“Anarchy recognises in every individual from the moment he has seen the light of day the right to live. Individuals suffer from hunger by reason of a defective social organisation. And yet the planet has still, and will have for a long time, enough and more than enough to nourish the beings it carries. Every individual who finds himself reduced by the fault of society to a want of bread has the right to rebel against society, to take food wherever it exists....
POSSIBLE REVOLUTIONISTS
“Nevertheless, there is a thing that puzzles many of us; namely, the ignoble means it is necessary to employ, if one would steal, the perpetual deceit to throw the victim off his guard, the constant duplicity to capture his confidence....
“Every one acts as he understands, as he can. If his ways of proceeding are in contradiction with the established order of things, it is for him and the defenders of the code to have an explanation. But, when certain persons pretend to derive their way of living from a special order of ideas, when they seek to disguise with the cloak of the propagande deeds done for their own preservation, we have a right to say what we think.
“If, then, we place ourselves at the view-point of the right which the individual has to live, he may steal. It is his privilege, especially if society drives him to want by refusing him work. And I add that it would be very stupid of him to commit suicide when society has made him destitute. The right to the defence of one’s own existence being primordial, one must take where there is.
“But, if the act of stealing is to assume a character of revendication or of protest against the defective organisation of society, it must be performed openly, without any subterfuge.
“‘But,’ retort the defenders of le vol, ‘the individual who acts openly will deprive himself thus of the possibility of continuing. He will lose thereby his liberty, since he will be at once arrested, tried, and condemned.’
“Granted. But, if the individual who steals in the name of the right to revolt resorts to ruse, he does nothing more nor less than the first thief that comes along who steals to live without embarrassing himself with theories.