WAS CHRIST AN ANARCHIST?

ANARCHY, as a term of political philosophy,

has nothing to do with disorder or crime; it is but the logical outcome of that form of political theory known as "individualism."

One of the founders of scientific Anarchy was Rabelais, whose teachings are summed up in the axiom, "Do what you will." He was succeeded in leadership by the Anabaptist Münzer, who declared the principle: "To each one, according to his needs and possibilities." After him came La Boetie who proclaimed the right of the individual to absolute liberty. He was followed by La Fontaine, who enunciated the famous saying: "Our enemy is, the Master"; and it was Diderot who completed it by adding: "Nature has created neither servants nor masters. I wish neither to oppose nor to lend obedience to laws."

It was Max Stirner, however, who first formulated the scattered teachings of anarchy into a complete definite system. His philosophy may be summed up in these words:

"What you have the power to be, that you have the right to be. I derive all right and justification

from myself alone; for I am entitled to everything which I have power to take or to do. I am entitled to overthrow Zeus, Jehovah or God, if I can; if I can not, these gods will always retain their rights and power over me; but I shall stand in awe of their rights and their power in impotent reverence, and shall keep their commands and believe I am doing right in everything that I do, according to their ideas of right, just as a Russian frontier sentry considers himself justified in shooting dead a suspicious person who runs away, because he relies upon a 'higher authority,' in other words, commits murder legally. But I am justified in committing a murder by myself, if I do not forbid it to myself, if I am not afraid of murder in the abstract as of 'something wrong.' I am only not justified in what I do not do of my own free will, that is, that which I do not give myself the right to do. I decide whether the right resides in me; for there is some right external to myself. If it is right to me, then it is right. It is possible that others may not regard it as right, but that is their affair, not mine, and they must take their own measures against it. And if something was in the eyes of the whole world not right, and yet seemed right to me, that is, if I wished it, even then I should ask nothing from the world: thus does everyone who knows how to value himself, and each does it to the extent that he is an egotist, for might goes before right, and quite rightly too. . . . State, religion, and conscience, these despots make me a slave, and their freedom is my slavery.'

...

'Quoted from Anarchism, by E. V. Zenker, 1897, pp. 113, 114, 118, 119.

Stirner's exposition was enlarged by Pierre Joseph Proudhon who declared that "Governments are the scourge of God," and that there should exist "no government by men by means of the accumulation of power." He claimed that a government should exercise no authority save that of securing to each individual full liberty to do as he may desire, unrestrained by external authority.

Proudhon stopped at defining what he believed to be the ideal state, and it remained for Prince Michael Bakunin to suggest the means for organising an anarchistic society.

"The freedom of man," says Bakunin, "consists solely in following natural laws, because he has recognised them himself as such, and not because they are imposed upon him from without by the will of another, whether divine or human, collective or individual. ... We reject all legislation, every authority, and every privilege, recognised official and legal influence, even if it has proceeded from the exercise of universal suffrage, since it could only benefit a ruling and exploiting minority against the interests of the great enslaved majority."

In 1869, the "International Alliance of Socialist Democracy" was organised by Bakunin, and in its adopted programme demanded, "the suppression of all political, judicial, and civil, organisations; the substitution of science for faith, and of * Quoted from Anarchism, by E. V. Zenker, 1897, p. 156.

human justice for divine; the abolition of creeds and of marriage, in so far as a religious institution; the political and economic equalisation of classes and individuals of both sexes; the abolition of ownership, of inheritance, etc., so that the enjoyment of each one shall be proportionate to his productivity."

In 1871, the Alliance was succeeded by the Federation of the Jura, which, in the platform adopted at its convention in 1876, declared that "no longer does anything exist, neither property nor the state, nor any authority whatsoever," and insisted upon "the necessity of forming a society in which the individual shall no longer depend on any one but himself, his will shall not have any restrictions, and shall not be hampered in any way whatsoever by the will of his fellow men."

The modern school of anarchism places its main emphasis on the principle of destroying all existing laws including, of course, the various forms of government. Peter Kropatkin has stated that all law and dominion, including parliamentary government, must be put aside and be replaced by the "system of no government," and free arrangement.

"Each must retain the right of acting as he thinks best," he says, "and the right of society to punish any one for a social action in any way must be denied. . . . We do not shrink from saying: Do what pleases you! Act as you think fit! for we are convinced that the

great majority of mankind, in proportion to their enlightenment and to the completeness with which they throw off their present fetters, will always act in a manner beneficial to society." "We do not want to be governed! and do we not thereby declare that we ourselves wish to rule no one.

Anarchy, to use the words of Prof. Huxley, is "a state of society in which the rule of each individual by himself is the only government the legitimacy of which is recognised."

"Anarchy is not inconsistent with association, but only with enforced association," declares W. H. Salter. "It means simply a state of society in which no one is bound or obliged to do anything (whether to associate with others or anything else); it is not opposed to order, but only to enforced order, nor to rule, but only to obligatory rule. In other words, it is synonymous with liberty. Under such a system, individuals would simply be left free to do as they chose; compulsion would disappear; the only bonds in society would be moral bonds."3

On the other hand, government is an organised force backed by the will of the people; it is the rule of a superior which an inferior is bound to obey; it is "the subjection of the non-invasive individual to an external will."4

'Quoted from Anarchism, E. V. Zenker, 1897, pp. 178, 179. • Method and Results, 1906, p. 393.

Anarchy or Government, p. 7.

• Instead of a Book, by B. R. Tucker, p. 233.