Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

22 / ANARCHISM
equality is by reason and not by vi olence. But the immediate tendency of the established
system is to persuade men that reason is impotent. The injustice of which they
complain is upheld by fo rce, and they are too easily induced by fo rce to attempt its
correction. All they endeavour is the partial correction of an injustice, wh ich education
tells them is necessary, but more powerful reason affirms to be tyrannical.
Force grew out of monopoly. It might accidentally have occurred among savages
whose appetites exceeded their supply, or whose passions were inflamed by the
presence of the object of their desire; but it would gradually have died away, as reason
and civilization advanced. Accumulated property has fixed its empire; and hencefo
rth all is an open contention of the strength and cunning of one party against the
strength and cunning of the other. In this case, the violent and premature struggles
of the necessitolls are undoubtedly an evil. They tend to defeat the very cause in the
sllccess of which they are most deeply interested; they tend to procrastinate the triumph
of truth. But the true crime is in the malevolent and partial propensities of
men, thinking only of themselves, and despising the emolument of others; and of
these the rich have their share.
The spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and the spirit offraud, these are
the immediate growth ofthe established system of property. They are alike hostile to
intellectual and moral improvement. The other vices of envy, malice and revenge are
their inseparable companions. In a state of society where men lived in the midst of
plenty, and where all shared alike the bounties of nature, these sentim ents would inevitably
expire. The narrow principle of selfishness would vanish. No man being
obliged to guard his little store, or provide with anxiety and pain fo r his restless
wants, each would lose his own individual existence in the thought of the general
good. No man would be an enemy to his neighbour, fo r they would have nothing fo r
which to contend; and of consequence philanthropy would resume the empire which
reason assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her perpetual anxiety about corporal
support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is congenial to her.
Each would assist the enquiries of all.
5. Jean Varlet: The Explosion (1794)
Jean Varlet (1764- 1837) was part of the Enrages, a revolutionary group active during tile
French Revolution that fo ught fo r the establishment of a direct democracy, where power
would reside in the people and their assemblies. As an opponent ofboth tile bourgeois republicanism
of the Girondists, and the revolutionmy dictatorship of tile Jacobins, Varlet suffered
imprisonment on several occasions. The following excerpts are from his pamphlet, "The Ex-