II. In mankind's next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, must soon be attained, property will take such form that only property of society shall exist. The "next phase of evolution,"[567] "higher form of social organization,"[568] will "inevitably"[569] be not only Anarchism, but "Anarchistic Communism."[570] "The tendencies towards economical and political freedom are two different manifestations of the very same need of equality which constitutes the very essence of all struggles mentioned by history";[571] "these two powerful currents of thought characterize our century."[572]
In this way a comfortable life will be guaranteed to every person who co-operates in production to a certain extent.
1. Mankind's next stage of evolution will no longer know any but the property of society.
"In our century the Communist tendency is continually reasserting itself. The penny bridge disappears before the public bridge; and the turnpike road before the free road. The same spirit pervades thousands of other institutions. Museums, free libraries, and free public schools; parks and pleasure grounds; paved and lighted streets, free for everybody's use; water supplied to private dwellings, with a growing tendency towards disregarding the exact amount of it used by the individual; tramways and railways which have already begun to introduce the season ticket or the uniform tax, and will surely go much further on this line when they are no longer private property: all these are tokens showing in what direction further progress is to be expected."[573]
So will the future society be Communistic. "The first act of the nineteenth-century commune will consist in laying hands on the entire capital accumulated in its bosom."[574] This applies "to the materials for consumption as well as to those for production."[575] "People have tried to make a distinction between the capital that serves for the production of goods and that which satisfies the wants of life, and have said that machines, factories, raw materials, the means of transportation, and the land are destined to become the property of the community; while dwellings, finished products, clothing, and provisions will remain private property. This distinction is erroneous and impracticable. The house that shelters us, the coal and gas that we burn, the nutriment that our body burns up, the clothing that covers us, and the book from which we draw instruction, are all essential to our existence and are just as necessary for successful production and for the further development of mankind as are machines, factories, raw materials, and other factors of production. With private property in the former goods, there would still remain inequality, oppression, and exploitation; a half-way abolition of private property would have its effectiveness crippled in advance."[576]
There is no fear that the Communistic communes will isolate themselves.[577] "If to-day a great city transforms itself into a Communistic commune, and introduces community of the materials for both work and enjoyment, then in a very few days, if it is not shut in by hostile armies, trains of wagons will appear in its markets, and raw materials will arrive from distant ports; and the city's industrial products, when once the wants of the population are satisfied, will go to the ends of the earth seeking purchasers; throngs of strangers will stream in from near and far, and will afterward tell at home of the marvelous life of the free city where everybody works, where there are neither poor nor oppressed, where every one enjoys the fruit of his toil, and no one interferes with another's doing so."[578]
2. The Communism of the future society will "not be the Communism of the convent or the barrack, such as was formerly preached, but a free Communism which puts the joint products at the disposal of all while leaving to every one the liberty of using them at home."[579] To get an entirely clear idea of every detail of it, indeed, is not as yet possible; "nevertheless we must come to an agreement about the fundamental features at least."[580]
What form will production take?
That must first be produced which is requisite "for the satisfaction of man's most urgent wants."[581] For this it suffices "that all adults, with the exception of those women who are occupied with the education of children, engage to do five hours a day, from the age of twenty or twenty-two to the age of forty-five or fifty, of any one (at their option) of the labors that are regarded as necessary."[582] "For instance, a society would enter into the following contract with each of its members: 'We will guarantee to you the enjoyment of our houses, stores of goods, streets, conveyances, schools, museums, etc., on condition that from your twentieth year to your forty-fifth or fiftieth you apply five hours every day to one of the labors necessary to life. Every moment you will have your choice of the groups you will join, or you may found a new one provided that it proposes to do necessary service. For the rest of your time you may associate yourself with whom you like for the purpose of scientific or artistic recreation at your pleasure. We ask of you, therefore, nothing but twelve or fifteen hundred hours' work annually in one of the groups which produce food, clothing, and shelter, or which care for health, transportation, etc.; and in return we insure to you all that these groups produce or have produced'."[583]
There will be time enough, therefore, to produce what is requisite for the satisfaction of less urgent wants. "When one has done in the field or the factory the work that he is under obligation to do for society, he can devote the other half of his day, his week, or his year, to the satisfaction of artistic or scientific wants."[584] "The lover of music who wishes a piano will enter the association of instrument-makers; he will devote part of his half-days, and will soon possess the longed-for piano. Or the enthusiast in astronomy will join the astronomers' association with its philosophers, observers, calculators, and opticians, its scholars and amateurs; and he will obtain the telescope he wishes, if only he dedicates some work to the common cause—for there is a deal of rough work necessary for an observatory, masons' work, carpenters' work, founders' work, machinists' work—the final polish, to be sure, can be given to the instrument of precision by none but the artist. In a word, the five to seven hours that every one has left, after he has first devoted some hours to the production of the necessary, are quite sufficient to render possible for him every kind of luxury."[585]
