Instead of a Book. Benjamin Ricketson Tucker
denial of religious freedom they squarely oppose.
Upholding thus the right of every individual to be or select his own priest, they likewise uphold his right to be or select his own doctor. No monopoly in theology, no monopoly in medicine. Competition everywhere and always; spiritual advice and medical advice alike to stand or fall on their own merits. And not only in medicine, but in hygiene, must this principle of liberty be followed. The individual may decide for himself not only what to do to get well, but what to do to keep well. No external power must dictate to him what he must and must not eat, drink, wear, or do.
Nor does the Anarchistic scheme furnish any code of morals to be imposed upon the individual. "Mind your own business" is its only moral law. Interference with another's business is a crime and the only crime, and as such may properly be resisted. In accordance with this view the Anarchists look upon attempts to arbitrarily suppress vice as in themselves crimes. They believe liberty and the resultant social well-being to be a sure cure for all the vices. But they recognize the right of the drunkard, the gambler, the rake, and the harlot to live their lives until they shall freely choose to abanndon them.
In the matter of the maintenance and rearing of children the Anarchists would neither institute the communistic nursery which the State Socialists favor nor keep the communistic school system which now prevails. The nurse and the teacher, like the doctor and the preacher, must be selected voluntarily, and their services must be paid for by those who patronize them. Parental rights must not be taken away, and parental responsibilities must not be foisted upon others.
Even in so delicate a matter as that of the relations of the sexes the Anarchists do not shrink from the application of their principle. They acknowledge and defend the right of any man and woman, or any men and women, to love each other for as long or as short a time as they can, will, or may. To them legal marriage and legal divorce are equal absurdities. They look forward to a time when every individual, whether man or woman, shall be self-supporting, and when each shall have an independent home of his or her own, whether it be a separate house or rooms in a house with others; when the love relations between these independent individuals shall be as varied as are individual inclinations and attractions; and when the children born of these relations shall belong exclusively to the mothers until old enough to belong to themselves.
Such are the main features of the Anarchistic social ideal. There is wide difference of opinion among those who hold it as to the best method of obtaining it. Time forbids the treatment of that phase of the subject here. I will simply call attention to the fact that it is an ideal utterly inconsistent with that of those Communists who falsely call themselves Anarchists while at the same time advocating a rếgime of Archism fully as despotic as that of the State Socialists themselves. And it is an ideal that can be as little advanced by the forcible expropriation recommended by John Most and Prince Kropotkine as retarded by the brooms of those Mrs. Partingtons of the bench who sentence them to prison; an ideal which the martyrs of Chicago did far more to help by their glorious death upon the gallows for the common cause of Socialism than by their unfortunate advocacy during their lives, in the name of Anarchism, of force as a revolutionary agent and authority as a safeguard of the new social order. The Anarchists believe in liberty both as end and means, and are hostile to anything that antagonizes it.
I should not undertake to summarize this altogether too summary exposition of Socialism from the standpoint of Anarchism, did I not find the task already accomplished for me by a brilliant French journalist and historian, Ernest Lesigne, in the form of a series of crisp antitheses; by reading which to you as a conclusion of this lecture I hope to deepen the impression which it has been my endeavor to make.
"There are two Socialisms.
One is communistic, the other solidaritarian.
One is dictatorial, the other libertarian.
One is metaphysical, the other positive.
One is dogmatic, the other scientific.
One is emotional, the other reflective.
One is destructive, the other constructive.
Both are in pursuit of the greatest possible welfare for all.
One aims to establish happiness for all, the other to enable each to be, happy in his own way.
The first regards the State as a society sui generis, of an especial essence, the product of a sort of divine right outside of and above all society, with special rights and able to exact special obediences; the second considers the State as an association like any other, generally managed worse than others. The first proclaims the sovereignty of the State, the second recognizes no sort of sovereign. One wishes all monopolies to be held by the State; the other wishes the abolition of all monopolies. One wishes the governed class to become the governing class; the other wishes the disappearance of classes. Both declare that the existing state of things cannot last. The first considers revolution as the indispensable agent of evolution; the second teaches that repression alone turns evolution into revolution. The first has faith in a cataclysm. The second knows that social progress will result from the free play of individual efforts. Both understand that we are entering upon a new historic phase. One wishes that there should be none but proletaires. The other wishes that there should be no more proletaires. The first wishes to take everything from everybody. The second wishes to leave each in possession of his own. The one wishes to expropriate everybody. The other wishes everybody to be a proprietor. The first says: 'Do as the government wishes.' The second says: 'Do as you wish yourself.' The former threatens with despotism. The latter promises liberty. The former makes the citizen the subject of the State. The latter makes the State the employee of the citizen. One proclaims that labor pains will be necessary to the birth of the new world. The other declares that real progress will not cause suffering to any one. The first has confidence in social war. The other believes only in the works of peace. One aspires to compiand, to regulate, to legislate. The other wishes to attain the minimum of command, of regulation, of legislation. One would be followed by the most atrocious of reactions. The other opens unlimited horizons to progress. The first will fail; the other will succeed. Both desire equality. One by lowering heads that are too high. The other by raising heads that are too low. One sees equality under a common yoke. The other will secure equality in complete liberty. One is intolerant, the other tolerant. One frightens, the other reassures. The first wishes to instruct everybody. The second wishes to enable everybody to instruct himself. The first wishes to support everybody. The second wishes to enable everybody to support himself. One says: The land to the State. The mine to the State. The tool to the State. The product to the State. The other says: The land to the cultivator. The mine to the miner. The tool to the laborer. The product to the producer. There are only these two Socialisms. One is the infancy of Socialism; the other is its manhood. One is already the past; the other is the future. One will give place to the other. To-day each of us must choose for one or the ether of these two Socialisms, or else confess that he is not a Socialist."
1 ↑ In the summer of 1886, shortly after the bomb-throwing at Chicago, the author of this volume received an invitation from the editor of the North American Review to furnish him a paper on Anarchism. In response the above article was sent him. A few days later the author received a letter announcing the acceptance of his paper, the editor volunteering the declaration that it was the ablest article that he had received during his editorship of the Review. The next number of the Review bore the announcement, on the second page of its cover, that the article (giving its title and the name of the author) would appear at an early date. Month after month went by, and the article did not appear. Repeated letters of inquiry failed to bring any explanation. Finally, after nearly a year had elapsed, the author wrote to the editor that he had prepared the article, not to be pigeon-holed, but to be printed, and that he wished the matter to be acted upon immediately. In reply he received his manuscript and a check for seventy-five dollars. Thereupon he made a few slight changes in the article and delivered it on several occasions as a lecture, after which it was printed in Liberty of March 10, 1888.