1. "Justice must serve as basis for the new world: without it, no liberty, no living together, no prosperity, no peace."[397] "Justice, not that of jurists, nor yet that of theologians, nor yet that of metaphysicians, but simple human justice, commands"[398] that "in future every man's enjoyment corresponds to the quantity of goods produced by him."[399] The thing is, then, to find a means "which makes it impossible for any one, whoever he may be, to exploit the labor of another, and permits each to share in the enjoyment of society's stock of goods (which is solely a product of labor) only so far as he has, by his labor, directly contributed to the production of this stock of goods."[400]
This means consists in the principle "that the land, the instruments of labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of society, shall exclusively serve for the use of the laborers,—that is, of their agricultural and industrial associations."[401] "I am not a Communist, but a Collectivist."[402]
2. The collectivism of the future society "by no means demands the setting up of any supreme authority. In the name of liberty, on which alone an economic or a political organization can be founded, we shall always protest against everything that looks even remotely similar to Communism or State Socialism."[403] "I would have the organization of society, and of the collective or social property, from below upward by the voice of free union, not from above downward by means of any authority."[404]
6.—REALIZATION
The change that is promptly to be expected in the course of mankind's progress from its bestial existence to a human existence,—the disappearance of the State, the transformation of law and property, and the appearance of the new condition,—will come to pass, according to Bakunin, by a social revolution; that is, by a violent subversion of the old order, which will be automatically brought about by the power of things, but which those who foresee the course of evolution have the task of hastening and facilitating.
I. "To escape its wretched lot the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The two first are the rum-shop and the church, the third is the social revolution."[405] "A cure is possible only through the social revolution,"[406]—that is, through "the destruction of all institutions of inequality, and the establishment of economic and social equality."[407] The revolution will not be made by anybody. "Revolutions are never made, neither by individuals nor yet by secret societies. They come about automatically, in a measure; the power of things, the current of events and facts, produces them. They are long preparing in the depth of the obscure consciousness of the masses—then they break out suddenly, not seldom on apparently slight occasion."[408] The revolution is already at hand to-day;[409] everybody feels its approach;[410] we are to expect it within the nineteenth century.[411]
1. "By the revolution we understand the unchaining of everything that is to-day called 'evil passions,' and the destruction of everything that in the same language is called 'public order'."[412]