"Imagine a Society comprising several million inhabitants engaged in agriculture, and a great variety of industries—Paris, for example, with the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Imagine that in this Society all children learn to work with their hand as well as with their brain. Admit, in fine, that all adults, with the exception of the women occupied with the education of children, undertake to work five hours a day from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and that they spend this time in any occupations they choose, in no matter what branch of human labour considered necessary. Such a Society could, in return, guarantee well-being to all its members, i.e., far greater comfort than that enjoyed by the bourgeoisie to-day. And every worker in this Society would moreover have at his disposal at least five hours a day, which he could devote to science, to art, and to those individual needs that do not come within the category of necessities, while later on, when the productive forces of man have augmented, everything may be introduced into this category that is still to-day looked upon as a luxury or unattainable."[53]
In Anarchist Society there will be no authority, but there will be the Contract (oh! immortal Monsieur Proudhon, here you are again; we see all still goes well with you!) by virtue of which the infinitely free individuals "agree" to work in such or such a "free commune." The contract is justice, liberty, equality; it is Proudhon, Kropotkine, and all the Saints. But, at the same time, do not trifle with the contract! It is a thing not so destitute of means to defend itself as would seem. Indeed, suppose the signatory of a contract freely made does not wish to fulfil his duty? He is driven forth from the free commune, and he runs the risk of dying of hunger—which is not a particularly gay outlook.
"I suppose a group or a certain number of volunteers, combining in some enterprise, to secure the success of which all rival each other in zeal, with the exception of one associate, who frequently absents himself from his post. Should they, on his account, dissolve the group, appoint a president who would inflict fines, or else, like the Academy, distribute attendance-counters? It is evident that we shall do neither the one nor the other, but that one day the comrade who threatens to jeopardise the enterprise will be told: 'My friend, we should have been glad to work with you, but as you are often absent from your post, or do your work negligently, we must part. Go and look for other comrades who will put up with your off-hand ways.'"[54] This is pretty strong at bottom; but note how appearances are saved, how very "Anarchist" is his language. Really, we should not be at all surprised if in the "Anarchist-Communist" society people were guillotined by persuasion, or, at any rate, by virtue of a freely-made contract.
But farther, this very Anarchist method of dealing with lazy "free individuals" is perfectly "natural," and "is practised everywhere to-day in all industries, in competition with every possible system of fines, stoppages from wages, espionage, etc.; the workman may go to his shop at the regular hour, but if he does his work badly, if he interferes with his comrades by his laziness or other faults, if they fall out, it is all over. He is obliged to leave the workshop."[55] Thus is the Anarchist "Ideal" in complete harmony with the "tendencies" of capitalist society.
For the rest, such strong measures as these will be extremely rare. Delivered from the yoke of the State and capitalist exploitation, individuals will of their own free motion set themselves to supply the wants of the great All of society. Everything will be done by means of "free arrangement."
"Well, Citizens, let others preach industrial barracks, and the convent of "Authoritarian" Communism, we declare that the tendency of societies is in the opposite direction. We see millions and millions of groups constituting themselves freely in order to satisfy all the varied wants of human beings, groups formed, some by districts, by streets, by houses; others holding out hands across the walls (!) of cities, of frontiers, of oceans. All made up of human beings freely seeking one another, and having done their work as producers, associating themselves, to consume, or to produce articles of luxury, or to turn science into a new direction. This is the tendency of the nineteenth century, and we are following it; we ask only to develop it freely, without let or hindrance on the part of governments. Liberty for the individual!" "Take some pebbles," said Fourier, "put them into a box and shake them; they will arrange themselves into a mosaic such as you could never succeed in producing if you told off some one to arrange them harmoniously."[56]
A wit has said that the profession of faith of the Anarchists reduces itself to two articles of a fantastic law: (1) There shall be nothing. (2) No one is charged with carrying out the above article.
This is not correct. The Anarchists say:
(1) There shall be everything. (2) No one is held responsible for seeing that there is anything at all.
This is a very seductive "Ideal," but its realisation is unfortunately very improbable.