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

48 / ANARCHISM
me an education and culture adapted to it, not to me, and teaches me e.g., to respect
the laws, to refrain from injury to State property (i.e., private property) , to reverence
divine and earthly highness, etc.; in short, it teaches me to be-unpunishable, "sacrificing"
my own ness to "sacredness" (everything possible is sacred; e.g., property, others'
lives, etc.,). In this consists the sort of civilization and culture that the State is
able to give me: it brings me up to be a "serviceable instrument," a "serviceable member
of society."
... The State always has the sole purpose to limit, tame, subordinate, the individual-to
make him subject to some generality or other; it lasts only so long as the
individual is not all in all, and it is only the clearly marked restriction of me, my limitation,
my slavery. Never does a State aim to bring in the free activity of individuals, but
always that which is bound to the purpose of the State. Through the State nothing ill
common comes to pass either, as little as one can call a piece of cloth the common
work of all the individual parts of a machine; it is rather the work of the whole machine
as a unit, machine work. In the same style everything is done by the State maciJine
too; fo r it moves the clockwork of the individual minds, none of which follow
their own impulse. The State seeks to hinder every free activity by its censorship, its
supervision, its police, and holds this hindering to be its duty, because it is in truth a
duty of self-preservation. The State wants to make something out of man, therefore
there live in it only made men; every one who wants to be his own self is its opponent
and is nothing. "He is nothing" means as much as, the State does not make use of
him, grants him no position, no office, no trade, etc.
-.,The best State ,vi!! clearly be that \vhich has the most loyal Litizens, and the
more the devoted mind for legality is lost, so much the more will the State, this system
of morality, this moral life itself, be diminished in force and quality. With the
"good citizens" the good State too perishes and dissolves into anarchy and lawlessness.
"Respect for the law!" By this cement the totality of the State is held together.
"The law is sacred, and he who affronts it a criminal." Without crime no State: the
moral world-[which] the State is-is crammed full of scamps, cheats, liars, thieves,
etc. Since the State is the "lordship oflaw," its hierarchy, it follows that the egoist, in
all cases where his advantage runs against the State's, can satisfY himself only by
crime ...
Proudhon wants not the proprietaire but the possesseur or usufruitier. What does
that mean He wants no one to own the land; but the benefit of it-even though one
were allowed only the hundredth part of this benefit, this fruit-is at any rate one's
property, which he can dispose of at will. He who has only the benefit of a field is as-