nhouse. To the future, on the contrary, belongs the common heating\napparatus that sends heat into each room of a whole district and spares\nthe lighting of fires. It is already so in a few American cities. A\ngreat central furnace supplies all houses and all rooms with hot water,\nwhich circulates in pipes; and to regulate the temperature you need only\nturn a tap. And should you care to have a blazing fire in any particular\nroom you can light the gas specially supplied for heating purposes from\na central reservoir. All the immense work of cleaning chimneys and\nkeeping up fires--and woman knows what time it takes--is disappearing.\n\nCandles, lamps, and even gas have had their day. There are entire cities\nin which it is sufficient to press a button for light to burst forth,\nand, indeed, it is a simple question of economy and of knowledge to give\nyourself the luxury of electric light. And lastly, also in America, they\nspeak of forming societies for the almost complete suppression of\nhousehold work. It would only be necessary to create a department for\nevery block of houses. A cart would come to each door and take the boots\nto be blacked, the crockery to be washed up, the linen to be washed, the\nsmall things to be mended (if it were worth while), the carpets to be\nbrushed, and the next morning would bring back the things entrusted to\nit, all well cleaned. A few hours later your hot coffee and your eggs\ndone to a nicety would appear on your table. It is a fact that between\ntwelve and two o'clock there are more than twenty million Americans and\nas many Englishmen who eat roast beef or mutton, boiled pork, potatoes\nand a seasonable vegetable. And at the lowest figure eight million fires\nburn during two or three hours to roast this meat and cook these\nvegetables; eight million women spend their time preparing a meal which,\ntaking all households, represents at most a dozen different dishes.\n\n\"Fifty fires burn,\" wrote an American woman the other day, \"where one\nwould suffice!\" Dine at home, at your own table, with your children, if\nyou like; but only think yourself, why should these fifty women waste\ntheir whole morning to prepare a few cups of coffee and a simple meal!\nWhy fifty fires, when two people and one single fire would suffice to\ncook all these pieces of meat and all these vegetables? Choose your own\nbeef or mutton to be roasted if you are particular. Season the\nvegetables to your taste if you prefer a particular sauce! But have a\nsingle kitchen with a single fire and organize it as beautifully as you\nare able to.\n\nWhy has woman's work never been of any account? Why in every family are\nthe mother and three or four servants obliged to spend so much time at\nwhat pertains to cooking? Because those who want to emancipate mankind\nhave not included woman in their dream of emancipation, and consider it\nbeneath their superior masculine dignity to think \"of those kitchen\narrangements,\" which they have put on the shoulders of that\ndrudge--woman.\n\nTo emancipate woman, is not only to open the gates of the university,\nthe law courts, or the parliaments to her, for the \"emancipated\" woman\nwill always throw her domestic toil on to another woman. To emancipate\nwoman is to free her from the brutalizing toil of kitchen and washhouse;\nit is to organize your household in such a way as to enable her to rear\nher children, if she be so minded, while still retaining sufficient\nleisure to take her share of social life.\n\nIt will come. As we have said, things are already improving. Only let us\nfully understand that a revolution, intoxicated with the beautiful\nwords, Liberty, Equality, Solidarity, would not be a revolution if it\nmaintained slavery at home. Half humanity subjected to the slavery of\nthe hearth would still have to rebel against the other half.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[8] It seems that the Communists of Young Icaria had understood the\nimportance of a free choice in their daily relations apart from work.\nThe ideal of religious Communists has always been to have meals in\ncommon; it is by meals in common that early Christians manifested their\nadhesion to Christianity. Communion is still a vestige of it. Young\nIcarians had given up this religious tradition. They dined in a common\ndining room, but at small separate tables, at which they sat according\nto the attractions of the moment. The Communists of Anama have each\ntheir house and dine at home, while taking their provisions at will at\nthe communal stores.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nFREE AGREEMENT\n\n\nI\n\nAccustomed as we are by heredity prejudices and our unsound education\nand training to represent ourselves the beneficial hand of Government,\nlegislation and magistracy everywhere, we have come to believe that man\nwould tear his fellow-man to pieces like a wild beast the day the police\ntook his eye off him; that absolute chaos would come about if authority\nwere overthrown during a revolution. And with our eyes shut we pass by\nthousands and thousands of human groupings which form themselves freely,\nwithout any intervention of the law, and attain results infinitely\nsuperior to those achieved under governmental tutelage.\n\nIf you open a daily paper you find that its pages are entirely devoted\nto Government transactions and to political jobbery. A man from another\nworld, reading it, would believe that, with the exception of the Stock\nExchange transactions, nothing gets done in Europe save by order of some\nmaster. You find nothing in the paper about institutions that spring up,\ngrow up, and develop without ministerial prescription! Nothing--or\nalmost nothing! Even where there is a heading, \"Sundry Events\" (_Faits\ndivers_, a favorite column in the French papers), it is because they are\nconnected with the police. A family drama, an act of rebellion, will\nonly be mentioned if the police have appeared on the scene.\n\nThree hundred and fifty million Europeans love or hate one another,\nwork, or live on their incomes; but, apart from literature, theatre, or\nsport, their lives remain ignored by newspapers if Governments have not\nintervened in it in some way or other. It is even so with history. We\nknow the least details of the life of a king or of a parliament; all\ngood and bad speeches pronounced by the politicians have been preserved:\n\"speeches that have never had the least influence on the vote of a\nsingle member,\" as an old parliamentarian said. Royal visits, the good\nor bad humour of politicians, their jokes and intrigues, are all\ncarefully recorded for posterity. But we have the greatest difficulty to\nreconstitute a city of the Middle Ages, to understand the mechanism of\nthat immense commerce that was carried on between Hanseatic cities, or\nto know how the city of Rouen built its cathedral. If a scholar spends\nhis life in studying these questions, his works remain unknown, and\nparliamentary histories--that is to say, the defective ones, as they\nonly treat of one side of social life--multiply; they are circulated,\nthey are taught in schools.\n\nIn this way we do not even perceive the prodigious work, accomplished\nevery day by spontaneous groups of men, which constitutes the chief work\nof our century.\n\nWe therefore propose to point out some of these most striking\nmanifestations, and to show how men, as soon as their interests do not\nabsolutely clash, act in concert, harmoniously, and perform collective\nwork of a very complex nature.\n\nIt is evident that in present society, based on individual\nproperty--that is to say, on plunder, and on a narrow-minded, and\ntherefore foolish individualism--facts of this kind are necessarily\nlimited; agreements are not always perfectly free, and often they have a\nmean, if not execrable aim.\n\nBut what concerns us is not to give examples which might be blindly\nfollowed, and which, moreover, present society could not possibly give\nus. What we have to do is to show that, in spite of the authoritarian\nindividualism which stifles us, there remains in our life, taken as a\nwhole, a very great part in which we only act by free agreement; and\nthat therefore it would be much easier than is usually thought, to\ndispense with Government.\n\nIn support of our view we have already mentioned railways, and we will\nnow return to them.\n\nWe know that Europe has a system of railways, over 175,000 miles long,\nand that on this network you can nowadays travel from north to south,\nfrom east to west, from Madrid to Petersburg, and from Calais to\nConstantinople, without delays, without even changing carriages (when\nyou travel by express). More than that: a parcel deposited at a station\nwill find its addressee anywhere, in Turkey or in Central Asia, without\nmore formality needed for sending it than writing its destination on a\nbit of paper.\n\nThis result might have been obtained in two ways. A Napoleon, a\nBismarck, or some potentate having conquered Europe, would from Paris,\nBerlin, or Rome, draw a railway map and regulate the hours of the\ntrains. The Russian Tsar Nicholas I. dreamt of such a power. When he was\nshown rough drafts of railways between Moscow and Petersburg, he seized\na ruler and drew on the map of Russia a straight line between these two\ncapitals, saying, \"Here is the plan.\" And the road was built in a\nstraight line, filling in deep ravines, building bridges of a giddy\nheight, which had to be abandoned a few years later, after the railway\nhad cost about \u00a3120,000 to \u00a3150,000 per English mile.\n\nThis is one way, but happily things were managed differently. Railways\nwere constructed piece by piece, the pieces were joined together, and\nthe hundred different companies, to whom these pieces belonged,\ngradually came to an understanding concerning the arrival and departure\nof their trains, and the running of carriages on their rails, from all\ncountries, without unloading merchandise as it passes from one network\nto another.\n\nAll this was done by free agreement, by exchange of letters and\nproposals, and by congresses at which delegates met to discuss well\nspecified special points, and to come to an agreement about them, but\nnot to make laws. After the congress was over, the delegates returned to\ntheir respective companies, not with a law, but with the draft of a\ncontract to be accepted or rejected.\n\nOf course difficulties were met in the way. There were obstinate men\nwho would not be convinced. But a common interest compelled them to\nagree in the end, without invoking the help of armies against the\nrefractory members.\n\nThis immense network of railways connected together, and the enormous\ntraffic it has given rise to, no doubt constitutes the most striking\ntrait of the nineteenth century; and it is the result of free agreement.\nIf somebody had foretold it eighty years ago, our grandfathers would\nhave thought him idiotic or mad. They would have said: \"Never will you\nbe able to make the shareholders of a hundred companies listen to\nreason! It is a Utopia, a fairy tale. A central Government, with an\n'iron' dictator, can alone enforce it.\"\n\nAnd the most interesting thing in this organization is, that there is no\nEuropean Central Government of Railways! Nothing! No minister of\nrailways, no dictator, not even a continental parliament, not even a\ndirecting committee! Everything is done by free agreement.\n\nSo we ask the believers in the State, who pretend that \"we can never do\nwithout a central Government, were it only for regulating the traffic,\"\nwe ask them: \"But how do European railways manage without them? How do\nthey continue to convey millions of travellers and mountains of luggage\nacross a continent? If companies owning railways have been able to\nagree, why should railway workers, who would take possession of\nrailways, not agree likewise? And if the Petersburg-Warsaw Company and\nthat of Paris-Belfort can act in harmony, without giving themselves the\nluxury of a common commander, why, in the midst of our societies,\nconsisting of groups of free workers, should we need a Government?\"\n\n\nII\n\nWhen we endeavour to prove by examples that even to-day, in spite of the\niniquitous organization of society as a whole, men, provided their\ninterests be not diametrically opposed, agree without the intervention\nof authority, we do not ignore the objections that will be put forth.\n\nAll such examples have their defective side, because it is impossible\nto quote a single organization exempt from the exploitation of the weak\nby the strong, the poor by the rich. This is why the Statists will not\nfail to tell us with their wonted logic: \"You see that the intervention\nof the State is necessary to put an end to this exploitation!\"\n\nOnly they forget the lessons of history; they do not tell us to what\nextent the State itself has contributed towards the existing order by\ncreating proletarians and delivering them up to exploiters. They forget\nto prove us that it is possible to put an end to exploitation while the\nprimal causes--private capital and poverty, two-thirds of which are\nartificially created by the State--continue to exist.\n\nWhen we speak of the accord established among the railway companies, we\nexpect them, the worshippers of the bourgeois State, to say to us: \"Do\nyou not see how the railway companies oppress and ill-use their\nemployees and the travellers! The only way is, that the State should\nintervene to protect the workers and the public!\"\n\nBut have we not said and repeated over and over again, that as long as\nthere are capitalists, these abuses of power will be perpetuated? It is\nprecisely the State, the would-be benefactor, that has given to the\ncompanies that monopoly and those rights upon us which they possess\nto-day. Has it not created concessions, guarantees? Has it not sent its\nsoldiers against railwaymen on strike? And during the first trials\n(quite lately we saw it still in Russia), has it not extended the\nprivilege of the railway magnates as far as to forbid the Press to\nmention railway accidents, so as not to depreciate the shares it\nguaranteed? Has it not favoured the monopoly which has anointed the\nVanderbilts and the Polyakoffs, the directors of the P.L.M., the C.P.R.,\nthe St. Gothard, \"the kings of our days\"?\n\nTherefore, if we give as an example the tacit agreement come to between\nrailway companies, it is by no means as an ideal of economical\nmanagement, nor even an ideal of technical organization. It is to show\nthat if capitalists, without any other aim than that of augmenting\ntheir dividends at other people's expense, can exploit railways\nsuccessfully without establishing an International\nDepartment,--societies of working men will be able to do it just as\nwell, and even better, without nominating a Ministry of European\nrailways.\n\nAnother objection is raised that is more serious at first sight. We may\nbe told that the agreement we speak of is not perfectly _free_, that the\nlarge companies lay down the law to the small ones. It might be\nmentioned, for example, that a certain rich German company, supported by\nthe State, compel travellers who go from Berlin to B\u00e2le to pass via\nCologne and Frankfort, instead of taking the Leipzig route; or that such\na company carries goods a hundred and thirty miles in a roundabout way\n(on a long distance) to favour its influential shareholders, and thus\nruins the secondary lines. In the United States travellers and goods are\nsometimes compelled to travel impossibly circuitous routes so that\ndollars may flow into the pocket of a Vanderbilt.\n\nOur answer will be the same: As long as Capital exists, the Greater\nCapital will oppress the lesser. But oppression does not result from\nCapital only. It is also owing to the support given them by the State,\nto monopoly created by the State in their favour, that the large\ncompanies oppress the small ones.\n\nThe early English and French Socialists have shown long since how\nEnglish legislation did all in its power to ruin the small industries,\ndrive the peasant to poverty, and deliver over to wealthy industrial\nemployers battalions of men, compelled to work for no matter what\nsalary. Railway legislation did exactly the same. Strategic lines,\nsubsidized lines, companies which received the International Mail\nmonopoly, everything was brought into play to forward the interests of\nwealthy financiers. When Rothschild, creditor to all European States,\nputs capital in a railway, his faithful subjects, the ministers, will do\ntheir best to make him earn more.\n\nIn the United States, in the Democracy that authoritarians hold up to us\nas an ideal, the most scandalous fraudulency has crept into everything\nthat concerns railroads. Thus, if a company ruins its competitors by\ncheap fares, it is often enabled to do so because it is reimbursed by\nland given to it by the State for a gratuity. Documents recently\npublished concerning the American wheat trade have fully shown up the\npart played by the State in the exploitation of the weak by the strong.\nHere, too, the power of accumulated capital has increased tenfold and a\nhundredfold by means of State help. So that, when we see syndicates of\nrailway companies (a product of free agreement) succeeding in protecting\ntheir small companies against big ones, we are astonished at the\nintrinsic force of free agreement that can hold its own against\nall-powerful Capital favoured by the State.\n\nIt is a fact that little companies exist, in spite of the State's\npartiality. If in France, land of centralization, we only see five or\nsix large companies, there are more than a hundred and ten in Great\nBritain who agree remarkably well, and who are certainly better\norganized for the rapid transit of travellers and goods than the French\nand German companies.\n\nMoreover, that is not the question. Large Capital, favoured by the\nState, can always, _if it be to its advantage_, crush the lesser one.\nWhat is of importance to us is this: The agreement between hundreds of\ncapitalist companies to whom the railways of Europe belong, _was\nestablished without intervention of a central government_ to lay down\nthe law to the divers societies; it has subsisted by means of congresses\ncomposed of delegates, who discuss among themselves, and submit\n_proposals_, not _laws_, to their constituents. It is a new principle\nthat differs completely from all governmental principle, monarchical or\nrepublican, absolute or parliamentarian. It is an innovation that has\nbeen timidly introduced into the customs of Europe, but has come to\nstay.\n\n\nIII\n\nHow often have we not read in the writings of State-loving Socialists:\n\"Who, then, will undertake the regulation of canal traffic in the\nfuture society? Should it enter the mind of one of your Anarchist\n'comrades' to put his barge across a canal and obstruct thousands of\nboats, who will force him to reason?\"\n\nLet us confess the supposition to be somewhat fanciful. Still, it might\nbe said, for instance: \"Should a certain commune, or a group of\ncommunes, want to make their barges pass before others, they might\nperhaps block the canal in order to carry stones, while wheat, needed in\nanother commune, would have to stand by. Who, then, would regulate the\ntraffic if not the Government?\"\n\nBut real life has again demonstrated that Government can be very well\ndispensed with here as elsewhere. Free agreement, free organization,\nreplace that noxious and costly system, and do better.\n\nWe know what canals mean to Holland. They are its highways. We also\nknow how much traffic there is on the canals. What is carried along our\nhighroads and railroads is transported on canal-boats in Holland. There\nyou could find cause to fight, in order to make your boats pass before\nothers. There the Government might really interfere to keep the traffic\nin order.\n\nYet it is not so. The Dutch settled matters in a more practical way,\nlong ago, by founding guilds, or syndicates of boatmen. These were free\nassociations sprung from the very needs of navigation. The right of way\nfor the boats was adjusted by the order of inscription in a navigation\nregister; they had to follow one another in turn. Nobody was allowed to\nget ahead of the others under pain of being excluded from the guild.\nNone could station more than a certain number of days along the quay;\nand if the owner found no goods to carry during that time, so much the\nworse for him; he had to depart with his empty barge to leave room for\nnewcomers. Obstruction was thus avoided, even though the competition\nbetween the private owners of the boats continued to exist. Were the\nlatter suppressed, the agreement would have been only the more cordial.\n\nIt is unnecessary to add that the shipowners could adhere or not to the\nsyndicate. That was their business, but most of them elected to join it.\nMoreover, these syndicates offered such great advantages that they\nspread also along the Rhine, the Weser, the Oder, and as far as Berlin.\nThe boatmen did not wait for a great Bismarck to annex Holland to\nGermany, and to appoint an Ober Haupt General Staats Canal Navigation's\nRath (Supreme Head Councillor of the General States Canal Navigation),\nwith a number of gold stripes on his sleeves, corresponding to the\nlength of the title. They preferred coming to an international\nunderstanding. Besides, a number of shipowners, whose sailing-vessels\nply between Germany and Scandinavia, as well as Russia, have also joined\nthese syndicates, in order to regulate traffic in the Baltic, and to\nbring about a certain harmony in the _chass\u00e9-crois\u00e9_ of vessels. These\nassociations have sprung up freely, recruiting volunteer adherents, and\nhave nought in common with governments.\n\nIt is, however, more than probable that here too greater capital\noppresses lesser. Maybe the syndicate has also a tendency to become a\nmonopoly, especially where it receives the precious patronage of the\nState that surely did not fail to interfere with it. Let us not forget\neither, that these syndicates represent associations whose members have\nonly private interests at stake, and that if at the same time each\nshipowner were compelled--by the socializing of production, consumption,\nand exchange--to belong to federated Communes, or to a hundred other\nassociations for the satisfying of his needs, things would have a\ndifferent aspect. A group of shipowners, powerful on sea, would feel\nweak on land, and they would be obliged to lessen their claims in order\nto come to terms with railways, factories, and other groups.\n\nAt any rate, without discussing the future, here is another spontaneous\nassociation that has dispensed with Government. Let us quote more\nexamples.\n\nAs we are talking of ships and boats, let us mention one of the most\nsplendid organizations that the nineteenth century has brought forth,\none of those we may with right be proud of--the English Lifeboat\nAssociation.\n\nIt is known that every year more than a thousand ships are wrecked on\nthe shores of England. At sea a good ship seldom fears a storm. It is\nnear the coasts that danger threatens--rough seas that shatter her\nstern-post, squalls that carry off her masts and sails, currents that\nrender her unmanageable, reefs and sand banks on which she runs aground.\n\nEven in olden times, when it was a custom among inhabitants of the\ncoasts to light fires in order to attract vessels on to reefs, in order\nto plunder their cargoes, they always strove to save the crew. Seeing a\nship in distress, they launched their boats and went to the rescue of\nshipwrecked sailors, only too often finding a watery grave themselves.\nEvery hamlet along the sea shore has its legends of heroism, displayed\nby woman as well as by man, to save crews in distress.\n\nNo doubt the State and men of science have done something to diminish\nthe number of casualties. Lighthouses, signals, charts, meteorological\nwarnings have diminished them greatly, but there remains a thousand\nships and several thousand human lives to be saved every year.\n\nTo this end a few men of goodwill put their shoulders to the wheel.\nBeing good sailors and navigators themselves, they invented a lifeboat\nthat could weather a storm without being torn to pieces or capsizing,\nand they set to work to interest the public in their venture, to collect\nthe necessary funds for constructing boats, and for stationing them\nalong the coasts, wherever they could be of use.\n\nThese men, not being Jacobins, did not turn to the Government. They\nunderstood that to bring their enterprise to a successful issue they\nmust have the co-operation, the enthusiasm, the local knowledge, and\nespecially the self-sacrifice of the local sailors. They also understood\nthat to find men who at the first signal would launch their boat at\nnight, in a chaos of waves, not suffering themselves to be deterred by\ndarkness or breakers, and struggling five, six, ten hours against the\ntide before reaching a vessel in distress--men ready to risk their lives\nto save those of others--there must be a feeling of solidarity, a spirit\nof sacrifice not to be bought with galloon. It was therefore a perfectly\nspontaneous movement, sprung from agreement and individual initiative.\nHundreds of local groups arose along the coasts. The initiators had the\ncommon senses not to pose as masters. They looked for sagacity in the\nfishermen's hamlets, and when a rich man sent \u00a31,000 to a village on the\ncoast to erect a lifeboat station, and his offer was accepted, he left\nthe choice of a site to the local fishermen and sailors.\n\nModels of new boats were not submitted to the Admiralty. We read in a\nReport of the Association: \"As it is of importance that life-boatmen\nshould have full confidence in the vessel they man, the Committee will\nmake a point of constructing and equipping the boats according to the\nlife-boatmen's expressed wish.\" In consequence every year brings with it\nnew improvements.\n\nThe work is wholly conducted by volunteers organizing in committees and\nlocal groups; by mutual aid and agreement!--Oh, Anarchists! Moreover,\nthey ask nothing of the ratepayers, and in a year they may receive\n\u00a340,000 in spontaneous subscriptions.\n\nAs to the results, here they are: In 1891 the Association possessed 293\nlifeboats. The same year it saved 601 shipwrecked sailors and 33\nvessels. Since its foundation it has saved 32,671 human beings.\n\nIn 1886, three lifeboats with all their men having perished at sea,\nhundreds of new volunteers entered their names, organized themselves\ninto local groups, and the agitation resulted in the construction of\ntwenty additional boats. As we proceed, let us note that every year the\nAssociation sends to the fishermen and sailors excellent barometers at a\nprice three times less than their sale price in private shops. It\npropagates meteorological knowledge, and warns the parties concerned of\nthe sudden changes of weather predicted by men of science.\n\nLet us repeat that these hundreds of committees and local groups are\nnot organized hierarchically, and are composed exclusively of\nvolunteers, lifeboatmen, and people interested in the work. The Central\nCommittee, which is more of a centre for correspondence, in no wise\ninterferes.\n\nIt is true that when a voting on some question of education or local\ntaxation takes place in a district, these committees of the National\nLifeboat Association do not, as such, take part in the deliberations--a\nmodesty, which unfortunately the members of elected bodies do not\nimitate. But, on the other hand, these brave men do not allow those who\nhave never faced a storm to legislate for them about saving life. At the\nfirst signal of distress they rush to their boats, and go ahead. There\nare no embroidered uniforms, but much goodwill.\n\nLet us take another society of the same kind, that of the Red Cross. The\nname matters little; let us examine it.\n\nImagine somebody saying fifty years ago: \"The State, capable as it is of\nmassacring twenty thousand men in a day, and of wounding fifty thousand\nmore, is incapable of helping its own victims; consequently, as long as\nwar exists private initiative must intervene, and men of goodwill must\norganize internationally for this humane work!\" What mockery would not\nhave met the man who would have dared to speak thus! To begin with, he\nwould have been called a Utopian, and if that did not silence him he\nwould have been told: \"What nonsense! Your volunteers will be found\nwanting precisely where they are most needed, your volunteer hospitals\nwill be centralized in a safe place, while everything will be wanting in\nthe ambulances. Utopians like you forget the national rivalries which\nwill cause the poor soldiers to die without any help.\" Such\ndisheartening remarks would have only been equalled by the number of\nspeakers. Who of us has not heard men hold forth in this strain?\n\nNow we know what happened. Red Cross societies organized themselves\nfreely, everywhere, in all countries, in thousands of localities; and\nwhen the war of 1870-1 broke out, the volunteers set to work. Men and\nwomen offered their services. Thousands of hospitals and ambulances\nwere organized; trains were started carrying ambulances, provisions,\nlinen, and medicaments for the wounded. The English committees sent\nentire convoys of food, clothing, tools, grain to sow, beasts of\ndraught, even steam-ploughs with their attendants to help in the tillage\nof departments devastated by the war! Only consult _La Croix Rouge_, by\nGustave Moynier, and you will be really struck by the immensity of the\nwork performed.\n\nAs to the prophets ever ready to deny other men's courage, good sense,\nand intelligence, and believing themselves to be the only ones capable\nof ruling the world with a rod, none of their predictions were realized.\nThe devotion of the Red Cross volunteers was beyond all praise. They\nwere only too eager to occupy the most dangerous posts; and whereas the\nsalaried doctors of the Napoleonic State fled with their staff when the\nPrussians approached, the Red Cross volunteers continued their work\nunder fire, enduring the brutalities of Bismarck's and Napoleon's\nofficers, lavishing their care on the wounded of all nationalities.\nDutch, Italians, Swedes, Belgians, even Japanese and Chinese agreed\nremarkably well. They distributed their hospitals and their ambulances\naccording to the needs of the occasion. They vied with one another\nespecially in the hygiene of their hospitals. And there is many a\nFrenchman who still speaks with deep gratitude of the tender care he\nreceived from the Dutch or German volunteers in the Red Cross\nambulances. But what is this to an authoritarian? His ideal is the\nregiment doctor, salaried by the State. What does he care for the Red\nCross and its hygienic hospitals, if the nurses be not functionaries!\n\nHere is then an organization, sprung up but yesterday, and which reckons\nits members by hundreds of thousands; possesses ambulances, hospital\ntrains, elaborates new processes for treating wounds, and so on, and is\ndue to the spontaneous initiative of a few devoted men.\n\nPerhaps we shall be told that the State has something to do with this\norganization. Yes, States have laid hands on it to seize it. The\ndirecting committees are presided over by those whom flunkeys call\nprinces of the blood. Emperors and queens lavishly patronize the\nnational committees. But it is not to this patronage that the success of\nthe organization is due. It is to the thousand local committees of each\nnation; to the activity of individuals, to the devotion of all those who\ntry to help the victims of war. And this devotion would be far greater\nif the State did not meddle with it.\n\nIn any case, it was not by the order of an International Directing\nCommittee that Englishmen and Japanese, Swedes and Chinamen, bestirred\nthemselves to send help to the wounded in 1871. It was not by order of\nan international ministry that hospitals rose on the invaded territory\nand that ambulances were carried on to the battlefield. It was by the\ninitiative of volunteers from each country. Once on the spot, they did\nnot get hold of one another by the hair as was foreseen by the\nJacobinists of all nations; they all set to work without distinction of\nnationality.\n\nWe may regret that such great efforts should be put to the service of so\nbad a cause, and we may ask ourselves like the poet's child: \"Why\ninflict wounds if you are to heal them afterwards?\" In striving to\ndestroy the power of capitalist and middle-class authority, we work to\nput an end to the massacres called wars, and we would far rather see the\nRed Cross volunteers put forth their activity to bring about (with us)\nthe suppression of war; but we had to mention this immense organization\nas another illustration of results produced by free agreement and free\naid.\n\nIf we wished to multiply examples taken from the art of exterminating\nmen we should never end. Suffice to quote the numerous societies to\nwhich the German army owes its force, that does not only depend on\ndiscipline, as is generally believed. I mean the societies whose aim is\nto propagate military knowledge.\n\nAt one of the last congresses of the Military Alliance (Kriegerbund),\ndelegates from 2,452 federated societies, comprising 151,712 members,\nwere present. But there are besides very numerous Shooting, Military\nGames, Strategical Games, Topographical Studies Societies--these are the\nworkshops in which the technical knowledge of the German army is\ndeveloped, not in regimental schools. It is a formidable network of all\nkinds of societies, including military men and civilians, geographers\nand gymnasts, sportsmen and technologists, which rise up spontaneously,\norganize, federate, discuss, and explore the country. It is these\nvoluntary and free associations that go to make the real backbone of the\nGerman army.\n\nTheir aim is execrable. It is the maintenance of the Empire. But what\nconcerns us, is to point out that, in spite of military organization\nbeing the \"Great Mission of the State,\" success in this branch is the\nmore certain the more it is left to the free agreement of groups and to\nthe free initiative of individuals.\n\nEven in matters pertaining to war, free agreement is thus appealed to;\nand to further prove our assertion let us mention the Volunteer\nTopographers' Corps of Switzerland who study in detail the mountain\npassages, the Aeroplane Corps of France, the three hundred thousand\nBritish volunteers, the British National Artillery Association, and the\nSociety, now in course of organization, for the defence of England's\ncoasts, as well as the appeals made to the commercial fleet, the\nBicyclists' Corps, and the new organizations of private motorcars and\nsteam launches.\n\nEverywhere the State is abdicating and abandoning its holy functions to\nprivate individuals. Everywhere free organization trespasses on its\ndomain. And yet, the facts we have quoted give us only a glimpse of what\nfree government has in store for us in the future when there will be no\nmore State.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nOBJECTIONS\n\n\nI\n\nLet us now examine the principal objections put forth against Communism.\nMost of them are evidently caused by a simple misunderstanding, yet they\nraise important questions and merit our attention.\n\nIt is not for us to answer the objections raised by authoritarian\nCommunism--we ourselves hold with them. Civilized nations have suffered\ntoo much in the long, hard struggle for the emancipation of the\nindividual, to disown their past work and to tolerate a Government that\nwould make itself felt in the smallest details of a citizen's life, even\nif that Government had no other aim than the good of the community.\nShould an authoritarian Socialist society ever succeed in establishing\nitself, it could not last; general discontent would soon force it to\nbreak up, or to reorganize itself on principles of liberty.\n\nIt is of an Anarchist-Communist society we are about to speak, a society\nthat recognizes the absolute liberty of the individual, that does not\nadmit of any authority, and makes use of no compulsion to drive men to\nwork. Limiting our studies to the economic side of the question, let us\nsee if such a society, composed of men as they are to-day, neither\nbetter nor worse, neither more nor less industrious, would have a chance\nof successful development.\n\nThe objection is known. \"If the existence of each is guaranteed, and if\nthe necessity of earning wages does not compel men to work, nobody will\nwork. Every man will lay the burden of his work on another if he is not\nforced to do it himself.\" Let us first note the incredible levity with\nwhich this objection is raised, without even realizing that the real\nquestion raised by this objection is merely to know, on the one hand,\nwhether you effectively obtain by wage-work, the results that are said\nto be obtained, and, on the other hand, whether voluntary work is not\nalready now more productive than work stimulated by wages. A question\nwhich, to be dealt with properly, would require a serious study. But\nwhereas in exact sciences men give their opinion on subjects infinitely\nless important and less complicated after serious research, after\ncarefully collecting and analyzing facts--on this question they will\npronounce judgment without appeal, resting satisfied with any one\nparticular event, such as, for example, the want of success of some\ncommunist association in America. They act like the barrister who does\nnot see in the counsel for the opposite side a representative of a\ncause, or an opinion contrary to his own, but a simple nuisance,--an\nadversary in an oratorical debate; and if he be lucky enough to find a\nrepartee, does not otherwise care to justify his cause. Therefore the\nstudy of this essential basis of all Political Economy, _the study of\nthe most favourable conditions for giving society the greatest amount of\nuseful products with the least waste of human energy_, does not advance.\nPeople either limit themselves to repeating commonplace assertions, or\nelse they pretend ignorance of our assertions.\n\nWhat is most striking in this levity is that even in capitalist\nPolitical Economy you already find a few writers compelled by facts to\ndoubt the axiom put forth by the founders of their science, that the\nthreat of hunger is man's best stimulant for productive work. They begin\nto perceive that in production a certain _collective element_ is\nintroduced, which has been too much neglected up till now, and which\nmight be more important than personal gain. The inferior quality of\nwage-work, the terrible waste of human energy in modern agricultural and\nindustrial labour, the ever-growing quantity of pleasure-seekers, who\nshift their burden on to others' shoulders, the absence of a certain\nanimation in production that is becoming more and more apparent; all\nthis is beginning to preoccupy the economists of the \"classical\" school.\nSome of them ask themselves if they have not got on the wrong track: if\nthe imaginary evil being, that was supposed to be tempted exclusively by\na bait of lucre or wages, really exists. This heresy penetrates even\ninto universities; it is found in books of orthodox economy.\n\nBut this does not prevent a great many Socialist reformers from\nremaining partisans of individual remuneration, and defending the old\ncitadel of wagedom, notwithstanding that it is being delivered over\nstone by stone to the assailants by its former defenders.\n\nThey fear that without compulsion the masses will not work.\n\nBut during our own lifetime, have we not heard the same fears expressed\ntwice? Once, by the anti-abolitionists in America before the\nemancipation of the Negroes, and, for a second time, by the Russian\nnobility before the liberation of the serfs? \"Without the whip the Negro\nwill not work,\" said the anti-abolitionist. \"Free from their master's\nsupervision the serfs will leave the fields uncultivated,\" said the\nRussian serf-owners. It was the refrain of the French noblemen in 1789,\nthe refrain of the Middle Ages, a refrain as old as the world, and we\nshall hear it every time there is a question of sweeping away an\ninjustice. And each time actual facts give it the lie. The liberated\npeasant of 1792 ploughed with an eager energy, unknown to his ancestors;\nthe emancipated Negro works more than his fathers; and the Russian\npeasant, after having honoured the honeymoon of his emancipation by\ncelebrating Fridays as well as Sundays, has taken up work with an\neagerness proportionate to the completeness of his liberation. There,\nwhere the soil is his, he works desperately; that is the exact word for\nit. The anti-abolitionist refrain can be of value to slave-owners; as to\nthe slaves themselves, they know what it is worth, as they know its\nmotive.\n\nMoreover, who but the economists themselves taught us that while a\nwage-earner's work is very often indifferent, an intense and productive\nwork is only obtained from a man who sees his wealth increase in\nproportion to his efforts? All hymns sung in honour of private property\ncan be reduced to this axiom.\n\nFor it is remarkable that when economists, wishing to celebrate the\nblessings of property, show us how an unproductive, marshy, or stony\nsoil is clothed with rich harvests when cultivated by the peasant\nproprietor, they in nowise prove their thesis in favour of private\nproperty. By admitting that the only guarantee not to be robbed of the\nfruits of your labour is to possess the instruments of labour--which is\ntrue--the economists only prove that man really produces most when he\nworks in freedom, when he has a certain choice in his occupations, when\nhe has no overseer to impede him, and lastly, when he sees his work\nbringing in a profit to him and to others who work like him, but\nbringing in little to idlers. Nothing else can be deducted from their\nargumentation, and this is what we maintain ourselves.\n\nAs to the form of possession of the instruments of labour, the\neconomists only mention it _indirectly_ in their demonstration, as a\nguarantee to the cultivator that he shall not be robbed of the profits\nof his yield nor of his improvements. Besides, in support of their\nthesis in favour of _private property_ against all other forms of\n_possession_, should not the economists demonstrate that under the form\nof communal property land never produces such rich harvests as when the\npossession is private? But this they could not prove; in fact, it is the\ncontrary that has been observed.\n\nTake for example a commune in the canton of Vaud, in the winter time,\nwhen all the men of the village go to fell wood in the forest, which\nbelongs to them all. It is precisely during these festivals of labour\nthat the greatest ardour for work and the most considerable display of\nhuman energy are apparent. No salaried labour, no effort of a private\nowner can bear comparison with it.\n\nOr let us take a Russian village, when all its inhabitants mow a field\nbelonging to the commune, or farmed by it. There you will see what man\n_can_ produce when he works in common for communal production. Comrades\nvie with one another in cutting the widest swathe, women bestir\nthemselves in their wake so as not to be distanced by the mowers. It is\na festival of labour, in which a hundred people accomplish in a few\nhours a work that would not have been finished in a few days had they\nworked separately. What a miserable contrast compared to them is offered\nby the work of the isolated owner!\n\nIn fact, we might quote scores of examples among the pioneers of\nAmerica, in Swiss, German, Russian, and in certain French villages; or\nthe work done in Russia by gangs (_artels)_ of masons, carpenters,\nboatmen, fishermen, etc., who undertake a task and divide the produce or\nthe remuneration among themselves without it passing through an\nintermediary of middlemen; or else the amount of work I saw performed in\nEnglish ship-yards when the remuneration was paid on the same principle.\nWe could also mention the great communal hunts of nomadic tribes, and an\ninfinite number of successful collective enterprises. And in every case\nwe could show the unquestionable superiority of communal work compared\nto that of the wage-earner or the isolated private owner.\n\nWell-being--that is to say, the satisfaction of physical, artistic, and\nmoral needs, has always been the most powerful stimulant to work. And\nwhere a hireling hardly succeeds to produce the bare necessities with\ndifficulty, a free worker, who sees ease and luxury increasing for him\nand for others in proportion to his efforts, spends infinitely far more\nenergy and intelligence, and obtains products in a far greater\nabundance. The one feels riveted to misery, the other hopes for ease and\nluxury in the future. In this lies the whole secret. Therefore a society\naiming at the well-being of all, and at the possibility of all enjoying\nlife in all its manifestations, will give voluntary work, which will be\ninfinitely superior and yield far more than work has produced up till\nnow under the goad of slavery, serfdom, or wagedom.\n\n\nII\n\nNowadays, whoever can load on others his share of labour indispensable\nto existence does so, and it is believed that it will always be so.\n\nNow, work indispensable to existence is essentially manual. We may be\nartists or scientists; but none of us can do without things obtained by\nmanual work--bread, clothes, roads, ships, light, heat, etc. And,\nmoreover, however highly artistic or however subtly metaphysical are our\npleasures, they all depend on manual labour. And it is precisely this\nlabour--the basis of life--that everyone tries to avoid.\n\nWe understand perfectly well that it must be so nowadays.\n\nBecause, to do manual work now, means in reality to shut yourself up for\nten or twelve hours a day in an unhealthy workshop, and to remain\nchained to the same task for twenty or thirty years, and maybe for your\nwhole life.\n\nIt means to be doomed to a paltry wage, to the uncertainty of the\nmorrow, to want of work, often to destitution, more often than not to\ndeath in a hospital, after having worked forty years to feed, clothe,\namuse, and instruct others than yourself and your children.\n\nIt means to bear the stamp of inferiority all your life; because,\nwhatever the politicians tell us, the manual worker is always considered\ninferior to the brain worker, and the one who has toiled ten hours in a\nworkshop has not the time, and still less the means, to give himself the\nhigh delights of science and art, nor even to prepare himself to\nappreciate them; he must be content with the crumbs from the table of\nprivileged persons.\n\nWe understand that under these conditions manual labour is considered a\ncurse of fate.\n\nWe understand that all men have but one dream--that of emerging from, or\nenabling their children to emerge from this inferior state; to create\nfor themselves an \"independent\" position, which means what?--To also\nlive by other men's work!\n\nAs long as there will be a class of manual workers and a class of\n\"brain\" workers, black hands and white hands, it will be thus.\n\nWhat interest, in fact, can this depressing work have for the worker,\nwhen he knows that the fate awaiting him from the cradle to the grave\nwill be to live in mediocrity, poverty, and insecurity of the morrow?\nTherefore, when we see the immense majority of men take up their\nwretched task every morning, we feel surprised at their perseverance, at\ntheir zeal for work, at the habit that enables them, like machines\nblindly obeying an impetus given, to lead this life of misery without\nhope for the morrow; without foreseeing ever so vaguely that some day\nthey, or at least their children, will be part of a humanity rich in all\nthe treasures of a bountiful nature, in all the enjoyments of knowledge,\nscientific and artistic creation, reserved to-day to a few privileged\nfavourites.\n\nIt is precisely to put an end to this separation between manual and\nbrain work that we want to abolish wagedom, that we want the Social\nRevolution. Then work will no longer appear a curse of fate: it will\nbecome what it should be--the free exercise of _all_ the faculties of\nman.\n\nMoreover, it is time to submit to a serious analysis this legend about\nsuperior work, supposed to be obtained under the lash of wagedom.\n\nIt would be sufficient to visit, not the model factory and workshop that\nwe find now and again, but a number of the ordinary factories, to\nconceive the immense waste of human energy that characterizes modern\nindustry. For one factory more or less rationally organized, there are a\nhundred or more which waste man's labour, without any more substantial\nmotive than that of perhaps bringing in a few pounds more per day to the\nemployer.\n\nHere you see youths from twenty to twenty-five years of age, sitting all\nday long on a bench, their chests sunken in, feverishly shaking their\nheads and bodies, to tie, with the speed of conjurers, the two ends of\nworthless scraps of cotton, the refuse of the lace-looms. What progeny\nwill these trembling and rickety bodies bequeath to their country? \"But\nthey occupy so little room in the factory, and each of them brings me in\nsixpence net every day,\" will say the employer.\n\nIn an immense London factory we saw girls, bald at seventeen from\ncarrying trays of matches on their heads from one room to another, when\nthe simplest machine could wheel the matches to their tables. But \"It\ncosts so little, the work of women who have no special trade! Why should\nwe use a machine? When these can do no more, they will be easily\nreplaced, there are so many of them in the street!\"\n\nOn the steps of a mansion on an icy night you will find a bare-footed\nchild asleep, with its bundle of papers in its arms ... child-labour\ncosts so little that it may be well employed, every evening, to sell\ntenpenny-worth of papers, of which the poor boy will receive a penny, or\na penny halfpenny. And continually in all big cities you may see robust\nmen tramping about who have been out of work for months, while their\ndaughters grow pale in the overheated vapours of the workshops for\ndressing stuffs, and their sons are filling blacking-pots by hand, or\nspend those years during which they ought to have learned a trade, in\ncarrying about baskets for a greengrocer, and at the age of eighteen or\ntwenty become regular unemployed.\n\nAnd so it is everywhere, from San Francisco to Moscow, and from Naples\nto Stockholm. The waste of human energy is the distinguishing and\npredominant trait of our industry, not to mention trade where it attains\nstill more colossal proportions.\n\nWhat a sad satire is that name, Political _Economy_, given to the\nscience of waste and energy under the system of wagedom!\n\nThis is not all. If you speak to the director of a well-organized\nfactory, he will naively explain to you that it is difficult nowadays to\nfind a skilful, vigorous, and energetic workman, who works with a will.\n\"Should such a man present himself among the twenty or thirty who call\nevery Monday asking us for work, he is sure to be received, even if we\nare reducing the number of our hands. We recognize him at the first\nglance, and he is always accepted, even though we have to get rid of an\nolder and less active worker the next day.\" And the one who has just\nreceived notice to quit, and all those who will receive it to-morrow, go\nto reinforce that immense reserve-army of capital--workmen out of\nwork--who are only called to the loom or the bench when there is\npressure of work, or to oppose strikers. And those others--the average\nworkers who are sent away by the better-class factories as soon as\nbusiness is slackened? They also join the formidable army of aged and\nindifferent workers who continually circulate among the second-class\nfactories--those which barely cover their expenses and make their way in\nthe world by trickery and snares laid for the buyer, and especially for\nthe consumer in distant countries.\n\nAnd if you talk to the workmen themselves, you will soon learn that the\nrule in such factories is--never to do your best. \"Shoddy pay--shoddy\nwork!\" this is the advice which the working man receives from his\ncomrades upon entering such a factory.\n\nFor the workers know that if in a moment of generosity they give way to\nthe entreaties of an employer and consent to intensify the work in order\nto carry out a pressing order, this nervous work will be exacted in the\nfuture as a rule in the scale of wages. Therefore in all such factories\nthey prefer never to produce as much as they can. In certain industries\nproduction is limited so as to keep up high prices, and sometimes the\npass-word, \"Go-canny,\" is given, which signifies, \"Bad work for bad\npay!\"\n\nWage-work is serf-work; it cannot, it must not, produce all that it\ncould produce. And it is high time to disbelieve the legend which\nrepresents wagedom as the best incentive to productive work. If industry\nnowadays brings in a hundred times more than it did in the days of our\ngrandfathers, it is due to the sudden awakening of physical and chemical\nsciences towards the end of last century; not to the capitalist\norganization of wagedom, but _in spite_ of that organization.\n\n\nIII\n\nThose who have seriously studied the question do not deny any of the\nadvantages of Communism, on condition, be it well understood, that\nCommunism be perfectly free, that is to say, Anarchist. They recognize\nthat work paid with money, even disguised under the name of \"labour\ncheques,\" to Workers' associations governed by the State, would keep up\nthe characteristics of wagedom and would retain its disadvantages. They\nagree that the whole system would soon suffer from it, even if Society\ncame into possession of the instruments of production. And they admit\nthat, thanks to an \"integral\" complete education given to all children,\nto the laborious habits of civilized societies, with the liberty of\nchoosing and varying their occupations and the attractions of work done\nby equals for the well-being of all, a Communist society would not be\nwanting in producers who would soon make the fertility of the soil\ntriple and tenfold, and give a new impulse to industry.\n\nThis our opponents agree to. \"But the danger,\" they say, \"will come from\nthat minority of loafers who will not work, and will not have regular\nhabits, in spite of the excellent conditions that would make work\npleasant. To-day the prospect of hunger compels the most refractory to\nmove along with the others. The one who does not arrive in time is\ndismissed. But one black sheep suffices to contaminate the whole flock,\nand two or three sluggish or refractory workmen would lead the others\nastray and bring a spirit of disorder and rebellion into the workshop\nthat would make work impossible; so that in the end we should have to\nreturn to a system of compulsion that would force such ringleaders back\ninto the ranks. And then,--Is not the system of wages, paid in\nproportion to work performed, the only one that enables compulsion to be\nemployed, without hurting the feelings of independence of the worker?\nAll other means would imply the continual intervention of an authority\nthat would be repugnant to free men.\" This, we believe, is the objection\nfairly stated.\n\nTo begin with, such an objection belongs to the category of arguments\nwhich try to justify the State, the Penal Law, the Judge, and the\nGaoler.\n\n\"As there are people, a feeble minority, who will not submit to social\ncustoms,\" the authoritarians say, \"we must maintain magistrates,\ntribunals and prisons, although these institutions become a source of\nnew evils of all kinds.\"\n\nTherefore we can only repeat what we have so often said concerning\nauthority in general: \"To avoid a possible evil you have recourse to\nmeans which in themselves are a greater evil, and become the source of\nthose same abuses that you wish to remedy. For, do not forget that it is\nwagedom, the impossibility of living otherwise than by selling your\nlabour, which has created the present Capitalist system, whose vices you\nbegin to recognize.\" Besides, this way of reasoning is merely a\nsophistical justification of the evils of the present system. Wagedom\nwas _not_ instituted to remove the disadvantages of Communism; its\norigin, like that of the State and private ownership, is to be found\nelsewhere. It is born of slavery and serfdom imposed by force, and only\nwears a more modern garb. Thus the argument in favour of wagedom is as\nvalueless as those by which they seek to apologize for private property\nand the State.\n\nWe are, nevertheless, going to examine the objection, and see if there\nis any truth in it.\n\nFirst of all,--Is it not evident that if a society, founded on the\nprinciple of free work, were really menaced by loafers, it could protect\nitself without the authoritarian organization we have nowadays, and\nwithout having recourse to wagedom?\n\nLet us take a group of volunteers, combining for some particular\nenterprise. Having its success at heart, they all work with a will, save\none of the associates, who is frequently absent from his post. Must they\non his account dissolve the group, elect a president to impose fines,\nand work out a code of penalties? It is evident that neither the one nor\nthe other will be done, but that some day the comrade who imperils their\nenterprise will be told: \"Friend, we should like to work with you; but\nas you are often absent from your post, and you do your work\nnegligently, we must part. Go and find other comrades who will put up\nwith your indifference!\"\n\nThis way is so natural that it is practiced everywhere, even nowadays,\nin all industries, in competition with all possible systems of fines,\ndocking of wages, supervision, etc.; a workman may enter the factory at\nthe appointed time, but if he does his work badly, if he hinders his\ncomrades by his laziness or other defects, if he is quarrelsome, there\nis an end of it; he is compelled to leave the workshop.\n\nAuthoritarians pretend that it is the almighty employer and his\noverseers who maintain regularity and quality of work in factories. In\nreality, in every somewhat complicated enterprise, in which the goods\nproduced pass through many hands before being finished, it is the\nfactory itself, the workmen as a unity, who see to the good quality of\nthe work. Therefore the best factories of British private industry have\nfew overseers, far less on an average than the French factories, and\nless than the British State factories.\n\nA certain standard of public morals is maintained in the same way.\nAuthoritarians say it is due to rural guards, judges, and policemen,\nwhereas in reality it is maintained _in spite_ of judges, policemen, and\nrural guards. \"Many are the laws producing criminals!\" was said long\nago.\n\nNot only in industrial workshops do things go on in this way; it happens\neverywhere, every day, on a scale that only bookworms have as yet no\nnotion of. When a railway company, federated with other companies, fails\nto fulfil its engagements, when its trains are late and goods lie\nneglected at the stations, the other companies threaten to cancel the\ncontract, and that threat usually suffices.\n\nIt is generally believed, at any rate it is taught in State-approved\nschools, that commerce only keeps to its engagements from fear of\nlawsuits. Nothing of the sort; nine times in ten the trader who has not\nkept his word will not appear before a judge. There, where trade is very\nactive, as in London, the sole fact of having driven a creditor to bring\na lawsuit suffices for the immense majority of merchants to refuse for\ngood to have any dealings with a man who has compelled one of them to go\nto law.\n\nThis being so, why should means that are used to-day among workers in\nthe workshop, traders in the trade, and railway companies in the\norganization of transport, not be made use of in a society based on\nvoluntary work?\n\nTake, for example, an association stipulating that each of its members\nshould carry out the following contract: \"We undertake to give you the\nuse of our houses, stores, streets, means of transport, schools,\nmuseums, etc., on condition that, from twenty to forty-five or fifty\nyears of age, you consecrate four or five hours a day to some work\nrecognized as necessary to existence. Choose yourself the producing\ngroups which you wish to join, or organize a new group, provided that it\nwill undertake to produce necessaries. And as for the remainder of your\ntime, combine together with whomsoever you like, for recreation, art, or\nscience, according to the bent of your taste.\n\n\"Twelve or fifteen hundred hours of work a year, in one of the groups\nproducing food, clothes, or houses, or employed in public sanitation,\ntransport, and so on, is all we ask of you. For this amount of work we\nguarantee to you the free use of all that these groups produce, or will\nproduce. But if not one, of the thousands of groups of our federation,\nwill receive you, whatever be their motive; if you are absolutely\nincapable of producing anything useful, or if you refuse to do it, then\nlive like an isolated man or like an invalid. If we are rich enough to\ngive you the necessaries of life we shall be delighted to give them to\nyou. You are a man, and you have the right to live. But as you wish to\nlive under special conditions, and leave the ranks, it is more than\nprobable that you will suffer for it in your daily relations with other\ncitizens. You will be looked upon as a ghost of bourgeois society,\nunless some friends of yours, discovering you to be a talent, kindly\nfree you from all moral obligation towards society by doing all the\nnecessary work for you.\n\n\"And finally, if it does not please you, go and look for other\nconditions elsewhere in the wide world, or else seek adherents and\norganize with them on novel principles. We prefer our own.\"\n\nThis is what could be done in a communal society in order to turn away\nsluggards if they became too numerous.\n\n\nIV\n\nWe very much doubt that we need fear this contingency in a society\nreally based on the entire freedom of the individual.\n\nIn fact, in spite of the premium on idleness offered by the private\nownership of capital, the really lazy man is comparatively rare, unless\nhis laziness be due to illness.\n\nAmong workmen it is often said that the bourgeois are idlers. There are\ncertainly enough of them, but they, too, are the exception. On the\ncontrary, in every industrial enterprise, you are sure to find one or\nmore bourgeois who work very hard. It is true that the majority of\nbourgeois profit by their privileged position to award themselves the\nleast unpleasant tasks, and that they work under hygienic conditions of\nair, food, etc., which permits them to do their business without too\nmuch fatigue. But these are precisely the conditions which we claim for\nall workers, without exception.\n\nIt must also be said that if, thanks to their privileged position, rich\npeople often perform absolutely useless or even harmful work in society,\nnevertheless the Ministers, Heads of Departments, factory owners,\ntraders, bankers, etc., subject themselves for a number of hours every\nday to work which they find more or less tiresome, all preferring their\nhours of leisure to this obligatory work. And if in nine cases out of\nten this work is a harmful work, they find it none the less tiring for\nthat. But it is precisely because the middle class put forth a great\nenergy, even in doing harm (knowingly or not) and defending their\nprivileged position, that they have succeeded in defeating the landed\nnobility, and that they continue to rule the masses. If they were\nidlers, they would long since have ceased to exist, and would have\ndisappeared like the aristocracy. In a society that would expect only\nfour or five hours a day of useful, pleasant, and hygienic work, these\nsame middle-class people would perform their task perfectly well, and\nthey certainly would not put up with the horrible conditions in which\nmen toil nowadays without reforming them. If a Huxley spent only five\nhours in the sewers of London, rest assured that he would have found the\nmeans of making them as sanitary as his physiological laboratory.\n\nAs to the laziness of the great majority of workers, only philistine\neconomists and philanthropists can utter such nonsense.\n\nIf you ask an intelligent manufacturer, he will tell you that if workmen\nonly put it into their heads to be lazy, all factories would have to be\nclosed, for no measure of severity, no system of spying would be of any\nuse. You should have seen the terror caused in 1887 among British\nemployers when a few agitators started preaching the \"_go-canny_\"\ntheory--\"Bad pay, bad work\"; \"Take it easy, do not overwork yourselves,\nand waste all you can.\"--\"They demoralize the worker, they want to kill\nour industry!\" cried those same people who the day before inveighed\nagainst the immorality of the worker and the bad quality of his work.\nBut if the workers were what they are represented to be--namely, the\nidler whom the employer is supposed continually to threaten with\ndismissal from the workshop--what would the word \"demoralization\"\nsignify?\n\nSo when we speak of possible idlers, we must well understand that it is\na question of a small minority in society; and before legislating for\nthat minority, would it not be wise to study the origin of that\nidleness? Whoever observes with an intelligent eye, sees well enough\nthat the child reputed lazy at school is often the one which simply does\nnot understand, because he is being badly taught. Very often, too, it is\nsuffering from cerebral an\u00e6mia, caused by poverty and an anti-hygienic\neducation. A boy who is lazy at Greek or Latin would work admirably were\nhe taught science, especially if he were taught with the aid of manual\nlabour. A girl who is stupid at mathematics becomes the first\nmathematician of her class if she by chance meets somebody who can\nexplain to her the elements of arithmetic which she did not understand.\nAnd a workman, lazy in the workshop, cultivates his garden at dawn,\nwhile gazing at the rising sun, and will be at work again at nightfall,\nwhen all nature goes to its rest.\n\nSomebody has said that dust is matter in the wrong place. The same\ndefinition applies to nine-tenths of those called lazy. They are people\ngone astray in a direction that does not answer to their temperament nor\nto their capacities. In reading the biography of great men, we are\nstruck with the number of \"idlers\" among them. They were lazy so long as\nthey had not found the right path; afterwards they became laborious to\nexcess. Darwin, Stephenson, and many others belonged to this category of\nidlers.\n\nVery often the idler is but a man to whom it is repugnant to spend all\nhis life making the eighteenth part of a pin, or the hundredth part of a\nwatch, while he feels he has exuberant energy which he would like to\nexpend elsewhere. Often, too, he is a rebel who cannot submit to being\nfixed all his life to a work-bench in order to procure a thousand\npleasures for his employer, while knowing himself to be far the less\nstupid of the two, and knowing his only fault to be that of having been\nborn in a hovel instead of coming into the world in a castle.\n\nLastly, an immense number of \"idlers\" are idlers because they do not\nknow well enough the trade by which they are compelled to earn their\nliving. Seeing the imperfect thing they make with their own hands,\nstriving vainly to do better, and perceiving that they never will\nsucceed on account of the bad habits of work already acquired, they\nbegin to hate their trade, and, not knowing any other, hate work in\ngeneral. Thousands of workmen and artists who are failures suffer from\nthis cause.\n\nOn the other hand, he who since his youth has learned to play the piano\n_well_, to handle the plane _well_, the chisel, the brush, or the file,\nso that he feels that what he does is _beautiful_, will never give up\nthe piano, the chisel, or the file. He will find pleasure in his work\nwhich does not tire him, so long as he is not overdriven.\n\nUnder the one name, _idleness_, a series of results due to different\ncauses have been grouped, of which each one could be a source of good,\ninstead of being a source of evil to society. Like all questions\nconcerning criminality and related to human faculties, facts have been\ncollected having nothing in common with one another. People speak of\nlaziness or crime, without giving themselves the trouble to analyze the\ncause. They are in a hurry to punish these faults without inquiring if\nthe punishment itself does not contain a premium on \"laziness\" or\n\"crime.\"[9]\n\nThis is why a free society, if it saw the number of idlers increasing in\nits midst, would no doubt think of looking first for the _cause_ of\nlaziness, in order to suppress it, before having recourse to punishment.\nWhen it is a case, as we have already mentioned, of simple\nbloodlessness, then before stuffing the brain of a child with science,\nnourish his system so as to produce blood, strengthen him, and, that he\nshall not waste his time, take him to the country or to the seaside;\nthere, teach him in the open air, not in books--geometry, by measuring\nthe distance to a spire, or the height of a tree; natural sciences,\nwhile picking flowers and fishing in the sea; physical science, while\nbuilding the boat he will go to fish in. But for mercy's sake do not\nfill his brain with classical sentences and dead languages. Do not make\nan idler of him!...\n\nOr, here is a child which has neither order nor regular habits. Let the\nchildren first inculcate order among themselves, and later on, the\nlaboratory, the workshop, the work that will have to be done in a\nlimited space, with many tools about, under the guidance of an\nintelligent teacher, will teach them method. But do not make disorderly\nbeings out of them by your school, whose only order is the symmetry of\nits benches, and which--true image of the chaos in its teachings--will\nnever inspire anybody with the love of harmony, of consistency, and\nmethod in work.\n\nDo not you see that by your methods of teaching, framed by a Ministry\nfor eight million scholars, who represent eight million different\ncapacities, you only impose a system good for mediocrities, conceived by\nan average of mediocrities? Your school becomes a University of\nlaziness, as your prison is a University of crime. Make the school free,\nabolish your University grades, appeal to the volunteers of teaching;\nbegin that way, instead of making laws against laziness which only serve\nto increase it.\n\nGive the workman who cannot condemn himself to make all his life a\nminute particle of some object, who is stifled at his little tapping\nmachine, which he ends by loathing, give him the chance of tilling the\nsoil, of felling trees in the forest, sailing the seas in the teeth of a\nstorm, dashing through space on an engine, but do not make an idler of\nhim by forcing him all his life to attend to a small machine, to plough\nthe head of a screw, or to drill the eye of a needle.\n\nSuppress the cause of idleness, and you may take it for granted that few\nindividuals will really hate work, especially voluntary work, and that\nthere will be no need to manufacture a code of laws on their account.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[9] _Kropotkin: In Russian and French Prisons._ London, 1887.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE COLLECTIVIST WAGES SYSTEM\n\n\nI\n\nIn their plans for the reconstruction of society the collectivists\ncommit, in our opinion, a twofold error. While speaking of abolishing\ncapitalist rule, they intend nevertheless to retain two institutions\nwhich are the very basis of this rule--Representative Government and the\nWages' System.\n\nAs regards so-called representative government, we have often spoken\nabout it. It is absolutely incomprehensible to us that intelligent\nmen--and such are not wanting in the collectivist party--can remain\npartisans of national or municipal parliaments after all the lessons\nhistory has given them--in France, in England, in Germany, or in the\nUnited States.\n\nWhile we see parliamentary rule breaking up, and from all sides\ncriticism of this rule growing louder--not only of its results, but also\nof _its principles_--how is it that the revolutionary socialists defend\na system already condemned to die?\n\nBuilt up by the middle classes to hold their own against royalty,\nsanctioning, and, at the same time strengthening, their sway over the\nworkers, parliamentary rule is pre-eminently a middle-class rule. The\nupholders of this system have never seriously maintained that a\nparliament or a municipal council represent a nation or a city. The most\nintelligent among them know that this is impossible. The middle classes\nhave simply used the parliamentary system to raise a protecting barrier\nagainst the pretensions of royalty, without giving the people liberty.\nBut gradually, as the people become conscious of their real interests,\nand the variety of their interests is growing, the system can no longer\nwork. Therefore democrats of all countries vainly imagine various\npalliatives. The _Referendum_ is tried and found to be a failure;\nproportional representation is spoken of, the representation of\nminorities, and other parliamentary Utopias. In a word, they strive to\nfind what is not to be found, and after each new experiment they are\nbound to recognize that it was a failure; so that confidence in\nRepresentative Government vanishes more and more.\n\nIt is the same with the Wages' system; because, once the abolition of\nprivate property is proclaimed, and the possession in common of all\nmeans of production is introduced,--how can the wages' system be\nmaintained in any form? This is, nevertheless, what collectivists are\ndoing when they recommend the use of the _labour-cheques_ as a mode of\nremuneration for labour accomplished for the great Collectivist\nemployer--the State.\n\nIt is easy to understand why the early English socialists, since the\ntime of Robert Owen, came to the system of labour-cheques. They simply\ntried to make Capital and Labour agree. They repudiated the idea of\nlaying hands on capitalist property by means of revolutionary measures.\n\nIt is also easy to understand why Proudhon took up later on the same\nidea. In his Mutualist system he tried to make Capital less offensive,\nnotwithstanding the retaining of private property, which he detested\nfrom the bottom of his heart, but which he believed to be necessary to\nguarantee individuals against the State.\n\nNeither is it astonishing that certain economists, more or less\nbourgeois, admit labour-cheques. They care little whether the worker is\npaid in labour-notes or in coin stamped with the effigy of the Republic\nor the Empire. They only care to save from destruction the individual\nownership of dwelling-houses, of land, of factories; in any case--that,\nat least, of dwelling-houses and the capital that is necessary for\nmanufacturing. And labour-notes would just answer the purpose of\nupholding this private property.\n\nAs long as labour-notes can be exchanged for jewels or carriages, the\nowner of the house will willingly accept them for rent. And as long as\ndwelling houses, fields, and factories belong to isolated owners, men\nwill have to pay these owners, in one way or another, for being allowed\nto work in the fields or factories, or for living in the houses. The\nowners will agree to be paid by the workers in gold, in paper-money, or\nin cheques exchangeable for all sorts of commodities, once that toll\nupon labour is maintained, and the right to levy it is left with them.\nBut how can we defend labour-notes, this new form of wagedom, when we\nadmit that the houses, the fields, and the factories will no longer be\nprivate property,--that they will belong to the commune or the nation?\n\n\nII\n\nLet us closely examine this system of remuneration for work done,\npreached by the French, German, English, and Italian collectivists (the\nSpanish anarchists, who still call themselves collectivists, imply by\nCollectivism the possession in common of all instruments of production,\nand the \"liberty of each group to divide the produce, as they think fit,\naccording to communist or any other principles\").\n\nIt amounts to this: Everybody works in field, factory, school, hospital,\netc. The working-day is fixed by the State, which owns the land, the\nfactories, the roads, etc. Every work-day is paid for with a\n_labour-note_, which is inscribed with these words: _Eight hours' work_.\nWith this cheque the worker can procure all sorts of merchandise in the\nstores owned by the State or by divers corporations. The cheque is\ndivisible, so that you can buy an hour's-work worth of meat, ten\nminutes' worth of matches, or half an hour of tobacco. After the\nCollectivist Revolution, instead of saying \"twopence worth of soap,\" we\nshall say \"five minutes' worth of soap.\"\n\nMost collectivists, true to the distinction laid down by middle-class\neconomists (and by Marx as well) between _qualified_ work and _simple_\nwork, tell us, moreover, that _qualified_ or professional work must be\npaid a certain quantity more than _simple_ work. Thus one hour's work of\na doctor will have to be considered as equivalent to two or three hours'\nwork of a hospital nurse, or to three or five hours' work of a navvy.\n\"Professional, or qualified work, will be a multiple of simple work,\"\nsays the collectivist Gr\u00f6nlund, \"because this kind of work needs a more\nor less long apprenticeship.\"\n\nSome other collectivists, such as the French Marxist, Guesde, do not\nmake this distinction. They proclaim the \"Equality of Wages.\" The\ndoctor, the schoolmaster, and the professor will be paid (in\nlabour-cheques) at the same rate as the navvy. Eight hours visiting the\nsick in a hospital will be worth the same as eight hours spent in\nearthworks or else in mines or factories.\n\nSome make a greater concession; they admit that disagreeable or\nunhealthy work--such as sewerage--could be paid for at a higher rate\nthan agreeable work. One hour's work of a sewerman would be worth, they\nsay, two hours of a professor's work.\n\nLet us add that certain collectivists admit of corporations being paid a\nlump sum for work done. Thus a corporation would say: \"Here are a\nhundred tons of steel. A hundred workmen were required to produce them,\nand it took them ten days. Their work-day being an eight-hours day, it\nhas taken them eight thousand working hours to produce a hundred tons of\nsteel--eight hours a ton.\" For this the State would pay them eight\nthousand labour-notes of one hour each, and these eight thousand cheques\nwould be divided among the members of the iron-works as they themselves\nthought proper.\n\nOn the other hand, a hundred miners having taken twenty days to extract\neight thousand tons of coal, coal would be worth two hours a ton, and\nthe sixteen thousand cheques of one hour each, received by the Guild of\nMiners, would be divided among their members according to their own\nappreciation.\n\nIf the miners protested and said that a ton of steel should only cost\nsix hours' work instead of eight; if the professor wished to have his\nday paid four times more than the nurse, then the State would interfere\nand would settle their differences.\n\nSuch is, in a few words, the organization the collectivists wish to see\narise out of the Social Revolution. As we see, their principles are:\nCollective property of the instruments of production, and remuneration\nto each according to the time spent in producing, while taking into\naccount the productivity of his labour. As to the political system, it\nwould be the Parliamentary system, modified by _positive instructions_\ngiven to those elected, and by the _Referendum_--a vote, taken by _noes_\nor _ayes_ by the nation.\n\nLet us own that this system appears to us simply unrealizable.\n\nCollectivists begin by proclaiming a revolutionary principle--the\nabolition of private property--and then they deny it, no sooner than\nproclaimed, by upholding an organization of production and consumption\nwhich originated in private property.\n\nThey proclaim a revolutionary principle, and ignore the consequences\nthat this principle will inevitably bring about. They forget that the\nvery fact of abolishing individual property in the instruments of\nwork--land, factories, road, capital--must launch society into\nabsolutely new channels; must completely overthrow the present system of\nproduction, both in its aim as well as in its means; must modify daily\nrelations between individuals, as soon as land, machinery, and all other\ninstruments of production are considered common property.\n\nThey say, \"No private property,\" and immediately after strive to\nmaintain private property in its daily manifestations. \"You shall be a\nCommune as far as regards production: fields, tools, machinery, all that\nhas been invented up till now--factories, railways, harbours, mines,\netc., all are yours. Not the slightest distinction will be made\nconcerning the share of each in this collective property.\n\n\"But from to-morrow you will minutely debate the share you are going to\ntake in the creation of new machinery, in the digging of new mines. You\nwill carefully weigh what part of the new produce belongs to you. You\nwill count your minutes of work, and you will take care that a minute of\nyour neighbours should not buy more than yours.\n\n\"And as an hour measures nothing, as in some factories a worker can see\nto six power-looms at a time, while in another he only tends two, you\nwill weigh the muscular force, the brain energy, and the nervous energy\nyou have expended. You will accurately calculate the years of\napprenticeship in order to appraise the amount each will contribute to\nfuture production. And this--after having declared that you do not take\ninto account his share in _past_ production.\"\n\nWell, for us it is evident that a society cannot be based on two\nabsolutely opposed principles, two principles that contradict one\nanother continually. And a nation or a commune which would have such an\norganization would be compelled to revert to private property in the\ninstruments of production, or to transform itself into a communist\nsociety.\n\n\nIII\n\nWe have said that certain collectivist writers desire that a distinction\nshould be made between _qualified_ or professional work and _simple_\nwork. They pretend that an hour's work of an engineer, an architect, or\na doctor, must be considered as two or three hours' work of a\nblacksmith, a mason, or a hospital nurse. And the same distinction must\nbe made between all sorts of trades necessitating apprenticeship, and\nthe simple toil of day labourers.\n\nWell, to establish this distinction would be to maintain all the\ninequalities of present society. It would mean fixing a dividing line,\nfrom the beginning, between the workers and those who pretend to govern\nthem. It would mean dividing society into two very distinct classes--the\naristocracy of knowledge placed above the horny-handed lower orders--the\none doomed to serve the other; the one working with its hands to feed\nand clothe those who, profiting by their leisure, study how to govern\ntheir fosterers.\n\nIt would mean reviving one of the distinct peculiarities of present\nsociety and giving it the sanction of the Social Revolution. It would\nmean setting up as a principle an abuse already condemned in our ancient\ncrumbling society.\n\nWe know the answer we shall get. They will speak of \"Scientific\nSocialism\"; they will quote bourgeois economists, and Marx too, to prove\nthat a scale of wages has its _raison d'\u00eatre_, as \"the labour force\" of\nthe engineer will have cost more to society than the \"labour-force\" of\nthe navvy. In fact--have not economists tried to prove to us that if an\nengineer is paid twenty times more than a navvy it is _because_ the\n\"necessary\" outlay to make an engineer is greater than that necessary to\nmake a navvy? And has not Marx asserted that the same distinction is\nequally logical between two branches of manual labour? He could not\nconclude otherwise, having taken up on his own account Ricardo's theory\nof value, and upheld that goods _are_ exchanged in proportion to the\nquantity of work socially necessary for their production.\n\nBut we know what to think of this. We know that if engineers,\nscientists, or doctors are paid ten or a hundred times more than a\nlabourer, and if a weaver earns three times more than an agricultural\nlabourer, and ten times more than a girl in a match factory, it is not\nby reason of their \"cost of production,\" but by reason of a monopoly of\neducation, or a monopoly of industry. Engineers, scientists, and doctors\nmerely exploit their capital--their diplomas--as middle-class employers\nexploit a factory, or as nobles used to exploit their titles of\nnobility.\n\nAs to the employer who pays an engineer twenty times more than a\nlabourer, it is simply due to personal interest; if the engineer can\neconomize \u00a34,000 a year on the cost of production, the employer pays him\n\u00a3800. And if the employer has a foreman who saves \u00a3400 on the work by\ncleverly sweating workmen, he gladly gives him \u00a380 or \u00a3120 a year. He\nparts with an extra \u00a340 when he expects to gain \u00a3400 by it; and this is\nthe essence of the Capitalist system. The same differences obtain among\ndifferent manual trades.\n\nLet them, therefore, not talk to us of \"the cost of production\" which\nraises the cost of skilled labour, and tell us that a student who has\ngaily spent his youth in a university has a _right_ to a wage ten times\ngreater than the son of a miner who has grown pale in a mine since the\nage of eleven; or that a weaver has a _right_ to a wage three or four\ntimes greater than that of an agricultural labourer. The cost of\nteaching a weaver his work is not four times greater than the cost of\nteaching a peasant his. The weaver simply benefits by the advantages his\nindustry reaps in international trade, from countries that have as yet\nno industries, and in consequence of the privileges accorded by all\nStates to industries in preference to the tilling of the soil.\n\nNobody has ever calculated the _cost of production_ of a producer; and\nif a noble loafer costs far more to society than a worker, it remains to\nbe seen whether a robust day-labourer does not cost more to society than\na skilled artisan, when we have taken into account infant-mortality\namong the poor, the ravages of an\u00e6mia, and premature deaths.\n\nCould they, for example, make us believe that the 1s. 3d. paid to a\nParis workwoman, the 3d. paid to an Auvergne peasant girl who grows\nblind at lace-making, or the 1s. 8d. paid to the peasant represent their\n\"cost of production.\" We know full well that people work for less, but\nwe also know that they do so exclusively because, thanks to our\nwonderful organization, they would die of hunger did they not accept\nthese mock wages.\n\nFor us the scale of remuneration is a complex result of taxes, of\ngovernmental tutelage, of Capitalist monopoly. In a word, of State and\nCapital. Therefore, we say that all wages' theories have been invented\nafter the event to justify injustices at present existing, and that we\nneed not take them into consideration.\n\nNeither will they fail to tell us that the Collectivist scale of wages\nwould be an improvement. \"It would be better,\" so they say, \"to see\ncertain artisans receiving a wage two or three times higher than common\nlabourers, than to see a minister receiving in a day what a workman\ncannot earn in a year. It would be a great step towards equality.\"\n\nFor us this step would be the reverse of progress. To make a distinction\nbetween simple and professional work in a new society would result in\nthe Revolution sanctioning and recognizing as a principle a brutal fact\nwe submit to nowadays, but that we nevertheless find unjust. It would\nmean imitating those gentlemen of the French Assembly who proclaimed on\nAugust 4th, 1789, the abolition of feudal rights, but who on August 8th\nsanctioned these same rights by imposing dues on the peasants to\ncompensate the noblemen, placing these dues under the protection of the\nRevolution. It would mean imitating the Russian Government, which\nproclaimed, at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, that certain\nlands should henceforth belong to the nobility, while formerly these\nlands were considered as belonging to the serfs.\n\nOr else, to take a better known example, when the Commune of 1871\ndecided to pay members of the Commune Council 12s. 6d. a day, while the\nFederates on the ramparts received only 1s. 3d., this decision was\nhailed as an act of superior democratic equality. In reality, the\nCommune only ratified the former inequality between functionary and\nsoldier, Government and governed. Coming from an Opportunist Chamber of\nDeputies, such a decision would have appeared admirable, but the Commune\ndoomed her own revolutionary principles when she failed to put them into\npractice.\n\nUnder our existing social system, when a minister gets paid \u00a34,000 a\nyear, while a workman must content himself with \u00a340 or less; when a\nforeman is paid two or three times more than a workman, and among\nworkmen there is every gradation, from 8s. a day down to the peasant\ngirl's 3d., we disapprove of the high salary of the minister as well as\nof the difference between the 8s. of the workman and the 3d. of the poor\nwoman. And we say, '\"Down with the privileges of education, as well as\nwith those of birth!\" We are anarchists precisely because these\nprivileges revolt us.\n\nThey revolt us already in this authoritarian society. Could we endure\nthem in a society that began by proclaiming equality?\n\nThis is why some collectivists, understanding the impossibility of\nmaintaining a scale of wages in a society inspired by the breath of the\nRevolution, hasten to proclaim equality of wage. But they meet with new\ndifficulties, and their equality of wages becomes the same unrealizable\nUtopia as the scale of wages of other collectivists.\n\nA society having taken possession of all social wealth, having boldly\nproclaimed the right of all to this wealth--whatever share they may have\ntaken in producing it--will be compelled to abandon any system of wages,\nwhether in currency or labour-notes.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe collectivists say, \"To each according to his deeds\"; or, in other\nterms, according to his share of services rendered to society. They\nthink it expedient to put this principle into practice, as soon as the\nSocial Revolution will have made all instruments of production common\nproperty. But we think that if the Social Revolution had the misfortune\nof proclaiming such a principle, it would mean its necessary failure; it\nwould mean leaving the social problem, which past centuries have\nburdened us with, unsolved.\n\nOf course, in a society like ours, in which the more a man works the\nless he is remunerated, this principle, at first sight, may appear to be\na yearning for justice. But in reality it is only the perpetuation of\ninjustice. It was by proclaiming this principle that wagedom began, to\nend in the glaring inequalities and all the abominations of present\nsociety; because, from the moment work done began to be appraised in\ncurrency, or in any other form of wage, the day it was agreed upon that\nman would only receive the wage he should be able to secure to himself,\nthe whole history of a State-aided Capitalist Society was as good as\nwritten; it was contained in germ in this principle.\n\nShall we, then, return to our starting-point, and go through the same\nevolution again? Our theorists desire it, but fortunately it is\nimpossible. The Revolution, we maintain, must be communist; if not, it\nwill be drowned in blood, and have to be begun over again.\n\nServices rendered to society, be they work in factory or field, or\nmental services, _cannot be_ valued in money. There can be no exact\nmeasure of value (of what has been wrongly termed exchange value), nor\nof use value, in terms of production. If two individuals work for the\ncommunity five hours a day, year in year out, at different work which is\nequally agreeable to them, we may say that on the whole their labour is\napproximately equivalent. But we cannot divide their work, and say that\nthe result of any particular day, hour, or minute of work of the one is\nworth the result of one day, one hour, or one minute of the other.\n\nWe may roughly say that the man, who during his lifetime has deprived\nhimself of leisure during ten hours a day has given far more to society\nthan the one who has only deprived himself of leisure during five hours\na day, or who has not deprived himself at all. But we cannot take what\nhe has done during two hours, and say that the yield of his two hours'\nwork is worth twice as much as the yield of another individual, who has\nworked only one hour, and remunerate the two in proportion. It would be\ndisregarding all that is complex in industry, in agriculture, in the\nwhole life of present society; it would be ignoring to what extent all\nindividual work is the result of the past and the present labour of\nsociety as a whole. It would mean believing ourselves to be living in\nthe Stone Age, whereas we are living in an age of steel.\n\nIf you enter a modern coal-mine you will see a man in charge of a huge\nmachine that raises and lowers a cage. In his hand he holds a lever that\nstops and reverses the course of the machine; he lowers it and the cage\nreverses its course in the twinkling of an eye; he sends it upwards or\ndownwards into the depths of the shaft with a giddy swiftness. All\nattention, he follows with his eyes fixed on an indicator which shows\nhim, on a small scale, at which point of the shaft the cage is at each\nsecond of its progress; and as soon as the indicator has reached a\ncertain level, he suddenly stops the course of the cage, not a yard\nhigher nor lower than the required spot. And no sooner have the colliers\nunloaded their coal-wagonettes, and pushed empty ones instead, than he\nreverses the lever and again sends the cage back into space.\n\nDuring eight or ten consecutive hours every day he must keep the same\nstrain of attention. Should his brain relax for a moment, the cage would\ninevitably strike against the gear, break its wheels, snap the rope,\ncrush men, and put a stop to all work in the mine. Should he waste three\nseconds at each touch of the lever,--the extraction, in our modern,\nperfected mines, would be reduced from twenty to fifty tons a day.\n\nIs it he who is the most necessary man in the mine? Or, is it perhaps\nthe boy who signals to him from below to raise the cage? Is it the miner\nat the bottom of the shaft, who risks his life every instant, and who\nwill some day be killed by fire-damp? Or is it the engineer, who would\nlose the layer of coal, and would cause the miners to dig on rock by a\nsimple mistake in his calculations? Or is it the mine owner who has put\nhis capital into the mine, and who has perhaps, contrary to expert\nadvice, asserted that excellent coal would be found there?\n\nAll those who are engaged in the mine contribute to the extraction of\ncoal in proportion to their strength, their energy, their knowledge,\ntheir intelligence, and their skill. And we may say that all have the\nright to _live_, to satisfy their needs, and even their whims, when the\nnecessaries of life have been secured for all. But how can we appraise\nthe work of each one of them?\n\nAnd, moreover, Is the coal they have extracted entirely _their_ work?\nIs it not also the work of the men who have built the railway leading to\nthe mine and the roads that radiate from all the railway stations? Is it\nnot also the work of those that have tilled and sown the fields,\nextracted iron, cut wood in the forests, built the machines that burn\ncoal, slowly developed the mining industry altogether, and so on?\n\nIt is utterly impossible to draw a distinction between the work of each\nof those men. To measure the work by its results leads us to an\nabsurdity; to divide the total work, and to measure its fractions by the\nnumber of hours spent on the work also leads us to absurdity. One thing\nremains: to put the _needs_ above the _works_, and first of all to\nrecognize _the right to live_, and later on _the right to well-being_\nfor all those who took their share in production.\n\nBut take any other branch of human activity--take the manifestations of\nlife as a whole. Which one of us can claim the higher remuneration for\nhis work? Is it the doctor who has found out the illness, or the nurse\nwho has brought about recovery by her hygienic care? Is it the inventor\nof the first steam-engine, or the boy, who, one day getting tired of\npulling the rope that formerly opened the valve to let steam under the\npiston, tied the rope to the lever of the machine, without suspecting\nthat he had invented the essential mechanical part of all modern\nmachinery--the automatic valve?\n\nIs it the inventor of the locomotive, or the workman of Newcastle, who\nsuggested replacing the stones formerly laid under the rails by wooden\nsleepers, as the stones, for want of elasticity, caused the trains to\nderail? Is it the engineer on the locomotive? The signalman who stops\nthe trains, or lets them pass by? The switchman who transfers a train\nfrom one line to another?\n\nAgain, to whom do we owe the transatlantic cable? Is it to the\nelectrical engineer who obstinately affirmed that the cable would\ntransmit messages while learned men of science declared it to be\nimpossible? Is it to Maury, the learned physical geographer, who advised\nthat thick cables should be set aside for others as thin as a walking\ncane? Or else to those volunteers, come from nobody knows where, who\nspent their days and nights on deck minutely examining every yard of the\ncable, and removed the nails that the shareholders of steamship\ncompanies stupidly caused to be driven into the non-conducting wrapper\nof the cable, so as to make it unserviceable?\n\nAnd in a wider sphere, the true sphere of life, with its joys, its\nsufferings, and its accidents, cannot each one of us recall someone who\nhas rendered him so great a service that we should be indignant if its\nequivalent in coin were mentioned? The service may have been but a word,\nnothing but a word spoken at the right time, or else it may have been\nmonths and years of devotion, and we are going to appraise these\n\"incalculable\" services in \"labour-notes\"?\n\n\"The works of each!\" But human society would not exist for more than two\nconsecutive generations if everyone did not give infinitely more than\nthat for which he is paid in coin, in \"cheques,\" or in civic rewards.\nThe race would soon become extinct if mothers did not sacrifice their\nlives to take care of their children, if men did not give continually,\nwithout demanding an equivalent reward, if men did not give most\nprecisely when they expect no reward.\n\nIf middle-class society is decaying, if we have got into a blind alley\nfrom which we cannot emerge without attacking past institutions with\ntorch and hatchet, it is precisely because we have given too much to\ncounting. It is because we have let ourselves be influenced into\n_giving_ only to _receive._ It is because we have aimed at turning\nsociety into a commercial company based on _debit_ and _credit_.\n\nAfter all, the Collectivists know this themselves. They vaguely\nunderstand that a society could not exist if it carried out the\nprinciple of \"Each according to his deeds.\" They have a notion that\n_necessaries_--we do not speak of whims--the needs of the individual, do\nnot always correspond to his _works_. Thus De Paepe tells us: \"The\nprinciple--the eminently Individualist principle--would, however, be\n_tempered_ by social intervention for the education of children and\nyoung persons (including maintenance and lodging), and by the social\norganization for assisting the infirm and the sick, for retreats for\naged workers, etc.\" They understand that a man of forty, father of three\nchildren, has other needs than a young man of twenty. They know that the\nwoman who suckles her infant and spends sleepless nights at its bedside,\ncannot do as much _work_ as the man who has slept peacefully. They seem\nto take in that men and women, worn out maybe by dint of overwork for\nsociety, may be incapable of doing as much _work_ as those who have\nspent their time leisurely and pocketed their \"labour-notes\" in the\nprivileged career of State functionaries.\n\nThey are eager to temper their principle. They say: \"Society will not\nfail to maintain and bring up its children; to help both aged and\ninfirm. Without doubt _needs_ will be the measure of the cost that\nsociety will burden itself with, to temper the principle of deeds.\"\n\nCharity, charity, always Christian charity, organized by the State this\ntime. They believe in improving the asylums for foundlings, in effecting\nold-age and sick insurances--so as to _temper_ their principle. But they\ncannot yet throw aside the idea of \"wounding first and healing\nafterwards\"!\n\nThus, after having denied Communism, after having laughed at their ease\nat the formula--\"To each according to his needs\"--these great economists\ndiscover that they have forgotten something, the needs of the producers,\nwhich they now admit. Only it is for the State to estimate them, for the\nState to verify if the needs are not disproportionate to the work.\n\nThe State will dole out charity. Thence to the English poor-law and the\nworkhouse is but a step.\n\nThere is but a slight difference, because even this stepmother of a\nsociety against whom we are in revolt has also been compelled to\n_temper_ her individualist principles; she, too, has had to make\nconcessions in a communist direction and under the same form of charity.\n\nShe, too, distributes halfpenny dinners to prevent the pillaging of her\nshops; builds hospitals--often very bad ones, but sometimes splendid\nones--to prevent the ravages of contagious diseases. She, too, after\nhaving paid the hours of labour, shelters the children of those she has\nwrecked. She takes their needs into consideration and doles out charity.\n\nPoverty, we have said elsewhere, was the primary cause of wealth. It was\npoverty that created the first capitalist; because, before accumulating\n\"surplus value,\" of which we hear so much, men had to be sufficiently\ndestitute to consent to sell their labour, so as not to die of hunger.\nIt was poverty that made capitalists. And if the number of the poor\nincreased so rapidly during the Middle Ages, it was due to the invasions\nand wars that followed the founding of States, and to the increase of\nriches resulting from the exploitation of the East. These two causes\ntore asunder the bonds that kept men together in the agrarian and urban\ncommunities, and taught them to proclaim the principle of _wages_, so\ndear to the exploiters, instead of the solidarity they formerly\npracticed in their tribal life.\n\nAnd it is this principle that is to spring from a revolution which men\ndare to call by the name of Social Revolution,--a name so dear to the\nstarved, the oppressed, and the sufferers!\n\nIt can never be. For the day on which old institutions will fall under\nthe proletarian axe, voices will cry out: \"Bread, shelter, ease for\nall!\" And those voices will be listened to; the people will say: \"Let us\nbegin by allaying our thirst for life, for happiness, for liberty, that\nwe have never quenched. And when we shall have tasted of this joy, we\nwill set to work to demolish the last vestiges of middle-class rule: its\nmorality drawn from account books, its 'debit and credit' philosophy,\nits 'mine and yours' institutions. 'In demolishing we shall build,' as\nProudhon said; and we shall build in the name of Communism and Anarchy.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nCONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION\n\n\nI\n\nLooking at society and its political organization from a different\nstandpoint than that of all the authoritarian schools--for we start from\na free individual to reach a free society, instead of beginning by the\nState to come down to the individual--we follow the same method in\neconomic questions. We study the needs of the individuals, and the means\nby which they satisfy them, before discussing Production, Exchange,\nTaxation, Government, and so on. At first sight the difference may\nappear trifling, but in reality it upsets all the canons of official\nPolitical Economy.\n\nIf you open the works of any economist you will find that he begins with\nPRODUCTION, _i. e._, by the analysis of the means employed nowadays for\nthe creation of wealth: division of labour, the factory, its machinery,\nthe accumulation of capital. From Adam Smith to Marx, all have proceeded\nalong these lines. Only in the latter parts of their books do they treat\nof CONSUMPTION, that is to say, of the means resorted to in our present\nSociety to satisfy the needs of the individuals; and even there they\nconfine themselves to explaining how riches _are_ divided among those\nwho vie with one another for their possession.\n\nPerhaps you will say this is logical. Before satisfying needs you must\ncreate the wherewithal to satisfy them. But, before producing anything,\nmust you not feel the need of it? Was it not necessity that first drove\nman to hunt, to raise cattle, to cultivate land, to make implements, and\nlater on to invent machinery? Is it not the study of the needs that\nshould govern production? To say the least, it would therefore be quite\nas logical to begin by considering the needs, and afterwards to discuss\nhow production is, and ought to be, organized, in order to satisfy these\nneeds.\n\nThis is precisely what we mean to do.\n\nBut as soon as we look at Political Economy from this point of view, it\nentirely changes its aspect. It ceases to be a simple description of\nfacts, and becomes a _science_, and we may define this science as: \"_The\nstudy of the needs of mankind, and the means of satisfying them with the\nleast possible waste of human energy_\". Its true name should be,\n_Physiology of Society_. It constitutes a parallel science to the\nphysiology of plants and animals, which is the study of the needs of\nplants and animals, and of the most advantageous ways of satisfying\nthem. In the series of sociological sciences, the economy of human\nsocieties takes the place, occupied in the series of biological sciences\nby the physiology of organic bodies.\n\nWe say, here are human beings, united in a society. All of them feel the\nneed of living in healthy houses. The savage's hut no longer satisfies\nthem; they require a more or less comfortable solid shelter. The\nquestion is, then: whether, taking the present capacity of men for\nproduction, every man can have a house of his own? and what is hindering\nhim from having it?\n\nAnd as soon as we ask _this_ question, we see that every family in\nEurope could perfectly well have a comfortable house, such as are built\nin England, in Belgium, or in Pullman City, or else an equivalent set of\nrooms. A certain number of days' work would suffice to build a pretty\nlittle airy house, well fitted up and lighted by electricity.\n\nBut nine-tenths of Europeans have never possessed a healthy house,\nbecause at all times common people have had to work day after day to\nsatisfy the needs of their rulers, and have never had the necessary\nleisure or money to build, or to have built, the home of their dreams.\nAnd they can have no houses, and will inhabit hovels as long as present\nconditions remain unchanged.\n\nIt is thus seen that our method is quite contrary to that of the\neconomists, who immortalize the so-called _laws_ of production, and,\nreckoning up the number of houses built every year, demonstrate by\nstatistics, that as the number of the new-built houses _is_ too small to\nmeet all demands, nine-tenths of Europeans _must_ live in hovels.\n\nLet us pass on to food. After having enumerated the benefits accruing\nfrom the division of labour, economists tell us the division of labour\nrequires that some men should work at agriculture and others at\nmanufacture. Farmers producing so much, factories so much, exchange\nbeing carried on in such a way, they analyze the sale, the profit, the\nnet gain or the surplus value, the wages, the taxes, banking, and so on.\n\nBut after having followed them so far, we are none the wiser, and if we\nask them: \"How is it that millions of human beings are in want of bread,\nwhen every family could grow sufficient wheat to feed ten, twenty, and\neven a hundred people annually?\" they answer us by droning the same\nanthem--division of labour, wages, surplus value, capital,\netc.--arriving at the same conclusion, that production is insufficient\nto satisfy all needs; a conclusion which, if true, does not answer the\nquestion: \"Can or cannot man by his labour produce the bread he needs?\nAnd if he cannot, what is it that hinders him?\"\n\nHere are 350 million Europeans. They need so much bread, so much meat,\nwine, milk, eggs, and butter every year. They need so many houses, so\nmuch clothing. This is the minimum of their needs. Can they produce all\nthis? and if they can, will sufficient leisure be left them for art,\nscience, and amusement?--in a word, for everything that is not comprised\nin the category of absolute necessities? If the answer is in the\naffirmative,--What hinders them going ahead? What must they do to remove\nthe obstacles? Is it time that is needed to achieve such a result? Let\nthem take it! But let us not lose sight of the aim of production--the\nsatisfaction of the needs of all.\n\nIf the most imperious needs of man remain unsatisfied now,--What must we\ndo to increase the productivity of our work? But is there no other\ncause? Might it not be that production, having lost sight of the _needs_\nof man, has strayed in an absolutely wrong direction, and that its\norganization is at fault? And as we can prove that such is the case, let\nus see how to reorganize production so as to really satisfy all needs.\n\nThis seems to us the only right way of facing things. The only way that\nwould allow of Political Economy becoming a science--the Science of\nSocial Physiology.\n\nIt is evident that so long as science treats of production, as _it is_\ncarried on at present by civilized nations, by Hindoo communes, or by\nsavages, it can hardly state facts otherwise than the economists state\nthem now; that is to say, as a simple _descriptive_ chapter, analogous\nto the descriptive chapters of Zoology and Botany. But if this chapter\nwere written so as to throw some light on the economy of the energy that\nis necessary to satisfy human needs, the chapter would gain in\nprecision, as well as in descriptive value. It would clearly show the\nfrightful waste of human energy under the present system, and it would\nprove that as long as this system exists, the needs of humanity will\nnever be satisfied.\n\nThe point of view, we see, would be entirely changed. Behind the loom\nthat weaves so many yards of cloth, behind the steel-plate perforator,\nand behind the safe in which dividends are hoarded, we should see man,\nthe artisan of production, more often than not excluded from the feast\nhe has prepared for others. We should also understand that the\nstandpoint being wrong, the so-called \"laws\" of value and exchange are\nbut a very false explanation of events, as they happen nowadays; and\nthat things will come to pass very differently when production is\norganized in such a manner as to meet all needs of society.\n\n\nII\n\nThere is not one single principle of Political Economy that does not\nchange its aspect if you look at it from our point of view.\n\nTake, for instance, over-production, a word which every day re-echoes in\nour ears. Is there a single economist, academician, or candidate for\nacademical honours, who has not supported arguments, proving that\neconomic crises are due to over-production--that at a given moment more\ncotton, more cloth, more watches are produced than are needed! Have we\nnot, all of us, thundered against the rapacity of the capitalists who\nare obstinately bent on producing more than can possibly be consumed!\n\nHowever, on careful examination all these reasonings prove unsound. In\nfact, Is there one single commodity among those in universal use which\nis produced in greater quantity than need be. Examine one by one all\ncommodities sent out by countries exporting on a large scale, and you\nwill see that nearly all are produced in _insufficient_ quantities for\nthe inhabitants of the countries exporting them.\n\nIt is not a surplus of wheat that the Russian peasant sends to Europe.\nThe most plentiful harvests of wheat and rye in European Russia only\nyield _enough_ for the population. And as a rule, the peasant deprives\nhimself of what he actually needs when he sells his wheat or rye to pay\nrent and taxes.\n\nIt is not a surplus of coal that England sends to the four corners of\nthe globe, because only three-quarters of a ton, per head of population,\nannually, remains for home domestic consumption, and millions of\nEnglishmen are deprived of fire in the winter, or have only just enough\nto boil a few vegetables. In fact, setting aside useless luxuries, there\nis in England, which exports more than any other country, one single\ncommodity in universal use--cottons--whose production is sufficiently\ngreat to _perhaps_ exceed the needs of the community. Yet when we look\nupon the rags that pass for wearing apparel worn by over a third of the\ninhabitants of the United Kingdom, we are led to ask ourselves whether\nthe cottons exported would not, on the whole, suit the _real_ needs of\nthe population?\n\nAs a rule it is not a surplus that is exported, though it may have been\nso originally. The fable of the barefooted shoemaker is as true of\nnations as it was formerly of individual artisans. We export the\n_necessary_ commodities. And we do so, because the workmen cannot buy\nwith their wages what they have produced, _and pay besides the rent and\ninterest to the capitalist and the banker_.\n\nNot only does the ever-growing need of comfort remain unsatisfied, but\nthe strict necessities of life are often wanting. Therefore, \"surplus\nproduction\" does _not_ exist, at least not in the sense given to it by\nthe theorists of Political Economy.\n\nTaking another point--all economists tell us that there is a well-proved\nlaw: \"Man produces more than he consumes.\" After he has lived on the\nproceeds of his toil, there remains a surplus. Thus, a family of\ncultivators produces enough to feed several families, and so forth.\n\nFor us, this oft-repeated sentence has no sense. If it meant that each\ngeneration leaves something to future generations, it would be true;\nthus, for example, a farmer plants a tree that will live, maybe, for\nthirty, forty, or a hundred years, and whose fruits will still be\ngathered by the farmer's grandchildren. Or he clears a few acres of\nvirgin soil, and we say that the heritage of future generations has been\nincreased by that much. Roads, bridges, canals, his house and his\nfurniture are so much wealth bequeathed to succeeding generations.\n\nBut this is not what is meant. We are told that the cultivator produces\nmore than he _need_ consume. Rather should they say that, the State\nhaving always taken from him a large share of his produce for taxes, the\npriest for tithe, and the landlord for rent, a whole class of men has\nbeen created, who formerly consumed what they produced--save what was\nset aside for unforeseen accidents, or expenses incurred in\nafforestation, roads, etc.--but who to-day are compelled to live very\npoorly, from hand to mouth, the remainder having been taken from them by\nthe State, the landlord, the priest, and the usurer.\n\nTherefore we prefer to say: The agricultural labourer, the industrial\nworker and so on _consume less than they produce_,--because they are\n_compelled_ to sell most of the produce of their labour and to be\nsatisfied with but a small portion of it.\n\nLet us also observe that if the needs of the individual are taken as the\nstarting-point of our political economy, we cannot fail to reach\nCommunism, an organization which enables us to satisfy all needs in the\nmost thorough and economical way. While if we start from our present\nmethod of production, and aim at gain and surplus value, without asking\nwhether our production corresponds to the satisfaction of needs, we\nnecessarily arrive at Capitalism, or at most at Collectivism--both being\nbut two different forms of the present wages' system.\n\nIn fact, when we consider the needs of the individual and of society,\nand the means which man has resorted to in order to satisfy them during\nhis varied phases of development, we see at once the necessity of\nsystematizing our efforts, instead of producing haphazard as we do\nnowadays. It becomes evident that the appropriation by a few of all\nriches not consumed, and transmitted from one generation to another, is\nnot in the general interest. And we see as a fact that owing to these\nmethods the needs of three-quarters of society are _not_ satisfied, so\nthat the present waste of human strength in useless things is only the\nmore criminal.\n\nWe discover, moreover, that the most advantageous use of all commodities\nwould be, for each of them, to go, first, for satisfying those needs\nwhich are the most pressing: that, in other words, the so-called \"value\nin use\" of a commodity does not depend on a simple whim, as has often\nbeen affirmed, but on the satisfaction it brings to _real_ needs.\n\nCommunism--that is to say, an organization which would correspond to a\nview of Consumption, Production, and Exchange, taken as a\nwhole--therefore becomes the logical consequence of such a comprehension\nof things--the only one, in our opinion, that is really scientific.\n\nA society that will satisfy the needs of all, and which will know how to\norganize production to answer to this aim will also have to make a clean\nsweep of several prejudices concerning industry, and first of all the\ntheory often preached by economists--_The Division of Labour_\ntheory--which we are going to discuss in the next chapter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE DIVISION OF LABOUR\n\n\nPolitical Economy has always confined itself to stating facts occurring\nin society, and justifying them in the interest of the dominant class.\nTherefore, it pronounces itself in favour of the division of labour in\nindustry. Having found it profitable to capitalists, it has set it up as\na _principle_.\n\nLook at the village smith, said Adam Smith, the father of modern\nPolitical Economy. If he has never been accustomed to making nails he\nwill only succeed by hard toil in forging two or three hundred a day,\nand even then they will be bad. But if this same smith has never made\nanything but nails, he will easily supply as many as two thousand three\nhundred in the course of a day. And Smith hastened to the\nconclusion--\"Divide labour, specialize, go on specializing; let us have\nsmiths who only know how to make heads or points of nails, and by this\nmeans we shall produce more. We shall grow rich.\"\n\nThat a smith condemned for life to make the heads of nails would lose\nall interest in his work, that he would be entirely at the mercy of his\nemployer with his limited handicraft, that he would be out of work four\nmonths out of twelve, and that his wages would fall very low down, when\nit would be easy to replace him by an apprentice, Smith did not think of\nall this when he exclaimed--\"Long live the division of labour. This is\nthe real gold-mine that will enrich the nation!\" And all joined him in\nthis cry.\n\nAnd later on, when a Sismondi or a J. B. Say began to understand that\nthe division of labour, instead of enriching the whole nation, only\nenriches the rich, and that the worker, who is doomed for life to making\nthe eighteenth part of a pin, grows stupid and sinks into poverty--what\ndid official economists propose? Nothing! They did not say to themselves\nthat by a lifelong grind at one and the same mechanical toil the worker\nwould lose his intelligence and his spirit of invention, and that, on\nthe contrary, a variety of occupations would result in considerably\naugmenting the productivity of a nation. But this is the very issue we\nhave now to consider.\n\nIf, however, learned economists were the only ones to preach the\npermanent and often hereditary division of labour, we might allow them\nto preach it as much as they pleased. But the ideas taught by doctors of\nscience filter into men's minds and pervert them; and from repeatedly\nhearing the division of labour, profits, interest, credit, etc., spoken\nof as problems long since solved, all middle-class people, and workers\ntoo, end by arguing like economists; they venerate the same fetishes.\n\nThus we see most socialists, even those who have not feared to point out\nthe mistakes of economical science, justifying the division of labour.\nTalk to them about the organization of work during the Revolution, and\nthey answer that the division of labour must be maintained; that if you\nsharpened pins before the Revolution you must go on sharpening them\nafter. True, you will not have to work more than five hours a day, but\nyou will have to sharpen pins all your life, while others will make\ndesigns for machines that will enable you to sharpen hundreds of\nmillions of pins during your life-time; and others again will be\nspecialists in the higher branches of literature, science, and art, etc.\nYou were born to sharpen pins while Pasteur was born to invent the\ninoculation against anthrax, and the Revolution will leave you both to\nyour respective employments. Well, it is this horrible principle, so\nnoxious to society, so brutalizing to the individual, source of so much\nharm, that we propose to discuss in its divers manifestations.\n\nWe know the consequences of the division of labour full well. It is\nevident that, first of all, we are divided into two classes: on the one\nhand, producers, who consume very little and are exempt from thinking\nbecause they only do physical work, and who work badly because their\nbrains remain inactive; and on the other hand, the consumers, who,\nproducing little or hardly anything, have the privilege of thinking for\nthe others, and who think badly because the whole world of those who\ntoil with their hands is unknown to them. Then, we have the labourers of\nthe soil who know nothing of machinery, while those who work at\nmachinery ignore everything about agriculture. The idea of modern\nindustry is a child _tending_ a machine that he cannot and must not\nunderstand, and a foreman who fines him if his attention flags for a\nmoment. The ideal of industrial agriculture is to do away with the\nagricultural labourer altogether and to set a man who does odd jobs to\ntend a steam-plough or a threshing-machine. The division of labour means\nlabelling and stamping men for life--some to splice ropes in factories,\nsome to be foremen in a business, others to shove huge coal-baskets in a\nparticular part of a mine; but none of them to have any idea of\nmachinery as a whole, nor of business, nor of mines. And thereby they\ndestroy the love of work and the capacity for invention that, at the\nbeginning of modern industry, created the machinery on which we pride\nourselves so much.\n\nWhat they have done for individuals, they also wanted to do for nations.\nHumanity was to be divided into national workshops, having each its\nspeciality. Russia, we were taught, was destined by nature to grow corn;\nEngland to spin cotton; Belgium to weave cloth; while Switzerland was to\ntrain nurses and governesses. Moreover, each separate city was to\nestablish a specialty. Lyons was to weave silk, Auvergne to make lace,\nand Paris fancy articles. In this way, economists said, an immense field\nwas opened for production and consumption, and in this way an era of\nlimitless wealth for mankind was at hand.\n\nHowever, these great hopes vanished as fast as technical knowledge\nspread abroad. As long as England stood alone as a weaver of cotton and\nas a metal-worker on a large scale; as long as only Paris made artistic\nfancy articles, etc., all went well, economists could preach the\nso-called division of labour without being refuted.\n\nBut a new current of thought induced bye and bye all civilized nations\nto manufacture for themselves. They found it advantageous to produce\nwhat they formerly received from other countries, or from their\ncolonies, which in their turn aimed at emancipating themselves from the\nmother-country. Scientific discoveries universalized the methods of\nproduction, and henceforth it was useless to pay an exorbitant price\nabroad for what could easily be produced at home. And now we see already\nthat this industrial revolution strikes a crushing blow at the theory of\nthe division of labour which for a long time was supposed to be so\nsound.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nTHE DECENTRALIZATION OF INDUSTRY[10]\n\n\nI\n\nAfter the Napoleonic wars Britain had nearly succeeded in ruining the\nmain industries which had sprung up in France at the end of the\npreceding century. She also became mistress of the seas and had no\nrivals of importance. She took in the situation, and knew how to turn\nits privileges and advantages to account. She established an industrial\nmonopoly, and, imposing upon her neighbours her prices for the goods she\nalone could manufacture, accumulated riches upon riches.\n\nBut as the middle-class Revolution of the eighteenth century had\nabolished serfdom and created a proletariat in France, French industry,\nhampered for a time in its flight, soared again, and from the second\nhalf of the nineteenth century France ceased to be a tributary of\nEngland for manufactured goods. To-day she too has grown into a nation\nwith an export trade. She sells far more than sixty million pounds'\nworth of manufactured goods, and two-thirds of these goods are fabrics.\nThe number of Frenchmen working for export or living by their foreign\ntrade, is estimated at three millions.\n\nFrance is therefore no longer England's tributary. In her turn she has\nstriven to monopolize certain branches of foreign industry, such as\nsilks and ready-made clothes, and has reaped immense profits therefrom;\nbut she is on the point of losing this monopoly for ever, just as\nEngland is on the point of losing the monopoly of cotton goods.\n\nTravelling eastwards, industry has reached Germany. Fifty years ago\nGermany was a tributary of England and France for most manufactured\ncommodities in the higher branches of industry. It is no longer so. In\nthe course of the last fifty years, and especially since the\nFranco-German war, Germany has completely reorganized her industry. The\nnew factories are stocked with the best machinery; the latest creations\nof industrial art in cotton goods from Manchester, or in silks from\nLyons, etc., are now realized in new German factories. It took two or\nthree generations of workers, at Lyons and Manchester, to construct the\nmodern machinery; but Germany adopted it in its perfected state.\nTechnical schools, adapted to the needs of industry, supply the\nfactories with an army of intelligent workmen--practical engineers, who\ncan work with both hand and brain. German industry starts at the point\nwhich was only reached by Manchester and Lyons after fifty years of\ngroping in the dark, of exertion and experiments.\n\nIt follows that since Germany manufactures so well at home, she\ndiminishes her imports from France and England year by year. She has not\nonly become their rival in manufactured goods in Asia and in Africa, but\nalso in London and in Paris. Shortsighted people in France may cry out\nagainst the Frankfort Treaty; English manufacturers may explain German\ncompetition by little differences in railway tariffs; they may linger on\nthe petty side of questions, and neglect great historical facts. But it\nis none the less certain that the main industries, formerly in the hands\nof England and France, have progressed eastward, and in Germany they\nhave found a country, young, full of energy, possessing an intelligent\nmiddle class, and eager in its turn to enrich itself by foreign trade.\n\nWhile Germany has freed herself from subjection to France and England,\nhas manufactured her own cotton-cloth, and constructed her own\nmachines--in fact, manufactured all commodities--the main industries\nhave also taken root in Russia, where the development of manufacture is\nthe more instructive as it sprang up but yesterday.\n\nAt the time of the abolition of serfdom in 1861, Russia had hardly any\nfactories. Everything needed in the way of machines, rails,\nrailway-engines, fine dress materials, came from the West. Twenty years\nlater she possessed already 85,000 factories, and the value of the goods\nmanufactured in Russia had increased fourfold.\n\nThe old machinery was superseded, and now nearly all the steel in use in\nRussia, three-quarters of the iron, two-thirds of the coal, all\nrailway-engines, railway-carriages, rails, nearly all steamers, are made\nin Russia.\n\nRussia, destined--so wrote economists--to remain an agricultural\nterritory, has rapidly developed into a manufacturing country. She\norders hardly anything from England, and very little from Germany.\n\nEconomists hold the customs responsible for these facts, and yet cottons\nmanufactured in Russia are sold at the same price as in London. Capital\ntaking no cognizance of father-lands, German and English capitalists,\naccompanied by engineers and foremen of their own nationalities, have\nintroduced in Russia and in Poland manufactories whose goods compete in\nexcellence with the best from England. If customs were abolished\nto-morrow, manufacture would only gain by it. Not long ago the British\nmanufacturers delivered another hard blow to the import of cloth and\nwoolens from the West. They set up in southern and middle Russia immense\nwool factories, stocked with the most perfect machinery from Bradford,\nand already now Russia imports only the highest sorts of cloth and\nwoolen fabrics from England, France and Austria. The remainder is\nfabricated at home, both in factories and as domestic industries.\n\nThe main industries not only move eastward, they are spreading also to\nthe southern peninsulas. The Turin Exhibition of 1884 already\ndemonstrated the progress made in Italian manufactured produce; and, let\nus not make any mistake about it, the mutual hatred of the French and\nItalian middle classes has no other origin than their industrial\nrivalry. Spain is also becoming an industrial country; while in the\nEast, Bohemia has suddenly sprung into importance as a new centre of\nmanufactures, provided with perfected machinery and applying the best\nscientific methods.\n\nWe might also mention Hungary's rapid progress in the main industries,\nbut let us rather take Brazil as an example. Economists sentenced Brazil\nto cultivate cotton forever, to export it in its raw state, and to\nreceive cotton-cloth from Europe in exchange. In fact, forty years ago\nBrazil had only nine wretched little cotton factories with 385 spindles.\nTo-day there are 160 cotton-mills, possessing 1,500,000 spindles and\n50,000 looms, which throw 500 million yards of textiles on the market\nannually.\n\nEven Mexico is now very successful in manufacturing cotton-cloth,\ninstead of importing it from Europe. As to the United States they have\nquite freed themselves from European tutelage, and have triumphantly\ndeveloped their manufacturing powers to an enormous extent.\n\nBut it was India which gave the most striking proof against the\nspecialization of national industry.\n\nWe all know the theory: the great European nations need colonies, for\ncolonies send raw material--cotton fibre, unwashed wool, spices, etc.,\nto the mother-land. And the mother-land, under pretense of sending them\nmanufactured wares, gets rid of her damaged stuffs, her machine\nscrap-iron and everything which she no longer has any use for. It costs\nher little or nothing, and none the less the articles are sold at\nexorbitant prices.\n\nSuch was the theory--such was the practice for a long time. In London\nand Manchester fortunes were made, while India was being ruined. In the\nIndia Museum in London unheard of riches, collected in Calcutta and\nBombay by English merchants, are to be seen.\n\nBut other English merchants and capitalists conceived the very simple\nidea that it would be more expedient to exploit the natives of India by\nmaking cotton-cloth in India itself, than to import from twenty to\ntwenty-four million pounds' worth of goods annually.\n\nAt first a series of experiments ended in failure. Indian\nweavers--artists and experts in their own craft--could not inure\nthemselves to factory life; the machinery sent from Liverpool was bad;\nthe climate had to be taken into account; and merchants had to adapt\nthemselves to new conditions, now fully mastered, before British India\ncould become the menacing rival of the Mother-land she is to-day.\n\nShe now possesses more than 200 cotton-mills which employ about 230,000\nworkmen, and contain more than 6,000,000 spindles and 80,000 looms, and\n40 jute-mills, with 400,000 spindles. She exports annually to China, to\nthe Dutch Indies, and to Africa, nearly eight million pounds' worth of\nthe same white cotton-cloth, said to be England's specialty. And while\nEnglish workmen are often unemployed and in great want, Indian women\nweave cotton by machinery, for the Far East at wages of six-pence a day.\nIn short, the intelligent manufacturers are fully aware that the day is\nnot far off when they will not know what to do with the \"factory hands\"\nwho formerly wove cotton-cloth for export from England. Besides which it\nis becoming more and more evident that India will no import a single ton\nof iron from England. The initial difficulties in using the coal and the\niron-ore obtained in India have been overcome; and foundries, rivalling\nthose in England, have been built on the shores of the Indian Ocean.\n\nColonies competing with the mother-land in its production of\nmanufactured goods, such is the factor which will regulate economy in\nthe twentieth century.\n\nAnd why should India not manufacture? What should be the hindrance?\nCapital?--But capital goes wherever there are men, poor enough to be\nexploited. Knowledge? But knowledge recognizes no national barriers.\nTechnical skill of the worker?--No. Are, then, Hindoo workmen inferior\nto the hundreds of thousands of boys and girls, not eighteen years old,\nat present working in the English textile factories?\n\n\nII\n\nAfter having glanced at national industries it would be very interesting\nto turn to some special branches.\n\nLet us take silk, for example, an eminently French produce in the first\nhalf of the nineteenth century. We all know how Lyons became the\nemporium of the silk trade. At first raw silk was gathered in southern\nFrance, till little by little they ordered it from Italy, from Spain,\nfrom Austria, from the Caucasus, and from Japan, for the manufacture of\ntheir silk fabrics. In 1875, out of five million kilos of raw silk\nconverted into stuffs in the vicinity of Lyons, there were only four\nhundred thousand kilos of French silk. But if Lyons manufactured\nimported silk, why should not Switzerland, Germany, Russia, do as much?\nConsequently, silk-weaving began to develop in the villages round\nZurich. B\u00e2le became a great centre of the silk trade. The Caucasian\nAdministration engaged women from Marseilles and workmen from Lyons to\nteach Georgians the perfected rearing of silk-worms, and the art of\nconverting silk into fabrics to the Caucasian peasants. Austria\nfollowed. Then Germany, with the help of Lyons workmen, built great silk\nfactories. The United States did likewise at Paterson.\n\nAnd to-day the silk trade is no longer a French monopoly. Silks are made\nin Germany, in Austria, in the United States, and in England, and it is\nnow reckoned that one-third of the silk stuffs used in France are\nimported. In winter, Caucasian peasants weave silk handkerchiefs at a\nwage that would mean starvation to the silk-weavers of Lyons. Italy and\nGermany send silks to France; and Lyons, which in 1870-4 exported 460\nmillion francs' worth of silk fabrics, exports now only one-half of that\namount. In fact, the time is not far off when Lyons will only send\nhigher class goods and a few novelties as patterns to Germany, Russia\nand Japan.\n\nAnd so it is in all industries. Belgium has no longer the cloth\nmonopoly; cloth is made in Germany, in Russia, in Austria, in the United\nStates. Switzerland and the French Jura have no longer a clockwork\nmonopoly; watches are made everywhere. Scotland no longer refines sugar\nfor Russia: refined Russian sugar is imported into England. Italy,\nalthough neither possessing coal nor iron, makes her own iron-clads and\nengines for her steamers. Chemical industry is no longer an English\nmonopoly; sulphuric acid and soda are made even in the Urals.\nSteam-engines, made at Winterthur, have acquired everywhere a wide\nreputation, and at the present moment, Switzerland, which has neither\ncoal nor iron, and no sea-ports to import them--nothing but excellent\ntechnical schools--makes machinery better and cheaper than England. So\nends the theory of Exchange.\n\nThe tendency of trade, as for all else, is toward decentralization.\n\nEvery nation finds it advantageous to combine agriculture with the\ngreatest possible variety of factories. The specialization, of which\neconomists spoke so highly, certainly has enriched a number of\ncapitalists, but is now no longer of any use. On the contrary, it is to\nthe advantage of every region, every nation, to grow their own wheat,\ntheir own vegetables, and to manufacture at home most of the produce\nthey consume. This diversity is the surest pledge of the complete\ndevelopment of production by mutual co-operation, and the moving cause\nof progress, while specialization is now a hindrance to progress.\n\nAgriculture can only prosper in proximity to factories. And no sooner\ndoes a single factory appear than an infinite variety of other factories\n_must_ spring up around, so that, mutually supporting and stimulating\none another by their inventions, they increase their productivity.\n\n\nIII\n\nIt is foolish indeed to export wheat and to import flour, to export wool\nand import cloth, to export iron and import machinery; not only because\ntransportation is a waste of time and money, but, above all, because a\ncountry with no developed industry inevitably remains behind the times\nin agriculture; because a country with no large factories to bring steel\nto a finished condition is doomed to be backward in all other\nindustries; and lastly, because the industrial and technical capacities\nof the nation remain undeveloped, if they are not exercised in a variety\nof industries.\n\nNowadays everything holds together in the world of production.\nCultivation of the soil is no longer possible without machinery, without\ngreat irrigation works, without railways, without manure factories. And\nto adapt this machinery, these railways, these irrigation engines, etc.,\nto local conditions, a certain spirit of invention, and a certain amount\nof technical skill must be developed, while they necessarily lie dormant\nso long as spades and ploughshares are the only implements of\ncultivation.\n\nIf fields are to be properly cultivated, if they are to yield the\nabundant harvests that man has the right to expect, it is essential that\nworkshops, foundries, and factories develop within the reach of the\nfields. A variety of occupations, and a variety of skill arising\ntherefrom, both working together for a common aim--these are the true\nforces of progress.\n\nAnd now let us imagine the inhabitants of a city or a territory--whether\nvast or small--stepping for the first time on to the path of the Social\nRevolution.\n\nWe are sometimes told that \"nothing will have changed\": that the mines,\nthe factories, etc., will be expropriated, and proclaimed national or\ncommunal property, that every man will go back to his usual work, and\nthat the Revolution will then be accomplished.\n\nBut this is a mere dream: the Social Revolution cannot take place so\nsimply.\n\nWe have already mentioned that should the Revolution break out to-morrow\nin Paris, Lyons, or any other city--should the workers lay hands on\nfactories, houses, and banks, present production would be completely\nrevolutionized by this simple fact.\n\nInternational commerce will come to a standstill; so also will the\nimportation of foreign bread-stuffs; the circulation of commodities and\nof provisions will be paralyzed. And then, the city or territory in\nrevolt will be compelled to provide for itself, and to reorganize its\nproduction, so as to satisfy its own needs. If it fails to do so, it is\ndeath. If it succeeds, it will revolutionize the economic life of the\ncountry.\n\nThe quantity of imported provisions having decreased, consumption having\nincreased, one million Parisians working for exportation purposes having\nbeen thrown out of work, a great number of things imported to-day from\ndistant or neighbouring countries not reaching their destination,\nfancy-trade being temporarily at a standstill,--What will the\ninhabitants have to eat six months after the Revolution?\n\nWe think that when the stores containing food-stuffs are empty, the\nmasses will seek to obtain their food from the land. They will see the\nnecessity of cultivating the soil, of combining agricultural production\nwith industrial production in the suburbs of Paris itself and its\nenvirons. They will have to abandon the merely ornamental trades and\nconsider their most urgent need--bread.\n\nA great number of the inhabitants of the cities will have to become\nagriculturists. Not in the same manner as the present peasants who wear\nthemselves out, ploughing for a wage that barely provides them with\nsufficient food for the year, but by following the principles of the\nintensive agriculture, of the market gardeners, applied on a large scale\nby means of the best machinery that man has invented or can invent. They\nwill till the land--not, however, like the country beast of burden: a\nParis jeweller would object to that. They will organize cultivation on\nbetter principles; and not in the future, but at once, during the\nrevolutionary struggles, from fear of being worsted by the enemy.\n\nAgriculture will have to be carried out on intelligent lines, by men and\nwomen availing themselves of the experience of the present time,\norganizing themselves in joyous gangs for pleasant work, like those who,\na hundred years ago, worked in the Champ de Mars for the Feast of the\nFederation--a work of delight, when not carried to excess, when\nscientifically organized, when man invents and improves his tools and is\nconscious of being a useful member of the community.\n\nOf course, they will not only cultivate wheat and oats--they will also\nproduce those things which they formerly used to order from foreign\nparts. And let us not forget that for the inhabitants of a revolted\nterritory, \"foreign parts\" may include all districts that have not\njoined in the revolutionary movement. During the Revolutions of 1793 and\n1871 Paris was made to feel that \"foreign parts\" meant even the country\ndistrict at her very gates. The speculator in grains at Troyes starved\nin 1793 and 1794 the sansculottes of Paris as badly, and even worse,\nthan the German armies brought on to French soil by the Versailles\nconspirators. The revolted city will be compelled to do without these\n\"foreigners,\" and why not? France invented beet-root sugar when\nsugar-cane ran short during the continental blockade. Parisians\ndiscovered saltpetre in their cellars when they no longer received any\nfrom abroad. Shall we be inferior to our grandfathers, who hardly lisped\nthe first words of science?\n\nA revolution is more than a mere change of the prevailing political\nsystem. It implies the awakening of human intelligence, the increasing\nof the inventive spirit tenfold, a hundredfold; it is the dawn of a new\nscience--the science of men like Laplace, Lamarck, Lavoisier. It is a\nrevolution in the minds of men, as deep, and deeper still, than in their\ninstitutions.\n\nAnd there are still economists, who tell us that once the \"revolution is\nmade,\" everyone will return to his workshop, as if passing through a\nrevolution were going home after a walk in the Epping forest!\n\nTo begin with, the sole fact of having laid hands on middle-class\nproperty will imply the necessity of completely reorganizing the whole\nof economic life in the workshops, the dockyards, the factories.\n\nAnd the revolution surely will not fail to act in this direction. Should\nParis, during the social revolution, be cut off from the world for a\nyear or two by the supporters of middle-class rule, its millions of\nintellects, not yet depressed by factory life--that City of little\ntrades which stimulate the spirit of invention--will show the world what\nman's brain can accomplish without asking for help from without, but the\nmotor force of the sun that gives light, the power of the wind that\nsweeps away impurities, and the silent life-forces at work in the earth\nwe tread on.\n\nWe shall see then what a variety of trades, mutually cooperating on a\nspot of the globe and animated by a revolution, can do to feed, clothe,\nhouse, and supply with all manner of luxuries millions of intelligent\nmen.\n\nWe need write no fiction to prove this. What we are sure of, what has\nalready been experimented upon, and recognized as practical, would\nsuffice to carry it into effect, if the attempt were fertilized,\nvivified by the daring inspiration of the Revolution and the spontaneous\nimpulse of the masses.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[10] A fuller development of these ideas will be found in my book,\n_Fields, Factories, and Workshops_, published by Messrs. Thomas Nelson\nand Sons in their popular series in 1912.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nAGRICULTURE\n\n\nI\n\nPolitical Economy has often been reproached with drawing all its\ndeductions from the decidedly false principle, that the only incentive\ncapable of forcing a man to augment his power of production is personal\ninterest in its narrowest sense.\n\nThe reproach is perfectly true; so true that epochs of great industrial\ndiscoveries and true progress in industry are precisely those in which\nthe happiness of all was inspiring men, and in which personal enrichment\nwas least thought of. The great investigators in science and the great\ninventors aimed, above all, at giving greater freedom of mankind. And if\nWatt, Stephenson, Jacquard, etc., could have only foreseen what a state\nof misery their sleepless nights would bring to the workers, they\ncertainly would have burned their designs and broken their models.\n\nAnother principle that pervades Political Economy is just as false. It\nis the tacit admission, common to all economists, that if there is often\nover-production in certain branches, a society will nevertheless never\nhave sufficient products to satisfy the wants of all, and that\nconsequently the day will never come when nobody will be forced to sell\nhis labour in exchange for wages. This tacit admission is found at the\nbasis of all theories and all the so-called \"laws\" taught by economists.\n\nAnd yet it is certain that the day when any civilized association of\nindividuals would ask itself, _what are the needs of all, and the means\nof satisfying them_, it would see that, in industry, as in agriculture,\nit already possesses sufficient to provide abundantly for all needs, on\ncondition that it knows how to apply these means to satisfy real needs.\n\nThat this is true as regards industry no one can contest. Indeed, it\nsuffices to study the processes already in use to extract coals and ore,\nto obtain steel and work it, to manufacture on a great scale what is\nused for clothing, etc., in order to perceive that we could already\nincrease our production fourfold or more, and yet use for that _less_\nwork than we are using now.\n\nWe go further. We assert that agriculture is in the same position: those\nwho cultivate the soil, like the manufacturers, already could increase\ntheir production, not only fourfold but tenfold, and they can put it\ninto practice as soon as they feel the need of it,--as soon as a\nsocialist organization of work will be established instead of the\npresent capitalistic one.\n\nEach time agriculture is spoken of, men imagine a peasant bending over\nthe plough, throwing badly assorted corn haphazard into the ground and\nwaiting anxiously for what the good or bad season will bring forth; they\nthink of a family working from morn to night and reaping as reward a\nrude bed, dry bread, and coarse beverage. In a word, they picture \"the\nsavages\" of La Bruy\u00e8re.\n\nAnd for these men, ground down to such a misery, the utmost relief that\nsociety proposes, is to reduce their taxes or their rent. But even most\nsocial reformers do not care to imagine a cultivator standing erect,\ntaking leisure, and producing by a few hours' work per day sufficient\nfood to nourish, not only his own family, but a hundred men more at the\nleast. In their most glowing dreams of the future Socialists do not go\nbeyond American extensive culture, which, after all, is but the infancy\nof agricultural art.\n\nBut the thinking agriculturist has broader ideas to-day--his conceptions\nare on a far grander scale. He only asks for a fraction of an acre in\norder to produce sufficient vegetables for a family; and to feed\ntwenty-five horned beasts he needs no more space than he formerly\nrequired to feed one; his aim is to make his own soil, to defy seasons\nand climate, to warm both air and earth around the young plant; to\nproduce, in a word, on one acre what he used to gather from fifty acres,\nand that without any excessive fatigue--by greatly reducing, on the\ncontrary, the total of former labour. He knows that we will be able to\nfeed everybody by giving to the culture of the fields no more time than\nwhat each can give with pleasure and joy.\n\nThis is the present tendency of agriculture.\n\nWhile scientific men, led by Liebig, the creator of the chemical theory\nof agriculture, often got on the wrong tack in their love of mere\ntheories, unlettered agriculturists opened up new roads to prosperity.\nMarket-gardeners of Paris, Troyes, Rouen, Scotch and English gardeners,\nFlemish and Lombardian farmers, peasants of Jersey, Guernsey, and\nfarmers on the Scilly Isles have opened up such large horizons that the\nmind hesitates to grasp them. While up till lately a family of peasants\nneeded at least seventeen to twenty acres to live on the produce of the\nsoil--and we know how peasants live--we can now no longer say what is\nthe minimum area on which all that is necessary to a family can be\ngrown, even including articles of luxury, if the soil is worked by means\nof intensive culture.\n\nTwenty years ago it could already be asserted that a population of\nthirty million individuals could live very well, without importing\nanything, on what could be grown in Great Britain. But now, when we see\nthe progress recently made in France, in Germany, in England, and when\nwe contemplate the new horizons which open before us, we can say that in\ncultivating the earth as it is already cultivated in many places, even\non poor soils, fifty or sixty million inhabitants to the territory of\nGreat Britain would still be a very feeble proportion to what man could\nextract from the soil.\n\nIn any case (as we are about to demonstrate) we may consider it as\nabsolutely proved that if to-morrow Paris and the two departments of\nSeine and of Seine-et-Oise organized themselves as an Anarchist commune,\nin which all worked with their hands, and if the entire universe\nrefused to send them a single bushel of wheat, a single head of cattle,\na single basket of fruit, and left them only the territory of the two\ndepartments, they could not only produce all the corn, meat, and\nvegetables necessary for themselves, but also vegetables and fruit which\nare now articles of luxury, in sufficient quantities for all.\n\nAnd, in addition, we affirm that the sum total of this labour would be\nfar less than that expended at present to feed these people with corn\nharvested in Auvergne and Russia, with vegetables produced a little\neverywhere by extensive agriculture, and with fruit grown in the South.\n\nIt is self-evident that we in nowise desire all exchange to be\nsuppressed, nor that each region should strive to produce that which\nwill only grow in its climate by a more or less artificial culture. But\nwe care to draw attention to the fact that the theory of exchange, such\nas is understood to-day, is strangely exaggerated--that exchange is\noften useless and even harmful. We assert, moreover, that people have\nnever had a right conception of the immense labour of Southern wine\ngrowers, nor that of Russian and Hungarian corn growers, whose excessive\nlabour could also be very much reduced if they adopted intensive\nculture, instead of their present system of extensive agriculture.\n\n\nII\n\nIt would be impossible to quote here the mass of facts on which we base\nour assertions. We are therefore obliged to refer our readers who want\nfurther information to another book, \"Fields, Factories, and\nWorkshops.\"[11] Above all we earnestly invite those who are interested\nin the question to read several excellent works published in France and\nelsewhere, and of which we give a list at the close of this book[12]. As\nto the inhabitants of large towns, who have as yet no real notion of\nwhat agriculture can be, we advise them to explore the surrounding\nmarket-gardens. They need but observe and question the market-gardeners,\nand a new world will be open to them. They will then be able to see what\nEuropean agriculture may be in the twentieth century; and they will\nunderstand with what force the social revolution will be armed when we\nknow the secret of taking everything we need from the soil.\n\nA few facts will suffice to show that our assertions are in no way\nexaggerated. We only wish them to be preceded by a few general remarks.\n\nWe know in what a wretched condition European agriculture is. If the\ncultivator of the soil is not plundered by the landowner, he is robbed\nby the State. If the State taxes him moderately, the money-lender\nenslaves him by means of promissory notes, and soon turns him into the\nsimple tenant of soil belonging in reality to a financial company. The\nlandlord, the State, and the banker thus plunders the cultivator by\nmeans of rent, taxes, and interest. The sum varies in each country, but\nit never falls below the quarter, very often the half of the raw\nproduce. In France and in Italy agriculturists paid the State quite\nrecently as much as 44 per cent. of the gross produce.\n\nMoreover, the share of the owner and of State always goes on increasing.\nAs soon as the cultivator has obtained more plentiful crops by prodigies\nof labour, invention, or initiative, the tribute he will owe to the\nlandowner, the State, and the banker will augment in proportion. If he\ndoubles the number of bushels reaped per acre, rent will be doubled, and\ntaxes too, and the State will take care to raise them still more if the\nprices go up. And so on. In short, everywhere the cultivator of the soil\nworks twelve to sixteen hours a day; these three vultures take from him\neverything he might lay by; they rob him everywhere of what would enable\nhim to improve his culture. This is why agriculture progresses so\nslowly.\n\nThe cultivator can only occasionally make some progress, in some\nexceptional regions, under quite exceptional circumstances, following\nupon a quarrel between the three vampires. And yet we have said nothing\nabout the tribute every cultivator pays to the manufacturer. Every\nmachine, every spade, every barrel of chemical manure, is sold to him at\nthree or four times its real cost. Nor let us forget the middleman, who\nlevies the lion's share of the earth's produce.\n\nThis is why, during all this century of invention and progress,\nagriculture has only improved from time to time on very limited areas.\n\nHappily there have always been small oases, neglected for some time by\nthe vulture; and here we learn what intensive agriculture can produce\nfor mankind. Let us mention a few examples.\n\nIn the American prairies (which, however, only yield meagre spring wheat\ncrops, from 7 to 15 bushels acre, and even these are often marred by\nperiodical droughts), 500 men, working only during eight months, produce\nthe annual food of 50,000 people. With all the improvements of the last\nthree years, one man's yearly labour (300 days) yields, delivered in\nChicago as flour, the yearly food of 250 men. Here the result is\nobtained by a great economy in manual labour: on those vast plains,\nploughing, harvesting, thrashing, are organized in almost military\nfashion. There is no useless running to and fro, no loss of time--all is\ndone with parade-like precision.\n\nThis is agriculture on a large scale--extensive agriculture, which takes\nthe soil from nature without seeking to improve it. When the earth has\nyielded all it can, they leave it; they seek elsewhere for a virgin\nsoil, to be exhausted in its turn. But here is also \"intensive\"\nagriculture, which is already worked, and will be more and more so, by\nmachinery. Its object is to cultivate a limited space well, to manure,\nto improve, to concentrate work, and to obtain the largest crop\npossible. This kind of culture spreads every year, and whereas\nagriculturists in the south of France and on the fertile plains of\nwestern America are content with an average crop of 11 to 15 bushels\nper acre by extensive culture, they reap regularly 39, even 55, and\nsometimes 60 bushels per acre in the north of France. The annual\nconsumption of a man is thus obtained from less than a quarter of an\nacre.\n\nAnd the more intense the culture is, the less work is expended to obtain\na bushel of wheat. Machinery replaces man at the preliminary work and\nfor the improvements needed by the land--such as draining, clearing of\nstones--which will double the crops in future, once and for ever.\nSometimes nothing but keeping the soil free of weeds, without manuring,\nallows an average soil to yield excellent crops from year to year. It\nhas been done for forty years in succession at Rothamstead, in\nHertfordshire.\n\nHowever, let us not write an agricultural romance, but be satisfied with\na crop of 44 bushels per acre. That needs no exceptional soil, but\nmerely a rational culture; and let us see what it means.\n\nThe 3,600,000 individuals who inhabit the two departments of Seine and\nSeine-et-Oise consume yearly for their food a little less than 22\nmillion bushels of cereals, chiefly wheat; and in our hypothesis they\nwould have to cultivate, in order to obtain this crop, 494,200 acres out\nof the 1,507,300 acres which they possess. It is evident they would not\ncultivate them with spades. That would need too much time--96 work-days\nof 5 hours per acre. It would be preferable to improve the soil once for\nall--to drain what needed draining, to level what needed levelling, to\nclear the soil of stones, were it even necessary to spend 5 million days\nof 5 hours in this preparatory work--an average of 10 work-days to each\nacre.\n\nThen they would plough with the steam-digger, which would take one and\nthree-fifths of a day per acre, and they would give another one and\nthree-fifths of a day for working with the double plough. Seeds would be\nsorted by steam instead of taken haphazard, and they would be carefully\nsown in rows instead of being thrown to the four winds. Now all this\nwork would not take 10 days of 5 hours per acre if the work were done\nunder good conditions. But if 10 million work-days are given to good\nculture during 3 or 4 years, the result will be that later on crops of\n44 to 55 bushels per acre will be obtained by only working half the\ntime.\n\nFifteen million work-days will thus have been spent to give bread to a\npopulation of 3,600,000 inhabitants. And the work would be such that\neveryone could do it without having muscles of steel, or without having\neven worked the ground before. The initiative and the general\ndistribution of work would come from those who know the soil. As to the\nwork itself, there is no townsman of either sex so enfeebled as to be\nincapable of looking after machines and of contributing his share to\nagrarian work after a few hours' apprenticeship.\n\nWell, when we consider that in the present chaos there are, in a city\nlike Paris, without counting the unemployed of the upper classes, there\nare always about 100,000 workmen out of work in their several trades, we\nsee that the power lost in our present organization would alone suffice\nto give, with a rational culture, all the bread that is necessary for\nthe three or four million inhabitants of the two departments.\n\nWe repeat, this is no fancy dream, and we have not yet spoken of the\ntruly intensive agriculture. We have not depended upon the wheat\n(obtained in three years by Mr. Hallett) of which one grain, replanted,\nproduced 5,000 or 6,000, and occasionally 10,000 grains, which would\ngive the wheat necessary for a family of five individuals on an area of\n120 square yards. On the contrary, we have only mentioned what is being\nalready achieved by numerous farmers in France, England, Belgium, etc.,\nand what might be done to-morrow with the experience and knowledge\nacquired already by practice on a large scale.\n\nBut without a revolution, neither to-morrow, nor after to-morrow will\nsee it done, because it is not to the interest of landowners and\ncapitalists; and because peasants who would find their profit in it have\nneither the knowledge nor the money, nor the time to obtain what is\nnecessary to go ahead.\n\nThe society of to-day has not yet reached this stage. But let Parisians\nproclaim an Anarchist Commune, and they will of necessity come to it,\nbecause they will not be foolish enough to continue making luxurious\ntoys (which Vienna, Warsaw, and Berlin make as well already), and to run\nthe risk of being left without bread.\n\nMoreover, agricultural work, by the help of machinery, would soon become\nthe most attractive and the most joyful of all occupations.\n\n\"We have had enough jewelery and enough dolls' clothes,\" they would say;\n\"it is high time for the workers to recruit their strength in\nagriculture, to go in search of vigour, of impressions of nature, of the\njoy of life, that they have forgotten in the dark factories of the\nsuburbs.\"\n\nIn the Middle Ages it was Alpine pasture lands, rather than guns, which\nallowed the Swiss to shake off lords and kings. Modern agriculture will\nallow a city in revolt to free itself from the combined bourgeois\nforces.\n\n\nIII\n\nWe have seen how the three and one-half million inhabitants of the two\ndepartments round Paris could find ample bread by cultivating only a\nthird of their territory. Let us now pass on to cattle.\n\nEnglishmen, who eat much meat, consume on an average a little less than\n220 pounds a year per adult. Supposing all meats consumed were oxen,\nthat makes a little less than the third of an ox. An ox a year for five\nindividuals (including children) is already a sufficient ration. For\nthree and one-half million inhabitants this would make an annual\nconsumption of 700,000 head of cattle.\n\nTo-day, with the pasture system, we need at least five million acres to\nnourish 660,000 head of cattle. This makes nine acres per each head of\nhorned cattle. Nevertheless, with prairies moderately watered by spring\nwater (as recently done on thousands of acres in the southwest of\nFrance), one and one-fourth million acres already suffice. But if\nintensive culture is practiced, and beet-root is grown for fodder, you\nonly need a quarter of that area, that is to say, about 310,000 acres.\nAnd if we have recourse to maize and practice ensilage (the compression\nof fodder while green) like Arabs, we obtain fodder on an area of\n217,500 acres.\n\nIn the environs of Milan, where sewer water is used to irrigate the\nfields, fodder for two to three horned cattle per each acre is obtained\non an area of 22,000 acres; and on a few favoured fields, up to 177 tons\nof hay to the 10 acres have been cropped, the yearly provender of 36\nmilch cows. Nearly nine acres per head of cattle are needed under the\npasture system, and only two and one-half acres for nine oxen or cows\nunder the new system. These are the opposite extremes in modern\nagriculture.\n\nIn Guernsey, on a total of 9,884 acres utilized, nearly half (4,695\nacres) are covered with cereals and kitchen-gardens; only 5,189 acres\nremain as meadows. On these 5,189 acres, 1,480 horses, 7,260 head of\ncattle, 900 sheep, and 4,200 pigs are fed, which makes more than three\nhead of cattle per two acres, without reckoning the sheep or the pigs.\nIt is needless to add that the fertility of the soil is made by seaweed\nand chemical manures.\n\nReturning to our three and one-half million inhabitants belonging to\nParis and its environs, we see that the land necessary for the rearing\nof cattle comes down from five million acres to 197,000. Well, then, let\nus not stop at the lowest figures, let us take those of ordinary\nintensive culture; let us liberally add to the land necessary for\nsmaller cattle which must replace some of the horned beasts and allow\n395,000 acres for the rearing of cattle--494,000 if you like, on the\n1,013,000 acres remaining after bread has been provided for the people.\n\nLet us be generous and give five million work-days to put this land into\na productive state.\n\nAfter having therefore employed in the course of a year twenty million\nwork-days, half of which are for permanent improvements, we shall have\nbread and meat assured to us, without including all the extra meat\nobtainable in the shape of fowls, pigs, rabbits, etc.; without taking\ninto consideration that a population provided with excellent vegetables\nand fruit consumes less meat than Englishmen, who supplement their poor\nsupply of vegetables by animal food. Now, how much do twenty million\nwork-days of five hours make per inhabitant? Very little indeed. A\npopulation of three and one-half millions must have at least 1,200,000\nadult men, and as many women capable of work. Well, then, to give bread\nand meat to all, it would need only seventeen half-days of work a year\nper man. Add three million work-days, or double that number if you like,\nin order to obtain milk. That will make twenty-five work-days of five\nhours in all--nothing more than a little pleasureable country\nexercise--to obtain the three principal products: bread, meat, and milk.\nThe three products which, after housing, cause daily anxiety to\nnine-tenths of mankind.\n\nAnd yet--let us not tire of repeating--these are not fancy dreams. We\nhave only told what is, what been, obtained by experience on a large\nscale. Agriculture could be reorganized in this way to-morrow if\nproperty laws and general ignorance did not offer opposition.\n\nThe day Paris has understood that to know what you eat and how it is\nproduced, is a question of public interest; the day when everybody will\nhave understood that this question is infinitely more important than all\nthe parliamentary debates of the present times--on that day the\nRevolution will be an accomplished fact. Paris will take possession of\nthe two departments and cultivate them. And then the Parisian worker,\nafter having laboured a third of his existence in order to buy bad and\ninsufficient food, will produce it himself, under his walls, within the\nenclosure of his forts (if they still exist), and in a few hours of\nhealthy and attractive work.\n\nAnd now we pass on to fruit and vegetables. Let us go outside Paris and\nvisit the establishment of a market-gardener who accomplishes wonders\n(ignored by learned economists) at a few miles from the academies.\n\nLet us visit, suppose, M. Ponce, the author of a work on\nmarket-gardening, who makes no secret of what the earth yields him, and\nwho has published it all along.\n\nM. Ponce, and especially his workmen, work like niggers. It takes eight\nmen to cultivate a plot a little less than three acres (2.7). They work\ntwelve and even fifteen hours a day, that is to say, three times more\nthan is needed. Twenty-four of them would not be too many. To which M.\nPonce will probably answer that as he pays the terrible sum of \u00a3100 rent\na year for his 2.7 acres of land, and \u00a3100 for manure bought in the\nbarracks, he is obliged to exploit. He would no doubt answer, \"Being\nexploited, I exploit in my turn.\" His installation has also cost him\n\u00a31,200, of which certainly more than half went as tribute to the idle\nbarons of industry. In reality, this establishment represents at most\n3,000 work-days, probably much less.\n\nBut let us examine his crops: nearly ten tons of carrots, nearly ten\ntons of onions, radishes, and small vegetables, 6,000 heads of cabbage,\n3,000 heads of cauliflower, 5,000 baskets of tomatoes, 5,000 dozen of\nchoice fruit, 154,000 salads; in short, a total of 123 tons of\nvegetables and fruit to 2.7 acres--120 yards long by 109 yards broad,\nwhich makes more than forty-four tons of vegetables to the acre.\n\nBut a man does not eat more than 660 pounds of vegetables and fruit a\nyear, and two and one-half acres of a market-garden yield enough\nvegetables and fruit to richly supply the table of 350 adults during the\nyear. Thus twenty-four persons employed a whole year in cultivating 2.7\nacres of land, and only five working hours a day, would produce\nsufficient vegetables and fruit for 350 adults, which is equivalent at\nleast to 500 individuals.\n\nTo put it another way: in cultivating like M. Ponce--and his results\nhave already been surpassed--350 adults should each give a little more\nthan 100 hours a year (103) to produce vegetables and fruit necessary\nfor 500 people.\n\nLet us mention that such a production is not the exception. It takes\nplace, under the walls of Paris, on an area of 2,220 acres, by 5,000\nmarket-gardeners. Only these market-gardeners are reduced nowadays to a\nstate of beasts of burden, in order to pay an average rent of \u00a332 per\nacre.\n\nBut do not these facts, which can be verified by every one, prove that\n17,300 acres (of the 519,000 remaining to us) would suffice to give all\nnecessary vegetables, as well as a liberal amount of fruit to the three\nand one-half million inhabitants of our two departments?\n\nAs to the quantity of work necessary to produce these fruits and\nvegetables, it would amount to fifty million work-days of five hours (50\ndays per adult male), if we measure by the market-gardeners' standard of\nwork. But we could reduce this quantity if we had recourse to the\nprocess in vogue in Jersey and Guernsey. We must also remember that the\nParis market-gardener is forced to work so hard because he mostly\nproduces early season fruits, the high prices of which have to pay for\nfabulous rents, and that this system of culture entails more work than\nis necessary for growing the ordinary staple-food vegetables and fruit.\nBesides, the market-gardeners of Paris, not having the means to make a\ngreat outlay on their gardens, and being obliged to pay heavily for\nglass, wood, iron, and coal, obtain their artificial heat out of manure,\nwhile it can be had at much less cost in hothouses.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe market-gardeners, we say, are forced to become machines and to\nrenounce all joys of life in order to obtain their marvellous crops. But\nthese hard grinders have rendered a great service to humanity in\nteaching us that the soil can be \"made.\" They _make_ it with old\nhot-beds of manure, which have already served to give the necessary\nwarmth to young plants and to early fruit; and they make it in such\ngreat quantity that they are compelled to sell it in part, otherwise it\nwould raise the level of their gardens by one inch every year. They do\nit so well (so Barral teaches us, in his \"Dictionary of Agriculture,\" in\nan article on market-gardeners) that in recent contracts, the\nmarket-gardener stipulates that he will carry away his soil with him\nwhen he leaves the bit of ground he is cultivating. Loam carried away on\ncarts, with furniture and glass frames--that is the answer of practical\ncultivators to the learned treatises of a Ricardo, who represented rent\nas a means of equalizing the natural advantages of the soil. \"The soil\nis worth what the man is worth,\" that is the gardeners' motto.\n\nAnd yet the market-gardeners of Paris and Rouen labour three times as\nhard to obtain the same results as their fellow-workers in Guernsey or\nin England. Applying industry to agriculture, these last make their\nclimate in addition to their soil, by means of the greenhouse.\n\nFifty years ago the greenhouse was the luxury of the rich. It was kept\nto grow exotic plants for pleasure. But nowadays its use begins to be\ngeneralized. A tremendous industry has grown up lately in Guernsey and\nJersey, where hundreds of acres are already covered with glass--to say\nnothing of the countless small greenhouses kept in every little farm\ngarden. Acres and acres of greenhouses have lately been built also at\nWorthing (103 acres in 1912), in the suburbs of London, and in several\nother parts of England and Scotland.\n\nThey are built of all qualities, beginning with those which have granite\nwalls, down to those which represent mere shelters made in planks and\nglass frames, which cost, even now, with all the tribute paid to\ncapitalists and middlemen, less than 3s. 6d. per square yard under\nglass. Most of them are heated for at least three of four months every\nyear; but even the cool greenhouses, which are not heated at all, give\nexcellent results--of course, not for growing grapes and tropical\nplants, but for potatoes, carrots, peas, tomatoes, and so on.\n\nIn this way man emancipates himself from climate, and at the same time\nhe avoids also the heavy work with the hot-beds, and he saves both in\nbuying much less manure and in work. Three men to the acre, each of them\nworking less than sixty hours a week, produce on very small spaces what\nformerly required acres and acres of land.\n\nThe result of all these recent conquests of culture is, that if one-half\nonly of the adults of a city gave each about fifty half-days for the\nculture of the finest fruit and vegetables _out of season_, they would\nhave all the year round an unlimited supply of that sort of fruit and\nvegetables for the whole population.\n\nBut there is a still more important fact to notice. The greenhouse has\nnowadays a tendency to become a mere _kitchen garden under glass_. And\nwhen it is used to such a purpose, the simplest plank-and-glass unheated\nshelters already give fabulous crops--such as, for instance, 500 bushels\nof potatoes per acre as a first crop, ready by the end of April; after\nwhich a second and a third crop are obtained in the extremely high\ntemperature which prevails in the summer under glass.\n\nI gave in my \"Fields, Factories, and Workshops,\" most striking facts in\nthis direction. Sufficient to say here, that at Jersey, thirty-four men,\nwith one trained gardener only, cultivate thirteen acres under glass,\nfrom which they obtain 143 tons of fruit and early vegetables, using for\nthis extraordinary culture less than 1,000 tons of coal.\n\nAnd this is done now in Guernsey and Jersey on a very large scale, quite\na number of steamers constantly plying between Guernsey and London, only\nto export the crops of the greenhouses.\n\nNowadays, in order to obtain that same crop of 500 bushels of potatoes,\nwe must plough every year a surface of four acres, plant it, cultivate\nit, weed, it, and so on; whereas with the glass, even if we shall have\nto give perhaps, to start with, half a day's work per square yard in\norder to build the greenhouse--we shall save afterwards at least\none-half, and probably three-quarters of the yearly labour required\nformerly.\n\nThese are _facts_, results which every one can verify himself. And these\nfacts are already a hint as to what man could obtain from the earth if\nhe treated it with intelligence.\n\n\nV\n\nIn all the above we have reasoned upon what already withstood the test\nof experience. Intensive culture of the fields, irrigated meadows, the\nhot-house, and finally the kitchen garden under glass are realities.\nMoreover, the tendency is to extend and to generalize these methods of\nculture, because they allow of obtaining more produce with less work and\nwith more certainty.\n\nIn fact, after having studied the most simple glass shelters of\nGuernsey, we affirm that, taking all in all, far less work is expended\nfor obtaining potatoes under glass in April, than in growing them in the\nopen air, which requires digging a space four times as large, watering\nit, weeding it, etc. Work is likewise economized in employing a\nperfected tool or machine, even when an initial expense had to be\nincurred to buy the tool.\n\nComplete figures concerning the culture of common vegetables under glass\nare still wanting. This culture is of recent origin, and is only carried\nout on small areas. But we have already figures concerning the fifty\nyears old culture of early season grapes, and these figures are\nconclusive.\n\nIn the north of England, on the Scotch frontier, where coal only costs\n3s. a ton at the pit's mouth, they have long since taken to growing\nhot-house grapes. Thirty years ago these grapes, ripe in January, were\nsold by the grower at 20s. per pound and resold at 40s. per pound for\nNapoleon III.'s table. To-day the same grower sells them at only 2s. 6d.\nper pound. He tells us so himself in a horticultural journal. The fall\nin the prices is caused by the tons and tons of grapes arriving in\nJanuary to London and Paris.\n\nThanks to the cheapness of coal and an intelligent culture, grapes from\nthe north travel now southwards, in a contrary direction to ordinary\nfruit. They cost so little that in May, English and Jersey grapes are\nsold at 1s. 8d. per pound by the gardeners, and yet this price, like\nthat of 40s. thirty years ago, is only kept up by slack production.\n\nIn March, Belgium grapes are sold at from 6d. to 8d., while in October,\ngrapes cultivated in immense quantities--under glass, and with a little\nartificial heating in the environs of London--are sold at the same price\nas grapes bought by the pound in the vineyards of Switzerland and the\nRhine, that is to say, for a few halfpence. Yet they still cost\ntwo-thirds too much, by reason of the excessive rent of the soil and the\ncost of installation and heating, on which the gardener pays a\nformidable tribute to the manufacturer and the middleman. This being\nunderstood, we may say that it costs \"next to nothing\" to have delicious\ngrapes under the latitude of, and in our misty London in autumn. In one\nof the suburbs, for instance, a wretched glass and plaster shelter, nine\nfeet ten inches long by six and one-half feet wide, resting against our\ncottage, gave us about fifty pounds of grapes of an exquisite flavour in\nOctober, for nine consecutive years. The crop came from a Hamburg\nvine-stalk, six year old. And the shelter was so bad that the rain came\nthrough. At night the temperature was always that of outside. It was\nevidently not heated, for it would have been as useless as heating the\nstreet! And the care which was given was: pruning the vine, half an hour\nevery year; and bringing a wheel-barrowful of manure, which was thrown\nover the stalk of the vine, planted in red clay outside the shelter.\n\nOn the other hand, if we estimate the amount of care given to the vine\non the borders of the Rhine of Lake Leman, the terraces constructed\nstone upon stone on the slopes of the hills, the transport of manure and\nalso of earth to a height of two or three hundred feet, we come to the\nconclusion that on the whole the expenditure of work necessary to\ncultivate vines is more considerable in Switzerland or on the banks of\nthe Rhine than it is under glass in London suburbs.\n\nThis may seem paradoxical, because it is generally believed that vines\ngrow of themselves in the south of Europe, and that the vine-grower's\nwork costs nothing. But gardeners and horticulturists, far from\ncontradicting us, confirm our assertions. \"The most advantageous culture\nin England is vine culture,\" wrote a practical gardener, editor of the\n\"English Journal of Horticulture\" in the _Nineteenth Century_. Prices\nspeak eloquently for themselves, as we know.\n\nTranslating these facts into communist language, we may assert that the\nman or woman who takes twenty hours a year from his leisure time to give\nsome little care--very pleasant in the main--to two or three vine-stalks\nsheltered by simple glass under any European climate, will gather as\nmany grapes as their family and friends can eat. And that applies not\nonly to vines, but to all fruit trees.\n\nThe Commune that will put the processes of intensive culture into\npractice on a large scale will have all possible vegetables, indigenous\nor exotic, and all desirable fruits, without employing more than about\nten hours a year per inhabitant.\n\nIn fact, nothing would be easier than to verify the above statements by\ndirect experiment. Suppose 100 acres of a light loam (such as we have at\nWorthing) are transformed into a number of market gardens, each one with\nits glass houses for the rearing of the seedlings and young plants.\nSuppose also that fifty more acres are covered with glass houses, and\nthe organization of the whole is left to practical experienced French\n_mara\u00eechers_, and Guernsey or Worthing greenhouse gardeners.\n\nIn basing the maintenance of these 150 acres on the Jersey average,\nrequiring the work of three men per acre under glass--which makes less\nthan 8,600 hours of work a year--it would need about 1,300,000 hours for\nthe 150 acres. Fifty competent gardeners could give five hours a day to\nthis work, and the rest would be simply done by people who, without\nbeing gardeners by profession, would soon learn how to use a spade, and\nto handle the plants. But this work would yield at least--we have seen\nit in a preceding chapter--all necessaries and articles of luxury in the\nway of fruit and vegetables for at least 40,000 or 50,000 people. Let us\nadmit that among this number there are 13,500 adults, willing to work at\nthe kitchen garden; then, each one would have to give 100 hours a year\ndistributed over the whole year. These hours of work would become hours\nof recreation spent among friends and children in beautiful gardens,\nmore beautiful probably than those of the legendary Semiramis.\n\nThis is the balance sheet of the labour to be spent in order to be able\nto eat to satiety fruit which we are deprived of to-day, and to have\nvegetables in abundance, now so scrupulously rationed out by the\nhousewife, when she has to reckon each half-penny which must go to\nenrich capitalists and landowners[13].\n\nIf only humanity had the consciousness of what it CAN, and if that\nconsciousness only gave it the power to WILL!\n\nIf it only knew that cowardice of the spirit is the rock on which all\nrevolutions have stranded until now.\n\n\nVI\n\nWe can easily perceive the new horizons opening before the social\nrevolution.\n\nEach time we speak of revolution, the face of the worker who has seen\nchildren wanting food darkens and he asks--\"What of bread? Will there be\nsufficient, if everyone eats according to his appetite? What if the\npeasants, ignorant tools of reaction, starve our towns as the black\nbands did in France in 1793--what shall we do?\"\n\nLet them do their worst. The large cities will have to do without them.\n\nAt what, then, should the hundreds of thousands of workers, who are\nasphyxiated to-day in small workshops and factories, be employed on the\nday they regain their liberty? Will they continue to shut themselves up\nin factories after the Revolution? Will they continue to make luxurious\ntoys for export when they see their stock or corn getting exhausted,\nmeat becoming scarce, and vegetables disappearing without being\nreplaced?\n\nEvidently not! They will leave the town and go into the fields! Aided by\na machinery which will enable the weakest of us to put a shoulder to\nthe wheel, they will carry revolution into previously enslaved culture\nas they will have carried it into institutions and ideas.\n\nHundreds of acres will be covered with glass, and men, and women with\ndelicate fingers, will foster the growth of young plants. Hundreds of\nother acres will be ploughed by steam, improved by manures, or enriched\nby artificial soil obtained by the pulverization of rocks. Happy crowds\nof occasional labourers will cover these acres with crops, guided in the\nwork and experiments partly by those who know agriculture, but\nespecially by the great and practical spirit of a people roused from\nlong slumber and illumined by that bright beacon--the happiness of all.\n\nAnd in two or three months the early crops will receive the most\npressing wants, and provide food for a people who, after so many\ncenturies of expectation, will at least be able to appease their hunger\nand eat according to their appetite.\n\nIn the meanwhile, popular genius, the genius of a nation which revolts\nand knows its wants, will work at experimenting with new processes of\nculture that we already catch a glimpse of, and that only need the\nbaptism of experience to become universal. Light will be experimented\nwith--that unknown agent of culture which makes barley ripen in\nforty-five days under the latitude of Yakutsk; light, concentrated or\nartificial, will rival heat in hastening the growth of plants. A Mouchot\nof the future will invent a machine to guide the rays of the sun and\nmake them work, so that we shall no longer seek sun-heat stored in coal\nin the depths of the earth. They will experiment the watering of the\nsoil with cultures of micro-organisms--a rational idea, conceived but\nyesterday, which will permit us to give to the soil those little living\nbeings, necessary to feed the rootlets, to decompose and assimilate the\ncomponent parts of the soil.\n\nThey will experiment.... But let us stop here, or we shall enter into\nthe realm of fancy. Let us remain in the reality of acquired facts. With\nthe processes of culture in use, applied on a large scale, and already\nvictorious in the struggle against industrial competition, we can give\nourselves ease and luxury in return for agreeable work. The near future\nwill show what is practical in the processes that recent scientific\ndiscoveries give us a glimpse of. Let us limit ourselves at present to\nopening up the new path that consists in _the study of the needs of man,\nand the means of satisfying them_.\n\nThe only thing that may be wanting to the Revolution is the boldness of\ninitiative.\n\nWith our minds already narrowed in our youth and enslaved by the past in\nour mature age, we hardly dare to think. If a new idea is\nmentioned--before venturing on an opinion of our own, we consult musty\nbooks a hundred years old, to know what ancient masters thought on the\nsubject.\n\nIt is not food that will fail, if boldness of thought and initiative are\nnot wanting to the revolution.\n\nOf all the great days of the French Revolution, the most beautiful, the\ngreatest, was the one on which delegates who had come from all parts of\nFrance to Paris, worked all with the spade to plane the ground of the\nChamp de Mars, preparing it for the f\u00eate of the Federation.\n\nThat day France was united: animated by the new spirit, she had a vision\nof the future in the working in common of the soil.\n\nAnd it will again be by the working in common of the soil that the\nenfranchised societies will find their unity and will obliterate the\nhatred and oppression which has hitherto divided them.\n\nHenceforth, able to conceive solidarity--that immense power which\nincreases man's energy and creative forces a hundredfold--the new\nsociety will march to the conquest of the future with all the vigour of\nyouth.\n\nCeasing to produce for unknown buyers, and looking in its midst for\nneeds and tastes to be satisfied, society will liberally assure the life\nand ease of each of its members, as well as that moral satisfaction\nwhich work gives when freely chosen and freely accomplished, and the joy\nof living without encroaching on the life of others.\n\nInspired by a new daring--born of the feeling of solidarity--all will\nmarch together to the conquest of the high joys of knowledge and\nartistic creation.\n\nA society thus inspired will fear neither dissensions within nor enemies\nwithout. To the coalitions of the past it will oppose a new harmony, the\ninitiative of each and all, the daring which springs from the awakening\nof a people's genius.\n\nBefore such an irresistible force \"conspiring kings\" will be powerless.\nNothing will remain for them but to bow before it, and to harness\nthemselves to the chariot of humanity, rolling towards new horizons\nopened up by the Social Revolution.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[11] A new enlarged edition of it has been published by Thomas Nelson\nand Sons in their \"Shilling Library.\"\n\n[12] Consult \"La R\u00e9partition m\u00e9trique des imp\u00f4ts,\" by A. Toubeau, two\nvols., published by Guillaumin in 1880. (We do not in the least agree\nwith Toubeau's conclusions, but it is a real encyclop\u00e6dia, indicating\nthe sources which prove what can be obtained from the soil.) \"La Culture\nmara\u00eechere,\" by M. Ponce, Paris, 1869. \"Le Potager Gressent,\" Paris,\n1885, an excellent practical work. \"Physiologie et culture du bl\u00e9,\" by\nRisler, Paris, 1881. \"Le bl\u00e9, sa culture intensive et extensive,\" by\nLecouteux, Paris, 1883. \"La Cit\u00e9 Chinoise,\" by Eug\u00e8ne Simon. \"Le\ndictionnaire d'agriculture,\" by Barral (Hachette, editor). \"The\nRothamstead Experiments,\" by Wm. Fream, London, 1888--culture without\nmanure, etc. (the \"Field\" office, editor). \"Fields, Factories, and\nWorkshops,\" by the author. (Thomas Nelson & Sons.)\n\n[13] Summing up the figures given on agriculture, figures proving that\nthe inhabitants of the two departments of Seine and Seine-et-Oise can\nlive perfectly well on their own territory by employing very little time\nannually to obtain food, we have:--\n\n\n                DEPARTMENTS OF SEINE AND SEINE-ET-OISE\n\n     Number of inhabitants in 1889                          3,900,000\n\n     Area in acres                                          1,507,300\n\n     Average number of inhabitants per acre                       2.6\n\n     Areas to be cultivated to feed the inhabitants (in acres):--\n\n     Corn and Cereals                                         494,000\n\n     Natural and artificial meadows                           494,000\n\n     Vegetables and fruit                       from 17,300 to 25,000\n\n     Leaving a balance for houses, roads, parks, forests      494,000\n\n     Quantity of annual work necessary to improve and cultivate\n       the above surfaces in five-hour workdays:--\n\n     Cereals (culture and crop)                            15,000,000\n\n     Meadows, milk, rearing of cattle                      10,000,000\n\n     Market-gardening culture, high-class fruit            33,000,000\n\n     Extras                                                12,000,000\n                                                           ----------\n      Total                                                70,000,000\n\n\nIf we suppose that only half of the able-bodied adults (men and women)\nare willing to work at agriculture, we see that 70 million work-days\nmust be divided among 1,200,000 individuals, which gives us fifty-eight\nwork-days of 5 hours for each of these workers. With that the population\nof the two departments would have all necessary bread, meat, milk,\nvegetables, and fruit, both for ordinary and even luxurious consumption.\nTo-day a workman spends for the necessary food of his family (generally\nless than what is necessary) at least one-third of his 300 work-days a\nyear, about 1,000 hours be it, instead of 290. That is, he thus gives\nabout 700 hours too much to fatten the idle and the would-be\nadministrators, because he does not produce his own food, but buys it of\nmiddlemen, who in their turn buy it of peasants who exhaust themselves\nby working with bad tools, because, being robbed by the landowners and\nthe State, they cannot procure better ones.","title":"The Conquest of Bread","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":73450}