You can say that, broadly speaking, the exchange value of goods grows if the quantity of necessary work is greater. This IS how Adam Smith expressed himself; but then he was wise enough to add that under capitalist production the proportion- ality between exchange value and the amount of necessary labour exists no moi-e. But to jump to the conclusion that consequently the two quantities are proportional, that one is the measure of the other, and that this is a law of Economics, is a gross error. As gross as to affirm, for example, that the quantity of rain that is going to fall to-morrow will be proportional to the quantity of millimetres that the barometer will have fallen below the average established at a certain place in a certain season.
The man who first remarked that there was a correlation between the lower level of the barometer and the quantity of rain that falls — the man who first remarked that a stone falling from a great height has acquired a greater velocity than a stone that has only fallen one yard, made scientific discoveries. That is what Atktm Smith did as regards Value. But the man who would coHie after such a general remark has been made, and affirm that the quantity of rain fallen is measured by the quantity the barometer has fallen below the average, or else, that the space traversed by a falling stone is proportional to the duration of the fall and is measured by it, would be talking nonsense.' Besides, he would prove that scientific methods of reseafch are absolutely strange to him. Ho would prove that his writings are not scientific, however full of words borrowed fr-'m scientific jargon. But this was exactly what was done by thos.- v\ ho made t»ie above-mentioned affirmation about Value.
76 Modei^'n Science atid Anarchism.
It must be noticed that if the absence of exact numerical data be alleged as an excuse for the superficial dealing with economic matters of which we spoke previously — this is no excuse at all.
In the domain of exact sciences we know very many cases where two quantities depend upon each other, so that if one of them increases, the other increases as well — and yet we know that they are not proportional to each other. The rapidity of growth of a plant certainly depends, among other causes, upon the quantity of heat it obtains. Both the height of the sun above the horizon and the average temperature of every separate day (deduced from many years' observations) increase every day after March 22. The recoil of a gun increases when we increase the quantity of powder in the cartridge. And so on.
But where is the man of science who, after having noticed these relations, would conclude that consequently the rapidity of growth of the plant and the quantity of heat it receives, the height of the sun above the horizon and the average daily temperature, the recoil of the gun and the quantity of powder m the cartridge are proportional? that, if one of the two increases twice, or thrice, the other will increase at the same ratio? in other words, that the one is the measure of the other? A man of science knows that thousands of other relations, besides that of proportionality, may exist between the two quantities; and unless he has made a number of measurements which prove that such a relation of simple proportionality exists, nobody will ever dare to make such an affirmation.
Yet this is what economists do, when they say that labour is the measure of value! Worse than that, they even do not see that they only make a mere suggestion, a guess. They boldly affirm that their affirmation is a Law; they even do not under- stand the need of verifying it by measurements.
In reality, the relations between such quantities as the growth of a plant and the heat it receives, the quantity of powder burned and the recoil of a gun, etc., are too complicated to be expressed by a mere arithmetical proportion. And this is also the case with the relation between Labour and Value. Value in exchange and the necessary Labour are not proportional to each other; Labour is not the measure of Value, and Adam Smith had already noticed it. After having begun by stating it was, he soon noticed that this was true only in the tribal stage of mankind. Under the capitalist system, value in exchange is measured no more by the amount of necessary labour. Many Modern Science and Anarchisin. 77 other factors come in in a capitalist society, so as to alter the simple relation that may have existed once between labour and exchange value. But modern economists take no heed of that: they go on repeating what Ricardo wrote in the first half of the nineteenth century.
The same remark which we make concerning Value applies to most of the assertions that are made by the economists and the so-called " scientific Socialists," who continually represent their guesses as "natural laws." Xot only do we maintain that most of these would-be " laws " are not correct, but we are certain that those who believe in such "laws" would themselves recognise their mistake as soon as they would realise, as natural- ists do, the necessity of submitting every numerical, quantitative statement to a numerical, quantitative test.
All Political Economy takes, in an Anarchist's view, an aspect quite different from the aspect given to it by the econo- mists, who, being unaccustomed to use the scientific, inductive method, even do not realise what a "natural law" is, although they very much like to use this expression. They even do not notice the conditional character of all so-called natural "laws."
In fact, every natural law always means this: — "//"such and such conditions are at work, the result will be this and that. — IJ a straight line crosses another line, so as to make equal angles on both its sides at the crossing point, the consequences will be such and such. — // those movements only which go on in the inter- stellar space act upon two bodies, and there is not, at a distance which is not infinitely great, a third, or a fourth body acting upon the two, then the centres of gravity of these two bodies will begin to move towards each other at such a speed " (this is the law of gravitation). And so on.
Always, there is an if — a condition to be fulfilled.
Consequently, all the so-called laws and theories of political economy are nothing but assertions of the following kind: — " Supposing that there always are in a given country a considerable number of people who cannot exist one month, or even one fortnight, without earning a salary and accepting for that purpose the conditions which the State will impose upon them (in the shape of taxes, land-rent, and so on), or those which will be oJBFered to them by those whom the State recognises as owners of the soil, the factories, the railways, etc. — such and such consequences will follow."
Up till now, the academic economists have always simply 78 Modern Science and Anarchism.
enumerated what happens under such conditions, without specifying and analysing the conditions themselves. Even if they were mentioned, they were forgotten immediately, to be spoken of no more.
This is bad enough, but there is in their teachings something worse than that. The economists lepresent the facts which result from these conditions as laws — as /atal, immutable laws. And they call that Science.
As to the Socialist political economists, they criticise, it is true, some of the conclusions of the academical economists, or they explain differently certain facts; but all the time they also forget the just-mentioned conditions and give to the economic facts of a given epoch too much stability, by representing them as natural laws. None of them has yet traced his own way in economic science. Tlie most that was done (by Marx in his "Capital") was to take the metaphysical definitions of the academical economists, like Ricardo, and to say: " You see, even if we take your own definitions, we can prove that the capitalist exploits the worker! " Which sounds very nice in a pamphlet, but is very far from being Economic Science.
Altogether, we think that to become a science. Political Economy has to be built up in a different way. It must be treated as a natural science, and use the methods used in all exact, empirical sciences; and it must trace for itself a different aim. It must take, with regard to human societies, a position analogous to that which is occupied by Physiology with regard to plants and animals. It must be a Physiology of Society.
Its aim must be the study of the ever-growing sum of needs of society, and the means used — both formerly and nowaday — for satisfying them. It must see how far these means were, and are now, suitable for the aims that are kept in view. And then — the purpose of each science being prediction and application to the demands of practical life (Bacon said so long since) — Political Economy must study the means of best satisfying the present and future needs with t]i,e least expenditure of eriCrgy (with economy)^ and with the best results for mankind altogether.
It is thus evident why our conclusions are so different in many respects from those arrived at by the economists, both academic and Social Democratic; why we do not consider as " laws " certain " correlations " indicated by them; why our exposition of Socialism is so different from theirs; and why we Modern Science and Anarchism. 79 draw from the study of the tendencies of modern econoroic life conclusions so different from their conclusions as regards what is desirable and possible; in other words, why we come to Free Communism, while they come to State Capitalism and the Collectivist Wage System.
It is possible that we are wrong, and they are right. But the question as to which of us is right, and which wrong, cannot be settled by means of Byzantine commentaries as to what such or such a writer intended to say, or by talking about what agrees with the "trilogy" of Hegel; most certainly not by continuing to use the dialectic method.
It can be done only by studying the facts of Economics in the same way and by the same methods as we study natural sciences.* By using still the same method, the Anarchist comes to his * The following few abstracts from the letter of a well-known biologist, a Belgian professor, which I received while I was reading the proofs of the French edition of this work, will better explain Avhat is meant by the above lines; the passages in straight brackets [...] are added by me: — "In proportion as I advance in the reading of 'Fields, Factories, and Workshops,' I become more and more convinced that henceforward the study of economic and social questions will only be accessible to those who have studied natural sciences and are imbued with the spirit of these sciences. Those who have received the so-called classical education only are incapable of understanding the present movement of ideas, and are equally incapable of studying quite a number of special questions.
" The idea of integration of labour, and of the division of labour in time [that is, the idea that it would be advantageous for society if every one could work alternately in agriculture, industry, and intellectual pursuits, in order to vary his work and to develop his iudividuality in all directions], is sure to become one of the corner-stones of economic science. There is a mass of biological facts which are in accordance with the above underlined idea, which show that this is a law of Nature [in other words, that in Nature an economy of energy is often obtained by this means]. If we examine the vital functions of a living being during the different stages of its existence, or even during different seasons, and in some cases during different hours of the day, we find an application of that division of labour in time, which is intimately connected with division of labour between the organs (Adam Smith's law).
" Men of science unacquainted with natural sciences are incapable of umlerstanding the real scope of a Law in Nature; they are blinded by the mere word law, and they imagine that a law, like that of Adam Smith, has a fatal force from which it is impossible to escape. When they are shown the other side of this law — i.e., its deplorable results from the point of view of individual development and happiness — they reply: 'This law is inexorable,' and very often this reply is given with a sharp intonation which shows a feeling of infallibility. But the naturalist knows very well that science knows how to;iiinul the bad effects of a F 80 Modern Science and Anarchism.
own conclusions as regards the different political forms of society, and especially the State. We are not impressed in the least by assertions such as the following: " The State is the affirmation of the idea of supreme Justice in Society," or "The State is the Instrument and the Bearer of Progress," or "Without State — no Society."
True to our method, we study the State with the same disposition of mind as if we studied a society of ants or bees, or of birds which have come to nest on the shores of an Arctic lake or sea. To repeat here the conclusions we have come to in consequence of such studies, would be needless. We would have to repeat what has been said by Anarchists from the times of Godwin till the present day, and which can be found with all necessary developments in a number of books and pamphlets.
Suffice it for our purpose to say that for our European civilisation (the civilisatioh of the last fifteen hundred years, to which civilisation we belong) the State is a form of society that was developed only since the sixteenth century, and this under the influence of a series of causes which one will find mentioned, for instance, in my essay, " The State: its Historic Role." Before that, and since the fall of the Roman Empire, the State — in its Roman form — did not exist. If we find it, nevertheless, in historical school-books, even at the outset of the barbarian period, it is a product of the imagination of historians who will draw the genealogical trees of kings — in France, up to the heads of the Merovingian bands, and in Russia, up to Rurik in 862. Real historians know that the State was reconstituted only upon the ruins of the mediaeval free cities.
On the other side, the State, considered as a political power, State- Justice, the Church, and Capitalism are facts and con- ceptions which we cannot separate from each other. In the course of history these institutions have developed, supporting and reinforcing each other.
natural law: tliat very often the man who tries to go against Nature achieves liis aim.
"Gravity innkes physical bodies fall, but tlie same gravity makes a l»alloon rise [aviation with machines heavier than air is another recent example in point]. For us it is so simple; but the economists of the classical school seem to have the greatest trouble in understanding the scope of such an observation.
"The law of division of labour in time will be some day the counter- part of the law of Adam Smith, ami it will ptrinit us to obtain the intepration of work in the individual."
Modern Science and Anarchism, 81 Tliey are connected with each other — not as mere accidental coincidences. They are Hnked together by the Unks of cause and effect.
The State is, for us, a society of mutual insurance between the landlord, the military commander, the judge, the priest, and later on the capitalist, in order to support each other's authority over the people, and for exploiting the poverty of the masses and getting rich themselves.
Such was the origin of the State; such was its history; and such is its present essence.
Consequently, to ima;;ine that Capitalism may be abolished I while the State is maintained, and with the aid of the State — / while the latter was founded for forwarding the development of/ Capitalism and was always growing in power and solidity, iij( proportion as the power of Capitali&m grew up — to cherish such an illusion is as unreasonable, in our opinion, as it was to expect the emancipation of Labour from the Church, or from Cfesarisra or Imperialism. Certainly, in the first half of the nineteenth century, there have been many Socialists who had such dreams; but to live in the same dreauijand now that we enter in the twentieth century, is really too childish.
A new form of economic organisation will necessarily require S a new form of political structure. And, whether the change be accomplished suddcnh^, by a revolution, or slowly, by the way of a gradual evolution, the two changes, political and economic, must go on abreast, hand in hand.
Each step towards econijinic freedom, each victory won over Capitalism will be at the same time a step towards political liberty — towards liberation from the yoke of the State by means of free agreement, territorial, professional, and functional. And each step made towards taking from the State any one of its powers and attributes will bo htlping the luast^LS to win a victory uvrr Ciipil;i:isia.
XIV. THE MEANS OF ACTION.
It is self-evident that if the Anarchists differ so much in their methods of investigation and in their fundamental prin- ciples, both from the academic men of science and from their Social Democratic colleagues, they must equally differ from them in their means of action.
Holding the opinions we do about Law and the State, we evidently cannot see a source of Piogress, and still less an approach to the required social changes, in an ever-growing submission of the individual to the State.
We cannot either go on saying, as superficial critics of present society often sa}' when they require the State management of itidustries, that modern Capitalism has its origin in an "anarchy of production" due to the "non-intervention of the State" and to the Liberal doctrine of " let things alone " (Inissez /aire, laissez passer). This would amount to saying that the State has practised this doctrine, while in reality it n- ver has practised it. We know, on the contrary, that wliile hU Governments have given the capitalists and monopolists full liberty to enrich them- selves with the underpaid labour of working men reduced to misery, they have nevkr, nowhere given the working men the liberty of opposing that exploitation. Never has any Govern- ment applied the " leave things alone " principle to the exploited masses. It reserved it for the exploiters only.
In France, even under the terrible "revolutionary" (i.e., Jacobinist) Convention, strikes were treated as a " coalition " — as "a con-piracy to form a State within the State" — and punished with death. So we need not speak after that of the anti-Labour legislation of the Napoleonic Etnpiie, the monarchic Restoration, ">r even the piesent middle-class Republic.
n' Tu England, working men were hanged for striking, under I the pretext of "intimidation," as late as in 1813; and in 18.34 I working men were transported to Australia for having dared to I found, with Robert Owen, a " National Trades' Union." In the "sixties" strikers were sent to hard labour for picketing, under the pretext of thus defending "freedom of labour"; and not </X^- Modern Science and Anarchism, 83 further back than 1903, as a result of the Taff Vale decision, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants had to pay £26,000 to a railway company for having declared a strike.
Need we speak after that of France, where the right of constituting Labour Unions and [.leasant Syndicates was obtained only in 1884, after the Anarchist agitation which broke out at Lvons and among the miners in 1883; or of Switzerland, where strikers were shot at Airolo during the boring of the St Gothard tunnel; to say nothing of Germany, Spain, Russia, and the United States, where State intervention in favour of capitalist misrule was still worse 1 On the other side, we have only to remember how every State reduces the peasants and the industrial workers to a life of misery, by means of taxes, and through the monopolies it creates in favour of the landlords, the cotton lords, the railway magnates, the publicans, and the like. We have only to think how the communal possession of the land was destroyed in this country by Enclosure Acts, or how at this very moment it is destroyed in Russia, in order to supply " hands " to the landlords and the great factories.
And we need only to look round, to see how everywhere in Europe and America the States are constituting monopolies in favour of capitalists at home, and still more in conquered lands, such as Egypt, Tonkin, the Transvaal, and so on.
What, then, is the use of talking, with Marx, about the "primitive accumulation" — as if this '' push " given to capitalists were a thing of the past] In reality, new monopolies have been granted every year till now by the Parliaments of all nations to railway, tramway, gas, water, and maritime transport companies, schooks, institutions, and so on. The State's "push" is, and has ever been, the first foundation of all great capitalist fortunes.
In short, nowhere has the system of " non-intervention of the State" ever existed. Evciywhere the State has been, and still is, the main pillar and the creator, direct and indirect, of Capitalism and its powers over the masses. Nowhere, sinc<' States have grown up, have the masses had the freedom ot resisting the oppression by capitalists. The few rights they have now they have gained only by determination and endless sacriiice.
To speak therefore of "non-intervention of the State" may be all right for middle class economists, who try to persuade t]is 84 Modem Science and Anarchism.
workers that their misery is " a law of Nature." But — how can Socialists use such language? The State has always interfered in the economic life in favour of the capitalist exploiter. It has always granted him protection in robbery, given aid and support for further enrichment. And it could not he otheriuise. To do so was one of the functions — the chief mission — of thej State.
The State was established for the precise purpose of imposirgj the rule of the landowners, the employers of industry, the warric. class, and the clergy upon the peasants on the land and tbi artisans in the city. And the rich perfectly well know that il the machinery of the State ceased to protect them, their powei over the labouring classes would be gone immediately.
Socialism, we have said — whatever form it may take in iti evolution towards Communism — must find its own form o| political organisation. Serfdom and Absolute Monarchy ha> always marched hand-in-hand. The one rendered the other necessity. The same is true of Capitalist rule, whose politic form is Representative Government, either in a Republic or in g Monarchy. This is why Socialism cannot utilise Representativf' Government as a weapon for liberating Labour, just as it cann utilise the Church and its theory of divine right, or Imperialis and Caesarism, with its theory of hierai'chy of functionaries, t the same purpose.
A new form of political organisation has to be worked out th moment that Socialist principles shall enter into our life. An it is self-evident that this new form will have to be mo7'e populai more decentralised, and nearer to the folk-mote self-governmen than representative government can ever be.
This is also the tendency which begins to prevail in th" conception of men, the moment they free themselves from th prejudice of authority. If we carefully observe life in thi country, in France, and in the States, we see, indeed, a decide tendency towards constituting independent communes, municipai. and rural, associations, societies, federations, etc.,' assuming wid* social and economic functions, and connected with each other bjr free agreement, independent of State intervention. Of course, i is not the German Emperor, or the English Imperialists, or eve: the Swiss Jacobin Radicals who pursue tuch aims. These peopl have their eyes turned backwards. But there is a progressiv fraction of society, chiefly among the working men, both ii Europe and America, who work hard to create such new channeli| k r Modern Science and Anarchism* 85 of common life and work, independent of and quite outside the State.
Knowing aM this, we obviously cannot see an element of Progress in an ever-increasing submission to the State. On the contrary, we represent ourselves a forward movement of society as an approach to the abolition of all the authority of Government, as a development of free agreement for all that formerly was a function of Church and State, and as a development of free initiative in every individual and every group. And these are the tendencies which determine the tactics of the Anarchists in the life of both the individual and our circles.
Finally, being a revolutionary party, what we study in history is chiefly the genesis and the gradual development of previous revolutions. In these studies we try to free history from the State interpretation which has been given to it by State historians. We try to reconstitute in it the true role of the people, the advantages it obtained from a revolution, the ideas it launched into circulation, and the faults of tactics it committed.
Studying the beginnings of a revolution, we are not yet satisfied when we have read how miserable were the masses before the revolution. We want to know: how did they pass from their condition of inactivity and despair to their revolu- tionary activity 1 how did they wake up 1 what did they do after the awakening ] We understand, for instance, the Great French Revolution quite differently from a Louis Blanc, who saw in it a political movement directed by the Jacobinist Club. We see in it a great popular movement, which took place especially in the villages, among the peasants, for the abolition of feudal servitude and the return to the villages of the lands seized since 1669 in virtue of Enclosure Acts; and in the towns — for getting rid of the misery of the town proletariate by means of a national organisation of exchange and socialisation of production. (See my "Great French Revolution.")
We study the movement towards Communism which began to develop amongst the poorest part of the population in 1793-94, and the admirable forms of voluntary popular organisation for a variety of functions, economic and political, that they worked out in the "Sections" of the great cities and some of the small municipalities. On the other side, we carefully study the growth of the power of the middle classes, who worked with energy and knowledge a,t constitutipg their own authority, in lieu of the 86 Modem Science and Anarchism.
broken authority of the King and his camarilla. We see how they laboured to build up a powerful centralised State, and thus to consolidate the property the)^ acquired during or through the Revolution, as well as their full right to enrich themselves with the underpaid work of the poorer classes. We study the develop- ment and the struggle of these two powers, and try to find out why the latter gained the upper hand over the former.
And then we see how the centralised State, created by the Jacobinist middle classes, prepared the way for the autocratic Empire of Napoleon I. We see how, half a century later, Napoleon III. found in the dreams of those who meant to create a centralised Republic the necessary elements for his Second Empire. And we understand how this centralised authority, which for seventy years in succession killed in France every local eflfort and every personal effort made outside the State hierarchy, remains till now the curse of the country. The first effort to be free from it was only made in 1871 by the Paris Communalist proletarians.
It is thus seen how in this domain, too, our comprehension of history and the conclusions we draw therefrom are quite different from the comprehension and the historical conclusions of both the middle-class and the Socialist political parties.
Without entering here into an analysis of the different revolutionary movements, it is sufficient to say that our ' con ception of the coming social revolution is quite different from that of a Jacobin dictatorship, or the transformation of social institutions effected by a Convention, a Parliament, or a dictator. Never has a revolution been brought about on those lines; and if the present working-class movement takes this form, it will be doomed to have no lasting result.