The Thoughts and Studies of G. Bernard Shaw: Personal Letters, Articles, Lectures & Essays. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Anarchism
State Socialism and Anarchism, says Mr. Tucker, “are based on two principles, the history of whose conflict is almost equivalent to the history of the world since man came into it; and all intermediate parties, including that of the upholders of the existing society, are based upon a compromise between them.” These principles are Authority — the State Socialist principle, and Liberty — the Anarchist principle. State Socialism is then defined as “the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice,” whereas Anarchism is “the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the State should be abolished.”
Now most revolutionists will admit that there was a stage in the growth of their opinions when the above seemed an adequate statement of the alternatives before them. But, as we have seen, when the Individualist Anarchist proceeds to reduce his principle to practice, he is inevitably led to Mr. Tucker’s program of “competition everywhere and always” among occupying owners, subject only to the moral law of minding their own business. No sooner is this formulated than its effect on the distribution of wealth is examined by the economist, who finds no trouble in convicting it, under the economic law of rent, of privilege, monopoly, inequality, unjust indirect taxation, and everything that is most repugnant to Anarchism. But this startling reverse, however it may put the Anarchist out of conceit with his program, does not in the least reconcile him to State Socialism. It only changes his mind on one point. Whilst his program satisfied him, he was content to admit that State Socialism was the only possible alternative to Individualist Anarchism — nay, he rather insisted on it, because the evils of the State Socialist alternative were strong incentives to the acceptance of the other. But the moment it becomes apparent that the one is economically as bad as the other, the disillusioned Individualist Anarchist becomes convinced of the insufficiency of his analysis of the social problem, and follows it up in order to find out a tertium quid, or third system which shall collect and justly distribute the rent of the country, and yet prevent the collecting and distributing organ from acquiring the tyrannous powers of governments as we know them. There are two such systems at present before the world: Communism and Social-Democracy. Now there is no such thing as Anarchist Social-Democracy; but there is such a thing as Anarchist Communism or Communist Anarchism. It is true that Mr. Tucker does not recognize the Communist Anarchist as an Anarchist at all: he energetically repudiates Communism as the uttermost negation of true Anarchism, and will not admit any logical halting place between thoroughgoing State Socialism and thoroughgoing Individualist Anarchism. But why insist on anybody occupying a logical halting place? We are all fond of shewing that on any given subject there are only two of these safe spots, one being the point of agreement with us, and the other some inconceivable extremity of idiocy. But for the purposes of the present criticism it will be more practical to waive such crude rationalizing, and concede that to deal with Mr. Tucker without also dealing with Peter Kropotkine is not to give Anarchism fair play.
The main difficulty in criticising Kropotkine lies in the fact that, in the distribution of generally needed labor products, his Communism is finally cheap and expedient, whereas Mr. Tucker’s Individualism, in the same department, is finally extravagant and impossible. Even under the most perfect Social-Democracy we should, without Communism, still be living like hogs, except that each hog would get his fair share of grub. High as that ideal must seem to anyone who complacently accepts the present social order, it is hardly high enough to satisfy a man in whom the social instinct is well developed. So long as vast quantities of labor have to be expended in weighing and measuring each man’s earned share of this and that commodity — in watching, spying, policing, and punishing in order to prevent Tom getting a crumb of bread more or Dick a spoonful of milk less than he has a voucher for, so long will the difference between Unsocialism and Socialism be only the difference between unscientific and scientific hoggishness. I do not desire to underrate the vastness of that difference. Whilst we are hogs, let us at least be well-fed, healthy, reciprocally useful hogs, instead of — well, instead of the sort we are at present. But we shall not have any great reason to stand on the dignity of our humanity until a just distribution of the loaves and fishes becomes perfectly spontaneous, and the great effort and expense of a legal distribution, however just, is saved. For my own part, I seek the establishment of a state of society in which I shall not be bothered with a ridiculous pocketful of coppers, nor have to waste my time in perplexing arithmetical exchanges of them with booking clerks, bus conductors, shopmen, and other superfluous persons before I can get what I need. I aspire to live in a community which shall be at least capable of averaging the transactions between us well enough to ascertain how much work I am to do for it in return for the right to take what I want of the commoner necessaries and conveniences of life. The saving of friction by such an arrangement may be guessed from the curious fact that only specialists in sociology are conscious of the numerous instances in which we are to-day forced to adopt it by the very absurdity of the alternative. Most people will tell you that Communism is known only in this country as a visionary project advocated by a handful of amiable cranks. Then they will stroll off across the common bridge, along the common embankment, by the light of the common gas lamp shining alike on the just and the unjust, up the common street, and into the common Trafalgar Square, where, on the smallest hint on their part that Communism is to be tolerated for an instant in a civilized country, they will be handily bludgeoned by the common policeman, and haled off to the common gaol. When you suggest to these people that the application of Communism to the bread supply is only an extension, involving no new principle, of its application to street lighting, they are bewildered. Instead of picturing the Communist man going to the common store, and thence taking his bread home with him, they instinctively imagine him bursting obstreperously into his neighbor’s house and snatching the bread off his table on the “as much mine as yours” principle — which, however, has an equally sharp edge for the thief’s throat in the form “as much yours as mine.” In fact, the average Englishman is only capable of understanding Communism when it is explained as a state of things under which everything is paid for out of the taxes, and taxes are paid in labor. And even then he will sometimes say, “How about the brainwork?” and begin the usual novice’s criticism of Socialism in general.
Now a Communist Anarchist may demur to such a definition of Communism as I have just given; for it is evident that if there are to be taxes, there must be some authority to collect those taxes. I will not insist on the odious word taxes; but I submit that if any article — bread, for instance — be communized, by which I mean that there shall be public stores of bread, sufficient to satisfy everybody, to which all may come and take what they need without question or payment, wheat must be grown, mills must grind, and bakers must sweat daily in order to keep up the supply. Obviously, therefore, the common bread store will become bankrupt unless every consumer of the bread contributes to its support as much labor as the bread he consumes costs to produce. Communism or no Communism, he must pay or else leave somebody else to pay for him. Communism will cheapen bread for him — will save him the cost of scales and weights, coin, bookkeepers, counter-hands, policemen, and other expenses of private property; but it will not do away with the cost of the bread and the store. Now supposing that voluntary co-operation and public spirit prove equal to the task of elaborately organizing the farming, milling and baking industries for the production of bread, how will these voluntary co-operators recover the cost of their operations from the public who are to consume their bread? If they are given powers to collect the cost from the public, and to enforce their demands by punishing non-payers for their dishonesty, then they at once become a State department levying a tax for public purposes; and the Communism of the bread supply becomes no more Anarchistic than our present Communistic supply of street lighting is Anarchistic. Unless the taxation is voluntary — unless the bread consumer is free to refuse payment without incurring any penalty save the reproaches of his conscience and his neighbors, the Anarchist ideal will remain unattained. Now the pressure of conscience and public opinion is by no means to be slighted. Millions of men and women, without any legal compulsion whatever, pay for the support of institutions of all sorts, from churches to tall hats, simply out of their need for standing well with their neighbors. But observe, this compulsion of public opinion derives most of its force from the difficulty of getting the wherewithal