such a community as Kropotkin advocates, would
have acquiesced tamely in a world where his genius
could find no scope? I cannot see what should prevent
a combination of ambitious men forming themselves
into a private army, manufacturing their own
munitions, and at last enslaving the defenseless citizens,
who had relied upon the inherent attractiveness
of liberty. It would not be consistent with the principles
of Anarchism for the community to interfere
with the drilling of a private army, no matter what
its objects might be (though, of course, an opposing
private army might be formed by men with different
views). Indeed, Kropotkin instances the old volunteers
in Great Britain as an example of a movement
on Anarchist lines.[52] Even if a predatory army were
not formed from within, it might easily come from a
neighboring nation, or from races on the borderland
of civilization. So long as the love of power exists,
I do not see how it can be prevented from finding an
outlet in oppression except by means of the organized
force of the community.
[50] On this subject there is an excellent discussion in the
before-mentioned work of Monsieur Naquet.
[51] ``As to the third--the chief--objection, which maintains
the necessity of a government for punishing those who break the
law of society, there is so much to say about it that it hardly can
be touched incidentally. The more we study the question, the
more we are brought to the conclusion that society itself is
responsible for the anti-social deeds perpetrated in its midst, and
that no punishment, no prisons, and no hangmen can diminish
the numbers of such deeds; nothing short of a reorganization of
society itself. Three-quarters of all the acts which are brought
every year before our courts have their origin, either directly or
indirectly, in the present disorganized state of society with
regard to the production and distribution of wealth--not in the
perversity of human nature. As to the relatively few anti-social
deeds which result from anti-social inclinations of separate
individuals, it is not by prisons, nor even by resorting to the
hangmen, that we can diminish their numbers. By our prisons,
we merely multiply them and render them worse. By our detectives,
our `price of blood,' our executions, and our jails, we
spread in society such a terrible flow of basest passions and
habits, that he who should realize the effects of these institutions
to their full extent, would be frightened by what society is
doing under the pretext of maintaining morality. We must
search for other remedies, and the remedies have been indicated
long since.'' Kropotkin, ``Anarchist Communism,'' pp. 31-32.
[52] ``Anarchist Communism,'' p. 27.
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