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

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ANARCHISM
What then is my property Nothing but what is in my power! To what property
al11 I entitled To every property to which I-empower myself. I give myself the right
of property in taking property to myself, or giving myselfthe proprietor's power, fu ll
power, empowerment ...
Not isolation or being alone, but society, is man's original state . Our existence
begins with the most intimate conjunction, as we are already living with our mother
before we breathe; when we see the light of the world, we at once lie on a human being's
breast again, her love cradles us in the lap, leads us in the push cart, and chains
us to her person with a thousand ties. Society is our state o! nature. And this is why,
the more we learn to feel ourselves, the connection that was formerly most intimate
becomes ever looser and the dissolution of the original society more unmistakable.
To have once again for herself the child that once lay under her heart, the 1110ther
must fe tch it from the street and from the midst of its playmates. The child prefers
the intercourse that it enters into with its fe llows to the society that it has not entered
into, but only been born in.
But the dissolution of society is intercourse or union. A society does assuredly
arise by union too, but only as a fixed idea arises by a thought. .. If a union has crystallized
into a society, it has ceased to be a coalition; for coalition is an incessant
self-uniting; it has be come a unitedness, come to a standstill, degenerated into a fixity;
it is-dead as a union, it is the corpse ofthe union or the coalition. i.e .. it is-society,
community. A striking example of this kind is fu rnished by the party ...
Revolution and insurrection must not be looked upon as synonymous. The former
consists in an overturning of conditions, of the established condition or status, lhe State
or society, and is accordingly a political or social act; the latter has indeed for its unavoidable
consequence a transformation of circumstances, yet does not start from it but from
men's discontent with themselves, is not an armed rising, but a rising of individuals, a
getting up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution
aimed at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged,
but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on "institutions." It is not a fight
against the established, since, if it prospers, the established collapses of itself; it is only a
working forth of me out of the established. lfl leave the established, it is dead and passes
into decay. Now, as my object is not the overthrow of an established order but my elevation
above it, my purpose and deed are not a political or social but (as directed toward
myself and my ownness alone) an egoistic purpose and deed.
The revolution commands one to make arrangements, the insurrection demands
that he rise or exalt himself. What constitution was to be chosen, this question busied