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CHAPTER 23
NON-COMMUNIST ANARCHISTS
BEFORE we proceed let me make a short
explanation. I owe it to those Anarchists who are not Communists.
Because you should know that not all Anarchists are Communists:
not all of them believe that Communism-social ownership and sharing
according to need-would be the best and justest economic arrangement.
I have first explained to you Communist Anarchism because it is,
in my estimation, the most desirable and practical form of society.
The Communist Anarchists hold that only under Communist conditions
could Anarchy prosper, and equal liberty, justice, and well-being be
assured to every one without discrimination.
But there are Anarchists who do not believe in Communism. They can
be generally classed as Individualists and Mutualists.1
All Anarchists agree on this fundamental position: that
government means injustice and oppression, that it is invasive,
enslaving, and the greatest hindrance to man's development and
growth. They all believe that freedom can exist only in a society
where there is no compulsion of any kind. All Anarchists are
therefore at one on the basic principle of abolishing government.
They disagree mostly on the following points:
First: the manner in which Anarchy will come about. The Communist
Anarchists say that only a social revolution can abolish government
and establish Anarchy, while Individualist Anarchists and Mutualists
do not believe in revolution They think that present society will
gradually develop out of government into a non-governmental
condition.
Second: Individualist Anarchists and Mutualists believe in
individual ownership, as against the Communist Anarchists who see in
the institution of private property one of the main sources of
injustice and inequality, of poverty and misery. The Individualists
and Mutualists maintain that liberty means "the right of every
one. to the product of his toil"; which is true, of course.
Liberty does mean that. But the question is not whether one has a
right to his product, but whether there is such a thing as an
individual product. I have pointed out in preceding chapters that
there is no such thing in modern industry: all labor and the products
of labor are social. The argument, therefore, about the right of the
individual to his product has no practical merit.
I have also shown that exchange of products or commodities cannot
be individual or private, unless the profit system is employed. Since
the value of a commodity cannot be adequately determined, no barter
is equitable. This fact leads, in my opinion, to social ownership and
use; that is, to Communism, as the most practicable and just economic
system.
But, as stated, Individualist Anarchists and Mutualists disagree
with the Communist Anarchists on this point. They assert that the
source of economic inequality is monopoly, and they argue that
monopoly will disappear with the abolition of government, because it
is special privilege given and protected by government-which makes
monopoly possible. Free competition, they claim, would do away with
monopoly and its evils.
Individualist Anarchists, followers of Stirner and Tucker, as well
as Tolstoyan Anarchists who believe in nonresistance, have no very
clear plan of the economic life under Anarchy The Mutualists, on the
other hand, propose a definite new economic system. They believe with
their teacher, the French philosopher Proudhon, that mutual banking
and credit without interest would be the best economic form of a
non-government society. According to their theory, free credit,
affording every one opportunity to borrow money without interest,
would tend to equalize incomes and reduce profits to a minimum, and
would thus eliminate riches as well as poverty. Free credit and
competition in the open market, they say, would result in economic
equality, while the abolition of government would secure equal
freedom. The social life of the Mutualist community, as well as of
the Individualist society, would be based on the sanctity of
voluntary agreement, of free contract.
I have given here but the briefest outline of the attitude of
Individualist Anarchists and Mutualists. It is not the purpose of
this work to treat in detail those Anarchist ideas which the author
thinks erroneous and impractical. Being a Communist Anarchist I am
interested in submitting to the reader the views that I consider best
and soundest. I thought it fair, however, not to leave you in
ignorance about the existence of other, non-Communist Anarchist
theories. For a closer acquaintance with them I refer you to the
appended list of books on Anarchism in general.
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