Критика анархического коммунизма

The second part of the definition of communism says that economic affairs should be controlled by the community. Individualists say they should be controlled by the market place and that the only law should be the natural law of supply and demand. Which of these two propositions is the more consistent with anarchism? Herbert Spencer wrote in 1884, "The great political superstition of the past was the divine right of kings. The great political superstition of the present is the divine right of parliaments." [11] The communists seem to have carried Spencer's observation one step further: the great political superstition of the future shall be the divine right of workers' majorities. "Workers' control" is their ideology; "Power to the People" their battle cry. What communist-anarchists apparently forget is that workers' control means CONTROL. Marxists, let it be said to their credit, at least are honest about this point. They openly and unashamedly demand the dictatorship of the proletariat. Communist-anarchists seem to be afraid of that phrase, perhaps subconsciously realising the inherent contradiction in their position. But communism, by its very nature, IS dictatorial. The communist-anarchists may christen their governing bodies "workers' councils" or "soviets", but they remain GOVERNMENTS just the same.

Abraham Lincoln was supposed to have asked, "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No! Calling a tail a leg don't MAKE it a leg." The same is true about governments and laws. Calling a law a "social habit" [12] or an "unwritten custom" [13] as Kropotkin does, doesn't change its nature. To paraphrase Shakespeare, that which we call a law by any other name would smell as foul.

Let us take a closer look at the type of society the communists would have us live under and see if we can get at the essence of these laws. Kropotkin says that "nine-tenths of those called lazy...are people gone astray." [14] He then suggests that given a job which "answers" their "temperament" and "capacities" (today we would hear words like "relate", "alienation" and "relevancy"), these people would be productive workers for the community. What about that other ten percent which couldn't adjust? Kropotkin doesn't elaborate, but he does say, "if not one, of the thousands of groups of our federation, will receive you, whatever be their motive; if you are absolutely incapable of producing anything useful, or if you refuse to do it, then live like an isolated man....That is what could be done in a communal society in order to turn away sluggards if they become too numerous." [15] This is a pretty harsh sentence considering that ALL the means of production have been confiscated in the name of the revolution. So we see that communism's law, put bluntly, becomes "work or starve."* This happens to be an individualist law too. But there is a difference between the two: the communist law is a man-made law, subject to man's emotions, rationalisations, and inconsistencies; the individualist law is nature's law - the law of gastric juices, if you will - a law which, like it or not, is beyond repeal. Although both laws use the same language, the difference in meaning is the difference between a commandment and a scientific observation. Individualist-anarchists don't care when, where, or how a man earns a living, as long as he is not invasive about it. He may work 18 hours a day and buy a mansion to live in the other six hours if he so chooses. Or he may feel like Thoreau did that "that man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest" [16] and work but a few hours a week to ensure his livelihood. I wonder what would happen to Thoreau under communism? Kropotkin would undoubtedly look upon him as "a ghost of bourgeois society." [17] And what would Thoreau say to Kropotkin's proposed "contract"?: "We undertake to give you the use of our houses, stores, streets, means of transport, schools, museums, etc., on condition that, from twenty to forty-five or fifty years of age, you consecrate four or five hours a day to some work recognised [by whom?] as necessary to existence....Twelve or fifteen hundred hours

of work a year...is all we ask of you." [18] I don't think it would be pulling the nose of reason to argue that Thoreau would object to these terms.

But some communist-anarchists would reject Kropotkin's idea of not giving to the unproductive worker according to his needs, even if he doesn't contribute according to his abilities. They might simply say that Kropotkin wasn't being a good communist when he wrote those lines (just as he wasn't being a good anarchist when he supported the Allies during World War I). But this idea, it seems to me would be patently unjust to the poor workers who would have to support such parasites. How do these communists reconcile such an injustice? As best I can gather from the writings of the classical communist-anarchists, they meet this problem in one of two ways: (1) they ignore it, or (2) they deny it. Malatesta takes the first approach. When asked, "How will production and distribution be organised?" he replies that anarchists are not prophets and that they have no blueprints for the future. Indeed, he likens this important question to asking when a man "should go to bed and on what days he should cut his nails." [19] Alexander Berkman takes the other approach (a notion apparently borrowed from the Marxists*): he denies that unproductive men will exist after the revolution. "In an anarchist society it will be the most useful and difficult toil that one will seek rather than the lighter job." [20] Berkman's view of labour makes the protestant work ethic sound positively mild by comparison. For example: "Can you doubt that even the hardest toil would become a pleasure...in an atmosphere of brotherhood and respect for labour?" [21] Yes, I can doubt it. Or again: "We can visualise the time when labour will have become a pleasant exercise, a joyous application of physical effort to the needs of the world." [22] And again, in apparent anticipation of Goebbles' famous dictum about the powers of repetition, "Work will become a pleasure... laziness will be unknown." [23] It is hard to argue with such "reasoning". It would be like a debate between Bertrand Russell and Billy Graham about the existence of heaven. How can you argue with faith? I won't even try. I'll just ask the reader, next time he is at work, to look around - at himself and at his mates - and ask himself this question: "After the revolution will

* At least Berkman is consistent in this matter. Marx, paradoxically, wanted to both "abolish labour itself" ("The German Ideology"), AND make it "life's prime want" ("Critique of the Gotha Programme").

we really prefer this place to staying at home in bed or going off to the seashore?" If there are enough people who can answer "yes" to this question perhaps communism will work after all. But in the meantime, before building the barricades and shooting people for a cause of dubious certainty, I would suggest pondering these two items from the bourgeois and communist press respectively:

"In Detroit's auto plants, weekend absenteeism has reached such proportions that a current bit of folk wisdom advises car buyers to steer clear of vehicles made on a Monday or Friday. Inexperienced substitute workers, so the caution goes, have a way of building bugs into a car. But in Italy lately the warning might well include Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. At Fiat, the country's largest maker, absenteeism has jumped this year from the normal 4 or 5 percent to 12.5 percent, with as many as 18,000 workers failing to clock in for daily shifts at the company's Turin works. Alfa Romeo's rate has hit 15 percent as hundreds of workers call in each day with 'malattia di comodo' - a convenient illness.... Italian auto workers seem to be doing no more than taking advantage of a very good deal. A new labour contract guarantees workers in state-controlled industries 180 days of sick leave a year, at full pay, while workers in private firms (such as Fiat) get the same number of days at 75 percent of full pay." [24]

When doctors, employed by the state, made an inspection visit in Turin we are told that they found "that only 20 percent of the 'indisposed' workers they had visited were even mildly sick." For those who think that this is just a bourgeois aberration, let us see what revolutionary Cuba, after 12 years of communism, has to say about such "parasites". I translate from the official organ of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party:

"Worker's discussion groups are being set up in all work centres to discuss the proposed law against laziness. These groups have already proven to be a valuable forum for the working class. During these assemblies, which for the moment are limited to pilot projects in the Havana area, workers have made original suggestions and posed timely questions which lead one to believe that massive discussion of this type would make a notable contribution to the solution of this serious problem. An assembly of boiler repairmen in the Luyano district was representative of the general feeling of the workers. They demanded that action be taken against those parasitic students who have stopped going to classes regularly or who, although attending classes, do just enough to get by. The workers were equally adamant about co-workers who, after a sickness or accident, refuse to go back to their jobs but go on receiving their

salaries for months without working. Questions were often accompanied by concrete proposals. For example, should criminals receive the same salaries on coming back to work from prison as when they left their jobs? The workers thought not, but they did think it all right that the revolutionary state accord a pension to the prisoner's family during his stay in the re-education [sic] centre. At the Papelera Cubana factory the workers made a suggestion which proved their contempt of these loafers; habitual offenders should be punished in geometric proportion to the number of their crimes. They also proposed that workers who quit their jobs or were absent too often be condemned to a minimum, not of 6 months, but of one year's imprisonment and that the worker who refuses three times work proposed by the Ministry of Labour be considered automatically as a criminal and subject to punishment as such. The workers also expressed doubts about the scholastic 'deserters', ages 15 and 16, who aren't yet considered physically and mentally able to work but who don't study either. They also cited the case of the self employed man who works only for his own selfish interests. The dockworkers of Havana port, zone 1, also had their meeting. They envisioned the possibility of making this law retroactive for those who have a bad work attitude, stating forcefully that it wasn't a question of precedents, because otherwise the law could only be applied in those cases which occurred after its enactment. The harbour workers also proposed imprisonment for the 'sanctioned' workers and that, in their opinion, the punishment of these parasites shouldn't be lifted until they could demonstrate a change of attitude. The steadfastness of the workers was clearly demonstrated when they demanded that punishments not be decided by the workers themselves in order to avoid possible leniency due to reasons of sympathy, sentimentality, etc. The workers also indicated that these parasites should not have the right to the social benefits accorded to other workers. Some workers considered imprisonment as a measure much too kind. As you can see, the workers have made many good proposals, which leads us to believe that with massive discussion, this new law will be considerably enriched. This is perhaps the path to social legislation by the masses."* [25]

These two extracts clearly demonstrate that human nature remains pretty constant, independent of the social system the individual workman is subjected to. So it seems to me that unless human nature can somehow be miraculously transformed by the revolution - and that WOULD be a revolution - some form of compulsion would be necessary in order to obtain "from each according to his abilities."

While on this point, I would like to ask my communist-

anarchist comrades just who is supposed to determine another person's abilities? We've seen from the above article that in Cuba the Ministry of Labour makes this decision. How would it differ in an anarchist commune? If these anarchists are at all consistent with their professed desire for individual freedom, the only answer to this question is that the individual himself would be the sole judge of his abilities and, hence, his profession. But this is ridiculous. Who, I wonder, is going to decide of his own free will that his real ability lies in collecting other people's garbage? And what about the man who thinks that he is the greatest artist since Leonardo da Vinci and decides to devote his life to painting mediocre landscapes while the community literally feeds his delusions with food from the communal warehouse? Few people, I dare say, would opt to do the necessary "dirty work" if they could choose with impunity ANY job, knowing that whatever they did - good or bad, hard or easy - they would still receive according to their needs.** The individualist's answer to this perennial question of "who will do the dirty work" is very simple: "I

* The Associated Press has since reported the passage of this law: "Cuba's Communist regime announced yesterday a tough new labour law that Premier Fidel Castro said is aimed at 400,000 loafers, bums and 'parasites' who have upset the country's new social order. The law, which goes into effect April 1, provides for penalties ranging from six months to two years of forced labour in 'rehabilitation centres' for those convicted of vagrancy, malingering or habitual absenteeism from work or school. The law decrees that all males between 17 and 60 have a 'social duty' to work on a daily systematic basis unless they are attending an approved school. Those who do not are considered 'parasites of the revolution' and subject to prosecution by the courts or special labourers' councils. The anti-loafing law - seen as a tough new weapon to be used mainly against dissatisfied young people - was prompted by Mr. Castro's disclosure last September that as many as 400,000 workers were creating serious economic problems by shirking their duties." [26]

** Anyone who has ever gone to an anarchist summer camp knows what I mean. Here we have "la creme de la creme", so to speak, just dying to get on with the revolution; yet who cleans out the latrines? More often than not, no one. Or, when it really gets bad, some poor sap will sacrifice himself for the cause. You don't have solidarity; you have martyrdom. And no one feels good about it: you have resentment on the part of the guy who does it and guilt from those who don't.

will if I'm paid well enough." I suspect even Mr. Heath would go down into the London sewers if he were paid 5 million pounds per hour for doing it. Somewhere between this sum and what a sewer worker now gets is a just wage, which, given a truly free society, would be readily determined by competition. This brings us to the second half of the communist ideal: the distribution of goods according to need. The obvious question again arises, "Who is to decide what another man needs?" Anarchists once more must leave that decision up to the individual involved. To do otherwise would be to invite tyranny, for who can better determine a person's needs than the person himself?* But if the individual is to decide for himself what he needs, what is to prevent him from "needing" a yacht and his own private airplane? If you think we've got a consumer society now, what would it be like if everything was free for the needing? You may object that luxuries aren't needs. But that is just begging the question: what is a luxury, after all? To millions of people in the world today food is a luxury. To the English central heating is a luxury, while to the Americans it's a necessity. The Nazi concentration camps painfully demonstrated just how little man actually NEEDS. But is that the criterion communists would use for determining need? I should hope (and think) not. So it seems to me that this posses a definite dilemma for the communist- anarchist: what do you do about unreasonable, irrational, or extravagant "needs"? What about the man who "needs" a new pair of shoes every month? "Nonsense," you may say, "no one needs new shoes that often." Well, how often then? Once a year? Every five years perhaps? And who will decide? Then what about me? I live in Switzerland and I'm crazy about grape jam - but unfortunately the Swiss aren't. I feel that a jam sandwich isn't a jam sandwich unless it's made with GRAPE jam. But tell that to the Swiss! If Switzerland were a communist federation, there wouldn't be a single communal warehouse which would stock grape jam. If I were to go up to the commissar-in-charge-of-jams and ask him to put in a

* I'm reminded here of the tale of the man who decided his mule didn't NEED any food. He set out to demonstrate his theory and almost proved his point when, unfortunately, the beast died. Authoritarian communism runs a similar risk when it attempts to determine the needs of others.

requisition for a few cases, he would think I was nuts. "Grapes are for wine," he'd tell me with infallible logic, "and more people drink wine than eat grape jam." "But I'm a vegetarian," I plead, "and just think of all the money (?) I'm saving the commune by not eating any of that expensive meat." After which he would lecture me on the economics of jam making, tell me that a grape is more valuable in its liquid form, and chastise me for being a throwback to bourgeois decadence.

And what about you, dear reader? Have you no individual idiosyncrasies? Perhaps you've got a thing about marshmallows. What if the workers in the marshmallow factories decide (under workers' control, of course) that marshmallows are bad for your health, too difficult to make, or just simply a capitalist plot? Are you to be denied the culinary delights that only marshmallows can offer, simply because some distant workers get it into their heads that a marshmallowless world would be a better world?

But, not only would distribution according to need hurt the consumer, it would be grossly unfair to the productive worker who actually makes the goods or performs the necessary services. Suppose, for example, that hardworking farmer Brown goes to the communal warehouse with a load of freshly dug potatoes. While there Brown decides he needs a new pair of boots. Unfortunately there are only a few pairs in stock since Jones the shoemaker quit his job - preferring to spend his days living off Brown's potatoes and writing sonnets about the good life. So boots are rationed. The boot commissar agrees that Brown's boots are pretty shabby but, he points out, Smith the astrologer is in even greater need. Could Brown come back in a month or so when BOTH soles have worn through? Brown walks away in disgust, resolved never again to sweat over his potato patch.

Even today people are beginning to complain about the injustices of the (relatively mild) welfare state. Theodore Roszak writes that in British schools there has been a "strong trend away from the sciences over the past four years" and that people are showing "annoyed concern" and "loudly observing that the country is not spending its money to produce poets and Egyptologists - and then demanding a sharp cut in university grants and stipends."[27] If people are upset NOW at the number of poets and Egyptologists that they are supporting, what would it be like if EVERYONE could simply take up his favourite hobby as his chosen profession? I suspect it wouldn't be long before our professional chess players and mountain climbers found the warehouse stocks dwindling to nothing. Social unrest would surely increase in direct proportion to the height of the trash

piling up on the doorsteps and the subsequent yearning for the "good old days" would bring about the inevitable counter-revolution. Such would be the fate of the anarchist-communist utopia.

Peter Kropotkin opens his chapter on "Consumption and Production" in "The Conquest of Bread" with the following words:

"If you open the works of any economist you will find that he begins with PRODUCTION, the analysis of means employed nowadays for the creation of wealth; division of labour, manufacture, machinery, accumulation of capital. From Adam Smith to Marx, all have proceeded along these lines. Only in the latter parts of their books do they treat of CONSUMPTION, that is to say, of the means necessary to satisfy the needs of individuals....Perhaps you will say this is logical. Before satisfying needs you must create the wherewithal to satisfy them. But before producing anything, must you not feel the need of it? Is it not necessity that first drove man to hunt, to raise cattle, to cultivate land, to make implements, and later on to invent machinery? Is it not the study of needs that should govern production?"[28] When I first came upon these words, I must admit I was rather surprised. "What have we here," I thought, "is the prince of anarchist-communism actually going to come out in favour of the consumer?" It didn't take long to find out that he wasn't. Most communists try very hard to ignore the fact that the sole purpose of production is consumption. But not Kropotkin; he first recognises the fact - and THEN he ignores it. It's only a matter of three pages before he gets his head back into the sand and talks of "how to reorganise PRODUCTION so as to really satisfy all needs." [My emphasis]

Under communism it is not the consumer that counts; it is the producer. The consumer is looked upon with scorn - a loathsome, if necessary, evil. The worker, on the other hand, is depicted as all that is good and heroic. It is not by accident that the hammer and sickle find themselves as the symbols of the Russian "workers' paradise." Can you honestly imagine a communist society raising the banner of bread and butter and declaring the advent of the "consumers' paradise"? If you can, your imagination is much more vivid than mine.

But that's exactly what individualist-anarchists would do. Instead of the communist's "workers' control" (i.e. a producers' democracy), we advocate a consumers' democracy. Both democracies - like all democracies - would in fact be

dictatorships. The question for anarchists is which dictatorship is the least oppressive? The answer should be obvious. But, judging from the ratio of communists to individualists in the anarchist movement, apparently it's not. So perhaps I'd better explain.

The workers in some given industry decide that item A should no longer be produced and decide instead to manufacture item B. Now consumer X, who never liked item A anyway, couldn't care less; but poor Y feels his life will never be the same without A. What can Y do? He's just a lone consumer and consumers have no rights in this society. But maybe other Y's agree with him. A survey is taken and it is shown that only 3% of all consumers regret the passing of A. But can't some compromise be arrived at? How about letting just one tiny factory make A's? Perhaps the workers agree to this accommodation. Perhaps not. In any case the workers' decision is final. There is no appeal. The Y's are totally at the mercy of the workers and if the decision is adverse, they'll just have to swallow hard and hope that next week item C isn't taken away as well. So much for the producers' dictatorship.

Let's now take a look at the consumers' dictatorship. Consumers are finicky people - they want the best possible product at the lowest possible price. To achieve this end they will use ruthless means. The fact that producer X asks more for his product than Y asks for his similar product is all that the consumer needs to know. He will mercilessly buy Y's over X's. The extenuating circumstances matter little to him. X may have ten children and a mother-in-law to feed. The consumer still buys from Y. Such is the nature of the consumers' dictatorship over the producer.

Now there is a fundamental difference between these two dictatorships. In the one the worker says to the consumer, "I will produce what I want and if you don't like it you can lump it." In the other the consumer says to the worker, "You will produce what I want and if you don't I will take my business elsewhere." It doesn't take the sensitive antennae of an anarchist to see which of these two statements is the more authoritarian. The first leaves no room for argument; there are no exceptions, no loopholes for the dissident consumer to crawl through. The second, on the other hand, leaves a loophole so big that it is limited only by the worker's imagination and abilities. If a producer is not doing as well as his competitor, there's a reason for it. He may not be suited for that particular work, in which case he will change jobs. He may be charging too much for his goods or services, in which case he will have to lower his costs, profits, and/or overhead to meet the competition. But one

thing should be made clear: each worker is also a consumer and what the individual looses in his role as producer by having to cut his costs down to the competitive market level, he makes up in his role as consumer by being able to buy at the lowest possible prices.*

Let us turn our attention now to the various philosophies used by communists to justify their social system. The exponents of any social change invariably claim that people will be "happier" under their system than they now are under the status quo. The big metaphysical question then becomes, "What is happiness?" Up until recently the communists - materialists par excellence - used to say it was material well-being. The main gripe they had against capitalism was that the workers were NECESSARILY in a state of increasing poverty. Bakunin, echoing Marx, said that "the situation of the proletariat...by virtue of inevitable economic law, must and will become worse every year." [29] But since World War II this pillar of communist thought has become increasingly shaky - particularly in the United States where "hard hats" are now pulling in salaries upwards of four quid an hour. This fact has created such acute embarrassment among the faithful that many communists are now seeking a new definition of happiness which has nothing to do with material comfort.

Very often what they do in discarding the Marxist happiness albatross is to saddle themselves with a Freudian one.** The new definition of happiness our neo-Freudian communists arrive at is usually derived from what Otto Fenichel called the "Nirvana

* The usual objection raised to a "consumers' democracy" is that capitalists have used similar catch phrases in order to justify capitalism and keep the workers in a subjugated position. Individualists sustain this objection but point out that capitalists are being inconsistent by not practicing what they preach. If they did, they would no longer be in a position of privilege, living off the labour of others. This point is made clear in the section on capitalism later in this article. ** Wilhelm Reich and R. D. Laing are among the latest gurus of the libertarian left. And it's not uncommon in anarchist circles to hear a few sympathetic words about Herbert Marcuse's "Eros and Civilisation," despite the author's totalitarian tendencies.

principle." The essence of this theory is that both life- enhancing behaviour (e.g. sexual intercourse, eating) and life-inhibiting behaviour (e.g. war, suicide) are alternative ways of escaping from tension. Thus Freud's life instinct and death instinct find their common ground in Nirvana where happiness means a secure and carefree existence. This sounds to me very much like the Christian conception of heaven. But with communism, unlike heaven, you don't have to give up your life to get in - just your humanity.

Homer Lane used to have a little anecdote which illustrates the point I'm trying to make about the communist idea of happiness:

"A dog and a rabbit are running down a field. Both apparently are doing the same thing, running and using their capacity to the full. Really there is a great difference between them. Their motives are different. One is happy, the other unhappy. The dog is happy because he is trying to do something with the hope of achieving it. The rabbit is unhappy because he is afraid. A few minutes later the position is reversed; the rabbit has reached his burrow and is inside panting, whilst the dog is sitting outside panting. The rabbit is now happy because it is safe, and therefore no longer afraid. The dog is unhappy because his hope has not been realised. Here we have the two kinds of happiness of which each one of us is capable - happiness based on the escape from danger, and happiness based on the fulfillment of a hope, which is the only true happiness." [30]

I leave it to the reader as an exercise in triviality to decide which of these two types of happiness is emphasised by communism. While on the subject of analogies, I'd like to indulge in one of my own. Generally speaking there are two kinds of cats: the "lap cat" and the "mouser." The former leads a peaceful existence, leaving granny's lap only long enough to make a discreet trip to its sandbox and to lap up a saucer of milk. The latter lives by catching mice in the farmer's barn and never goes near the inside of the farm house. The former is normally fat and lazy; the latter skinny and alert. Despite the lap cat's easier life, the mouser wouldn't exchange places with him if he could, while the lap cat COULDN'T exchange places if he would. Here we have two cats - perhaps even from the same litter - with two completely different attitudes toward life. The one expects a clean sandbox and food twice a day - and he is rarely disappointed. The other has to work for a living, but generally finds the reward worth while. "Now what has this got to do with the subject at hand?" I hear you cry. Just

this: the communists would make "lap cats" of us all. "But what's so bad about that?" you may ask. To which I would have to reply (passing over the stinky problem of WHO will change the sandbox), "Have you ever tried to 'domesticate' a mouser?"

Communism, in its quest for a tranquil, tensionless world, inevitably harks back to the Middle Ages. Scratch a communist and chances are pretty good you'll find a mediaevalist underneath. Paul Goodman, for example, derives his ideal "community of scholars" from Bologna and Paris models based in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. [31] Erich Fromm writes longingly of "the sense of security which was characteristic of man in the Middle Ages....In having a distinct, unchangeable, and unquestionable place in the social world from the moment of birth, man was rooted in a structuralised whole, and thus life had a meaning which left no place, and no need, for doubt. A person was identical with his role in society; he was a peasant, an artisan, a knight, and not AN INDIVIDUAL who HAPPENED to have this or that occupation. The social order was conceived as a natural order, and being a definite part of it gave man a feeling of security and of belonging. There was comparatively little competition. One was born into a certain economic position which guaranteed a livelihood determined by tradition. [32] Kropotkin goes even further than Fromm. I'd like to examine his position in some detail because I think it is very instructive of how the communist mentality works. In perhaps his best-known book, "Mutual Aid," Kropotkin devotes two of its eight chapters to glorifying the Middle Ages, which he boldly claim were one of "the two greatest periods of [mankind's] history." [33] (The other one being ancient Greece. He doesn't say how he reconciles this with the fact that Greece was based firmly on a foundation of slavery). "No period of history could better illustrate the constructive powers of the popular masses than the tenth and eleventh centuries...but, unhappily, this is a period about which historical information is especially scarce." [34] I wonder why? Could it be that everyone was having such a good time that no one found time to record it? Kropotkin writes of the mediaeval cities as "centres of liberty and enlightenment." [35] The mediaeval guilds, he says, answered "a deeply inrooted want of human nature," [36] calling them "organisations for maintaining justice." [37] Let's see what Kropotkin means here by "justice":

"If a brother's house is burned, or he has lost his ship, or has suffered on a pilgrim's voyage, all the brethren MUST come to his aid. If a brother falls dangerously ill, two brethren MUST keep watch by his bed till he is out of danger, and if he dies, the brethren must bury him - a great

affair in those times of pestilences [Kropotkin must have been dozing to admit this in his Utopia] - and follow him to the church and the grave. After his death they MUST provide for his children....If a brother was involved in a quarrel with a stranger to the guild, they agreed to support him for bad and for good; that is, whether he was unjustly accused of aggression, OR REALLY WAS THE AGGRESSOR, they HAD to support him....They went to court to support by oath the truthfulness of his statements, and if he was found guilty they did not let him go to full ruin and become a slave through not paying the due compensation; they all paid it....Such were the leading ideas of those brotherhoods which gradually covered the whole of mediaeval life." [38] (My emphasis)

And such is Kropotkin's conception of "justice," which could better be described as a warped sense of solidarity. He goes on to say, "It is evident that an institution so well suited to serve the need of union, without depriving the individual of his initiative, could but spread, grow, and fortify." [39] "We see not only merchants, craftsmen, hunters, and peasants united in guilds; we also see guilds of priests, painters, teachers of primary schools and universities, guilds for performing the passion play, for building a church, for developing the 'mystery' of a given school of art or craft, or for a special recreation - even guilds among beggars, executioners, and lost women, all organised on the same double principle of self-jurisdiction and mutual support." [40] It was such "unity of thought" which Kropotkin thinks "can but excite our admiration." [41]

But where did the common labourer fit into all this? Kropotkin makes the remarkable generalisation that "at no time has labour enjoyed such conditions of prosperity and such respect." [42] As proof he cites the "glorious donations" [43] the workers gave to the cathedrals. These, he says, "bear testimony of their relative well-being." [44] (Just as the Taj Mahal bears testimony of the relative well-being of the people of India, no doubt). "Many aspirations of our modern radicals were already realised in the Middle Ages [and] much of what is described now as Utopian was accepted then as a matter of fact." [45]

As for the material achievements of the Middle Ages, Kropotkin can't find a superlative super enough to describe them - but he tries:

"The very face of Europe had been changed. The land was dotted with rich cities, surrounded by immense thick walls [I wonder why?] which were embellished by towers and gates, each of them a work of art in itself. The cathedrals,

conceived in a grand style and profusely decorated, lifted their bell-towers to the skies, displaying a purity of form and a boldness of imagination which we now vainly strive to attain....[He displays a bit of 'boldness of imagination' himself (to be quite charitable) when he goes on to say:] Over large tracts of land well-being had taken the place of misery; learning had grown and spread. The methods of science had been elaborated; the basis of natural philosophy had been laid down; and the way had been paved for all the mechanical inventions of which our own times are so proud. Such were the magic [sic] changes accomplished in Europe in less than four hundred years." [46]

Just what were these "magic changes" of which Kropotkin is so proud? He lists about a dozen. [47] Among them are: printing (neglecting to inform us that the Gutenberg press was invented in the middle of the 15th century, sometime after the mediaeval cities "degenerated into centralised states"); steelmaking (neglecting to inform us that steelmaking had been mentioned in the works of Homer and was used continuously since that time); glassmaking (neglecting to inform us that the Encyclopaedia Britannica - to which he contributed numerous articles - devotes to the Middle Ages all of two sentences of a 27 page article on the history of glassmaking); the telescope (neglecting to inform us that it wasn't even invented until 1608); gunpowder and the compass (neglecting to inform us that the Chinese lay earlier claims to both of these inventions); algebra (neglecting to inform us that algebra was in common use in ancient Babylonia and that, although being introduced to mediaeval Europe by the Arabs, no important contributions were made by Europeans until the Renaissance); the decimal system (neglecting to inform us that the Hindus invented the system about a thousand years before it gained any ground in Europe in the 17th century); calendar reform (neglecting to inform us that although Roger Bacon suggested such reform to the Pope in the 13th century, no action was taken until 300 years later under the reign of Pope Gregory XIII in 1582); chemistry (neglecting to inform us of an earlier work of his where he said chemistry was "entirely a product of our [19th] century." [48]) Indeed the only things he mentions as products of the Middle Ages which stand up under scrutiny are counterpoint and, paradoxically, the mechanical clock. To top it all off, he then has the gall to cite Galileo and Copernicus as being "direct descendents" of mediaeval science [49] - somehow managing to ignore the fact that Galileo spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest for supporting the Copernican theory, thanks to that grand mediaeval institution, the Inquisition.