The static immobility and complete "unchangeableness" which the
possessive instinct pretends to itself is all it desires is really
therefore nothing but a mask for its desire to destroy. The
possessive instinct is, in its profoundest abyss, an amorist of death.
What it secretly loves is the dead; for the dead alone can never
defraud it of its satisfaction. Wherever love exercises its creative
energy the possessive instinct relaxes its hold. Love expands and
diffuses itself. Love projects itself and merges itself The creative
impulse is always centrifugal. The indrawing movement, the
centripetal movement, is a sign of the presence of that inert malice
which would reduce all life to nothingness.
The creative energy of love issues inevitably in the idea
of communism. The idea of communism implies the complete
abolition of private property; because private property, whether it
be property in persons or in things, is essentially evil, is indeed the
natural expression of the primordial inert malice, in its hostility to
life. Under any realization, in actual existence, of the idea of
communism the creative energy finds itself free to expand and
dilate. All that heavy clogging burden of "the personally
possessed" being shaken off, the natural fresh shoots of living
beauty rise to the surface like the new green growths of spring
when the winter's rubble has been washed away by the rain.
The accursed system of private property, rooted in the abysmal
malice of the human heart, lies like a dead weight upon every
creative impulse. Everything is weighed and judged, everything is
valued and measured, in relation to this.
Modern Law is the system of restriction by which we protect
private property.
Modern religion is the system of compensation by which we
soften the difference between inequalities in private property.
Modern politics is the system of compromise by which public
opinion registers its devotion to private property. Modern morality
is the system of artificial inhibitions by which the human
conscience is perverted into regarding private property as the
supreme good.
Modern science is the system by which private property is
increased and the uses of it made more complicated. Modern
"truth" is the system of traditional opinion by which the illusion of
private property is established as "responsible" thinking, and
"serious" thinking, and "ethical" thinking.
Modern art is the system by which what is most gross and vulgar
in the popular taste is pandered to in the interests of private
property.
The creative energy in modern life is therefore restricted and
opposed at almost every point by the evil instinct to possess. Of
every new idea the question is asked, "does it conflict with private
property?"
Of every new aesthetic judgment the question is asked, "does it
conflict with private property?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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