Page:Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin - Modern Science and Anarchism (1912).pdf/96

 authority which, by virtue of historical inheritance, dominates society. On the basis of historical data accumulated by modern science, Anarchism has demonstrated that State authority, which steadily grows in our days, is in reality but a noxious and a useless superstructure which, for us Europeans, only dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: a superstructure built to the advantage of Landlordism, Capitalism, and Officialism, and which in ancient times has caused already the downfall of Home and Greece and many other centres of civilisation once flourishing in the East and in Egypt.

The authority that was constituted in order to unite the nobleman, the judge, the soldier, and the priest for their mutual protection and their class advantages, and which always was an obstacle to the attempts of man to create for himself a life somewhat secure and free—this authority cannot become a weapon of enfranchisement, any more than Caesarism or Imperialism, or the Church, can become instruments of a social revolution.

In political economy, Anarchism has come to the conclusion that the evils of the present day are not caused by the capitalist appropriating for himself the "surplus value," or "net profit," but by the fact itself that "net profit" or "surplus value" is possible. Such an appropriation of the produce of human labour by the owners of capital exists only because millions of men have literally nothing to live upon, unless they sell their labour force and their intelligence at a price that will make the net profit of the capitalist and "surplus value" possible.

This is why we consider that in political economy the first chapter to be studied is the chapter on consumption—not that on production; and when a revolution breaks out, the first duty to attend to, will be to remodel consumption, so that shelter, food, and clothing should be assured to one and all. As to production, it will have to be organised so that the principal needs of all the members of society should be satisfied first. This is also why Anarchism cannot look upon the coming revolution as a mere substitution of "labour cheques" for gold, nor of the State as the universal capitalist for the present capitalists. In the coming revolution, the Anarchists see a first step towards free Communism, untrammelled by the State.

Is Anarchism right in its conclusions? The answer will be given us by a scientific criticism of its basis on the one hand, and especially by practical life on the other. But there is one point on which without doubt Anarchism is absolutely in the right. It is when it considers the study of the social institutions as a