143 lines
6.6 KiB
Plaintext
143 lines
6.6 KiB
Plaintext
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Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice, and that socialism
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without liberty is slavery and brutality.
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- * -
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Everything that lives, does so under the categorical condition of
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decisively interfering in the life of someone else.
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- * -
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"The abolition of the Church and the State must be the first and
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indispensable condition of the true liberation of society; only after this
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can society be organised in another manner, but not from the top downwards
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and according to some ideal plan, dreamed up by a few sages and scholars,
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and certainly not by decrees issued by some dictatorial power or even by
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a national assembly elected by universal suffrage. As I have already
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shown, such a system would lead inevitably to the creation of a new state,
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and consequently to the formation of a governemental aristocracy, that is
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to say a whole class of individuals having nothing in common with the mass
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of the people, which would immediately begin to exploit and subdue that
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people in the name of the commonwealth or in order to save the State."
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- * -
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"God being master, man is the slave." M. Bakunin :God and the State
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"In common with all socialists, the anarchists hold that the
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private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time;
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that it is condemned to disappear: and that all requisites for
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production must, and will, become the common property of society,
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and be managed in common by the producers of wealth. And...they
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maintain that the ideal of the political organization of society is a
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condition of things where the functions of government are reduced to
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minimum....(and) that the ultimate aim of society is the reduction of
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the functions of government to nil--that is, to a society without
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government, to an-archy."
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- * -
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"[E]verything that lives, does so under the categorical condition
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of decisively interfering in the life of someone else....
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The worse it is for those who are so ignorant of the natural and
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social law of human solidarity that they deem possible or even
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desirable the absolute independence of individuals in regard to one
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another. To will it is to will the disappearance of society.... All men,
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even the most intelligent and strongest are at every instant of their
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lives the producers and the product. Freedom itself, the freedom of
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every man, is the ever-renewed effect of the great mass of physical.
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intellectual, and moral influonces to which this man is subjected by
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the people surrounding him and the environment in which he was
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born and in which he passed his whole life.
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To wish to escape this influence in the name of some . . . self-
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sufficient and absolutely egoistical freedom. is to aim toward non-
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being.
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To do away with this reciprocal influence is tantamount to
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death. And in demanding the freedom of the masses we do not intend
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to do away with natural influences to which man is subjected by
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individuals and groups. All we want is to do away with is factitious.
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legitimized influences. to do away with the privileges in exerting
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influence."
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"Juridically they are equal; but economically the worker is the
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serf of the capitalist . . . thereby the worker sells his person ant his
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liberty for a given time. The worker is in the position of a serf
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because this terrible threat of starvation which daily hangs over his
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head and over his family, will force him to accept any conditions
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imposed by the gainful calculations of the capitalist, the industrialist,
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the employer.... The worker always has the right to leave his
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employer, but has he the means to do so? No, he does it in order to
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sell himself to another employer. He is driven to it by the same
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hunger which forces him to sell himself to the first employer.
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"Thus the "worker's liberty . . . is only a theoretical freedom.
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lacking any means for its possible realization. ant consequently it is
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only a fictitious liberty. an utter falsehood. The truth is that the whole
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life of the worker is simply a continuous and dismaying succession of
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terms of serfdom--"voluntary from the juridical point of view but
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compulsory from an economic sense--broken up by momentarily brief
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interludes of freedom accompanied by starvation; in other words, it is
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real slavery"
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"Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-
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man? Then make sure that no one shall possess power."
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The State is the organized authority, domination, and power of
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the possessing classes over the masses\ldots{\em the most
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flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete negation of
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humanity}. It shatters the universal solidarity of all men on the
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earth, and brings some of them into association only for the
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purpose of destroying, conquering, and enslaving all the
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rest.\ldots This flagrant negation of humanity which constitutes
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the very essence of the State is, from the standpoint of the
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State, its supreme duty and its greatest virtue\ldots Thus, to
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offend, to oppress, to despoil, to plunder, to assassinate or
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enslave one's fellowman is ordinarily regarded as a crime. In
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public life, on the other hand, from the standpoint of
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patriotism, when these things are done for the greater glory of
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the State, for the preservation or the extension of its power, it
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is all transformed into duty and virtue\ldots This explains why
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the entire history of ancient and modern states is merely a
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series of revolting crimes; why kings and ministers, past and
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present, of all times and all countries---statesmen, diplomats,
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bureaucrats, and warriors---if judged from the standpoint of
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simply morality and human justice, have a hundred, a thousand
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times over earned their sentence to hard labor or to the gallows.
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There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no
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imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold
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plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily
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being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no
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other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so
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terrible: ``{\em for reasons of state}.''
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---Michael Bakunin, {Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism},
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- * -
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"Even if god really did exist, it would be necessary to abolish him"
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- * -
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"If you pull a sapling out of the ground, cut off all the leaves, and
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branches and make it into a club, you cannot expect to plant it back in
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the ground and have it grow into a beautifull tree..."
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Bakunin to Marx
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"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier
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if it is called `the People's Stick'."
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