“Property and want are the great incentives to crime. But if defective society organisation is the cause of crime, an improvement in organisation should cause a disappearance of crime.” (Jean Grave, La Société future, pp. 137-138.)
[1327] “Is it necessary,” asks Bakunin, “to repeat the arguments of socialism, which are still unanswerable and which no bourgeois economist has ever attempted to disprove? What are we to make of property and capital as they exist at the present moment? In both cases it practically means a right or a power guaranteed and protected by society to live without working; and since property and capital produce absolutely nothing unless fertilised by labour, it means power and the right to live upon the labour of others and to exploit the labour of those who have neither property nor capital and are compelled to sell their productive force to the fortunate owner of the one or other of these.” Cf. Kropotkin’s Conquest of Bread, p. 56: “Multiply examples, choose them where you will, consider the origin of all fortunes, large or small, whether arising out of commerce, finance, manufactures, or the land. Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor.” In this sentence he sums up a long demonstration which he gives in proof of this contention.
[1328] Bakunin, Œuvres, vol. i, p. 324.
[1329] Idée générale de la Révolution, p. 119.
[1330] “Law is simply an instrument invented for the maintenance of exploitation and the domination of the idle rich over the toiling masses. Its sole mission is the perpetuation of exploitation.” (Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist, p. 235.)
[1331] Bakunin, Programme de l’Alliance, in Sozial-politischer Briefwechsel, p. 339.
[1332] Kropotkin, Conquest of Bread, pp. 61-62.
[1333] “The anarchists want to see free unions established, resting upon mutual affection and based upon respect for one’s self and for the dignity of others. And in that sense, in their desire to show respect and affection for all the members of the association, they are inimical to the family,” (Élisée Reclus, loc. cit., pp. 145-146.)
[1334] Der Einzige, p. 229.
[1335] Cf. Idée générale de la Révolution, p. 281, and p. 342: “Revolution follows revelation. Reason aided by experience reveals to us the nature of the laws which govern society as well as nature, and which in both cases are simply the laws of necessity. They are neither made by man nor imposed by his authority. They have only been discovered step by step, which is a proof of their independent existence. By obeying them a man becomes just and noble. Violation of them constitutes injustice and sin. I can suggest no other motive for human actions.”