"Freeland," as depicted by Hertzka in his social romance, is a community founded upon the principle of unlimited publicity combined with unlimited freedom. Everyone throughout "Freeland" must be able to know at any time what commodities are in greater or less demand, and what branches of work produce greater or less profit. Thus in "Freeland" everybody has the right and the power to apply himself, as far as he is capable, to those forms of production that are at any time most profitable. A careful department of statistics publishes in an easily read and rapid form every movement of production and consumption, and thus the movement of prices in all commodities is quickly brought to everyone's notice. But in order that everyone may undertake that branch of production most suitable and profitable to him, from the information thus obtained, the necessary means of production, including the forces of nature, are freely at the disposal of all, without interest, but a repayment has to be made out of the result of production.
Each has a right to the full return from his labour; this is obtained by free association of the workers. The entrance into each association is free to everyone, and anyone can leave any association at any time. Each member has a right to a share in the net product of the association corresponding to the work done by him. The work done is reckoned for each member in proportion to the number of hours worked. The work done by the freely elected and responsible managers or directors is reckoned, by means of free agreement made with each member of the union, as equal to a certain number of hours' work per day. The profit made by the community is reckoned up at the close of each working year, and after deduction for repayment of capital, and the taxes payable to the "Freeland" commonwealth, is divided amongst its members. The members, in case of the failure or liquidation of the association, are liable for its debts in proportion to their share of the profits. This liability for the debts of the association corresponds, in case of dissolution, to the claim of the guarantor members on the property available. The highest authority of the association is the General Assembly, in which every member possesses the same voting power, active and passive. The conduct of the business of the company is placed in the hands of a directorate, chosen by the General Assembly for a certain period, whose appointment is, however, revocable at any time. Besides this the General Assembly elects every year an overseer who has to watch over the conduct of the directors. There are neither masters nor servants; only free workers; there are also no proprietors, only employers of the capital of the association. The forms of capital necessary for production are therefore as free from owners as is the land.
The most extensive publicity of all business proceedings is the prime supposition for the proper working of this organisation, which can only exist by the removal of all hindrances to the free activity of the individual will guided by enlightened self-interest. There can and need be no business secrets; on the contrary, it is the highest interest of all to see that everyone's capacity for work is directed to where it will produce the best results. The working-statements of the producers are therefore published; the purchase and sale of all imaginable products and commodities of "Freeland" trade takes place in large warehouses, managed and supervised for the benefit of the community.
The highest authority in "Freeland" is at the same time the banker of the whole population. Not merely every association, but every person has his account in the books of the Central Bank, which looks after all payments inwards as well as all money paid out from the greatest to the smallest by means of a comprehensive clearing system.
All the expenditure of the community is defrayed by all in common, and by each person singly, exactly in proportion to its income; for which purpose the Central Bank debits each with his share in the total.
The chief item in the budget of "Freeland" expenditure is "maintenance"; which includes everything spent on account of persons incapacitated for work or excused from it, and who therefore have a right to free support, such as all women, children, sick persons, defectives, and men over sixty years of age. On the other hand, justice, police, military, and finance arrangements cost nothing in "Freeland." There are no paid judges or police officials, still fewer soldiers, and the taxes, as seen above, come in of their own accord. There is not even a code of criminal or civil law. For the settlement of any disputes that may arise, arbitrators are chosen, who make their decisions verbally, and from whom there is an appeal to the Board of Arbitrators. But they have practically nothing to do, for there is neither robbery nor theft in "Freeland"; since "men who are normal in mind and morals cannot possibly commit any violences against other people in a community in which all proper interests of each member are equally regarded." Criminals are therefore treated as people who are suffering from mental or moral disease.
We need not point out that we here have to deal with an attempt to revive Proudhon's thoughts and plans, and that our criticisms on these apply equally to Freeland. If to-day extravagant praise is lavished on Hertzka's originality, that only proves that people who criticise and condemn Proudhon so readily have not read him; and even when Archdukes give the "Freeland" project their moral and financial support, that only proves again how little, even now, the real meaning of Anarchism is understood, and how slavishly people submit to words.
Eugen Dühring has raved against "the State founded on force" as often as against Anarchism, in his various writings; he has as often pronounced a scornful judgment upon the literary connections of Anarchism as he has sought to ally himself with the so-called "honourable" Anarchists in his little paper (The Modern Spirit—Der Moderen Völkergeist, in Berlin) that is apparently brought out for the sake of a Dühring cult. There appears at least to be a contradiction between the theory of Anarchism and Dühring's Anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, Dühring undoubtedly belongs to the Anarchists, and has never very seriously defended himself against this charge. His haughty and biassed criticisms of Proudhon, Stirner, and Kropotkin (he excepts only Bakunin, the enemy of the "Hebrew" Marx) are sufficiently explained by his own unexampled weakness and love of belittling others, without seeking any further motives; "it must be night where his own stars shine"; and as his followers have generally read nothing else beside his lucubrations, it is very easy to explain the great influence which Dühring exercises at present upon the youth of Germany, and why he is regarded by some people as the only man of genius since Socrates, and as a man of the most unparalleled originality, which he is not, by a long way.
However much Dühring may belittle Proudhon, he is himself, at least as a social politician, and certainly as an economist, merely a weak dilution of Proudhon. In The Modern Spirit Proudhon's Anarchism was recently credited with the intention of abolishing not only all government, but all organisation. Dühring, it was said, had reduced this mistaken view to its proper origin, and in place of Anarchism had set up "Anticratism," which does not intend to overthrow direction and organisation, but merely to abolish all unjust force, "the State founded on force." We who know Proudhon, know that what is here ascribed to Dühring is exactly what Proudhon taught as "no-government" (An-arche); and there was nothing left to the great Dühring but to bluff his half-fledged scholars with a new word that means nothing more or less than Anarchy. That which is Dühring's own, namely, the so-called "theory of force," has not an origin of any great profundity. He takes as the elements of society two human beings—not at all the sexual pair—but the celebrated "two men" of Herr Dühring, one of whom oppresses the other, uses force to him, and makes him work for him. These "two men" explain, for him, all economic functions and social problems; the origin of social distinctions, of political privileges, of property, capital, betterment, exploitation, and so on. By these two famous men he lets himself be guided directly into Proudhon's path. "Wealth," declares Dühring, "is mastery over men and things." Proudhon would never have been so silly—although Dühring means the same as he does—as to call wealth the mastery over men and things, and Engel formulates the proposition more correctly as: "Wealth is the mastery over men, by means of mastery over things"; although this deserves the name of a definition neither in the logical nor economic sense. But Dühring uses his ambiguous proposition in order to be able to represent riches on the one hand as being something quite justifiable and praiseworthy (the mastery over things), and on the other as robbery (mastery over men), as "property due to force." Here we have a miserable degradation and commonplace expression of the antimony of Proudhon: "Property is theft," and "Property is liberty." We also find Proudhon, again distorted, in Dühring's statement that the time spent in work by various workers, whether they be navvies or sculptors, is of equal value.