On the whole, then, I do not regard the extreme hostility to existing
institutions which inspires Communist Anarchism as being a whit more
dangerous to Social-Democracy than the same spirit as it inspires the
peculiar Toryism of Ruskin. Much more definitely opposed to us is the
survival of that intense jealousy of the authority of the government
over the individual which was the mainspring of the progress of the
eighteenth century. Only those who forget the lessons of history the
moment they have served their immediate turn will feel otherwise than
reassured by the continued vitality of that jealousy among us. But this
consideration does not remove the economic objections which I have
advanced as to the practical program of Individualist Anarchism. And
even apart from these objections, the Social-Democrat is compelled,
by contact with hard facts, to turn his back decisively on useless
denunciation of the State. It is easy to say, Abolish the State; but
the State will sell you up, lock you up, blow you up, knock you down,
bludgeon, shoot, stab, hang--in short, abolish you, if you lift a hand
against it. Fortunately, there is, as we have seen, a fine impartiality
about the policeman and the soldier, who are the cutting edge of the
State power. They take their wages and obey their orders without asking
questions. If those orders are to demolish the homestead of every
peasant who refuses to take the bread out of his children's mouths in
order that his landlord may have money to spend as an idle gentleman in
London, the soldier obeys. But if his orders were to help the police to
pitch his lordship into Holloway Gaol until he had paid an Income Tax
of twenty shillings on every pound of his unearned income, the soldier
would do that with equal devotion to duty, and perhaps with a certain
private zest that might be lacking in the other case. Now these orders
come ultimately from the State--meaning, in this country, the House of
Commons. A House of Commons consisting of 660 gentlemen and 10 workmen
will order the soldier to take money from the people for the landlords.
A House of Commons consisting of 660 workmen and 10 gentlemen will
probably, unless the 660 are fools, order the soldier to take money
from the landlords for the people. With that hint I leave the matter,
in the full conviction that the State, in spite of the Anarchists,
will continue to be used against the people by the classes until it is
used by the people against the classes with equal ability and equal
resolution.
Printed by G. STANDRING, 7 and 9 Finsbury Street, London, E.C.
FABIAN SOCIETY.--The Fabian Society consists of Socialists. A statement
of its Rules, etc., and the following publications can be obtained from
the Secretary, at the Fabian Office, 276 Strand, London, W.C.
FABIAN ESSAYS IN SOCIALISM.
(35th Thousand.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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