#title Liberty Vol. IV. No. 17.
#subtitle Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order
#author Benjamin Tucker
#LISTtitle Liberty Vol. 04. No. 17.
#SORTauthors Benjamin Tucker, J. William Lloyd, Victor Yarros, James L. Walker
#SORTtopics Liberty Vol. IV.
#date March 12, 1887
#source Retrieved on August 24, 2022 from [[http://www.readliberty.org/liberty/4/17][http://www.readliberty.org]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2022-08-24T07:30:58
#notes Whole No. 95. — Many thanks to www.readliberty.org for the readily-available transcription and to [[https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/periodicals/liberty-1881-1908/][www.libertarian-labyrinth.org]] for the original scans.
“For always in thine eyes, O Liberty!
*** On Picket Duty.
The Knights of Labor have bought a mansion in Philadelphia as permanent headquarters for their high-salaried officials, which is so elegantly fitted out with Wilton carpets, stained-glass windows, mirror-lined walls, old gold satin hangings, plate-glass windows, solid marble wainscoting, etc., that John Swinton calls it. “a palace for the rulers of the order.” In the same issue of his paper that contained its description my eye fell also upon a letter on high life in Washington headed “The ‘Splendid Extravagance’ of Our Elected Servants.”
Dr. Loretta M. Hammond of Kansas City, in an address delivered before the Socialistic Labor Party of that place, quoted the motto which stands at the head of Liberty’s editorial columns, and attributed it to “Proudhon, the celebrated French jurist.” If both were still alive, I don’t know which would feel the greater horror, Proudhon, the jurist, at being held responsible for such a sentiment, or its real author, a mush greater and more celebrated man, Proudhon, the Anarchist, at having his words identified with the State-Socialistic doctrines upheld by Dr. Hammond in her address.
Preacher Pentecost says: “If the despairing laborer kills somebody once in a while whom he thinks is standing in the way of his getting his rights, or turns Anarchist by and by, he is to blame and must be punished, of course, but this infernal system that is crushing him by inches is more to blame.” Must be punished for turning Anarchist, eh? That is, he must be killed or imprisoned for believing and saying that the infernal system is infernal and has no right to exist, and the infernal system must inflict the punishment. Brother Pentecost seems to be a fool. Certainly he knows nothing at all about Anarchy.
“The true artist,” says J. Wm. Lloyd in another column, “cares more for his art and his pleasure in it than for its ulterior object.” This is the old, idealistic, reactionary doctrine of “art for art’s sake,” which has been combatted successfully by men as distinct in type as Ruskin, Proudhon, and Tchernychewsky. That the artist’s first care, well as every other man’s, is his own pleasure I do not deny, but his superiority in his profession is directly proportional to the degree in which he is absorbed by the object of his art instead of by his technical power of execution. Literary expression is an art, and Mr. Lloyd is a literary artist, but I think he will find, If he will examine himself, that, in writing, his first thought and pleasure are not in the perfection of his sentences rhetorically, but in the truth of them,— that is, in their ultimate utility in achieving the objects dearest to him. And this is one of the principal reasons why he is so good an artist and writes so well.
Comrade Lloyd’s song, “The Anarchists’ March,” printed elsewhere, will bear more than one reading; in fact, it cannot be appreciated in less than half a dozen. In consequence of the peculiar metre, the rhythm eludes one at first; but when this is once grasped and the reader gets into the swing, he is more and inore struck by the strength and beauty of the song. Mr. Lloyd wrote the words to fit the music of a Finnish war song. Of this music he says, in a letter to me: “It is full of bugle-notes and the steady roll of the drums, and to me is one of the grandest things I ever heard,— with just enough passion to be strongly stirring, and yet possessing, as its strongest characteristic, an inspiration of deep, steady, unconquerable enthusiasm, making it thoroughly typical of our glorious movement.” I have heard the music, and find Mr. Lloyd’s words no exaggeration; consequently, in accordance with a suggestion made by him, it is my intention to publish the music and English words together, in sheet form, within a month or two.
Old readers of Liberty who remember Comrade Michael Hickey’s report a number of years ago in these columns of the birth of Anarchy in the County Kerry, Ireland, will learn from his letter in this number that the phenomenal agitation then so auspiciously begun has not gone back, but steadily forward. That two young couples in an Irish village should utterly ignore Church and State in the matter of their sexual relations, and live together without even the precaution of an “autonomistic marriage,” and that in this course they should receive the countenance and support of a hundred young people of the neighborhood in defiance of the pulpit boycott ordered by the parish priest, reveals the almost magic power of the Anarchistic idea when once it has gained a serious foothold of the mind. One thing, however, I cannot understand,— namely, why a hundred young people sufficiently rid of superstition to be able to exercise so marked a degree of independence of ecclesiasticism should all have been at church when the priest launched his anathema. Such people are not supposed to be regular in their devotional exercises. Did they have warning of what was coming and so attend church purposely to resent the priest’s impertinence? Or is their presence to be accounted for otherwise? Will Comrade Hickey please explain?
A new paper has been started in England entitled “Jus: A Weekly Organ of Individualism.” It represents the Liberty and Property Defence League,— an organization consisting principally of British noblemen and formed to resist overlegislation, maintain freedom of contract, and combat Socialism,— an organization, in short, which the State Socialists and the Communists dismiss with a sneer as bourgeois. Bourgeois or not, I find much in it that commands my warm approval. In fact, if it shall prove true to its principles, and if its propaganda is to be conducted on the strict line of liberty without mental reservations, all Anarchists must, I think, consider it a more valuable paper than any of the four principal Socialistic journals of England,— “Justice,” “The Commonweal,” “The Anarchist,” and “Freedom.” My misgivings about it are mainly two. The first arises out of the character and station of its backers, so seldom does any good come out of the capitalistic Nazareth. The second relates to its position on the fundamental question of government. Like Spencer, it has little or nothing to say about the most disastrous invasive and restrictive features of government, such as the money and land monopolies, and, again like Spencer, it deals with government simply as invasive from the extent of its sphere and not as invasive in its constitution. In other words, it seems to claim that there are some things which must be done by the body politic, and that these things all people I must be compelled to join in doing. Or, more briefly still, it admits compulsory taxation, between which and State Socialism there is no logical stopping-place. These comments should be qualified by the statement that I have seen but one issue of the paper, No. 8, and that my criticism is founded more upon what is omitted than upon what is said. Perhaps it will be dissipated by more intimate acquaintance. At any rate, it is a pleasure to commend a journal so plucky in its tone, so free from sentimentalism, so ably written, and so well printed. It has twenty-four small pages, and can be had for a year by sending $1.50 to “Editor of Jus, 4 Westminster Chambers, London, S. W., England.” I advise every reader of Liberty to subscribe for it.
*** Anarchists’ March.
Tune: Björneborgarnes Marsch (Finnish War Song).
I. The Advance.
Shines that high light whereby the world is saved;
And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.”
John Hay.
Forward! sons of Liberty,
II. Advance And Contest.
From polar snows, from tropic sands, from crowded streets, from Nature’s wildness,—
March, O march to mukc men free,
And bear the joys of Freedom’s sway o’er land and sea.
Back! back! cruel tyrant band —
The day has come, your night is done, and Freedom’s joyous sun, with mildness,
Shines for all in every land,
And Freedom’s song, in pulsing waves, shall beat each strand.
Grand is the hope and aim that it us quivers;
Strong in its freshness like a wind from rivers.
Oh! On! Onward then with joy.
Let every heart with courage, strength, and pride beat high.
Wisdom by Justice man delivers;
Reason and Kindness plead, and noble hearts respond.
On, then! On! all who hate a slavish bond
Till white-clad Peace shall reign o’er Earth with olive wand.
Charge on! sons of Liberty;
III. Vigilance After Victory.
For press and pen and poet’s song, the teacher’s speech and Nature’s voices
Soon shall straighten every knee,
And Freedom’s breath shall stir the leaves on every tree;
Come down! kings from every throne;
The end has come, your crimes are done, and knowledge, while the Earth rejoices,
Freeth all in every zone,
And tocsin bells shall triumphs ring where slaves now moan.
Grandly the music all the world is filling:
Stirring the pulses with its joyance thrilling.
Forward fearlessly, ye brave!
And haste the day when none shall bind and none enslave;
Grasp ye this time while hearts are willing;
Strike for the Jubilee and loosing-time of all:
Tired are men of wormwood and of gall,
Of tears, despair, and pain, and labors ’neath the thrall.
Watch now for your Liberty!
J. Wm. Lloyd.
*** The Science of Society. By Stephen Pearl Andrews.
**** Part Second.
You giant race, ye noblemen, ye free-born kings and Nature’s bravest,
Sleep not, guard from treachery
These sacred rights and dues ye won so manfully:
Ever, in the days gone by,
Did tyrants shrewd, by force and fraud and tempting bribe, win what ye harvest.
If ye keep a sleepless eye,
A fearless heart, and ready hand them to defy —
Heroes, behold the Glory-rays adorning.
Flowers and dew-drops fair on Freedom’s morning.
Proudly, gladly, pace ye on,
And taste the bliss and triumph grand your arms have won.
Wisdom on guard gives ceaseless warning,
Never again with fear must earnest hearts despond;
Lead on, ye brave, till there is no beyond,
And gentle Peace broods over Earth with yearnings fond.
Cost the Limit of Price: A Scientific Measure of Honesty in Trade as One of the Fundamental Principles in the Solution of the Social Problem.
Continued from No. 94.
**** Preface.
The preface of a book is always the last thing written, and generally the last thing read. The author is safe, therefore, in assuming that he is addressing, in what he says in this part of his work, hose who are already familiar with the book itself. Availing myself of this presumption, I have a few observations to make of a somewhat practical nature in relation to the effects upon the conduct of the Individual which the acceptance of the principle herein inculcated should appropriately have.
At the first blush, it seems as if the Cost Principle presented the most stringent and inexorable law, binding upon the conscience, which was ever announced,— as if no man desiring to be honest could continue for a day in the ordinary intercourse of trade and pursuit of profit. The degree to which this impression will remain with different persons, upon a thorough understanding of the whole subject, will be different according to their organizations. There are powerful considerations, however, to deter any one from making a martyr of himself in a fruitless effort to act upon the true principle wile living in the atmosphere, and surrounded by the conditions, of the old and false system.
In the first place, it is impossible, in the nature of things, to apply a principle, the essence of which is to regulate the terms of reciprocity, where no reciprocity exists. The Equitist who should attempt to act upon the Cost Principle in the midst of the prevailing system, and should sell his own products with scrupulous conscientiousness at cost, would be wholly unable to obtain the products of others at cost in return; and hence his conduct would not procure Equity. He would at most obtain the wretched gratification of cheating himself knowingly and continuously. There is not space in the few pages of a preface to enter into a fundamental statement of the ethical principles involved in the temporary continuance in relations of injustice forced upon us by those upon whom whatever of injustice we commit is inflicted. The question involved is the same as that of War and Peace. A nation desirous of being at peace with all mankind, and tendering such relations to the world, may, nevertheless, be forced into war by the wanton acts of unscrupulous neighbors. Notwithstanding the over-strained nicety of the sect called Friends, and of non-resistants in such behalf, the common sentiment of enlightened humanity is yet in favor of resistance against unprovoked aggression, while it is at the same time in favor of Universal Peace,— the entire cessation of all War. In like manner, the friends of Equity, the acceptors of the cost principle, do not in any case, so far as I am aware, propose beggaring themselves, or abandoning any positions which give them the pecuniary advantage in the existing disharmonic relations of society, from any silly or overweening deference even for their own principles. They entertain rational and well-considered views in relation to the appropriate means of inaugurating the reign of Equity. They propose the organization of villages, or settlements of persons who understand the principle, and desire to act upon it mutually. They will tender intercourse with “outsiders” upon the same terms, but, if the tender is not accepted, they will then treat with them upon their own terms, so far as it is necessary, or in their judgment best, to treat with them at all. They will hold Equity in one hand and “fight” in the other,— Equity for those who will accept Equity and reciprocate it, and the conflict of wits for those who force that issue. It is not their design to become either martyrs or dupes; martyrdom being, in their opinion, unnecessary, and the other alternative adverse to their tastes.
Still any view of the practical methods of working out the principle which may be here intimated is of course binding upon no one. I state the spirit in which the principle is at present entertained, so far as I know, by those who have accepted it. Every individual must be left free, whether as an inhabitant of the world at large, or of an equitable village, to act under the dictates of his own conscience, his own views of expediency, his own sense of what he can afford to sacrifice in order to abide by the principle rather than sacrifice the principle instead; or, in fine, of whatever other regulating influence he is in the habit of submitting his conduct to. He must be left absolutely free, then, to commit every conceivable breach of the principles of harmonic society. He who is in no freedom to do wrong can never, by any possibility, demonstrate the disposition to do right; besides, whether the absolute or theoretical right is always the practical or relative right, is at least a doubtful question in morals, which each individual must be allowed to judge of solely for himself,– as of every other question of morals and personal conduct whatsoever,– assuming the Cost. Hence, even in the act of infringing one of our circle of principles, the individual is vindicating another,– The Sovereignty of the Individual,– and in the fact of his differing from another, from the majority, or from all others, in the moral character of an act, he is merely illustrating another of the same circle of principles,– namely, Individuality.
It is found to be the most puzzling of all things to those who commence to examine these principles, beset as they are by the fogs of old ideas, that a social reorganization should be proposed without any social compact, the necessity of which has been alike and universally conceded both by Conservatives and Reformers. An illustration may render the matter clear. We do not bring forward a System, a Plan, or a Constitution, to be voted on, adopted, or agreed to, by mankind at large, or by any set of men whatsoever. Nothing of the sort! We point out certain principles in the nature of things which relate to the order of human society; in conforming to which mankind will find their affairs harmonically adjusted, and in departing from which they will run into confusion. The knowledge of these principles is science. It is the same with them as with the principles of Physiology. We teach them as science. We do not ask that they shall be voted upon or applied under pledges. Men cannot make or unmake them. So far as he knows them, and cordially accepts them as truths, he will be disposed to realize them in act. The human mind has a natural appetite for truth. If there are obstacles in the way of their realization, those obstacles will differ with the circumstances of each individual, and the Individual can alone judge of them. Those circumstances may change tomorrow, and then his capacity to act will change. His own appreciation of the subject may change likewise. There is Individuality, therefore, in his own different states at different periods. The man must be bound by no pledges which imply even so much as that he will be himself the same, in any given respect, at any future moment of time. It is the evil of compacts that the compact becomes sacred and the individual profane,— that man is held to be made for the Sabbath and not the Sabbath for man.
Hereupon there is based the claim that these principles constitute in the appropriate and rigid sense The Science of Society. It is the property of science that it does not say “By your leave.” It exists whether you will or no. It requires neither compacts, constitutions, nor ballot-boxes. It is objectively true. It exists in principles and truths. If you understand and conform, well; if not, woe be unto you. The consequences will fall upon you and scourge you. Hence the government of consequences is itself scientific, which no man-made government is. Men have sought for ages to discover the science of government; and lo! Here it is, that men cease totally to attempt to govern each other at all! That they learn to know the consequences of their own acts, and that they arrange their relations with each other upon such a basis of science that the disagreeable consequences shall be assumed by the agent himself.
**** The Cost Principle
Chapter 1.
Preliminary. — The Nature and Necessity of a Social Science.
1. The question of the proper, legitimate, and just reward of labor, and other kindred questions, are becoming confessedly of immense importance to the welfare of mankind. They demand radical, thorough, and scientific investigation. Political Economy, which has held its position for the last half century as one of the accredited sciences, is found in our day to have but a partial and imperfect application to matters really involved in the production and distribution of wealth. Its failure is in the fact that it treats wealth as if it were an abstract thing having interests of its own, apart from the well-being of the laborers who produce it. In other words, human beings, their interests and happiness, are regarded by Political Economy in no other point of view than as mere instruments in the production or service of this abstract Wealth. It does not inquire in what manner and upon what principles the accumulation and dispensation of wealth should be conducted in order to eventuate in the greatest amount of human comfort and happiness, and the most complete development of the individual man and woman. It simply concerns itself with the manner in which, and the principles in accordance with which, men and women are now employed, in producing and exchanging wealth. It is as if the whole purposes, arrangements, and order of a vast palace were viewed as mere appendages to the kitchen, or contrivances for the convenience of the servants, instead of viewing both kitchen and servants as subordinate parts of the system of life, gayety, luxury, and happiness which should appropriately inhabit the edifice, according to the design of its projectors.
2. Hence Political Economy is beginning to fall into disrepute as a science (for want of a more extended scope and a more humanitarian purpose), and is liable even to lose credit for the good it has done. The questions with which it deals can no longer be regarded as an integral statement of the subject to which they relate. They are coming to be justly estimated as a part only of a broader field or scientific investigation which has but recently been entered upon; and as being incapable of a true solution apart from their legitimate connections with the whole system of the social affairs of mankind. The subject-matter of Political Economy will, therefore, be hereafter embraced in a more comprehensive Social Science, which will treat of all the interests of man growing out of their interrelations with each other.
3. A criticism somewhat similar to that here bestowed upon Political Economy is applicable to Ethics. It has been the function of writers and preachers upon Morals, hitherto, to inculcate the duty of submitting to the exigencies of false social relations. The Science of Society teaches, on the other hand, the rectification of those relations themselves. So long as men find themselves embarrassed by complicated connections of interest, so that the consequences of their acts inevitably devolve upon others, the highest virtue consists in mutual concessions and abnegation of selfhood. Hence the necessity for Ethics, in that stage of progress, to enforce the reluctant sacrifice, by stringent appeals to the conscience. The truest condition of society, however, is that in which each individual is enabled and constrained to assume, to the greatest extent possible, the Cost or disagreeable consequences of his own acts. That condition of society can only arise from a general disintegration of interests,— from rendering the interests of all as completely individual as their persons. The Science of Society teaches the means of that individualization of interests, coupled, however, with cooperation. Hence it graduates the individual, so to speak, out of the sphere of Ethics into that of Personality,– out of the sphere of duty or submission to the wants of others, into the sphere of integral development and freedom. Hence the Science of Society may be said to absorb the Science of Ethics as it does that of Political Economy, while it teaches far more exactly the limits of right by defining the true relations of men.
4. The Science of Society labors indeed under a serious embarrassment from the fact of its comprehensiveness. The changes which the realization of the principles it unfolds would bring about in the circumstances of society make it differ from matters of ordinary science, in the fact of its immediate and complicated effects upon what may be termed the vested interests of the community. It is difficult for men to regard that as purely a question of science which they foresee is a radical reform and revolution as well. Still there are few persons who do not recognize the fact that there is some subtle and undiscovered cause of manifold evils, lying hid down in the very foundations of our existing social fabric, and which it is extremely desirable should be eradicated by some means, however much they may differ with reference to the instrumentalities through which the amelioration is to be sought for. The demand for a thorough investigation of the subject, and a settlement upon true principles of the relations of labor and capital especially, has come up during the last few years with more prominence than ever before, both in Europe and America, and has given rise to the various forms of Socialism which are now agitating the whole world. The real significance and tendency of Socialism are stated in No. I of this series of publications, entitled, “The True Constitution of Government, in the Sovereignty of the Individual, as the Final Development of Protestantism, Democracy, and Socialism.
5. Indeed, the inquiry into social evils and remedies has not been generally viewed in the light of a science at all, and Reform of all sorts has become distasteful to many among the more intellectual portion of the community, for the reason that it has not hitherto assumed a more strictly scientific aspect. Neither querulous complaints of the present condition of things, nor brilliant picturing of the imagination, nor vague aspirations after change or perfection, satisfy those whose mental constitution demands definite and tangible propositions, and inevitable logical deductions from premises first admitted or established.
6. There is another portion of the community who object to the investigation of all social questions upon nearly opposite grounds. They assume that the moral and social regeneration of mankind is not the sphere of science, but exclusively that of religion,– that the only admissible method of societary advancement is by the infusion of the religious sentiment into the hearts of men, and the rectification thereby of the affections of the individual, and through individuals of mankind at large.
7. If this proposition be reduced to this statement,– that, if the spirit of every individual n a community is right, the spirit of that community, as an aggregate, must be right likewise,– the assertion is a simple truism; but society demands a form as well as a substance, a body no less than a soul; and if that form or body be not a true outgrowth and exponent of the spirit dwelling within, it is affirming too much to say that such a society is rightly constituted. It is the province of science or the intellect to provide the form in which any desire is to be actualized. What Substance is to Form, the Love or Desire is to the intellectual conception of the modes of its realization. Religion deals with the heart or affections; in other words, with the love or desire, which makes up the substance or inherent constituent quality of actions. Science which is born of Wisdom deals with the Forms of action, and teaches that such and such only accord with a given Desire and will eventuate in its realization. The development of the Love or Desire is first in order and first in rank; that of the corresponding Wisdom is nevertheless equally indispensable to the completeness of all that is good and true, in every department of rational being.
8. To illustrate, let us suppose a nation overrun by foreign armies, and its very existence as an independent people threatened, while merely a feeble, heartless, and unorganized resistance is offered. A few patriotic and wise men assemble to consult upon the prospects and the necessities of their country. Immediately a dissension divides them in regard to the cause of their repeated failures to arrest the progress of the enemy. One party asserts that it is a want of military skill, that their country is entirely destitute of the knowledge of tactics and castrametation, which if understood, would be amply sufficient to enable them to display their whole strength, and to make the most desperate successful defense. The other party assumes opposite ground. They affirm that the fault is a want of patriotism among the people. They cite abundant instances to prove that the inhabitants care very little by whom they are governed; that they are, in fine, destitute of that spirit of devotion which is the essence or substance of warlike prowess. Thus divided in views, and jealous upon either side, they waste their time and grow mutually embittered toward each other. At length, after tedious discussions and a long series of acrimonious recriminations, they arrive at the solution in the fact that both parties are right. The people are both destitute of patriotic devotion and of military science. Which, then, is the first want, in order, to be supplied? Clearly the former. Still both are equally essential to the organization of a complete defense. Having accorded in this view, they first disperse themselves as missionaries over the whole country, preaching patriotism. By exciting appeals they arouse the dormant affections of the people for their fatherland, and alarm them for the safety of their wives and little ones. Their efforts are crowned with success. They witness the rising spirit of indignation against the invaders, and of martial heroism on all hands. It spreads from heart to heart,, and throbs in the bosoms of the men, and even of the women and children. At this point, a new evil displays itself. Fathers, husbands, and sons desert their ripening crops and their unprotected families, and rush together, a tumultuous, unarmed mob, clamorous for war. Confusion and distress succeed to apathy. The danger is increased rather than lessened. Famine and pestilence threaten now to be added to the fury of conquerors incensed by irritating demonstrations of a resistance powerless for defense. Then arises the demand for military science. At this point it is the part of the wise men who control the destinies of the people to abandon their missionary labor and assume the character of commanders and military engineers. Preaching is no longer in order. The men who from over-zeal persists in inflaming the minds of the populace, however well-intentioned, may prove the most deadly enemy of his country. Organization, the forming of companies, the drilling of squads, and the construction of forts are now in demand. Desire, the substance, subsists, demanding of Science the true Form of its manifestation.
9. What Patriotism is to the Science of War for the purpose of defense, the religious sentiment of Love is to the true Science of Society. The hearty recognition of human brotherhood, and the aspiration after true relations with God and man, are, at this day, widely diffused in the ranks of society. Christianity has produced its fruit in the development of right affection far beyond what the religious teachers among us are themselves disposed to credit it for. The demand is not now for more eloquence, and touching appeals, and fervent prayers to swell the heart to bursting with painful sympathies for suffering humanity. The time has come when preaching must give away to action, aspiration to realization, and amiable but fruitless sympathetic affections to fundamental investigation and scientific methods. The true preachers of the next age will be the scientific discoverers and the practical organizers of true social relations among men. The religious objection to Social Science is unphilosophical.
10. There is another form in which this objection is sometimes urged by those who claim to understand somewhat the philosophy of progress. They affirm that, if the disposition to do right exist in the Individual or in the community, that disposition will inevitably conduct to the knowledge of the right way; in other words, that Wisdom is a necessary outgrowth of Love; and hence they deduce the conclusion that we need not concern ourselves in the least about discovering the laws of a true social order. The premise of this statement is true, while the conclusion is false. Taken together, it is as if one should assert that the sense of hunger naturally impels men to find the means of subsistence, and hence that no man need trouble himself about food. Let him sit down, quietly relying upon the potency of mere hunger to provide the means of the gratification of his appetite.
11. The very fact of the Socialist agitation of our day, and the continued repetitions in every quarter of the attempt to work out the problem of universal justice and harmony, are the very outgrowth in question of the indwelling desire for truer social relations, and never could have arisen but for the previous existence of that desire. The religionist who denies or ignores this inevitable sequitur from the spirit of his own teachings, is like the insane head that first wills and then disowns the hand that performs.
To be continued.
*** The Political Theology of Mazzini And The International.
By Michael Bakouine, Member of the International Association of Working-People.
***** Translated from the French by Sarah E. Holmes.
Continued from No. 94.
“And who can, even in a society founded on more just bases than the present society,— who can convince a man educated only in the theory of rights that he ought to keep in the common path and occupy himself with the development of the social design? Suppose he revolts; suppose that, feeling himself the stronger, he says to you: ‘My tendencies, my faculties, call me elsewhere; I have the sacred, inviolable right of developing them, and I place myself at war with all.’ What answer can you give him from the point of view of his own doctrine (that of rights)? What right have you, even being the majority, to impose on him obedience to laws which do not accord with his desires, with his individual aspirations? What right have you to punish him when he violates them? Rights are equal for all individuals: the social community cannot create a single one. Society has more power, but no more rights, than the individual. How, then, will you prove to the individual that he ought to blend his will with the will of his brothers in Country and in Humanity? By the executioner? By the prison? So have done all societies which have ever existed. But this is war, and we wish peace; this is tyrannical repression, and we wish education.
“Education, we have said; and this is the grand word which includes our whole doctrine. The vital question of our century is a question of education. It is not a question of establishing a new order of things by violence; an order of things established by violence is always tyrannical, even when it is better than what it replaces ; it is a question of overturning by force the brutal force which today opposes every attempt at amelioration, and then of proposing to the consent of the nation thus made free to express its will [a fiction!] the order which appears the best [to whom does it appear so? to Mazzini and to his disciples.], and finally of educating men of all kinds [the unfortunates!] so that they may become developed and act in conformity with this order.
“With the theory of rights we can revolt and overturn obstacles [this is something and even much], but not establish, in a strong and durable manner, the harmony of all the elements which compose a Nation. With the theory of happiness, comfort being assigned as the principal aim of life, we shall make egoistical men, worshippers of matter, who will bring the old passions into the new order, and corrupt it in a few months. We must, then, find a doctrine superior to the theory of rights, which guides men towards good, which teaches them constancy in sacrifice, which attaches them to their brothers without rendering them independent either of the idea of a single man or of the force of all. This principle is that of Duty. It is necessary to convince men that, children of one God, they ought to execute here below, on this earth, one and the same Law; that each of them ought to live, not for himself, but for others; that the aim of his life is not to be more or less happy, but to make himself better by making all the others better; that to combat injustice and error for the good of his brothers is not only a right, but a duty... [It is precisely this duty which I am fulfilling now with reference to Mazzini.]
“Italian laborers, my brothers! Understand me rightly. When I say that knowledge of their rights is not sufficient for men in order to accomplish an important and durable amelioration, I do not ask you to renounce these rights I only say that they are but consequences of duties fulfilled, and that we must commence with the duties to arrive at the rights; and when I say that, in assigning happiness, well-being, material interests, as the aim of life, we run the risk of making egoists, I do not mean that you ought not to think of them; I say that material interests, sought alone, and considered not as means only, but as end, always Lead to this deplorable result.... Material ameliorations are essential, and we will light to obtain them; but not because it is of sole consequence to man that he-W well fed and lodged, but because the consciousness of your dignity and your moral development will be impossible so long as your permanent duel against misery shall continue. You work ten and twelve hours a day [either Mazzini is very badly informed, or it does not enter into the economy of his propaganda to appear to know I that the greater part of the Italian proletariat work from fourteen to fifteen hours a day]: how can you find time to educate yourselves? [To let yourselves be educated. Mazzini always speaks of moral education, never of mental instruction and development, which he disdains, and which, like all theologians, he must dread.] The most fortunate among you earn hardly enough to support their families. How I could they find the means to educate themselves?” etc., etc. All that follows proves that Mazzini knows perfectly well the miserable situation of the Italian laborers; he even finishes by saying to them:
“Society treats you without a shadow of sympathy: where could you learn to sympathize with society? You need, then, a change in your material conditions to make it possible for you to develop morally; you need to work less to be able to devote a few hours of your day to the progress of your soul [Mazzini will never say to the development of your mind through science]; you need such reward for your work as will enable you to accumulate savings [in order to become individually rich,— that is, to become in your turn bourgeois exploiters of the labor of others. The economic thought of this poor great theologian, Mazzini, goes no farther; he would like all laborers to become bourgeois, rich and isolated individuals; and he does not comprehend that individual fortunes, even the greatest, are consumed and melt away very quickly when they do not find the means of reproducing themselves, and even of increasing, by the exploitation of the labor of others. Individual riches, hereditary property, constitute precisely the bourgeoisie, and preserve and develop themselves only by the exploitation of the misery of the proletariat. To wish that all proletarians should become bourgeois is to wish that the bourgeois should find no longer at their disposal workingmen forced by hunger to sell them at the lowest possible price that collective work which fertilizes their capital and their property; it is to wish that all the bourgeois should be alike ruined in a very short I time; and then what would ensue? All being equally poor, each remaining isolated in misery and reduced to working for himself, entire society would be ruined, because isolated work is hardly sufficient to nourish a savage tribe. Only collective work creates civilization and riches. This truth once comprehended and admitted,— and he must be a great barbarian in social economy who does not admit it,— there remain only two possible forms of property or of exploitation of social wealth: the present bourgeois form,— that is, the exploitation of this wealth, the product of collective labor, or rather the exploitation of collective labor, by privileged individuals, which is the only true sense of that individual and hereditary property which the generous and popular General Garibaldi takes the attitude of defending today; or the new form, which we sustain against the bourgeoisie and against General Garibaldi himself, because it is the sole and supreme condition of the real emancipation of the proletariat, of all the world,— the collective ownership of the wealth produced by collective labor.[1] But I restore the floor to Mazzini]:
“You need a reward which will tranquillize your soul in regard to the future and which will give you the possibility of purifying it, above all, of every sentiment of reaction, of every impulse of vengeance, of every thought of injustice towards those who have been unjust towards you. You should, then, seek this change, and you will obtain it [if they obtain it, it will be only by their own efforts, by the use of their own organized force, and not by the aid of a few dozen Mazzinians, who will be able to do nothing but paralyze or mislead their efforts; but you should seek it as means, not as end; you should seek it from a sentiment of Duty, not alone as a Right; you should seek it to make yourselves better, not alone to make yourselves materially happy....
“To make yourselves better,— that is what should constitute the aim of your life. You cannot even make yourselves, in any constant and secure way, less unhappy except by making yourselves better. Tyrants would rise by thousands among you, if you fought only in the name of material interests, or of some social organization or other. It matters little that you change organizations, if you yourselves remain infected with the passions and egoism which reign today: organizations are like certain plants which sometimes are poisonous, sometimes remedial, according to the operations of the one who administers them. Good men make all bad organizations good, and bad men make good ones bad.”
“In abolishing rent and interest, the last vestiges of old-time slavery, the Revolution abolishes at one stroke the sword of the executioner, the seal of the magistrate, the club of the policeman, the gunge of the exciseman, the erasing-knife of the department clerk, all those insignia of Politics, which young Liberty grinds beneath her heel.” — Proudhon.---- ☞ The appearance in the editorial column of articles over other signatures than the editor’s initial indicates that the editor approves their central purpose and general tenor, though he does not hold himself responsible for every phrase or word. But the appearance in other parts of the paper of articles by the same or other writers by no means indicates that he disapproves them in any respect, such disposition of them being governed largely by motives of convenience. ---- *** Pinney Struggling with Procrustes. It is the habit of the wild Westerner, whenever he cannot answer a Bostonian’s arguments, to string long words into long sentences in mockery by certain fancied peculiarities of the Boston mind. Editor Pinney of the Winsted “Press” is not exactly a wild Westerner, but he lives just far enough beyond the confines of Massachusetts to enable him to resort to this device in order to obscure the otherwise obvious necessity of meeting me on reason’s ground. His last reply to me fruitlessly fills two-thirds of one of his long columus with the sort of buncombe referred to, whereas that amount of space, duly applied to solid argument, might have sufficed to show one of us in error. Whatever the characteristics of Boston intellect, generically speaking, in the particular Bostonian with whom he is now confronted Mr. Pinney would see, were he a student of human nature, an extremely hard-headed individual, about whose mind there is nothing celestial or supermundane or aesthetic or aberrant, and whose only dialectics consists in searching faithfully for the fundamental weakness of his adversary’s position and striking at it with swift precision, or else, finding none such, in acknowledging defeat. But human nature — at least, Boston human nature — being a puzzle to Mr. Pinney, he mistakes me for a quibbler, a disputatious advocate, and a lover of logomachy. Let us see, then, by whom logomachy was first employed in this discussion. In an unguarded moment of righteous impatience with the folly of the prohibitionists Mr. Pinney had given utterance to some very extreme and Anarchistic doctrine. I applauded him, and ventured to call his attention to one or two forms of prohibition other than that of the liquor traffic, equally repugnant to his theory of liberty and yet championed by him. One of these was the tariff. He answered me that “there is no analogy between prohibition and the tariff; the tariff prohibits no man from indulging his desire to trade where he pleases.” Right here logomachy made its first appearance, over the word “prohibit.” I had cited two forms of State interference with trade, each of which in practice either annoys it or hampers it or effectively prevents it, according to circumstances. This analogy in substantial results presented a difficulty, which Mr. Pinney tried to overcome by beginning a dispute over the meaning of the word “prohibit,” — a matter of only formal moment so far as the present discussion is concerned. He declared that the tariff is not like the prohibitory liquor law, inasmuch as it prohibits nobody from trading where he pleases. A purely nominal distinction, if even that; consequently Mr. Pinney, in passing it off as a real one, was guilty of quibbling. But I met, Mr. Pinney on his own ground, allowing that, speaking exactly, the tariff does not prohibit, but adding, on the other hand, that neither does the so-called prohibitory liquor law; that both simply impose penalties on traders, in the one case as a condition, in the other as a consequence, of carrying on their trades. Hence my analogy still stood, and I expected it to be grappled with. But no. Mr. Pinney, in the very breath that he protests against quibbling, insists on his quibble by asking if prison discipline is, then, so lax that convicted liquor sellers can carry on their business within the walls, and by supposing that I would still think prohibition did not prohibit, if the extreme penalty for liquor selling were decapitation. I do not dispute the fact that a man cannot carry on the liquor business as long as he is in prison, nor can Mr. Pinney dispute the fact that a man cannot sell certain foreign goods in this country as long as he cannot raise the money to pay the tariff; and while I am confident that decapitation, if rigorously enforced, would stop the liquor traffic, I am no less sure that the effect on foreign traffic would be equally disastrous were decapitation to be enforced as a tax upon importers. On Mr. Pinney’s theory the prohibitory liquor laws could be made non-prohibitory simply by changing the penalties from imprisonments to fines. The absurdity of this is evident. But, if I were to grant that Mr. Pinney’s quibble shows that there is no analogy between a prohibitory liquor law and a revenue tariff (which I do not grant, but deny), it would still remain for him to show that there is no analogy between a prohibitory liquor law and such a tariff as he favors,— one so high as to be absolutely prohibitory and yield no revenue at all,— or else admit his inconsistency in opposing the former and not the latter. He has not attempted to meet this point, even with a quibble. One other point, however, he does try to meet. To my statement that his position on the abstract question of liberty involves logically opposition to government in all its functions he makes this answer:
Between puritan meddling with a man’s domestic affairs, and necessary government regulation of matters which the individual is incompetent to direct, yet which must be directed in order to secure to the individual his rightful liberty, there is a distance sufficiently large to give full play to our limited faculties.But who is to judge what government regulation is “necessary” and decide what matters “the individual is incompetent to direct”? The majority? But the majority are just as likely to decide that prohibition is necessary and that the individual is incompetent to direct his appetite as that a tariff is necessary and that the individual is incompetent to make his own contracts. Mr. Pinney, then, must submit to the will of the majority. His original declaration, however, was that despotism was despotism, whether exercised by a monarch or a majority. This drives him back upon liberty in all things. For just as he would object to the reign of a monarch disposed to administer affairs rationally and equitably simply because he was a monarch, so he must object to the reign of a majority, even though its administration were his ideal, simply because it is a majority. Mr. Pinney is trying to serve; both liberty and authority, and is making himself ridiculous in the attempt.
But in vain doth Liberty invokeWalker’s ease is the worst of all. He has ignominiously capitulated before the majesty of that greatest of criminals,— “law.” I thought no truly great and good man ever went to prison who was not improved by it, but it is to be regretted that Walker outside and Walker inside prison walls are not synonymous terms. I am happy to tell you that the couple who joined hearts and hands here some time ago with out the high permission of Church or State are in flourishing health and as happy as possible, and another pair have made a similar venture and with equal success. The parish priest, of course, came out in an altar speech vomiting fire and brimstone, and warning “his flock” to hold no intercommunication with such God-forsaken wretches. About one hundred young men and several young women left the church in a body, which completely spiked his ecclesiastical artillery. At an eviction which took place in this district recently an inspector of police picked up a few copies of Liberty, folded them carefully, and put them into his packet. I have been placed under arrest myself several times for being suspected of taking part in “Moonlighting.” Sergeant McDonagh, then stationed at Mount Collins, County Limerick, charged me with shooting at a landlord man named Fitzgerald, but failed to convict. This McDonagh it was who arrested P. N. Fitzgerald of London. All the books, pamphlets, etc., entrusted to me have been carefully distributed among Liberty’s friends. Hoping you’ll convey to the editors of Liberty an expression of our unbounded confidence in them, I beg to remain, Fraternally yours,
The spirit to vile bondage broke,
Or lift the neck that courts the yoke.
It will probably be conceded by all who have paid any attention to our subject that the civilized societies of the West, in steadily enlarging the personal and proprietary independence of women, and even in granting to them political privilege, are only following out still farther a law of development which they have been obeying for many centuries. The society which once consisted of compact families has got extremely near to the condition in which it will consist exclusively of individuals, when it has completely assimilated the legal position of women to the legal position of men. In addition to many other objections which may be urged against the common allegation that the legal disabilities of women are merely part of the tyranny of sex over sex, it is historically and philosophically valueless, as indeed are most propositions concerning classes so large as sexes. What really did exist is the despotism of groups over the members composing them. What really is being relaxed is this despotism. Whether this relaxation is destined to end in utter dissolution — whether, on the other hand, under the influence of either voluntary agreement or of imperative law, society is destined to crystallize in new forms — are questions upon which it is not not material to enter, even if there were any hope of solving them. All we need at present note is that the so-called enfranchisement of women is merely a phase of a process which has affected very many other classes, the substitution of individual human beings for compact groups of human beings as the units of society — Early History of Institutions.Thus we see, as I have frequently tried to urge upon the advocates of woman’s rights, that there is, properly speaking, no woman-question, as apart from the question of human right and human liberty.
The woman’s cause is man’s — they rise or sinkYours very truly,
Together,— dwarfed or god-like — bond or free.
To the Editor of Liberty: Your Liberty is now one of my most cherished periodicals. Anarchism has been the ideal to which I have long unconsciously been looking forward, and I find your exposition of its doctrines so clear, so forcible and convincing, that, although but recently “born again,” I am now full grown. I do not wish to intrude upon your valuable time to the extent of expecting a personal reply, but, if you deem it worthy of notice, I wish you would answer the following query (in Liberty): Your views on marriage I cannot wholly accept because, under the present social conditions, the heavy burden of an unlawful relation would fall upon the woman almost exclusively. Now, if you loved a woman, could you subject her to the social ostracism which she must inevitably endure, for the maintenance of a theory? Would it not be better, all things considered, “to do as they do in Rome”? Very truly yours,[The form in which Mrs. Holt puts her question denies Anarchy at the start, because it presupposes woman as an instrument in man’s hands to be disposed of at his will, thus depriving woman of her individual sovereignty. As I indicate in the heading, the question is properly one for the woman to answer. But, granting Mrs. Holt’s hypothesis that the woman were subject to my will, I should feel that I was pursuing a much less inconsiderate course in causing her to suffer the social ostracism which is so often the penalty of independence than in exposing her to the ten-fold worse evils and indignities of matrimonial bondage. Under none but the most extraordinary circumstances would I consent to the latter course, even if the woman desired it. And such desire on her part would be inversely proportional to her independence, bravery, intelligence, and foresight. — Editor Liberty.]Charlotte C. Holt.
330 Michigan Ave., Chicago, February 4, 1887.