Finally, if every branch of human knowledge be reviewed, it will be seen that all our aspirations are hindered by the present social organization; that the mass is always oppressed for the benefit of a small minority which takes more from the collectivity than it gives back. The fears set forth concerning the disappearance of certain things now existing in the advent of the revolution, relate only to things of whose nature the masses may have, can have, no knowledge, while as to positive facts, it is amply proven that they are bound to gain by a social transformation. Let us laugh at these tremblers, and fear not to redouble our blows against a society which can no longer defend itself save by the help of sophisms and lies.
XXI
What Then?
“And what then?” ask many of our opponents, after we have shown the evil effects of the vicious social organization which governs us, and made them understand that no reform is possible under the present regime; that by the very nature of existing institutions the best of them are bound to react against their original purpose and become a further aggravation to the miseries of the exploited; that those which might indeed effect a change in the lot of the worker cannot do so save on condition of attacking the aforesaid institutions; and that since such are rejected by the governing classes, it would require a revolution to realize them. Now, it is this revolution which frightens most people; the general overtoppling of things it would occasion makes them recoil before the remedy even after recognizing the evil. “Yes,” say they, “perhaps you are right; it is true society is badly constituted; some change must take place. The Revolution!—Maybe—I cannot say—but afterwards, what then?”—Afterwards, we reply, there will be full liberty for individuals, the possibility for all to satisfy their physical, moral, and intellectual needs. Authority and property being abolished, society being no longer based, as now, upon the antagonism of interests, but, on the contrary, upon the strictest solidarity, people, being sure of the morrow and no longer having to hoard up provision against the future, will cease to regard each other as enemies ready to devour each other for the sake of getting a mouthful of bread or taking another’s job in some exploiter’s sweatshop. The causes of struggle and animosity being destroyed, social harmony will reestablish itself. Some competition between the divers groups may indeed arise, some emulation in attaining what is best, the ideal aim which will always expand in proportion as people find it easier to satisfy their aspirations; but this competition must be but brief, since neither mercantile, proprietary, nor governmental interest will stand in the way, and those competitors who are behindhand will have every facility for assimilating the progress made by their happier competitors.
What creates poverty today is the congestion of products, which choking up the warehouses occasions enforced idleness and hunger among those who cannot find work until the said products have been distributed. This alone shows the abnormal state of our present society. In that society for which we are striving, the more abundant the products the more easily will harmony among people be established, since they will no longer be under the necessity of measuring the means of existence. The quicker the production, the faster the perfection of mechanical appliances proceeded, the more rapidly would the amount of productive labor incumbent upon each be reduced, the sooner would it become what it really ought to be, a mere gymnastic exercise requisite for the health of the muscles. In a normally constituted society, labor would lose the character of toil and suffering which it has acquired through its intensity, in these our days of exploitation. It would no longer be anything more than a diversion in the midst of all the other employments in which people would engage merely for their own pleasure just as they do in their studies, as expressions of the needs of their temperaments, undertaken under penalty of otherwise being gradually transformed into mere digestive sacks, which the bourgeoisie would soon become if their sway could be firmly secured; which a certain species of ant has already become, it being incapable of feeding itself, and starving to death when there are no slaves about to give it food.20 “Yes,” say our opponents again, “what you want is very good; it is certainly the highest ideal which humanity could attain; but there is no way at all of telling that it would get along so nicely as you imagine—that the strong would not want to impose their will upon the weak, or that there would not be lazy ones seeking to live at the expense of those who work. If no bounds be set to restrain the masses,
