Our revolutionary ideal is very simple: it is composed, like that of all
our predecessors, of these two terms: liberty and equality. There isonly one small difference. ---- Instructed by the experience of the
deceptions carried out by reactionaries of every kind and of every time
by means of the words liberty and equality, we have resolved to place
alongside these two terms the expression of their real value. These two
precious coins have been so often falsified that we want to definitively
know and measure their value exactly. Let us therefore place alongside
these two terms: liberty and equality, two equivalents, whose precise
meaning cannot give rise to misunderstanding, and say: We want Liberty,
that is, Anarchy, and Equality, that is, Communism.
Anarchy, today, is the attack; it is war against all authority, against
all power, against all State. In the future society, Anarchy will be the
defense, the barrier against the restoration of any authority, of any
power, of any State: full and complete freedom of the individual, who
freely and driven only by his own needs, tastes and sympathies, unites
with other individuals in the group or association; free development of
the association that federates with others in the municipality or
neighborhood; free development of the municipalities that federate in
the region and so on, of the regions in the nation, of the nations in
humanity.
Communism, the problem that interests us most today, is the second term
of our revolutionary ideal.
Communism, at present, is also the attack; it is not the destruction of
authority, but the taking possession in the name of all humanity of all
the wealth that exists on earth. In the future society, communism will
be the common enjoyment of all existing wealth by all men, according to
the principle: From each according to his abilities, to each according
to his needs, that is to say: From each and to each according to his will.
Let us begin by observing first of all - and this above all in response
to our adversaries, the authoritarian or statist communists - that the
taking possession and enjoyment of all existing wealth must be, in our
opinion, the work of the people themselves. Since neither the people nor
humanity of the single individuals can take wealth and hold it in their
two hands, it was certainly intended to conclude that for this reason it
is necessary to institute a whole class of leaders: representatives and
custodians of common wealth. But we do not share this opinion. No
intermediaries, no representatives, who always end up representing only
themselves! No mediator of equality and not even no mediator of freedom!
No new government or new State, however popular and democratic,
revolutionary or provisional one may want to call it.
Since common wealth is spread all over the earth and rightfully belongs
to all humanity, it will be used in common by those who are within reach
of it and able to use it. The people of a given country will use the
land, machines, factories, houses, etc. of this country and will all use
them in common. As part of humanity, they will exercise their right
here, in fact and directly, on a part of human wealth. But if an
inhabitant of Peking were to come to this country, he would find himself
in the same rights as the others: he would enjoy, in common with the
others, all the wealth of the country, just as he would have done in
Peking.[...]
We have said it, and we will not stop repeating it: no intermediaries,
no pimps and complacent servants who always end up becoming the real
masters: we want all existing wealth to be taken directly from the
people themselves, to be kept in their powerful hands, and to decide for
themselves how best to enjoy it, both for production and for consumption.
But, one wonders: will Communism be possible? Will we have enough
products to allow everyone the right to take as much as they want,
without demanding from individuals more work than they themselves want
to give?
We answer: yes. Certainly, this principle can be applied: From each and
to each according to his will, because in the future society production
will be so abundant that there will be no need to limit consumption, nor
to demand from men more work than they can or want to give.
This immense increase in production, of which we cannot even form an
idea today, can be guessed by examining the causes that will bring it
about. These causes can be reduced to the three main ones:
1. The harmony of cooperation in the different branches of human
activity, replacing the struggle of the current system of competition;
2. The introduction on an immense scale of machines of every kind;
3. The considerable saving of labor force, of tools of labor and of raw
materials, realized by the suppression of harmful or useless production.
Competition, the struggle, is one of the fundamental principles of
capitalist production which has as its motto: Mors tua vita mea; your
death is my life. The ruin of one makes the fortune of the other. And
this bitter struggle is waged from nation to nation, from region to
region, from individual to individual, between workers, as well as
between capitalists. It is a war to the knife, a struggle in all forms:
hand to hand, in gangs, in squads, in regiments, in army corps. One
worker finds work where another loses it; an industry or several
industries prosper when such an industry or such other industries fail.
Well, imagine, when in the future society, this individualistic
principle of capitalist production, each for himself and against all,
and all against each, will be replaced by the true principle of human
sociability: each for all and all for each - what an immense change will
be obtained in the results of production? Imagine what an increase in
production will be, when every man, far from having to fight against all
the others, will be helped by them, when he will no longer have them as
enemies, but as cooperators. If the collective work of ten men obtains
results absolutely impossible for one man alone, how great will be the
results obtained by the great cooperation of all the men who, today,
work hostilely against each other?[...]
Finally, we must take into account the immense economy that will be made
on the three elements of work: force, tools and material, which today
are horribly wasted, since they are used for the production of
absolutely useless things, if not downright harmful to humanity.
How many workers, how many raw materials and how many tools are used
today for the land and sea army, to build fleets, fortresses, cannons
and all those arsenals of offensive and defensive weapons. How many of
these forces are used to produce luxury objects that serve only to
satisfy the needs of vanity and corruption!
And when all this force, all these materials, all these tools of work,
are used in industry, in the production of objects that they themselves
will serve to produce - what a prodigious increase in production will we
not see!
Yes, communism is applicable! It will certainly be possible to let
everyone take at will what he needs, since there will be enough for
everyone. There will no longer be any need to ask for more work than
each one wants to give, because there will always be enough products for
the next day.
And it is thanks to this abundance that work will lose the ignoble
character of servitude, retaining only the charm of a moral and physical
need, such as that of studying or living in nature.
It is not enough for us to affirm that communism is possible: we can
affirm that it is necessary. Not only can one be a communist: one must
be, under penalty of missing the purpose of the revolution.
In fact, if after having put the means of work and raw materials in
common, the individual appropriation of the products of work is
maintained, it will be necessary to conserve money, and, consequently,
an accumulation of wealth more or less large, depending on the greater
or lesser merit, or rather the ability of individuals. In this way
equality will disappear, since he who comes to possess more wealth will
have already raised himself by this very fact above the level of others.
There will then only be one step left for the counterrevolutionaries to
take to re-establish the right of inheritance.[...]
The individual attribution of products would not only re-establish
inequality among men, but would also re-establish inequality among the
different kinds of work. We would immediately see "clean" work and
"dirty" work, "noble" work and "ignoble" work reappear; the first would
be the responsibility of the richest, the second would be the
prerogative of the poorest. Then, it would no longer be vocation and
personal taste that would determine man to dedicate himself to one kind
of activity rather than another: it would be interest, the hope of
earning more in a certain profession. Thus, laziness and diligence,
merit and demerit, good and evil, vice and virtue would be reborn and,
consequently, the "reward" on one side and the "punishment" on the
other, the law, the judge, the policeman and prison.[...]
We must be communists, because it is in communism that we will achieve
true equality. We must be communists because the people, who do not
understand collectivist sophisms, understand communism perfectly. We
must be communists because we are anarchists, because Anarchy and
Communism are the two necessary and indivisible terms of the Revolution.
Excerpt from Anarchie et Communisme. Résumé du discours prononcé par le
comp. Cafiero au Congrès de la Fédération Jurassienne, «Le Révolté»,
Geneva, year II, nn. 19-20, 13-27 November 1880. This is an autograph
summary of the speech given by Cafiero at the Congress of the Jura
Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (La
Chaux-de-Fonds, 9-10 October 1880). For the translation, the Italian
manuscript of the unfinished essay Rivoluzione, confiscated by the Swiss
police following Cafiero's arrest in 1881, was compared, in which the
Author had taken up and developed the text of his speech. See in this
regard Gian Carlo Maffei (ed.), Dossier Cafiero, introduction by Pier
Carlo Masini, Biblioteca Max Nettlau, Bergamo, 1972. (Translated and
edited by P. Papini).
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