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

Revolutionary Ideas And Action / 47
air of honourable loyalty before the sheriffs officer who meets him, in order to conceal
an illegality that may have been committed, etc. He who has not done it has
simply let violence be done to him; he was a weakling from-conscience. I know that
my freedom is diminished even by my not being able to carry out my will on another
object, be this other something without will, like a rock, or something with will, like
a government, an individual; I deny my ownness when-in the presence of another-I
give myself up, i.e., give way, desist, submit; therefore by loyalty, submission.
For it is one thing when I give up my previous course because it does not lead to the
goal, and therefore turn out of a wrong road; it is another when I yield myself a prisoner.
I get around a rock that stands in my way, till I have powder enough to blast it; I
get around the laws of a people, till I have gathered strength to overthrow them ...
I do not demand any right, therefore I need not recognize any either. What I can
get by force I get by fo rce, and what I do not get by force I have no right to, nor do I
give myself airs, or consolation, with my imprescriptible right.
With absolute right, right itself passes away; the dominion of the "concept of
right" is cancelled at the same time. For it is not to be fo rgotten that hitherto concepts,
ideas, or principles ruled us, and that among these rulers the concept of right,
or of justice, played one of the most important parts.
Entitled or unentitled-that does not concern me, if I am only powerful, I am of
myself empowered, and need no other empowering or entitling.
Right-is a wheel in the head, put there by a spook; power-that am I myself, I
am the powerful one and owner of power. Right is above me, is absolute, and exists
in one higher, as whose grace it flows to me: right is a gift of grace from the judge;
power and might exist only in me the powerful and mighty ...
The fight of the world today is, as it is said, directed against the "established."
Yet people are wont to misunderstand this as if it were only that what is now established
was to be exchanged fo r another, a better, established system. But war might
rather be declared against establishment itself, the State, not a particular State, not
any such thing as the mere condition of the State at the time; it is not another State
(e.g., a "people's State") that men aim at, but their union, uniting, this ever-fluid uniting
of everything standing.-A State exists even without my co-operation: I am born
in it, brought up in it, under obligations to it, and must "do it homage." It takes me
up into its "favour," and I live by its "grace." Thus the independent establishment of
the State founds my lack of independence; its condition as a "natural growth," its organism,
demands that my nature not grow freely, but be cut to fit it. That it may be
able to unfold in natural growth, it applies to me the shears of "civilization"; it gives