Page:Enrico Malatesta - Anarchy - James F. Morton - Is It All a Dream (1900).pdf/38

 36 method. And method, more than anything else, defines parties and determines their importance in history. Method apart, everyone says he wishes for the good of mankind; and many do truly wish for it. As parties disappear, every organized action directed to a definite end disappears likewise. It is therefore necessary to consider Anarchy as, above all, a method.

There are two methods by which the different parties, not Anarchistic, expect, or say they expect, to bring about the greatest good of each and all. These are the authoritarian or State Socialist and the individualist methods. The former entrusts the direction of social life to a few; and it would result in the exploitation and oppression of the masses by that few. The second party trusts to the free initiative of individuals, and proclaims, if not the abolition, the reduction of government. However, as it respects private property, and is founded on the principle of each for himself, and therefore on competition, its liberty is only the liberty of the strong, the license of those who have, to oppress and exploit the weak who have nothing. Far from producing harmony, it would tend always to augment the distance between the rich and the poor, and end also through exploitation and domination in authority. This second method, Individualism, is in theory a kind of Anarchy without Socialism. It is therefore no better than a lie, because liberty is not possible without equality, and true Anarchy cannot be without Solidarity, without Socialism. The criticism which Individualists pass on government is merely the wish to deprive it of certain functions, to virtually hand them over to the capitalist. But it cannot attack those repressive functions which form the essence of government; for without an armed force the proprietary system could not be upheld. Nay, even more, under Individualism, the repressive power of government must always increase, in proportion to the increase, by means of free competition, of the want of equality and harmony.

Anarchists present a new method; the free initiative of all and free agreement; then, after the revolutionary abolition of private property, everyone will have equal power to dispose of ocialsocial [sic] wealth. This method, not admitting the re-establishment