“Anarchy and Communism protest against being coupled together,” declared certain dishonest adversaries, little anxious to throw light upon the question. “Communism is an organization; an organization prevents the development of individuality;⁠—we will have none of it!” “We are individualists, we are Anarchists; nothing more!” exclaimed after them certain persons, sincere in the sense that they desired to appear more advanced than all their comrades, and having no originality their own. They entangled themselves in exaggerations, pushing the ideas to absurdity; and around them collected those whom the governing class has an interest in introducing among its adversaries, to divide or mislead them.

Now, behold those Anarchists launched into discussions Anarchy, Communism, the initiative, organization; the harmful or useful influence of groups; egoism and altruism; in fine, lot of things one more absurd than the other. For, after being thoroughly discussed by honest opponents, the end of it is that all want the same thing, though calling it by different names. As a matter of fact the Anarchists who demand Communism are the first to recognize that the individual has not been put into the world for society’s sake; that, on the contrary, the latter has been formed solely for the purpose of furnishing the former greater facility for evolution. It is quite plain that when a certain number of persons group together and unite their forces, they have in view the obtaining of a greater sum of enjoyment with a less expenditure of energy. In nowise have they the intention of sacrificing their initiative, their will, their individuality, for the benefit of an entity which did not exist before their union, which will disappear with their dispersion. To economize their forces while continuing to wrest from nature the things necessary to their existence, and which they could not obtain but by the concentration of their efforts, was certainly the motive which guided those human beings who first commenced to group themselves; or what, at least, must have been tacitly understood as such, if not completely reasoned out in their primitive associations, which associations might well be, even had to be, temporary and limited to the duration of the effort, falling apart when the result was once attained.

No Anarchist, therefore, thinks of subordinating the existence of the individual to the progress of society. Freedom of the people, complete freedom in all their modes of action, is all we ask. And if there be those who repudiate organization, who swear by the individual alone, who say that they despise the community, declaring that the egoism of the individual should be his only rule of conduct, and that the adoration of his ego should come before and above all humanitarian considerations⁠—believing themselves to be therein more advanced than others⁠—such people can never have studied the psychological and physiological nature of man, never have given themselves an account of their own feelings; they have no idea of what constitutes the real life of man, its physical, moral, and intellectual needs.

Our present society exhibits some of these perfect egoists: the Delobelles, the Hjalmar Eikdals, are not rare; they are found not only in romances. Without meeting any great number of them, it is sometimes given to us to run up against these types who think only of themselves, who see nothing in life but their own persons. If there is a tempting bit on the table they appropriate it without scruple. They live largely outside while their folks at home are dying of hunger. They accept the sacrifices of all who surround them⁠—father, mother, wife, children⁠—as their due, while they shamelessly put on dignified airs and take their ease. The sufferings of others are not counted, provided that their own existence runs smoothly. Still worse, they do not even perceive that others suffer for them and through them. When they are fed and well-disposed, humanity is satisfied and refreshed! Behold the type of your perfect egoist in the absolute sense of the word! But we may also add it is the type of a very sorry individual. The most repugnant bourgeois does not even approach this type; he, at times, still has love for his own people, or at least something akin to it which takes its place. We do not believe that the sincere partisans of the most exaggerated individualism have ever had the intention of giving us this type as the ideal of future humanity; no more than the Communist-Anarchists have meant to preach abnegation and renunciation for the individual in the society which they anticipate. Disclaiming the entity “society,” they equally disclaim that other entity, the “individual,” which those who have carried the theory to absurdity tend to create.

The individual has a right to his entire liberty, to the satisfaction of all his needs; that is understood. Only, as there exist more than a billion of individuals on the earth, with equal rights if not with equal needs, it follows that all these rights must be satisfied without encroaching on one another; otherwise that would be oppression, which would render the success of the revolution futile.

What tends greatly to befog our ideas is that this adulterate society which governs us, based upon the antagonism of interests, has made people prey upon one another, and forces them to tear each other to pieces in order to secure to themselves the possibility of living. In the existing society one must be either robber or robbed; there is no middle way. Today the one who helps a neighbor runs great risk of being duped; hence the belief, among those who do not reason, that men cannot live without fighting each other. The Anarchists, however, say that society should be based on the strictest solidarity. In that society which they wish to realize, it must not be that individual happiness, were it only in its very least important division, be attained at the expense of another individual. Personal well-being must flow from the general well-being; when an individual feels himself injured in his autonomy or in his belongings, all other individuals must feel the same injury in order that they may remedy it. So long as this ideal is not realized, so long as this goal is not reached, societies will be but arbitrary organizations, against which persons who feel themselves wronged will have the right to revolt.

If men could live isolated, if they could return to the state of nature, there would be no discussion as to how they should live: each would live as he pleased. The earth is big enough to accommodate everybody. But would the earth, if left to itself, furnish sufficient for all to live upon? This is less certain. It would probably mean ferocious war between individuals, the “struggle for existence” of the early ages, in all its fury. It would be the cycle of evolution already run through and recommencing⁠—the stronger oppressing the weaker until superseded by the cunning, until money-value should displace force-value. If we have had to traverse this period of blood, of misery and exploitation, which is called the history of humanity, it is because man has been egoistic in the absolute sense of the word, without any corrective, without any mitigation. He has had in view from the outset of all his associations, nothing but the satisfaction of his immediate desires. Whenever he has been able to enslave a weaker fellow he has done so without scruple, seeing only the amount of work to be got out of the victim, without reflecting that the necessity of surveillance, the revolts he will have to suppress, will end, in the long run, in compelling him to perform an equally onerous labor, and that it would be better to work side by side, lending each other mutual aid.

It is thus that authority and property have succeeded in establishing themselves. Now, if we wish to overturn them, it cannot be done by beginning our past evolution over again. If this theory that the motive of the individual should be egoism pure and simple⁠—the adoration and culture of the ego⁠—were admitted, one would necessarily declare that the individual should launch into the melee and work to gain the means of self-gratification without concerning himself as to whether he crushes others at his side. To affirm this would be to confess that the coming revolution should be made by and for the strong, that the new society must be a perpetual conflict between individuals. If it were so we should have no reason to proclaim the idea of general enfranchisement. We should rebel against the existing society only because its capitalistic organization did not permit us likewise to possess.

It may be that among those calling themselves Anarchists there are some who regard the question from this standpoint. This would explain to us the defections and recantations of persons who, after having been most ardent, have deserted their principles to range themselves among the defenders of the existing society, because it offered them compensations. Certainly we do combat this society because it does not afford us satisfaction for all our aspirations; but we also comprehend that our own interests, rightly understood, would have this satisfaction of our needs extended to all the members of society. Man is always egoistic, he always tends to make of his ego the centre of the universe. But with the development of his intelligence he comes to understand that if his ego wishes to be satisfied there are other egos that equally wish to be satisfied, (those that have not been have made it understood that they had a right to be) whence sentimentalists and mystics have come to preach renunciation, sacrifice, devotion to one’s neighbor.

Social authority, while continuing to preach the oppression of the individual for the sake of the collectivity⁠—this dogma has contributed to its maintenance even as much as force has⁠—social authority has had to modify itself, to concede a larger share to individuality. For if narrow, badly understood egoism is opposed to the functioning of society, renunciation and the spirit of sacrifice are fatal to individuality. To sacrifice oneself for others, above all when they are indifferent to you, does not enter into everyone’s disposition. And besides it would, in the long run, be even prejudicial to humanity, for it would allow narrow minds, egoistic in the bad sense of the word, to rule; that type of humanity farthest from perfect would come to absorb the others. Altruism, properly so-called, could not, therefore, take root either.

But though egoism or altruism, separately, each pushed to its extreme, is pernicious to the individual and society, united they are resolved into a third term, which is the law of future societies. This law is solidarity.

Many of us will combine with the intention of realizing one of our aspirations. This association having nothing forced in it, nothing arbitrary, prompted only by some need of our being, it is quite evident that the more pressing the need the more force and activity shall we contribute to the association. All having cooperated in production, we shall all have rights in consumption; that is plain; but as the sum of needs will have been calculated (counting in those which must be foreseen) that the satisfaction of all may be attained, solidarity will have no trouble in securing to each his share. Is it not said that man’s nature is to have his eyes bigger than his stomach? Now, the more intense his desire is the greater an amount of activity will he devote to its realization. Thus he will come to produce not only sufficient to satisfy the co-participants, but also those in whom desire would not have been awakened but for the sight of the thing produced. Man’s needs being infinite, infinite will be his means of satisfying them, and it is this variety of needs which will concur in the establishment of general harmony.

In our present society, wherein we are accustomed to depend upon the toil of others to obtain the things necessary for existence, there is but one object: to procure money enough to enable one to buy what he wants. Now, as manual labor does not even enable one to keep himself from starving, he who has only this resource, seeks to obtain money by every means except work, becoming an official, journalist, or whatnot, including blackmailer. He who has a start goes into commerce and increases his income by robbing his contemporaries; he gambles in stocks, he speculates, or makes others work for him. People engage in all sorts of occupations, more or less dishonorable, except the one thing necessary that all might have their share⁠—useful production. So that each one pulls the cover over himself without concerning himself about those whom he lays naked, whence this unreasoned egoism which seems to have become the sole motive of human actions.

But as man grows refined, he comes also to live not only for himself and in himself. The type of the humane egoist, perfectly developed, is to suffer with the sufferings of those who surround him, to have his enjoyment spoiled by the reflection that others, owing to the vicious social organization in which we live, may suffer by it. Among the bourgeoisie there are persons whose sensitiveness is certainly highly developed; when the influences of environment, education, or heredity, leave them leisure to reflect upon social misery and turpitude; when they reckon up their existence, they try as much as possible to remedy misery with charity. Whence, philanthropic works! But the habit of believing society normally constituted, the habit of considering poverty eternal, the result of the laborer’s misconduct, engenders an unfeeling character, inquisitorial in its philanthropy. Because for the man born, educated, brought up in the hothouses of wealth and luxury, it is very difficult, even impossible, save under exceptional circumstances, to come to doubt the legitimacy of the situation he occupies. For the parvenu it is still more difficult, for he believes he owes his situation to his talent and his work. Religion, conceit, and the economists, have so reiterated that work is a punishment, that poverty is the result of the improvidence of those who are a prey to it, that how can you expect him who has never had to struggle against adversity not to believe himself of a superior essence! From the day he begins to doubt it, sets himself to study the social organization, if he is sufficiently endowed to understand its viciousness, his pleasures will be poisoned at their fountainhead. This man will suffer when he says to himself that his luxury necessitates the misery of a mass of workers, that every one of his possessions is purchased at the expense of the sufferings of those who are sacrificed to produce them. If this man’s combativeness is developed equally with his sensitiveness he will make one more rebel against the social order which does not secure moral and intellectual satisfaction even to him. For it must not be forgotten that the social problem is not confined to a simple material question. We certainly do contend, and that before everything else, that all should have enough to eat. But our demands are not limited to this; we also contend that each should be able to develop himself according to his faculties, and to procure those intellectual gratifications which the needs of his brain create. True that for many Anarchists the question stops there; and that is what has brought about these divers interpretations and discussions of egoism, altruism, etc. Nothing more urgent than the stomach question! Only it would be dangerous to the success of the revolution to stop there, for then one might just as well accept the Socialistic State, which could, and would, secure all in the satisfaction of their physical needs.

If the next revolution were to confine its objects to the sole problem of material life, it would greatly risk being arrested on the way, degenerating into a vast revel of gluttony, which, the orgy once over, would not be long in surrendering the insurgent: to the blows of capitalistic reaction. Happily this problem, paramount today to the workingmen whose future is rendered uncertain by more and more prolonged periods of idleness, as we admit, is not the only one which will be solved in the next revolution. Without doubt the first work of the Anarchists towards making the revolution a success, will be to seize social wealth, to call upon the disinherited to take possession of stores, machinery, and the soil; to install themselves in healthy localities, destroying the rat-holes in which they are forced to remain today. The revolutionists should destroy all the old parchments which guarantee the functioning of property; the offices of bailiffs, notaries, register of land surveys, register of deeds, the entire civil staff, should be visited and “cleaned out.” But to do all this work something more than famishing people is needed⁠—individuals, conscious of their individuality, jealous of all their rights, determined to conquer them and capable of defending them once they are acquired. This is why a question of subsistence only would be powerless to effect such a transformation; and it is also why there rise up, together with the right to subsistence which the Anarchists demand, all these questions of art, science, and philosophy, which they are forced to study, to fathom, to elucidate, and which are the cause of Anarchistic ideas embracing every branch of human science. Everywhere have arguments in favor of these ideas been found, everywhere there have risen up adherents who furnished their quota of demands, and reinforced the principles with their special knowledge. The sum of human learning is so great that the most privileged brains can appropriate only a portion; likewise the conception of Anarchism though condensed by certain minds which outline its bases and trace its program, cannot be elucidated but by the collaboration of all, by the help of each one’s knowledge. And this it is which gives it its strength, for it is the collaboration of all which enables it to sum up all human aspirations.