CHAPTER XI
THE OLDEST ANARCHISM
It is perhaps just as well to begin this chapter by reminding ourselves that anarchy means literally no government. Consequently, there will be no laws. "I am ready to make terms, but I will have no laws," said Proudhon; adding, "I acknowledge none." [(1)] However revolutionary this may seem, it is, after all, not so very unlike what has always existed in the affairs of men. Without the philosophy of the idealist anarchist, with no pretense of justice or "nonsense" about equality, there have always been in this old world of ours those powerful enough to make and to break law, to brush aside the State and any and every other hindrance that stood in their path. "Laws are like spiders' webs," said Anacharsis, "and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them." He might have said, with equal truth, that, with or without laws, the rich and powerful have been able in the past to do very much as they pleased. For the poor and the weak there have always been, to be sure, hard and fast rules that they could not break through. But the rich and powerful have always managed to live more or less above the State or, at least, so to dominate the State that to all intents and purposes, other than their own, it did not exist. When Bakounin wrote his startling and now famous decree abolishing the State, he created no end of hilarity among the Marxists, but had Bakounin been Napoleon with his mighty army, or Morgan and Rockefeller with their great wealth, he could no doubt in some measure have carried out his wish. Without, however, either wealth or numbers behind him, Bakounin preached a polity that, up to the present, only the rich and powerful have been able even partly to achieve. The anarchy of Proudhon was visionary, humanitarian, and idealistic. At least he thought he was striving for a more humane social order than that of the present. But this older anarchism is as ancient as tyranny, and never at any moment has it ceased to menace human civilization. Based on a real mastery over the industrial and political institutions of mankind, this actual anarchy has never for long allowed the law, the Constitution, the State, or the flag to obstruct its path or thwart its avarice.
Moreover, under the anarchism proposed by Proudhon and Bakounin, the maintenance of property rights, public order, and personal security would be left to voluntary effort, that is to say, to private enterprise. As all things would be decided by mutual agreement, the only law would be a law of contracts, and that law would need to be enforced either by associations formed for that purpose or by professionals privately employed for that purpose. So far as one can see, then, the methods of the feudal lords would be revived, by which they hired their own personal armies or went shares in the spoils with their bandits, buccaneers, and assassins. By organizing their own military forces and maintaining them in comfort, they were able to rob, burn, and murder, in order to protect the wealth and power they had, or to gain more wealth and power. For them there was no law but that of a superior fighting force. There was an infinite variety of customs and traditions that were in the nature of laws, but even these were seldom allowed to stand in the way of those who coveted, and were strong enough to take, the land, the money, or the produce of others. Indeed, the feudal duke or prince was all that Nechayeff claimed for the modern robber. He was a glorified anarchist, "without phrase, without rhetoric." He could scour Europe for mercenaries, and, when he possessed himself of an army of marauders, he became a law unto himself. The most ancient and honorable anarchy is despotism, and its most effective and available means of domination have always been the employment of its own personal military forces.
It will be remembered that Bakounin developed a kind of robber worship. The bandit leaders Stenka Razin and Pougatchoff appeared to him as national heroes, popular avengers, and irreconcilable enemies of the State. He conceived of the brigands scattered throughout Russia and confined in the prisons of the Empire as "a unique and indivisible world, strongly bound together—the world of the Russian revolution." The robber was "the wrestler in life and in death against all this civilization of officials, of nobles, of priests, and of the crown." Of course, Bakounin says here much that is historically true. Thieves, marauders, highwaymen, bandits, brigands, villains, mendicants, and all those other elements of mediæval life for whom society provided neither land nor occupation, often organized themselves into guerilla bands in order to war upon all social and civil order. But Bakounin neglects to mention that it was these very elements that eagerly became the mercenaries of any prince who could feed them. They were lawless, "without phrase, without rhetoric," and, if anyone were willing to pay them, they would gladly pillage, burn, and murder in his interest. They would have served anybody or anything—the State, society, a prince, or a tyrant. They had no scruples and no philosophies. They were in the market to be bought by anyone who wanted a choice brand of assassins. And the feudal duke or prince bought, fed, and cared for these "veritable and unique revolutionists," in order to have them ready for service in his work of robbery and murder. To be sure, when these marauders had no employer they were dangerous, because then they committed crimes and outrages on their own hook. But the vast majority of them were hirelings, and many of them achieved fame for the bravery of their exploits in the service of the dukes, the princes, and the priests of that time. There were even guilds of mercenaries, such as the Condottieri of Italy; and the Swiss were famous for their superior service. They were, it seems, revolutionists in Bakounin's use of the term, and every prince knew "no money, no Swiss" ("point d'argent, point de Suisse").
A very slight acquaintance with history teaches us that this anarchy has been checked and that the history of recent times consists largely of the struggles of the masses to harness and subdue this anarchy of the powerful. And perhaps the most notable step in that direction was that development of the State which took away the right of the nobles to employ and maintain their own private armies. In England, policing by the State began as late as 1826, when Sir Robert Peel passed the law establishing the Metropolitan force in London, and these agents of order are even now called "Bobbies" and "Peelers," in memory of him. Throughout all Europe the military, naval, and police forces are to-day in the hands of the State. We have, then, in contradistinction to the old anarchy, the State maintenance of law and order, and of protection to life and property. Even in Russia the coercive forces are under the control of the Government, and nowhere are individuals—be they Grand Dukes or Princes—allowed to employ their own military forces. When trouble arises without, it is the State that calls together its armed men for aggression or for defense. When trouble arises within—such as strikes, riots, and insurrections—it is the State that is supposed to deal with them. Individuals, no matter how powerful, are not to-day permitted to organize armies to invade a foreign land, to subdue its people, and to wrest from them their property. In the case of uprisings within a country, the individual is not allowed to raise his armies, subdue the troublesome elements, and make himself master. Within the last few centuries the State has thus gradually drawn to itself the powers of repression, of coercion, and of aggression, and it is the State alone that is to-day allowed to maintain military forces.
At any rate, this is true of all civilized countries except the United States. This is the only modern State wherein coercive military powers are still wielded by individuals. In the United States it is still possible for rich and powerful individuals or for corporations to employ their own bands of armed men. If any legislator were to propose a law allowing any man or group of men to have their own private battleships and to organize their own private navies and armies, or if anyone suggested the turning over of the coercive powers of the State to private enterprise, the masses would rise in rebellion against the project. No congressman would, of course, venture to suggest such a law, and few individuals would undertake to defend such a plan. Yet the fact is that now, without legal authority, private armies may be employed and are indeed actually employed in the United States. In the most stealthy and insidious manner there has grown up within the last fifty years an extensive and profitable commerce for supplying to the lords of finance their own private police. And the strange fact appears that the newest, and supposedly the least feudal, country is to-day the only country that allows the oldest anarchists to keep in their hands the power to arm their own mercenaries and, in the words of an eminent Justice, to expose "the lives of citizens to the murderous assaults of hireling assassins." [(2)] It is with these "hireling assassins," who, for the convenience of the wealthy, are now supplied by a great network of agencies, that we shall chiefly concern ourselves in this chapter. We must here leave Europe, since it is in the United States alone that the workings of this barbarous commerce in anarchy can be observed.
Robert A. Pinkerton was the originator of a system of extra-legal police agents that has gradually grown to be one of the chief commercial enterprises of the country. According to his own testimony, [(3)] he began in 1866 to supply armed men to the owners of large industries, and ever since his firm has carried on a profitable business in that field. Envious of his prosperity, other individuals have formed rival agencies, and to-day there exist in the United States thousands of so-called detective bureaus where armed men can be employed to do the bidding of any wealthy individual. While, no doubt, there are agencies that conduct a thoroughly legitimate business, there are unquestionably numerous agencies in this country where one may employ thugs, thieves, incendiaries, dynamiters, perjurers, jury-fixers, manufacturers of evidence, strike-breakers and murderers. A regularly established commerce exists, which enables a rich man, without great difficulty or peril, to hire abandoned criminals, who, for certain prices, will undertake to execute any crime. If one can afford it, one may have always at hand a body of highwaymen or a small private army. Such a commerce as this was no doubt necessary and proper in the Middle Ages and would no doubt be necessary and proper in a state of anarchy, but when individuals are allowed to employ private police, armies, thugs, and assassins in a country which possesses a regularly established State, courts, laws, military forces, and police the traffic constitutes a menace as alarming as the Black Hand, the Camorra, or the Mafia. The story of these hired terrorists and of this ancient anarchy revived surpasses in cold-blooded criminality any other thing known in modern history. That rich and powerful patrons should be allowed to purchase in the market poor and desperate criminals eager to commit any crime on the calendar for a few dollars, is one of the most amazing and incredible anachronisms of a too self-complaisant Republic.
