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Anarchy is anti-government, anti-rulers, anti-dictators,
anti-bosses. . . .Anarchy is the negation of
force; the elimination of all authority in
social affairs; it is the denial of the right of domination of
one man over another. It is the diffusion
of rights, of power, of duties, equally and freely among
all the people.
But Anarchy, like many other words, is defined
in Webster's dictionary as having two meanings.
In one place it is defined to mean "without
rulers or governors." In another place it is defined to
mean, "disorder and confusion." This latter
meaning is what we call "capitalistic anarchy," such as
is now witnessed in all portions of the world
and especially in this courtroom; the former, which
means without rulers, is what we denominate
communistic anarchy, which will be ushered in with
the social revolution.
Socialism is a term which covers the whole
range of human progress and advancement.... I think I
have a right to speak of this matter, because
I am tried here as a socialist. I am condemned as a
socialist.... If you are going to put me to
death, then let the people know what it is for. Socialism
is defined by Webster as "a theory of society
which advocates a more precise, more orderly, and
more harmonious arrangement of the social
relations of mankind than has hitherto prevailed."
Therefore everything in the line of progress,
in civilization in fact, is socialistic.
There are two distinct phases of socialism
in the labor movement throughout the world today.
One is known as anarchism, without political
government or authority; the other is known as state
socialism or paternalism, or governmental
control of everything. The state socialist seeks to
ameliorate and emancipate the wage laborers
by means of law, by legislative enactments. The
state socialists demand the right to choose
their own rulers. Anarchists would have neither rulers
nor lawmakers of any kind. The anarchists
seek the same ends--the abolition of wage-slavery by
the abrogation of law, by the abolition of
all government, leaving the people free to unite or
disunite as fancy or interest may dictate,
coercing no one....
We are charged with being the enemies of "Law
and order," as breeders of strife and coniusion.
Every conceivable bad name and evil design
was imputed to us by the lovers of power and haters
of freedom and equality. Even the workingmen
in some instances caught the infection, and many
of them joined in the capitalistic hue and
cry against the anarchists. Being satisfied of ourselves
that our purpose was a just one, we worked
on undismayed, willing to labor and to wait for time
and events to justifyy our cause. We began
to allude to ourselves as anarchists and that name,
which was at first imputed to us as a dishonor,
we carne to cherish and defend with pride. What's
in a name? But names sometimes express ideas,
and ideas are everything.
What, then, is our offense, being anarchists?
The word anarchy is derived from the two Greek
words an, signifying no, or without, and arche,
government; hence anarchy means no
government. Consequently anarchy means a condition
of society which has no king, emperor,
president or ruler of any kind. In other words,
anarchy is the social administration of all affairs by
the people themselves; that is to say, self-government,
individual liberty. Such a condition of
society denies the right of majorities to
rule over or dictate to minorities. Though every person in
the world agree upon a certain plan and only
one objects thereto, the objector would, under
anarchy, be respected in his natural right
to go his own way....
The great natural law of power derived alone
from association and cooperation will of necessity
and from selfishness be applied by the people
in the production and distribution of wealth, and
what the trades unions and labor organizations
seek now to do, but are prevented from doing
because of obstructions and coercions, will
under perfect liberty - anarchy - come easiest to hand.
Anarchy is the extension of the boundaries
of liberty until it covers the whole range of the
wants and aspirations of man....
The anarchists are the advance-guard in the
impending social revolution. They have discovered
the cause of the worldwide discontent which
is felt but not yet understood by the toiling millions
as a whole. The effort now being made by organized
and unorganized labor in all countries to
participate in the making of laws which they
are forced to obey will lay bare to them the the secret
source of their enslavement to capital. Capital
is a thing - it is property. Capital is the stored up,
accumulated savings of past labor...the resources
of life, the means of subsistence. These things
are, in a natural state, the common heritage
of all for the free use of all, and they were so held
until their forcible seizure and appropriation
by a few. Thus the common heritage of all, seized by
violence and fraud, was atterwards made the
property - capital - of the usurpers, who erected a
government and enacted laws to perpetuate
and maitain their special privileges. The function, the
only function of capital is to confiscate
the labor-product of the propertyless, non-possessing
class, the wage-workers. The origin of government
was in violence and murder. Government
disinherits and enslaves the governed. Government
is for slaves; flee men govern themselves...
.The right to live, to equality of opportunity,
to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is yet to be
acquired by the producers of all wealth....
Legalized capital and the state stand or fall together.
They are twins. The liberty of labor makes
the state not only unnecessary, but impossible. When
the people - the whole people - become the
state, that is, participate equally in governing
themselves, the state of necessity ceases
to exist....
Anarchy, therefore, is liberty; is the negation
of force, or compulsion, or violence. It is the precise
reverse of that which those who hold and love
power would have their oppressed victims believe
it is....The great class conflict now gathering
throughout the world is created by our social system
of industrial slavery. Capitalists could not
if they would, and would not if they could, change it.
This alone is to be the work of the proletariat,
the disinherited, the wage-slave, the sufferer. Nor
can the wage class avoid this conflict. Neither
religion nor politics can solve it or prevent it. It
comes as a human, an imperative necessity.
Anarchists do not make the social revolution; they
prophesy its coming. Shall we then stone the
prophets?....
In the line of evolution and historical development,
anarchy - liberty - is next in order. With the
destruction of the feudal system, and the
birth of commercialism and manufactories in the
sixteenth century, a contest long and bitter
and bloody, lasting over a hundred years, was waged
for mental and religious liberty. The seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, with their sanguinary
conflicts, gave to man political equality
and civil liberty, based on the monopolization of the
resources of life...
All over the world the fact stands undisputed
that the political is based upon, and is but the reflex
of the economic system, and hence we find
that whatever the political form of the government,
whether monarchical or republican, the average
social status of the wage-workers is in every
country identical. The class struggle
of the past century is history repeating itself; it is the
evolutionary growth preceding the revolutionary
denouement. Though liberty is a growth, it is
also a birth, and while it is yet to be, it
is also about to be born. Its birth will come through travail
and pain, through bloodshed and violence.
It cannot be prevented....
An anarchist is a believer in liberty, and
as I would control no man against his will, neither shall
anyone rule over me with my consent. Government
is compulsion; no one freely consents to be
governed by another - therefore, there can
be no just power of government. Anarchy is perfect
liberty, is absolute freedom of the individual.
Anarchy has no schemes, no programmes, no
systems to offer or to substitute for the
existing order of things. Anarchy would strike from
humanity every chain that binds it, and say
to mankind: ~ forth! you are free! Have all, enjoy all!"
Albert R. Parsons, “What is Anarchism?” Anarchism:
Its Philosophy and Scienttfic Basis, as
Defined by Some of its Apostles (Chicago,
1887). Reprinted in Dave Roediger and Franklin
Rosemont, eds. Haymarket Scrapbook (Chicago:
Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1986),
27-28.