We are all fond of shewing that on any given subject there are only
two of these safe spots, one being the point of agreement with us, and
the other some inconceivable extremity of idiocy. But for the purposes
of the present criticism it will be more practical to waive such crude
rationalizing, and concede that to deal with Mr. Tucker without also
dealing with Peter Kropotkine is not to give Anarchism fair play.
The main difficulty in criticising Kropotkine lies in the fact that,
in the distribution of generally needed labor products, his Communism
is finally cheap and expedient, whereas Mr. Tucker's Individualism, in
the same department, is finally extravagant and impossible. Even under
the most perfect Social-Democracy we should, without Communism, still
be living like hogs, except that each hog would get his fair share of
grub. High as that ideal must seem to anyone who complacently accepts
the present social order, it is hardly high enough to satisfy a man in
whom the social instinct is well developed. So long as vast quantities
of labor have to be expended in weighing and measuring each man's
earned share of this and that commodity--in watching, spying, policing,
and punishing in order to prevent Tom getting a crumb of bread more or
Dick a spoonful of milk less than he has a voucher for, so long will
the difference between Unsocialism and Socialism be only the difference
between unscientific and scientific hoggishness. I do not desire to
underrate the vastness of that difference. Whilst we are hogs, let
us at least be well-fed, healthy, reciprocally useful hogs, instead
of--well, instead of the sort we are at present. But we shall not have
any great reason to stand on the dignity of our humanity until a just
distribution of the loaves and fishes becomes perfectly spontaneous,
and the great effort and expense of a legal distribution, however just,
is saved. For my own part, I seek the establishment of a state of
society in which I shall not be bothered with a ridiculous pocketful of
coppers, nor have to waste my time in perplexing arithmetical exchanges
of them with booking clerks, bus conductors, shopmen, and other
superfluous persons before I can get what I need. I aspire to live in a
community which shall be at least capable of averaging the transactions
between us well enough to ascertain how much work I am to do for it in
return for the right to take what I want of the commoner necessaries
and conveniences of life. The saving of friction by such an arrangement
may be guessed from the curious fact that only specialists in sociology
are conscious of the numerous instances in which we are to-day forced
to adopt it by the very absurdity of the alternative. Most people will
tell you that Communism is known only in this country as a visionary
project advocated by a handful of amiable cranks. Then they will stroll
off across the common bridge, along the common embankment, by the light
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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