Anarchy by Errico Malatesta - Section 3

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section three of anarchy. This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
or to volunteer, places at libervox dot org. Recording by
Anossimon Anarchy by Rico Mala Testa. One man has two
necessary fundamental characteristics, the instinct of his own preservation, without

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which no being could exist, and the instinct of the
preservation of his species, without which no species could have
been formed or have continued to exist. He is naturally
driven to defend his own existence and well being and
that of his offspring against every danger. In nature, living
beings find two ways of securing their existence and rendering

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it pleasanter The one is in individuals strife with the
elements and with other individuals of the same or different species.
The other is mutual support or co operation, which might
also be thiss scribed as association for strife against all
natural factors destructive to existence or to the development and

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well being of the associated. We do not need to
investigate in these pages, and we cannot, for lack of space,
what respective proportions in the evolution of the organic world.
These two principles of strife and cooperation take it will
suffice to note how co operation among men, whether forced

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or voluntary, has become the sole means of progress, of improvement,
or of securing safety, and how strife, relic of an
earlier stage of existence, has become thoroughly unsuitable as a
means of securing the well being of individuals, and produces
instead injury to all, both the conquerors and the conquered.

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The accumulated and transmitted experience of successive generations has taught
men that by uniting with other men, his preservation is
better secured and his well being increased. Out of this
same strife for existence carried on against surrounding nature and
against individuals of their own species, the social instinct has

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been developed among men and has completely transformed the conditions
of their life. Through cooperation, man has been enabled to
evolve out of animalism, has risen to great power, and
elevated himself to such a degree above the other animals
that metaphysical philosophers have believed it necessary to invent for
him an immaterial and immortal soul. Many concurrent causes have

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contributed to the formation of his social instinct, that, starting
from the animal basis of the instinct for the preservation
of the species has now become so extended and so
intense that it constitutes the essential element of man's moral nature. Man, however,
he evolved from inferior animal types, was a physically weak being,

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unarmed for the fight against carnivorous beasts. But he was
possessed of a brain capable of great development, and a
vocal organ able to express the various cerebral vibrations by
means of diverse sounds, and hands adapted to give the
desired form to matter. He must have very soon felt
the need and advantages of association with his fellows. Indeed,

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it may even be said that he could only rise
out of animalism when he became social and had acquired
the use of language, which is at the same time
a consequence and a potent factor of sociability. The relatively
scanty number of the human species rendered the strife for
existence between man and man even beyond the limits of association,

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less sharp, less continuous, and less necessary. At the same time,
it must have greatly favored the development of sympathetic sentiments
and have left time for the discovery and appreciation of
the utility of mutual support. In short, social life. Life
became the necessary condition of men's existence in consequence of

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his capacity to modify his external surroundings and adapt them
to his own wants by the exercise of his primeval
power in cooperation with a greater or less number of associates.
His desires have multiplied with the means of satisfying them
and have become needs, and division of labor has arisen
from men's methodical use of nature for his own advantage. Therefore,

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as now evolved, man could not live apart from his
fellows without falling back into a state of animalism. Through
the refinement of sensibility with the multiplication of social relationships,
and through habit impressed of a species by hereditary transmission.
For thousands of centuries, this need of social life, this

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interchange of thought and of affection between man and man,
has become a mode of being necessary for our organism.
It has been transformed into sympathy, friendship, and love, and
subsists independently of the material advantages that association procures. So
much is this the case that man will often face
suffering of every kind and even death for the satisfaction

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of these sentiments. The fact is that a totally different
character has been given to the strife for existence between
man and man and between the inferior animals, by the
enormous advantages that association gives to man, and by the
fact that his physical powers are altogether disproportionate to his
intellectual superiority over the beasts, so long as he remains isolated,

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by his possibility of associating with an ever increasing number
of individuals and entering into more and more intricate and
complex relationships, until he reaches association with all humanity, and finally,
perhaps more than all, by his ability to produce, working
in cooperation with others, more than he needs to live upon.

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It is evident that these causes, together with the sentiments
of affection derived from them, must give quite a peculiar
character to the struggle for existence among human beings, although
it is now known, and the researches of modern naturalists
bring us every day new proofs that co operation has
played and still plays a most important part in the

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development of the organic world. Nevertheless, the difference between a
human struggle for existence and that of the inferior animals
is enormous. It is in fact proportionate to the distance
separating man from the other animals. And this is none
the less true because of that Darwinian theory which the
bourgeois class have ridden to death, little suspecting the extent

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to which mutual cooperation has assisted in the development of
the lower animals. The lower animals fight, either individually or
more often in little, permanent or transitory groups, against all nature.
The other individuals of their own species, included. Some of
the more social animals, such as ends, bees, et cetera,

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associate together in the same anthill or beehive, but are
at war with or indifferent towards other communities of their
own species. Humans strive with nature, on the contrary, tends
always to broaden association among men, to unite their interests,
and to develop each individual's sentiments of affection towards all others,

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so that united they may conquer and dominate the dangers
of external nature by and for humanity. All strife directed
towards obtaining advantages independently of other men and in opposition
to them, contradicts the social nature of modern man, and
tends the leaded back to a more animal condition. Solidarity,

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that is, harmony of interests and sentiments, the sharing of
each in the good of all and of all. In
the good of each is the state in which alone
man can be true to his own nature and attain
to the highest development and happiness. It is the aim
towards which human development tends. It is the one great
principle capable of reconciling all present antagonisms in society otherwise irreconcilable.

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It causes the liberty of each to find not its limits,
but its complement, the necessary condition of its continual existence.
In the liberty of all, no man, says Michael bercunin quote,
can recognize his own human worth, nor, in consequence, realize
his full development. If he does not recognize the worth

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of his fellow men, and, in co operation with them,
realize his own development through them. No man can emancipate
himself unless at the same time he emancipates those around him.
My freedom is the freedom of all. For I am
not really free, free not only in thought, but indeed,

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if my freedom and my right do not find their
confirmation and sanction in the liberty and right of all men,
my equal, it matters much to me what all other
men are. For however independent I may seem, or may
believe myself to be by virtue of my social position,
whether as Pope, sire, emperor, or prime minister, I am,

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all the while the product of those who are the
least among men. If these are ignorant, miserable, or enslaved,
my existence is limited by their ignorance, misery, or slavery. I,
though an intelligent and enlightened man, am made stupid by
their stupidity, Though brave, and enslaved by their slavery. Though rich,

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tremble before their poverty. Though privileged, grow pale at the
thought of possible justice for them, I, who wish to
be free, cannot be so, because around me are men
who do not yet desire freedom, and not desiring it
become as opposed to me, the instruments of my oppression end. So, then,

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is the condition in which man can attain the highest
degree of security and of well being. Therefore, egoism itself,
that is, the exclusive consideration of individual interests, impels man
and human society towards solidarity. Or rather, egoism and altruism
consideration of the interests of others are united in this

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one sentiment, as the interest of the individual is one
with the interests of society. However, man could not pass
at once from animalism to humanity, from brutal strive between
man and man to the collective strife of all mankind
united in one brotherhood of mutual aid against external nature.

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Guided by the advantages that association and the consequent division
of labor offer, Man evolved towards solidarity. But his evolution
encountered an obstacle which led him and still leads him
away from his aim. He discovered that he could realize
the advantages of co operation, at least up to a
certain point, and for the material and primitive wants that

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then comprised all his needs, by making other men subject
to himself instead of associating on an equality with them. Thus,
the ferocious and antisocial instincts inherited from his pastial ancestry
again obtained the upper hand. He forced the weaker to
work for him, preferring to domineer over rather than to

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associate fraternally with his fellows. Perhaps also in most cases,
it was by exploiting the conquered in war that man
learned for the first time the benefits of association and
the help that can be obtained from mutual support. Thus,
it has come about that the establishment of the utility
of co operation, which ought to lead to the triumph

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of solidarity in all human concerns, has turned to the
advantage of private property and of government, in other words,
the exploitation of the labor of the many for the
sake of the privileged few. There has always been association
and cooperation, without which human life would be impossible, but

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it has been cooperation imposed and regulated by the few
in their own particular interest. From this fact arises a
great contradiction with which the history of mankind is filled.
On the one hand, we find the tendency to associate
and fraternize for the purpose of conquering and adapting the
external world to human needs and for the satisfaction of

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the human affections, while on the other hand, we see
the tendency to divide into as many separate and hostile
factions as there are different conditions of life. These factions
are determined, for instance, by geographical and ethnological conditions, by
differences in economic position, by privileges acquired by some and

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sought to be secured by others, or by suffering endured
with the ever recurring desire to rebel. The principle of
each for himself, that is, of war of all against all,
has come in the course of time to complicate, lead, astray,
and paralyze the war of all combined against nature for

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the common advantage of the human race, which could only
be completely successful by acting on the principle of all
for each and each for all. Great have been the
evils which humanity has suffered by this intermingling of domination
and exploitation with human association. But in spite of the
atrocious oppression to which the masses submit, or the misery, vice, crime,

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and degradation which oppression and slavery produce among the slaves
and their masters, and in spite of the hatreds, the
exterminating wars, and the antagonisms of artificially created interests, the
social instinct has survived and even developed, Having been always
in the necessary condition for successful combat against external nature,

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has therefore been the permanent cause of men's coming together,
and consequently of the development of their sympathetic sentiments. Even
the oppression of the masses has itself caused the oppressed
to fraternize among themselves. Indeed, it has been solely owing
to this feeling of solidarity more or less conscious and

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more or less widespread among the oppressed, that they have
been able to endure the oppression, and that man has
resisted the causes of death in his midst in the present.
The immense development of production, the growth of human needs
which cannot be satisfied except by the united efforts of
a large number of men in all countries. The extended

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means of communication, habits of travel, science, literature, commerce, even
war itself. All these have drawn and are still drawing
humans into a compact body, every section of which, closely
knit together, can find its satisfaction and liberty only in
the development and health of all other sections composing the whole.

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The inhabitant of Naples is as much interested in the
amelioration of the hygienic condition of the peoples on the
banks of the Ganges, from whence the cholera is brought
to him, as in the improvement of the sewerage in
his own town. The well being, liberty, or fortune of
the mountaineer lost among the precipices of the Apennines does

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not depend alone on the state of well being or
of misery in which the inhabitants of his own village live,
or even on the general condition of the Italian people,
but also on the condition of the workers in America
or Australia, on the discovery of a Swedish scientist, on
the moral and material conditions of the Chinese, on war
or peace in Africa. In short, it depends on all

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the great and small circumstance which affect the human being
in any spot whatever of the world. In the present
condition of society, the vast solidarity which unites all men
is in a great degree unconscious, since it arises spontaneously
from the friction of particular interests, while men occupy themselves
little or not at all with general interests. And this

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is the most evident proof that solidarity is the natural
law of human life, which imposes itself, so to speak,
in spite of all obstacles, and even those artificially created
by society as at present constituted. On the other hand,
the oppressed masses, never wholly resigned to oppression and misery,
who to day, more than ever show themselves ardent for justice,

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liberty and well being, are beginning to understand that they
cannot emancipate themselves except by uniting through solidarity with all
their oppressed and exploited over the whole world. And they
understand also that the indus dispensable condition of their emancipation
is the possession of the means of production, of the
soil and of the instruments of labor. And further, the

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abolition of private property. Science and the observation of social
phenomena show that this abolition would be of immense advantage
in the end, even to the privileged classes, if only
they could bring themselves to renounce the spirit of domination
and concur with all their fellow men in laboring for
the common good. Now, should the oppressed masses some day

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refuse to work for their oppressors, Should they take possession
of the soil and the instruments of labor and apply
them for their own use and advantage, and that of
all who work, Should they no longer submit to the
domination either of brute force or economic privilege. Should the
spirit of human fellowship and the sentiment of human solidarity,

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strengthened by common interests, grow among the people and put
an end to strive between nations, then what ground would
there be for the existence of a government private property
abolished government, which is its defender must disappear. Should it survive,
it would continually tend to reconstruct, under one form or another,

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a privileged and oppressive class. And the abolition of government
does not, nor cannot signify the doing away with human association.
Far otherwise, for that co operation, which to day is
enforced and directed to the advantage of the few, would
be free and voluntary, directed to the advantage of all.

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Therefore it would become more intense and efficacious. The social
instinct and the sentiment of solidarity would develop to the
highest degree, and every individual would do all in his
power for the good of others, as much for the
satisfaction of his own well understood intract as for the
gratification of a sympathetic sentiments. By the free association of all,

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a social organization would arise through the spontaneous grouping of
men according to their needs and sympathies, from the low
to the high, from the simple to the complex, starting
from the more immediate to arrive at the more distant
and general interests. This organization would have for its aim
the greatest good and fullest liberty to all. It would

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embrace all humanity in one common brotherhood, and would be
modified and improved as circumstances were modified and changed according
to the teachings of experience, this society of free men,
this society of friends, would be anarchy. End of Section three.