Now it is perfectly apparent that Anarchy, having to do almost entirely
with the relations of men in their thoughts and feelings, and not with
the positive organization of production and distribution, an Anarchist
needs to supplement his Anarchism by some economic propositions, which
may enable him to put in practical shape to himself and others this
possibility of independent manhood. That will be his test in choosing
any such proposition,--the measure in which individuality is secured. It
is not enough for him that a comfortable ease, a pleasant and
well-ordered routine, shall be secured; free play for the spirit of
change--that is his first demand.
Every Anarchist has this in common with every other Anarchist, that the
economic system must be subservient to this end; no system recommends
itself to him by the mere beauty and smoothness of its working; jealous
of the encroachments of the machine, he looks with fierce suspicion upon
an arithmetic with men for units, a society running in slots and
grooves, with the precision so beautiful to one in whom the love of
order is first, but which only makes him sniff--"Pfaugh! it smells of
machine oil."
There are, accordingly, several economic schools among Anarchists; there
are Anarchist Individualists, Anarchist Mutualists, Anarchist Communists
and Anarchist Socialists. In times past these several schools have
bitterly denounced each other and mutually refused to recognize each
other as Anarchists at all. The more narrow-minded on both sides still
do so; true, they do not consider it is narrow-mindedness, but simply a
firm and solid grasp of the truth, which does not permit of tolerance
towards error. This has been the attitude of the bigot in all ages, and
Anarchism no more than any other new doctrine has escaped its bigots.
Each of these fanatical adherents of either collectivism or
individualism believes that no Anarchism is possible without that
particular economic system as its guarantee, and is of course thoroughly
justified from his own standpoint. With the extension of what Comrade
Brown calls the New Spirit, however, this old narrowness is yielding to
the broader, kindlier and far more reasonable idea, that all these
economic conceptions may be experimented with, and there is nothing
un-Anarchistic about any of them until the element of compulsion enters
and obliges unwilling persons to remain in a community whose economic
arrangements they do not agree to. (When I say "do not agree to" I do
not mean that they have a mere distaste for, or that they think might
well be altered for some other preferable arrangement, but with which,
nevertheless, they quite easily put up, as two persons each living in
the same house and having different tastes in decoration, will submit to
some color of window shade or bit of bric-a-brac which he does not like
so well, but which nevertheless, he cheerfully puts up with for the
satisfaction of being with his friend. I mean serious differences which
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