Anarchy by Errico Malatesta - Section 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section two of anarchy. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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recording by Annasium. Anarchy by Erico Mala Testa. We have
said that anarchy is society without government. But if the

(00:22):
suppression of government possible, desirable or wise, let us see
what is the government. There is a disease of the
human mind called the metaphysical tendency, causing man, after he
has by a logical process abstracted the quality from an object,
to be subject to a kind of hallucination which makes

(00:45):
him take the abstraction for the real thing. This metaphysical tendency,
in spite of the blows of positive science, has still
strong root in the minds of the majority of our
contemporary fellow men. It has such an influence that many
consider government an actual entity with certain given attributes of reason, justice, equity,

(01:09):
independently of the people who compose the government. For those
who think in this way, government or the state is
the abstract social power, and it represents always in the
abstract the general interest. It is the expression of the
right of all and considered as limited by the rights
of each. This way of understanding government is supported by

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those interested, to whom it is an urgent necessity that
the principle of authority should be maintained and should always
survive the faults and errors of the persons who succeed
to the exercise of power. For us, the government is
the aggregate of the governors. And the governors kings, presidents, ministers,

(01:55):
members of parliament, and what not are those who have
the power to make laws, to regulate the relations between men,
and to force obedience to these laws. They are those
who decide upon and claim the taxes and force military service,
judge and punish transgressions of the laws. They subject men

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to regulations, and supervise and sanction private contracts. They monopolize
certain branches of production and public services, or if they
wish all production and public service. They promote or hinder
the exchange of goods. They make war or peace with
the governments of other countries. They concede or withhold free trade,

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and many things else. In short, the governors are those
who have the power, in a greater or less degree,
to make use with the collective force of society. That is,
of the physical, intellectual, and economic force of all, to
oblige each to do this said governor's wish, And this
our constitutes, in our opinion, the very principle of government,

(03:04):
the principle of authority. But what reason is there for
the existence of government? Why abdicate one's own liberty, one's
own initiative in favor of other individuals? Why give them
the power to be the masters with or contrary to
the wish of each, to dispose of the forces of

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all in their own way? Are the governors such very
exceptionally gifted men as to enable them, with some show
of reason, to represent the masses and act in the
interest of all men better than all men would be
able to do for themselves. Are they so infallible and
incorruptible that one can confide to them with any semblance

(03:48):
of prudence the fate of each and all, trusting to
their knowledge and their goodness. And even if their existed
men of infinite goodness and knowledge, even if we assume
what has never been verified in history, and what we
believe it would be impossible to verify, namely, that the
government might devolve upon the ablest and best. Would the

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possession of governmental power add anything to their beneficent influence,
would it not rather paralyze or destroy it? For those
who govern find it necessary to occupy themselves with things
which they do not understand, and above all, to waste
the greater part of their energy in keeping themselves in power,
striving to satisfy their friends, holding the discontented in check,

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and mastering the rebellious. Again, be the governors good or bad,
wise or ignorant, who is it that appoints them to
their office? Do they impose themselves by right of war, conquest,
or revolution? Then what guarantees have the public that their
rulers have the general good at heart? In this case

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it is simply a question of usurpation. And if the
subjects are discontented, nothing is left to them but to
throw off the yoke by an appeal to alms. Are
the governors chosen from a certain class or party, then
certainly the ideas and interests of that class or party
will triumph, and the wishes and interests of the others

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will be sacrificed. Are they elected by universal suffrage? Now
numbers are the sole criterion, and numbers are certainly no
proof of reason, justice, or capacity and the universal suffrage.
The elected are those who know best how to take
in the masses. The minority, which may happen to be

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half minus one, is sacrificed, and that without considering that
there is another thing to take into account. Experience has
shown it is impossible to hit upon an electoral system
which really ensures election by the actual majority. Many and
various are the theories by which men have sought to

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justify the existence of government. All, however, are founded confessedly
or not, on the assumption that the individuals of a
society have contrary interests, and that an external superior power
is necessary to oblige some to respect the interests of others,
by prescribing and imposing a rule of conduct according to

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which the interests that strive may be harmonized as much
as possible, and according to which each obtains the maximum
of satisfaction with the minimum of sacrifice. If, say the
theorists of the authoritarian school, the interests, tendencies, and desires
of an individual are in opposition to those of another individual,

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or may have all society, who will have the right
and the power to oblige the one to respect the
interests of the others, who will be able to prevent
the individual citizen from offending the general will. The liberty
of each, say they has for its limit the liberty
of others. But who will establish those limits and who

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will cause them to be respected? The natural antagonism of
interests and passions creates the necessity for government and justifies authority.
Authority intervenes as moderator of the social strife and defines
the limits of the rights and duties of each. This
is a theory, But the theory to be sound ought

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to be based upon facts and to explain them. We
know well how in social economy theories are too often
invented to justify facts, that is, to defend privilege and
cause it to be accepted tranquility by those who are
its victims. Let us here look at the facts themselves.
In all the course of history, as at the present epoch,

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government is either the brutal, violent, arbitrary domination of the
few over the many, or it is an instrument ordained
to secure domination and privilege to those who, by force
or cunning or inheritance, have taken to themselves all the
means of life, and, first and foremost the soil whereby

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they hold the people in servitude, making them work for
their advantage. Governments oppress mankind in two ways, either directly
by brute force, that is, physical violence, or indirectly by
depriving them of the means of subsistence and thus reducing
them to helplessness at discretion. Political power originated in the

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first method. Economic privilege arose from the second. Governments can
also oppress man by acting on his emotional nature, and
in this way constitute religious authority. But there is no
reason for the propagation of religious superstitions except that they
defend and consolidate political and economic privileges. In primitive society,

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when the world was not so densely populated as now,
and social relations were less complicated. When any circumstance prevented
the formation of habits and customs of solidarity or destroyed
those which already existed, and established the domination of man
over man, the two powers, the political and the economical,
were united in the same hands, and often also in

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those of one single individual. Those who had by force
conquered and impoverished the others constrained them to become their
servants and perform all things for them according to their caprice.
The victors were at once proprietors, legislators, kings, judges, and executioners.

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But with the increase of population, with the growth of needs,
with the complication of social relationships, the prolonged continuance of
such despotism became impossible. For their own security, the rulers,
often much against their will, were obliged to depend upon
a privileged class, that is, a certain number of so

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interested individuals, and were also obliged to let each of
these individuals provide for its own sustenance. Nevertheless, they reserved
to themselves the supreme or ultimate control. In other words,
the rulers reserved to themselves the right to exploit all
at their own convenience, and so to satisfy their kingly vanity. Thus,

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private wealth was developed under the shadow of the ruling power,
for its protection, and often unconsciously, as its accomplice. Thus
the class of proprietors arose, and they, concentrating little by
little the means of wealth in their own hands, all
the means of production, the very fountains of life, agriculture, industry,

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and exchange, ended by becoming a power in themselves. This power,
by the superiority of its means of action and the
great mass of interests it embraces, always ends by more
or less openly so abjugating the political power, that is,
the government, which it makes its policemen. This phenomenon has

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been reproduced often in history. Every time that, by invasion
or any military enterprise, whatever physical brute force, has taken
the upper handed society, the conquerors have shown the tendency
to concentrate government and property in their own hands. In
every case, however, as the government cannot attend to the

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production of wealth and overlook and direct everything, it finds
it needful to conciliate, a powerful class and private property
is again established. With it comes a division of the
two sorts of power, that of the persons who control
the collective force of society, and that of the proprietors,
upon whom these governors become essentially dependent, because the proprietors

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command the sources of the said collective force. But never
has this state of things been so accentuated as in
modern times. The development of production, the immense extension of commerce,
the extensive power that money has acquired, and all the
economic results flowing from the discovery of America, the invention

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of machinery, et cetera, have secured such supremacy to the
capitalist class that it is no longer content to trust
to the support of the government, and has come to
wish that the government shall emanate from itself. A government
composed of members of its own class, continually under its control,
and especially organized to defend its class against the possible

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revenge of the disinherited. Hence the origin of the modern
parliamentary system. To day, the government is composed of proprietors
or people of their class, so entirely under their influence
that the richest of them do not find it necessary
to take an active part in it themselves. Roath Shield,

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for instance, does not need to be either MP or minister.
It is enough for him to keep MPs and ministers
dependent upon himself. In many countries the proletariat participates nominally
more or less in the election of the government. This
is a concession which the bourgeois, that is, proprietory class

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have made, either to avail themselves of popular support in
the strife against royal or aristocratic power, or to divert
the attention of the people from their own emancipation by
giving them an apparent share in political power. However, whether
the bourgeoisie foresaw it or not when first they conceded

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to the people the right to vote, the fact is
that the right has proved in reality a mockery, serving
only to consolidate the power of the bourgeois, while giving
to the most energetic only of the proletariat the illusory
hope of arriving at power. So, also with universal suffrage,
we might say, especially with universal suffrage, the god government

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has remained the servant and police of the bourgeois class.
How could it be otherwise. If the government should reach
the point of becoming hostile, if the hope of democracy
should ever be more than the delusion deceiving the people,
the proprietary class, menaced in its interests, would at once rebel,
and would use all the force and influence which come

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from the possession of wealth to reduce the government to
the simple function of acting as policemen. In all times
and in all places. Whatever may be the name that
the government takes, whatever has been its origin or its organization,
its essential function is always that of oppressing and exploiting

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the masses, and of defending the oppressors and exploiters. Its principal,
characteristic and indispensable instruments are the bailiff and the tax collector,
the soldier, and the prison and to these are necessarily
added the time serving priest or teacher. The case may
be supported and protected by the government to render the

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spirit of the people servile and make them docile under
the yoke. Certainly, in addition to this primary business, to
this essential department of governmental action, other departments have been
added in the course of time. We even admit that never,
or hardly ever has a government been able to exist
in a country that was at all civilized without adding

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to its oppressing and exploiting functions others useful and indispensable
to social life. But this fact makes it nonetheless true
that government is in its nature oppressive and a means
of exploitation, and that its origin and position doom it
to be the defense and hotbed of a dominant class,

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Thus confirming and increasing the evils of domination. The government
assumes the business of protecting, more or less vigilantly the
life of citizens against direct and brutal attacks, acknowledges and
legalizes a certain number of rights and primitive usages and customs,

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without which it is impossible to live in society. It
organizes and directs certain public services, as the post preservation
and construction of roads, care of the public health, benevolent institutions, workhouses,
and such like, And it pleases it to opposes the
protector and benefactor of the poor and weak. But it

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is sufficient to notice how and why it fulfills these
functions to prove our point. The fact is that everything
the government undertakes, it is always inspired with the spirit
of domination and ordained to defend, enlarge, and perpetuate the
privileges of property and those classes of which government is

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the representative and defender. A government cannot rule for any
length of time without hiding its true nature behind the
pretense of generally utility. It cannot respect the lives of
the privilege without assuming the air of wishing to respect
the lives of all. It cannot cause the privileges of
some to be tolerated without appearing as the custodian the

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rights of everybody the law, and of course, those that
have made the law, that is, the government has utilized,
says Kopotkin, quote, the social sentiments of men, working into
them those precepts of morality which man has accepted, together
with arrangements useful to the minority the exploiters, and opposed

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to the interests of those who might have rebelled had
it not been for this show of a moral ground
end quote. A government cannot wish the destruction of the community,
for then it and the dominant class could not claim
their exploitation gained wealth. Nor could the government leave the
community to manage its own affairs, for then the people

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would soon discover that it the government was necessar from
no other end than to defend the proprietary class who
impoverish them, and would hasten to rid themselves of both
government and proprietary class. To day, in the face of
the persistent and menacing demands of the proletariat, governments show

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a tendency to interfere in their relations between employers and
work people. Thus they try to arrest the labor movement
and to impede with delusive reforms, the attempts of the
poor to take themselves that which is due to them, namely,
an equal share of the good things of life which
others enjoy. We must also remember that, on the one hand,

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the bourgeois, that is, the proprietary class make war among
themselves and destroy one another continually. And on the other hand,
the government, although composed of the bourgeois and acting as
their servant and protector, is still like every other servant
or protector, continually striving to emancipate itself and to domineer

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over its charge. Thus this seesaw game, this swaying between
conceding and withdrawing. This seeking allies among the people against
the classes, and among the classes against the masses, forms
the science of the governors and blinds the ingenious and phlegmatic,
who are always expecting that salvation is coming to them

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from on high. With all this, the government does not
change its nature. If it acts as regulator or guaranteur
of the rights and duties of each, it perverts the
sentiment of justice. It justifies wrong and punishes every act
which offends or menaces the privileges of the governors and proprietors.

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It declares just legal the most atrocious exploitation of the miserable,
which means a slow and continuous material and moral murder
perpetrated by those who have on those who have not. Again,
if it administras its public services, it always considers the
interests of the governors and proprietors, not occupying itself with

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the interests of the working masses, except in so far
as is necessary to make the masses willing to endure
their share of taxation. If it instructs, it fetters and
curtails the truth, and tends to prepare the minds and
harder the young to become either implacable tyrants or docile slaves,
according to the class to which they belong. In the

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hands of the government, everything becomes a means of exploitation.
Everything serves as a police measure, useful to hold the
people in check. And it must be thus. If the
life of mankind consists in strife between man and man,
naturally there must be conquerors and conquered, And the government,

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which is the prize of the strife, or is a
means of securing to the victors the results of their
victory and perpetuating those results, will certainly never fall to
those who have lost, whether the battle be on the
grounds of physical or intellectual strength, or in the field
of economics. And those who have fought to conquer, that is,
to secure to themselves better conditions than others can have

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to conquer privilege and add dominion to power, and have
attained the victory, will certainly not use it to defend
the rights of the vanquished, and to place limits to
their own power and to that of their friends and partisans.
The government or the state, if you will, as judge,
moderator of social strife, impartial administrator of the public interests,

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is a lie. It is an allusion, a utopia never
realized and never realizable. If in truth, the interests of
men must always be contrary to one another, If indeed
the strife between mankind has made laws necessary to human society,
and the liberty of the individual must be limited by

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the liberty of other individuals, then each one would always
seek to make his interests triumph over those of others.
Each would strive to enlarge his own liberty at the
cost of the liberty of others. And there would be government,
not simply because it was more or less useful to
the totality of the members of society to have a government,

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but because the conquerors would wish to secure to themselves
the fruits of victory. They would wish effectually to subject
the vanquished and relieve themselves of the trouble of being
always on the defensive, and they would appoint men specially
adapted to the business to act as police. Were this
is indeed actually the case, then humanity would be destined

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to perish amidst periodical contests between the tyranny of the
dominators and the rebellion of the conquered. But fortunately the
future of humanity is a happier one because the law
which governs it is milder. This law is a law
of solidarity. End of Section two