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1!J2. XROPOTKIN'S REVOLUTIONARY PAMPHLETS MODERN SCIENCE AND ANARCHISM I!J3 future steps of mankind on the road to liberty, equality, and fraternity, with a view to realizing the greatest sum of happiness for every unit of human society. It is the inevitable result of that natural-scientific, intellectual movement which began at the close of the eighteenth century, was hampered for half a century by the reaction that set in throughout Europe after the French Revolution, and has been appearing again in full vigor ever since the end of the fifties. Its roots lie in the natural-scientific philosophy of the century mentioned. Its complete scientific basis. however, it could receive only after that awakening of naturalism which brought into being the natural-scientific study of human social institutions. In anarchism there is no room for those pseudo-scientific laws with which the German metaphysicians of the first thirty years of the nineteenth century had to content themselves. Anarchism does not recognize any method other than the natural-scientific, and it applies this method to all the socalled humanitarian sciences. A vailing itself of this method as well as of all researches which have recently been called forth by it, anarchism endeavors to reconstruct all the sciences dealing with man and to revise every current idea of right and justice on the bases which have served for the revision of all natural sciences. Its object is to form a scientific concept of the universe embracing the whole of nature and including man. This world-concept determines the position anarchism has taken in practical life. In the struggle between the individual and the State, anarchism, like its predecessors of the eighteenth century, takes the side of the individual as against the State of society as against the authority which oppresses it. And availing itself of the historical data collected by modern science, t has shown that the State--whose sphere of authority there IS now a tendency among its admirers to increase, and a tendency to limit in actual life--is in reality a superstructure--as harmful as it is unnecessary, and for us Europeans of a comparatively recent origin. A superstructure in the interests of capitalism-agrarian, industrial, and financialwhich in ancient history caused the decay of politically free Rome and Greece, and which caused the death of all other despotic centers of civilization of the east and of Egypt. The power which was created for the purpose of welding together the interests of the landlord, the judge, the warrior, and the priest. and has been opposed throughout history to every attempt of mankind to create for themselves a more assured and freer mode of life,-this power cannot become an instrument for emancipation, any more than imperialism or the church can become the instrument for a social revolution. In the economic field anarchism has come to the conclusion that the root of modern evil lies not in the fact that the capitalist appropriates the profits or the surplus-value, but in the very possibility of these profits, which accrue only because millions of people have literally nothing to subsist upon without selling their labor-power at a price which makes profits and the creation of "surplus values" possible. Anarchism understands therefore that in political economy attention must be directed first of all to so-called "consumption:' and that the first concern of the revolution must be to reorganize that so as to provide food, clothing and shelter for all. "ProductiGn," on the other hand, must be so adapted as to satisfy this primary, fundamental need of society. Therefore anarchism cannot see in the next coming revolution a mere exchange of monetary symbols for labor-checks, or an exchange of present capitalism for state-capitalism. It sees in it the first step on the road to no-government communism. Whether or not anarchism is right ·in its conclusions will be shown by a scientific criticism of its bases and by the practical life of the future. But in one thing it is absolutely right: in that it has included the study of social institutions in the sphere of natural-scientific investigations; has forever parted company with metaphysics; and makes use of the method by which modern natural science and modern material.
1.94 KROPOTKIN'S REVOLUTIONARY PAMPHLETS ist phil phy were developed. Owing to this, the very mistakes which anarchIsm , may have made in its researches can be detected the more readily. But its conclusions can be verified onl ! by the s me natural.scientific, inductive method by whIch every SCIence and every scientific concept of the universe is created. NOTE FOR «LAW AND AUTHORITY" This brilliant little study of the origin of laws and their use in the world today goes to the heart of the anarchist contention that government can be abolished and society still survive. in freedom. Not only survive, but for the first time grow Private capitalism of course must go, too, for it is the root of the inequalities and privileges which governments protect. Weigh the good and evil of laws, and all will agree they do more harm than good. Kropotkin traces the origin of law, first in primitive superstitions, later in the decrees of conquerors. Our real laws by which most people live are not either of these, but the unwritten customs which antedate them, and which exist even among animals. Side by side with them are the written laws, respected only because they have roots in protection against the caprice of kings. heralded as. their basis, is a lie. character. But equality before the law, which is We now know their class They are confused in appearance by embodying two sets of control,--sodal custom and class advantage; not kill,-and pay your taxes"! "Do Most laws today have one of two objects,--either to pro tect private property, which means protecting the unjust appropriation of others' labor, or to keep up the machinery of government by which property is protected. of the person is a very insignificant function of law. crimes against the person are for robbery. Protection Most Repeal all laws protecting the person and crimes of vengeance or passion would not increase. As for the so-called "liberal" laws, examination will show that most of them merely repeal restrictions on a previous liberty. Abolition of all law through socializing property; social control through custom and education alone,-these are <strong>Kropotkin's</strong> arguments.
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COPyright, 1927, by VANGUARD PRESS,
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vi ROGER BALDWIN of sovereign equal
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THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT This brief and
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ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 47 ANARCHIST CO
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