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ANARCHISM: WHAT IT REALLY STANDS FOR
(Excerpts)
Emma Goldman
ANARCHISM:--The philosophy of a new social
order based on liberty unrestricted by
man-made law; the theory that all forms of
government rest on violence, and are
therefore wrong and harmful, as well as
unnecessary.
Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings
to man the consciousness of himself; which
maintains that God, the State, and society
are non-existent, that their promises are
null and void, since they can be fulfilled
only through man's subordination. Anarchism
is therefore the teacher of the unity of
life; not merely in nature, but in man.
Anarchism is the great liberator of man from
the phantoms that have held him captive; it
is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces
for individual and social harmony. To
accomplish that unity, Anarchism has declared
war on the pernicious influences which have
so far prevented the harmonious blending of
individual and social instincts, the
individual and society.
Religion, the dominion of the human mind;
Property, the dominion of human needs; and
Government, the dominion of human conduct,
represent the stronghold of man's enslavement
and all the horrors it entails. Religion! How
it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates
and degrades his soul. God is everything, man
is nothing, says religion. But out of that
nothing God has created a kingdom so
despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so
terribly exacting that naught but gloom and
tears and blood have ruled the world since
gods began. Anarchism rouses man to rebellion
against this black monster. Break your mental
fetters, says Anarchism to man, for not until
you think and judge for yourself will you get
rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest
obstacle to all progress.
"Property is robbery," said the great French
Anarchist Proudhon. Yes, but without risk and
danger to the robber. Monopolizing the
accumulated efforts of man, property has
robbed him of his birthright, and has turned
him loose a pauper and an outcast. Property
has not even the time-worn excuse that man
does not create enough to satisfy all needs.
The A B C student of economics knows that the
productivity of labor within the last few
decades far exceeds normal demand. But what
are normal demands to an abnormal
institution? The only demand that property
recognizes is its own gluttonous appetite for
greater wealth, because wealth means power;
the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit,
the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade.
Real wealth consists in things of utility and
beauty, in things that help to create strong,
beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring
to live in. But if man is doomed to wind
cotton around a spool, or dig coal, or build
roads for thirty years of his life, there can
be no talk of wealth. What he gives to the
world is only gray and hideous things,
reflecting a dull and hideous existence,--too
weak to live, too cowardly to die. Strange to
say, there are people who extol this
deadening method of centralized production as
the proudest achievement of our age. They
fail utterly to realize that if we are to
continue in machine subserviency, our slavery
is more complete than was our bondage to the
King. They do not want to know that
centralization is not only the death-knell of
liberty, but also of health and beauty, of
art and science, all these being impossible
in a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.
Anarchism cannot but repudiate such a method
of production: its goal is the freest
possible expression of all the latent powers
of the individual. That being the ideal of
Anarchism, its economic arrangements must
consist of voluntary productive and
distributive associations, gradually
developing into free communism, as the best
means of producing with the least waste of
human energy. Anarchism, however, also
recognizes the right of the individual, or
numbers of individuals, to arrange at all
times for other forms of work, in harmony
with their tastes and desires.
Such free display of human energy being
possible only under complete individual and
social freedom, Anarchism directs its forces
against the third and greatest foe of all
social equality; namely, the State, organized
authority, or statutory law,--the dominion of
human conduct.
Just as religion has fettered the human mind,
and as property, or the monopoly of things,
has subdued and stifled man's needs, so has
the State enslaved his spirit, dictating
every phase of conduct. "All government in
essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny." It
matters not whether it is government by
divine right or majority rule. In every
instance its aim is the absolute
subordination of the individual.
In fact, there is hardly a modern thinker who
does not agree that government, organized
authority, or the State, is necessary only to
maintain or protect property and monopoly. It
has proven efficient in that function
only....
Continued in Anarchist Emma Goldman (part 2)
Tags : Anarchy Anarchist Revolution Russian Politics History Feminist |
