Of all the reforms which society in its distress solicits not one is within the competence of power; not one can be realized by it, because the essence of power is repugnant to them all, and it is not given to man to unite what God has divided.
At least, the partisans of governmental initiative will say, you will admit that, in the accomplishment of the revolution promised by the development of antinomies, power would be a potent auxiliary.Why, then, do you oppose a reform which, putting power in the hands of the people, would second your views so well? Social reform is the object; political reform is the instrument: why, if you wish the end, do you reject the means?
Such is today the reasoning of the entire democratic press, which I
forgive with all my heart for having at last, by this quasi-socialistic confession of faith, itself proclaimed the emptiness of its theories.It is in the name of science, then, that democracy calls for a political reform as a preliminary to social reform.But science protests against this subterfuge as an insult; science repudiates any alliance with politics, and, very far from expecting from it the slightest aid, must begin with politics its work of exclusion.
How little affinity there is between the human mind and truth! When I see the democracy, socialistic but yesterday, continually asking for capital in order to combat capital's influence; for wealth, in order to cure poverty; for the abandonment of liberty, in order to organize liberty;
for the reformation of government, in order to reform society, -- when I see it, I say, taking upon itself the responsibility of society, provided social questions be set aside or solved, it seems to me as if I were listening to a fortune- teller who, before answering the questions of those who consult her, begins by inquiring into their age, their condition, their family, and all the accidents of their life.Eh! miserable sorceress, if you know the future, you know who I am and what I want; why do you ask me to tell you?
Likewise I will answer the democrats: If you know the use that you should make of power, and if you know how power should be organized, you possess economic science.Now, if you possess economic science, if you have the key of its contradictions, if you are in a position to organize labor, if you have studied the laws of exchange, you have no need of the capital of the nation or of public force.From this day forth you are more potent than money, stronger than power.For, since the laborers are with you, you are by that fact alone masters of production; you hold commerce, manufactures, and agriculture enchained; you have the entire social capital at your disposition;
you have full control of taxation; you block the wheels of power, and you trample monopoly under foot.What other initiative, what greater authority, do you ask? What prevents you from applying your theories?
Surely not political economy, although generally followed and accredited:
for, everything in political economy having a true side and a false side, your only problem is to combine the economic elements in such a way that their total shall no longer present a contradiction.
Nor is it the civil law: for that law, sanctioning economic routine solely because of its advantages and in spite of its disadvantages, is susceptible, like political economy itself, of being bent to all the exigencies of an exact synthesis, and consequently is as favorable to you as possible.
Finally, it is not power, which, the last expression of antagonism and created only to defend the law, could stand in your way only by forswearing itself.
Once more, then, what stops you?
If you possess social science, you know that the problem of association consists in organizing, not only the non-producers, -- in that direction, thank heaven! little remains to be done, -- but also the producers, and by this organization subjecting capital and subordinating power.Such is the war that you have to sustain: a war of labor against capital; a war of liberty against authority; a war of the producer against the non-producer;
a war of equality against privilege.What you ask, to conduct the war to a successful conclusion, is precisely that which you must combat.Now, to combat and reduce power, to put it in its proper place in society, it is of no use to change the holders of power or introduce some variation into its workings: an agricultural and industrial combination must be found by means of which power, today the ruler of society, shall become its slave.
Have you the secret of that combination?
But what do I say? That is precisely the thing to which you do not consent.
As you cannot conceive of society without hierarchy, you have made yourselves the apostles of authority; worshippers of power, you think only of strengthening it and muzzling liberty; your favorite maxim is that the welfare of the people must be achieved in spite of the people; instead of proceeding to social reform by the extermination of power and politics, you insist on a reconstruction of power and politics.Then, by a series of contradictions which prove your sincerity, but the illusory character of which is well known to the real friends of power, the aristocrats and monarchists, your competitors, you promise us, in the name of power, economy in expenditures, an equitable assessment of taxes, protection to labor, gratuitous education, universal suffrage, and all the utopias repugnant to authority and property.
Consequently power in your hands has never been anything but ruinous, and that is why you have never been able to retain it; that is why, on the Eighteenth of Brumaire,(11*) four men were sufficient to take it away from you, and why today the bourgeoisie, which is as fond of power as you are and which wants a strong power, will not restore it to you.
