I. With regard to the manner in which they conceive their
realization--that is, the transition from the negated condition to the
affirmed condition--as taking place, the seven teachings here presented
have nothing in common.
1. The one part of them conceive their realization as taking place
without breach of law: they have in mind a transition from the negated
to the affirmed condition merely by the application of legal norms of
the negated condition; these teachings may be characterized as
_reformatory_. Reformatory are the teachings of Godwin and Proudhon. The
other part conceive their realization as a breach of law: they have in
mind a transition from the negated to the affirmed condition with
violation of legal norms of the negated condition; these teachings may
be called _revolutionary_. Revolutionary are the teachings of Stirner,
Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tucker, and Tolstoi.
There cannot be given a more precise definition of what is common to the
reformatory teachings on the one hand, to the revolutionary on the
other, and what is peculiar to the one group as against the other, than
has here been given. For the conceiving the transition from a negated to
an affirmed condition as taking place in any given way has totally
different meanings in the different teachings.
If Godwin, Proudhon, Stirner, Tucker, and Tolstoi conceive the
transition from a negated to an affirmed condition as taking place in
any given way, this is as much as to say that they demand that we should
in a given way first prepare for, and then effect, the transition from a
disapproved to an approved condition.
If, on the contrary, Bakunin and Kropotkin conceive the transition from
a negated to an affirmed condition as taking place in any given way,
this means that they foresee that in the progress of evolution the
transition from a disappearing to a newly-appearing condition will of
itself take place in a given way, and that they only demand that we
should make a certain sort of preparation for this transition.
2. The revolutionary teachings part company again as to the fashion in
which they conceive of the breach of law that helps in the transition
from the negated to the affirmed condition.
Some of them conceive of the breach of law as taking place without the
employment of force; these teachings may be characterized as _renitent_.
Renitent are the teachings of Tucker and Tolstoi: Tucker conceiving the
breach of law chiefly as a refusal to pay taxes and rent and an
infringement of the banking monopoly, Tolstoi especially as a refusal to
do military, police, or jury service, and also to pay taxes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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