Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Marxism, Freedom, and the State
by Mikhail Bakunin
From: Chapter 3 of "Marxism, Freedom, and the State"
The State, for its own preservation, must necessarily be powerful as regards
foreign affairs; but if it is so as regards foreign affairs, it will
infallibly be so as regards home affairs. Every State, having to let itself
be inspired and directed by some particular morality, conformable to the
particular conditions of its existence, by a morality which is a restriction
and consequently a negation of human and universal morality, must keep watch
that all its subjects, in their thoughts and above all in their acts, are
inspired also only by the principles of this patriotic or particular morality,
and that they remain deaf to the teachings of pure or universally human
morality. From that there results the necessity for a State censorship...
The State is government from above downwards of an immense number of men, very
different from the point of view of the degree of their culture, the nature of
the countries or localities that they inhabit, the occupation they follow, the
interests and the aspirations directing them--the State is the government of
all these by some or other minority; this minority, even if it were a thousand
times elected by universal suffrage and controlled in its acts by popular
institutions, unless it were endowed with the omniscience, omnipresence and
the omnipotence which the theologians attribute to God, it is impossible that
it could know and foresee the needs, or satisfy with an even justice the most
legitimate and pressing interests in the world. There will always be
discontented people because there will always be some who are sacrificed.
Besides, the State, like the Church, by its very nature is a great sacrificer
of living beings. It is an arbitrary being, in whose heart all the positive,
living, individual, and local interests of the population meet, clash, destroy
each other, become absorbed in that abstraction called the common interest,
the public good, the public safety, and where all real wills cancel each other
in that other abstraction which hears the name of the will of the people. It
results from this, that this so-called will of the people is never anything
else than the sacrifice and the negation of all the real wills of the
population; just as this so-called public good is nothing else than the
sacrifice of their interests. But so that this omnivorous abstraction could
impose itself on millions of men, it must be represented and supported by some
real being, by living force or other. Well, this being, this force, has always
existed. In the Church it is called the clergy, and in the State--the ruling
or governing class.
And, in fact, what do we find throughout history? The State has always been
the patrimony of some privileged class or other; a priestly class, an
aristocratic class, a bourgeois class, and finally a bureaucratic class,
when, all the other classes having become exhausted, the State falls or rises,
as you will, to the condition of a machine; but it is absolutely necessary for
the salvation of the State that there should be some privileged class or other
which is interested in its existence. And it is precisely the united interest
of this privileged class which is called Patriotism.
...
It is true that the most imperfect republic is a thousand times better than the
most enlightened monarchy, for at least in the republic there are moments when,
though always exploited, the people are not oppressed, while in monarchies they
are never anything else. And then the democratic regime trains the masses
little by little in public life, which the monarchy never does. But whilst
giving the preference to the republic we are nevertheless forced to recognise
and proclaim that whatever may be the form of government, whilst human society
remains divided into different classes because of the hereditary inequality of
occupations, wealth, education, and privileges, there will always be minority
government and the inevitable exploitation of the majority by that minority.
The State is nothing else but this domination and exploitation regularised and
systematised. We shall attempt to demonstrate it by examining the consequence
of the government of the masses of the people by a minority, at first as
intelligent and as devoted as you like, in an ideal State, founded on a free
contract.
Suppose the government to be confined only to the best citizens. At first
these citizens are privileged not by right, but by fact. They have been
elected by the people because they are the most intelligent, clever, wise, and
courageous and devoted. Taken from the mass of the citizens, who are regarded
as all equal, they do not yet form a class apart, but a group of men
privileged only by nature and for that very reason singled out for election
by the people. Their number is necessarily very limited, for in all times and
countries the number of men endowed with qualities so remarkable that they
automatically command the unanimous respect of a nation is, as experience
teaches us, very small. Therefore, under pain of making a bad choice, the
people will be always forced to choose its rulers from amongst them.
Here, then, is society divided into two categories, if not yet to say two
classes, of which one, composed of the immense majority of the citizens,
submits freely to the government of its elected leaders, the other, formed of
a small number of privileged natures, recognised and accepted as such by the
people, and charged by them to govern them. Dependent on popular election,
they are at first distinguished from the mass of the citizens only by the very
qualities which recommended them to their choice and are naturally, the most
devoted and useful of all. They do not yet assume to themselves any privilege,
any particular right, except that of exercising, insofar as the people wish
it, the special functions with which they have been charged. For the rest, by
their manner of life, by the conditions and means of their existence, they do
not separate themselves in any way from all the others, so that a perfect
equality continues to reign among all. Can this equality be long maintained?
We claim that it cannot and nothing is easier to prove it.
Nothing is more dangerous for man's private morality than the habit of
command. The best man, the most intelligent, disinterested, generous, pure,
will infallibly and always be spoiled at this trade. Two sentiments inherent
in power never fail to produce this demoralisation; they are: contempt for
the masses and the overestimation of one's own merits.
"The masses," a man says to himself, "recognising their incapacity to govern
on their own account, have elected me their chief. By that act they have
publicly proclaimed their inferiority and my superiority. Among this crowd of
men, recognising hardly any equals of myself, I am alone capable of directing
public affairs. The people have need of me; they cannot do without my
services, while I, on the contrary, can get along all right by myself: they,
therefore, must obey me for their own security, and in condescending to
command them, I am doing them a good turn."
Is not there something in all that to make a man lose his head and his heart
as well, and become mad with pride? It is thus that power and the habit of
command become for even the most intelligent and virtuous men, a source of
aberration, both intellectual and moral.
But in the People's State of Marx, there will be, we are told, no privileged
class at all. All will be equal, not only from the juridical and political
point of view, but from the economic point of view. At least that is what is
promised, though I doubt very much, considering the manner in which it is
being tackled and the course it is desired to follow, whether that promise
could ever be kept. There will therefore be no longer any privileged class,
but there will be a government and, note this well, an extremely complex
government, which will not content itself with governing and administering the
masses politically, as all governments do to-day, but which will also
administer them economically, concentrating in its own hands the production
and the just division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment
and development of factories, the organisation and direction of commerce,
finally the application of capital to production by the only banker, the
State. All that will demand an immense knowledge and many "heads overflowing
with brains" in this government. It will be the reign of scientific
intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant and contemptuous of
all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and pretended
scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling
in the name of knowledge and an immense ignorant majority.[14] And then, woe
betide the mass of ignorant ones!
Such a regime will not fail to arouse very considerable discontent in this
mass and in order to keep it in check the enlightenment and liberating
government of Marx will have need of a not less considerable armed force. For
the government must be strong, says Engels, to maintain order among these
millions of illiterates whose brutal uprising would be capable of destroying
and overthrowing everything, even a government directed by heads overflowing
with brains.
You can see quite well that behind all the democratic and socialistic phrases
and promises of Marx's programme, there is to be found in his State all that
constitutes the true despotic and brutal nature of all States, whatever may be
the form of their government and that in the final reckoning, the People's
State so strongly commended by Marx, and the aristocratic-monarchic State,
maintained with as much cleverness as power by Bismarck, are completely
identical by the nature of their objective at home as well as in foreign
affairs. In foreign affairs it is the same deployment of military force, that
is to say, conquest; and in home affairs it is the same employment of this
armed force, the last argument of all threatened political powers against
the masses, who, tired of believing, hoping, submitting and obeying always,
rise in revolt.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
THE GOVERNMENT CAN TAKE YOUR HOUSE AND LAND, THEN SELL THEM TO PRIVATE CORPORATIONS?
From Russ Kick: 50 Things You’re Not Supposed To Know
It’s not an issue that gets much attention, but the government has the right to seize your house,
business, and/or land, forcing you into the street. This mighty power, called "eminent domain," is
enshrined in the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment: "...nor shall private property be taken for
public use without just compensation." Every single state constitution also stipulates that a
person whose property is taken must be justly compensated and that the property must be put to
public use. This should mean that if your house is smack-dab in the middle of a proposed
highway, the government can take it, pay you market value, and build the highway.
Whether or not this is a power the government should have is very
much open to question, but what makes it worse is the abuse of this
supposedly limited power. Across the country, local governments
are stealing their citizens' property, then turning around and selling
it to corporations for the construction of malls, condominiums,
parking lots, racetracks, office complexes, factories, etc.
The Institute for Justice — the country's only nonprofit, public-interest law firm with a
libertarian philosophy — spends a good deal of time protecting individuals and small businesses
from greedy corporations and their partners in crime: bureaucrats armed with eminent domain. In
2003, it released a report on the use of "governmental condemnation" (another name for eminent
domain) for private gain. No central data collection for this trend exists, and only one state
(Connecticut) keeps statistics on it. Using court records, media accounts, and information from
involved parties, the Institute I found over 10,000 such abuses in 41 states from 1998 through
2002. Of these, the legal I process had been initiated against 3,722 properties, and condemnation
had been threatened against 6,560 properties. (Remember, this is condemnation solely for the
benefit of private parties, not for so-called legitimate reasons of "public use.")
In one instance, the city of Hurst, Texas, condemned 127 homes so that a mall could expand.
Most of the families moved under the pressure, but ten chose to stay and fight. The Institute
writes:
A Texas trial judge refused to stay the condemnations while the suit was on-going, so the
residents lost their homes. Leonard Prohs had to move while his wife was in the hospital
with brain cancer. She died only five days after their house was demolished. Phyllis Duval's
husband also was in the hospital with cancer at the time they were required to move. He
died one month after the demolition. Of the ten couples, three spouses died and four others
suffered heart attacks during the dispute and litigation. In court, the owners presented
evidence that the land surveyor who designed the roads for the mall had been told to
change the path of one road to run through eight of the houses of the owners challenging
the condemnations.
In another case, wanting to "redevelop" Main Street, the city of East Hartford, Connecticut, used
eminent domain to threaten a bakery/deli that had been in that spot for 93 years, owned and
operated by the same family during that whole time. Thus coerced, the family sold the business
for $1.75 million, and the local landmark was destroyed. But the redevelopment fell through, so
the lot now stands empty and the city is in debt.
The city of Cypress, California, wanted Costco to build a retail store on an 18-acre plot of land.
Trouble was, the Cottonwood Christian Center already owned the land fair and square, and was
planning to build a church on it. The city council used eminent domain to seize the land, saying
that the new church would be a "public nuisance" and would "blight" the area (which is right
beside a horse-racing track). The Christian Center got a federal injunction to stop the
condem-nation, and the city appealed this decision. To avoid further protracted legal nightmares,
the church group consented to trade its land for another tract in the vicinity.
But all of this is small potatoes compared to what's going on in Riviera Beach, Florida:
City Council members voted unanimously to approve a $1.25 billion redevelopment plan
with the authority to use eminent domain to condemn at least 1,700 houses and apartments
and dislocate 5,100 people. The city will then take the property and sell the land to
commercial yachting, shipping, and tourism companies.
If approved by the state, it will be one of the biggest eminent domain seizures in US history.
In 1795, the Supreme Court referred to eminent domain as "the despotic power." Over two
centuries later, they continue to be proven right.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Law and Government
by Alexander Berkman
--------------------
From: Chapter 3 of "What is Anarchist-Communism?"
-------------------------------------------------
How do you live? What does your freedom amount to?
You depend on your employer for your wages or your salary, don't you? And your
wages determine your way of living, don't they? The conditions of your life,
even what you eat and drink, where you go and with whom you associate, - all
of it depends on your wages.
No, you are not a free man. You are dependent on your employer and on your
wages. You are really a wage slave.
The whole working class, under the capitalist system, is dependent on the
capitalist class. The workers are wage slaves.
So, what becomes of your freedom? What can you do with it? Can you do more
with it than your wages permit?
Can't you see that your wage - your salary or income - is all the freedom that
you have? Your freedom, your liberty, don't go a step further than the wages
you get.
The freedom that is given you on paper, that is written down in law books and
constitutions, does not do you a bit of good. Such freedom only means that you
have the right to do a certain thing. But it doesn't mean that you can do it.
To be able to do it, you must have the chance, the opportunity. You have a
right to eat three fine meals a day, but if you haven't the means, the
opportunity to get those meals, then what good is that right to you?
So freedom really means opportunity to satisfy your needs and wants. If your
freedom does not give you that opportunity, then it does you no good. Real
freedom means opportunity and well being. If it does not mean that, it means
nothing.
You see, then, that the whole situation comes to this: Capitalism robs you and
makes a wage slave of you. The law upholds and protects that robbery.
The government fools you into believing that you are independent and free.
In this way you are fooled and duped every day of your life. But how does it
happen that you didn't think of it before? How is it that most other people
don't see it, either?
It is because you and every one else are lied to about this all the time, from
your earliest childhood.
You are told to be honest, while you are being robbed all your life.
You are commanded to respect the law, while the law protects the capitalist
who is robbing you.
You are taught that killing is wrong, while the government hangs and
electrocutes people and slaughters them in war.
You are told to obey the law and government, though law and government stand
for robbery and murder.
Thus all through life you are lied to, fooled, and deceived, so that it will
be easier to make profits out of you, to exploit you.
Because it is not only the employer and the capitalist who make profits out of
you. The government, the church, tend the school - they all live on your
labor. You support them all. That is why all of them teach you to be content
with your lot and behave yourself.
'Is it really true that I support them all?' you ask in amazement.
Let us see. They eat and drink and are clothed, not to speak of the luxuries
they enjoy. Do they make the things they use and consume, do they do the
planting and sowing and building and so on?
'But they pay for those things,' your friend objects.
Yes, they pay. Suppose a fellow stole fifty dollars from you and then went
and bought with it a suit of clothes for himself. Is that suit by right his?
Didn't he pay for it? Well, just so the people who don't produce anything or
do no useful work pay for things. Their money is the profits they or their
parents before them squeezed out of you, out of the workers.
'Then it is not my boss who supports me, but I him?'
Of course. He gives you a job; that is, permission to work in the factory or
mill which was not built by him but by other workers like yourself. And for
that permission you help to support him for the rest of your life or as long
as you work for him. You support him so generously that he can afford a
mansion in the city and a home in the country, even several of them, and
servants to attend to his wants and those of his family, and for the
entertainment of his friends, and for horse races and for boat races, and for
a hundred other things. But it is not only to him that you are so generous.
Out of your labor, by direct and indirect taxation, are supported the entire
government, local, state, and national, the schools and the churches, and all
the other institutions whose business it is to protect profits and keep you
fooled. You and your fellow workers, labor as a whole, support them all. Do
you wonder that they all tell you that everything is all right and that you
should be good and keep quiet?
It is good for them that you should keep quiet, because they could not keep on
duping and robbing you once you open your eyes and see what's happening to you.
That's why they are all strong for this capitalist system, for law and order'.
But is that system good for you? Do you think it right and just? If not, then
why do you put up with it? Why do you support it? 'What can I do?' you say;
'I'm only one.'
Are you really only one? Are you not rather one out of many thousands, out of
millions, all of them exploited and enslaved the same as you are? Only they
don't know it. If they knew it, they wouldn't stand for it. That's sure. So
the thing is to make them know it.
Every workingman in your city, every toiler in your country, in every country,
in the whole world, is exploited and enslaved the same as you are.
And not only the workingmen. The farmers are duped and robbed in the same
manner.
Just like the workingmen, the farmer is dependent on the capitalist class. He
toils hard all his life, but most of his labor goes to the trusts and
monopolies of the land which by right is no more theirs than the moon is.
The farmer produces the food of the world. He feeds all of us. But before he
can get his goods to us, he is made to pay tribute to the class that lives
by the work of others, the profit-making, capitalist class. The farmer is
mulcted out of the greater part of his product just as the worker is. He is
mulcted by the land owner and by the mortgage holder; by the steel trust and
the railroad. The banker, the commission merchant, the retailer, and a score
of other middlemen squeeze their profits out of the farmer before he is
allowed to get his food to you.
Law and government permit and help this robbery by ruling that the land, which
no man created, belongs to the landlord; the railroads, which the workers
built, belong to the railroad magnates; the warehouses, grain elevators, and
storehouses, erected by the workers, belong to the capitalists; all those
monopolists and capitalists have a right to get profits from the farmer for
using the railroads and other facilities before he can get his food to you.
You can see then, how the farmer is robbed by big capital and business, and
how the law helps in that robbery, just as with the workingman.
But it is not only the worker and the farmer who are exploited and forced to
give up the greater part of their product to the capitalists, to those who
have monopolized the land, the railroads, the factories, the machinery, and
all natural resources. The entire country, the whole world is made to pay
tribute to the kings of finance and industry.
The small business man depends on the wholesaler; the wholesaler on the
manufacturer; the manufacturer on the trust magnates of his industry; and
all of them on the money lords and banks for their credit. The big bankers
and financiers can put any man out of business by just withdrawing their
credit from him. They do so whenever they want to squeeze any one out of
business. The business man is entirely at their mercy. If he does not play
the game as they want it, to suit their interests, then they simply drive
him out of the game.
Thus the whole of mankind is dependent upon and enslaved by just a handful of
men who have monopolized almost the entire wealth of the world, but who have
themselves never created anything.
'But those men work hard,' you say.
Well, some of them don't work at all. Some of them are just idlers, whose
business is managed by others. Some of them do work. But what kind of work do
they do? Do they produce anything, as the worker and the farmer do? No, they
produce nothing, though they may work. They work to mulct people, to get
profits out of them. Does their work benefit you? The highwayman also works
hard and takes great risks to boot. His 'work', like the capitalist's, gives
employment to lawyers, jailers, and a host of other retainers, all of whom
your toil supports.
It seems indeed ridiculous that the whole world should slave for the benefit
of a handful of monopolists, and that all should have to depend upon them for
their right and opportunity to live. But the fact is just that. And it is the
more ridiculous when you consider that the workers and farmers, who alone
create all wealth, should be the most dependent and the poorest of all the
other classes in society.
It is really monstrous, and it is very sad. Surely your common sense must tell
you that such a situation is nothing short of madness. If the great masses of
people, the millions throughout the world, could see how they are fooled,
exploited and enslaved, as you see it now, would they stand for such goings
on? Surely they would not!
The capitalists know they wouldn't. That is why they need the government to
legalize their methods of robbery, to protect the capitalist system.
And that is why the government needs laws, police and soldiers, courts and
prisons to protect capitalism.
But who are the police and the soldiers who protect the capitalists against
you, against the people?
If they were capitalists themselves, then it would stand to reason why they
want to protect the wealth they have stolen, and why they try to keep up,
even by force, the system that gives them the privilege of robbing the people.
But the police and the soldiers, the defenders of 'law and order', are not of
the capitalist class. They are men from the ranks of the people, poor men who
for pay protect the very system that keeps them poor. It is unbelievable, is
it not? Yet it is true. It just comes down to this: some of the slaves protect
their masters in keeping them and the rest of the people in slavery. In the
same way Great Britain, for instance, keeps the Hindoos in India in subjection
by a police force of the natives, of the Hindoos themselves. Or as Belgium
does with the black men in the Congo. Or as any government does with a
subjugated people. It is the same system. Here is what it amounts to:
Capitalism robs and exploits the whole of the people; the laws legalize and
uphold this capitalist robbery; the government uses one part of the people
to aid and protect the capitalists in robbing the whole of the people. The
entire thing is kept up by educating the people to believe that capitalism
is right, that the law is just, and that the government must be obeyed. Do
you see through this game now?
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
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