Kropotkin - [ 1 ]

1. Kropotkin - [1] .. Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) - Anarchist ... [or is he?]

2. Kropotkin - [2] • Peter Kropotkin - The Conquest of Bread • Sees the enormous productive capacity of modern man • “While the hunter of old had to scour fifty or sixty square miles to find food for his family, the civilized man supports his household, with far less pains, and far more certainty, on a thousandth part of that space • “we see the coming of a time when artificial light also will be used to stimulate vegetation.” - anticipating hydroponic farming!) • But claims there’s a problem -- • - Problem: we could feed everybody rather than make a few rich. Why don’t we?? • “In our civilized societies we are rich. Why then are the many poor?” • His answer: They are robbed by the rich! • “ because all that is necessary for production - the land, the mines, the highways, machinery, food, shelter, education, knowledge - all have been seized by the few • in the course of all that long story of robbery, enforced migration and wars, of ignorance and oppression, • It is because, taking advantage of alleged rights acquired in the past, these few appropriate to-day two-thirds of the products of human labour, and then squander them in the most stupid and shameful way.” • “these few prevent the remainder of men from producing the things they need” • Each of the atoms composing what we call the Wealth of Nations owes its value to the fact that it is a part of the great whole. What would a London dockyard or a great Paris warehouse be if they were not situated in these great centres of international commerce?

3. Kropotkin - [3] • The Conquest of Bread • Things owe their value to society at large .... • “every new invention is a synthesis, the resultant of innumerable inventions which have preceded it in the vast field of mechanics and industry.” • By what right then can any one whatever appropriate the least morsel of this immense whole and say, “This is mine, not yours!”? • “all that enables man to produce and to increase his power of production has been seized by the few” • [Kropotkin isn’t interested in the fact that they bought those “means”; also that they invented them ... • the soil, which actually owes its value to the needs of an ever-increasing population, belongs to a minority who prevent the people from cultivating it • “The railways, which would be useless as so much old iron without the teeming population of Europe, its industry, its commerce, and its marts, belong to a few shareholders,” • the son of the worker, on entering life, finds no field ... no machine .. no mine in which he may dig, without accepting to leave a great part of what he will produce to a master. • He must sell his labour for a scant and uncertain wage. • “the worker is forced, under the name of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. • “Enterprise takes no thought for the needs of the community. • “All the nations evolve on the same lines, and wars, perpetual wars, break out for the right of precedence in the market.” • “Thus the consequences which spring from the original act of monopoly spread through the whole of social life.

4. Kropotkin - [4] • [Adam Smith: • “As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. • He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. ... by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. • Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. • It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

5. Kropotkin - [5] • The Conquest of Bread • All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth. • nobody has the right to seize a single one of these machines and say: "This is mine; if you want to use it you must pay me a tax on each of your products,” • If the man and the woman bear their fair share of the work, they have a right to their fair share of the work, they have a rght to their fair share of all that is produced by all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being. • No more of such vague formulas as “The right to work” or “To each the whole result of his labour.” • What we proclaim is THE RIGHT TO WELL-BEING: WELL-BEING FOR ALL! • K’s Arguments: • 1. We can’t trace individual input to any useful made thing • 2. So everything belongs to everyone equally • 3. Everyone does “a fair share of the work” - so everyone is entitled to “enough for well-being”

6. Kropotkin - [6] • K’s definition of Anarchism: • ANARCHISM (from the Gr. an and archos, contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. • - Why are these “agreements” between “groups”?? • (who would negotiate for a given “group”? • What individuates groups for this purpose? • all the auto workers? all the Ford workers? all the capitalists? just the bankers? ... who? • [cf. K: “an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national and international temporary or more or less permanent”] • “- harmony would (it is contended) result from an ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium between the multitudes of forces and influences, and this adjustment would be the easier to obtain as none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the state.

7. Kropotkin - [7] • Kropotkin’s definition of Anarchism (continued) • “He would be guided in his actions by his own understanding, which necessarily would bear the impression of a free action and reaction between his own self and the ethical conceptions of his surroundings. • “He would thus be able to reach full individualization, which is not possible either under the present system of individualism, or under any system of state socialism in the so-called Volkstaat (popular state).” • the anarchists, in common with all socialists, of whom they constitute the left wing, maintain that • the now prevailing system of private ownership in land, and our capitalist production for the sake of profits, • represent a monopoly which runs against both the principles of justice and the dictates of utility.

8. Kropotkin - [8] • “The anarchists consider the wage-system and capitalist production altogether as an obstacle to progress.” • But they point out also that the state was, and continues to be, the chief instrument for permitting the few to monopolize the land, • The state organization, having always been, both in ancient and modern history (Macedonian Empire, Roman Empire, modern European states grown up on the ruins of the autonomous cities), the instrument for establishing monopolies in favour of the ruling minorities • True progress lies in the direction of decentralization, both territorial and functional, in the development of the spirit of local and personal initiative, and of free federation from the simple to the compound, in lieu of the present hierarchy from the centre to the periphery. • K. remarks on Zeno’s conception of “ a free community without government [as opposed to] to the state-utopia of Plato. • He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual - • remarking already that, while the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads man to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct - that of sociability. • When men are reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will unite across the frontiers and constitute the cosmos.

9. Kropotkin - [9] • Other Anarchists and anarchisms (in the words of Kropotkin) • Godwin (1756 –1836): A society can perfectly well exist without any government: only the communities should be small and perfectly autonomous. • Speaking of property, he stated that the rights of every one 'to every substance capable of contributing to the benefit of a human being' must be regulated by justice alone: the substance must go 'to him who most wants it'. • His conclusion was communism. • Max Stirner (1904 advocated, not only a complete revolt against the state and against the servitude which authoritarian communism would impose upon men, but also the full liberation of the individual from all social and moral bonds - the rehabilitation of the 'I', the supremacy of the individual, complete 'amoralism', and the 'association of the egotists'. • Kropotkin comments on Individualism: • The final conclusion of that sort of individual anarchism [is] that the aim of all superior civilization is, not to permit all members of the community to develop in a normal way, but to permit certain better endowed individuals 'fully to develop', even at the cost of the happiness and the very existence of the mass of mankind. • It is thus a return towards the most common individualism, advocated by all the would-be superior minorities, to which indeed man owes in his history precisely the state and the rest, which these individualists combat.

10. Kropotkin - [10] • Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) • Bakunin described himself, as a 'collectivist anarchist' - • a state of things in which all necessaries for production are owned in common by the labour groups and the free communes, • while the ways of retribution of labour, communist or otherwise, would be settled by each group for itself. • Social revolution, the near approach of which was foretold at that time by all socialists, would be the means of bringing into life the new conditions. • Benjamin R. Tucker (1854 –1939) • Starting from the statement that anarchists are egotists [argued for] equal liberty for all and absolute equality ought to be the law, and • 'mind every one your own business' is the unique moral law of anarchism • a general and thorough application of these principles would be beneficial and would offer no danger, because the powers of every individual would be limited by the exercise of the equal rights of all others.

11. Kropotkin - [11] • Kropotkin comments: “Tucker thus follows Spencer, and, like him, opens (in the present writer's opinion) the way for reconstituting under the heading of 'defence' all the functions of the state. His criticism of the present state is very searching, and his defence of the rights of the individual very powerful. “ • The individualist anarchism of the American Proudhonians finds, however, but little sympathy amongst the working masses. • that free, or anarchist-communism is the only form of communism that has any chance of being accepted in civilized societies; communism and anarchy are therefore two terms of evolution which complete each other, the one rendering the other possible and acceptable. • Leo Tolstoy took the anarchist position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of the teachings of the Christ and from the necessary dictates of reason. • With all the might of his talent he made a powerful criticism of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially of the present property laws. • He describes the state as the domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government.

12. Kropotkin - [12] • Two kinds of Anarchism: “socialist” and “capitalist” • [see Narveson, “The Anarchist’s Case” [on my website as “The Anarchist’s Argument” - see ‘Essays’] • Socialist: renounces the market as the value-setting mechanism; effectively denies property rights, especially in regard to capital (that is, productive resources) • Capitalist: accepts the market for that purpose - i.e., insists on property rights in capital as well as consumer goods • On socialist anarchism: • - Essentially a contradiction in terms .. says (1) everyone is to be free, but (2) not in respect of owning and using things.... • People vary enormously • they don’t naturally share Kropotkin’s (and the other socialist anarchists) • lack of understanding of economics • individuals really do differ • their contributions are measured by the demand of particular other individuals • - not “society” indiscriminately • - thus, free exchange is the only rational mode of social cooperation

13. Kropotkin - [13] • Reminder: David Hume on Equality • Nevertheless, on reflection, "historians, and even common sense, may inform us that, however specious these ideas of perfect equality may seem, • they are really at bottom impracticable; and • were they not so, would be extremelyperniciousto human society: • (1) Render possessions ever so equal, men's different degrees of art, care, and industry will immediately break that equality. • (2) Or if you check these virtues, you reduce society to the most extreme indigence and, instead of preventing want and beggary in a few, render it unavoidable to the whole community" • – sagaciously adds that • (3) The most rigorous inquisition, too, is requisite to watch every inequality on its first appearance; and the most severe jurisdiction to punish and redress it ... so much authority must soon degenerate into tyranny ...” • [All these are amply demonstrated in every communist country]

14. Kropotkin - [14] • [You can make a good thing out of talking like Kropotkin... • [contemporary near-example: Peter Singer...] • But: who does more for the poor: the benevolent, or the profit-seekers?? • [consider contemporary “Communist” China - half a billion people were elevated from extreme poverty to near-middle class status just by freeing up investment - • which created many millionaires as well ...] • [see also Narveson, “Wealth and Welfare, Poverty and Justice in Today’s World” (also on my website)]

15. Bastiat on The State - [15] • Bastiat begins by offering a prize for an intelligent definition of ‘The State’ • - a “mysterious personage” • - who credits amazing powers to it - notably that of creating Utopias ... • They propose all sorts of things .. • for ths “beneficent and inexhaustible being, calling itself the State, which has bread for all mouths, work for all hands, capital for all enterprises, credit for all projects, oil for all wounds, balm for all sufferings, advice for all perplexities, solutions for all doubts, truths for all intellects ...” • then object vigorously to the idea of instituting taxes to pay for them!

16. Bastiat on The State - [16] • As, on the one hand, • (1) we are all making some similar request to the State; • and as, on the other, • (2) it is proved that the State cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labor of the others, • - until I can obtain another definition of the word State I feel authorized to give it my own. Who knows but it may obtain the prize? • Here it is: • The State is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

17. Bastiat on The State - [17] • What are we to think of a people who never seem to suspect that reciprocal plunder is no less plunder because it is reciprocal; that it is no less criminal because it is executed legally and with order; that it adds nothing to the public good ... • In fact, the State is not maimed, and cannot be so. It has two hands, one to receive and the other to give; in other words, it has a rough hand and a smooth one. The activity of the second necessarily subordinate to the activity of the first. • You see that the gentle hand of the State, that good hand which gives and distributes, will be very busy under the government of the reformers. (!)

18. Bastiat on The State - [18] • For ourselves, we consider that State is and ought to be nothing whatever but • the united power of the people, organized, • not to be an instrument of oppression and mutual plunder among citizens; • but, on the contrary, to secure to every one his own, and to cause justice and security to reign. • [note: of course, those things cost money, too... • so our question: is compulsory acquisition of people’s money to protect them any more justifiable than to do all those other things? • Can anything done by the State not be “plunder”? ...]