resolution (as Malatesta says apropos of congresses).
And Malatesta says more than that: in regards to somebody who finds his preferred seat in a café taken, or who has to step away from a confidential conversation, he says: “If I were to act otherwise, those whom I annoy would very soon give me to understand in one way or another what disadvantages there are in being illbred.” Lo and behold, coercion. And the examples quoted relate to individual relations and matters of small consequence. Imagine if a serious matter of public interest was at stake, such as the ones I referred to above!
Indeed, coercion should be kept to a minimum; if possible, it should be moral rather than physical; the rights of minorities should be respected; and in some instances dissenting minorities should even be allowed to secede. But ultimately, these are questions of degree, of modalities and not of principles.
When it is useful and necessary, I would say, it does not conflict with anarchist principles either to have recourse to a vote or to give course to the motions passed; and when these things cannot be done (for reasons of numbers or capability) by those directly concerned, it is not against anarchist principles to delegate them to others, once proper precautions have been taken against possible abuse.
Therefore, I conclude:
— Either we believe in the providential harmony that would prevail in the society of the future, in which case Malatesta is wrong and the individualists are right.
— Or Malatesta is right, in which case we are no longer entitled to say that any representation, any act whereby the people entrust the safekeeping of their interests to others, is contrary to our principles.
This, it seems to me, is a dilemma that is hard to wriggle out of.
Saverio Merlino
Rome, March 21, 1897.
Merlino has some very fair things to say, things we ourselves would say; but by talking in generalities about the necessity of social living, he loses sight, or so it seems to us, of the dividing line between authoritarianism and anarchism and the rationale behind the difference. And so his entire argument could very well be used to argue the necessity of government and thus the impossibility of anarchy.
Let us straight away spell out the points of agreement between us, lest Merlino—or anyone else who might be inclined to engage us in argument—waste their time upbraiding us about ideas that are not ours and thereby finish up pushing at an open door.
We reckon that, in many cases, the minority, even though it might be sure that it is in the right, should defer to the majority, for otherwise life in society would be impossible—and any human life outside of society is impossible. And we know only too well that matters on which unanimity cannot be achieved and on which the minority needs to give way are not just matters of small consequence, but also, indeed especially, matters of vital importance to the collective economy.
We do not believe in the divine right of majorities, but neither do we hold that minorities always, as has been argued, stand for righteousness and progress. Galileo was right, despite all his contemporaries, but to this day there are some who maintain that the earth is flat and that the sun goes around it; but none will say that they are in the right merely because they have become the minority. Besides, whilst it is true that revolutionaries are always a minority, the exploiters and the goons are always minorities, too.
So, we agree with Merlino in accepting that there is no way that each man can do everything for himself, and that, even if it were possible, that would be extremely detrimental for everyone. Hence we agree to the division of labor, the delegation of roles and trusting others to represent our own views and interests.
And above all we reject as false and pernicious any notion of providentially or naturally ordained harmony within society, it being our belief that human society and the social individual himself are the products of a protracted and wearisome battle with nature, and that if man were to desist from exercising his conscious will and surrender to nature, he would soon lapse back into animality and brutish strife.
But—and here is the reason why we are anarchists—we want minorities to defer voluntarily whenever necessity and the feeling of solidarity require it. We want the division of labor not to divide men into classes, turning some into directors and chiefs, exempt from any sort of off-putting work, and condemning others to serve as society’s beasts of burden. We want men, when they delegate a role to others—which is to say, allocate a given task to others—not to be abdicating their own sovereignty and, wherever a representative may be called for, that he may serve as the spokesman for those from whom he receives his mandate or the executor of their wishes, rather than someone who makes laws and enforces acceptance of them. And we believe that any social arrangement that is not founded upon the free and considerate will of its members, leads to oppression and exploitation of the masses by a tiny minority.
Any authoritarian society survives through coercion. The anarchist society must be founded upon consent freely given. There, men must be acutely sensible and spontaneously accepting of the obligations of social living, and strive to orchestrate discordant interests and banish any source of internal strife; or at any rate, if conflicts do erupt, may they never be of such dimensions as to trigger the establishment of some moderating authority that would reduce everyone to the status of slave on the pretext of ensuring justice for all.
But what if the minority refuses to give way?, Merlino asks. What if the majority makes to abuse its strength?, we ask.
In both instances, plainly, anarchy is not a possibility.
For instance, we want no police. This naturally presupposes that our wives and children and we ourselves can proceed through the streets without being molested by anyone, or at any rate, that if anyone was to make to misuse his superior might against us we can look to our neighbors and passers-by for better protection than any hireling police force might offer. But on the other hand, what if gangs of blackguards roved the streets insulting and thrashing those weaker than them and what if the public were to gaze upon this spectacle with indifference? Then, naturally, the weak and those with a fondness for a quiet life would insist upon the establishment of a police force, and one would assuredly be raised. It might be argued that, in such circumstances, the police would be the lesser evil; but it certainly could not be argued that anarchy was achieved. The truth of the matter would be that with so many bullies on one side and so many cowards on the other, anarchy is not possible.
Therefore the anarchist has to have a lively sense of respect for the freedom and well-being of others, and ought to make such respect the over-arching purpose of his propaganda.
But, the objection will be raised, men these days are too selfish, too intolerant, too mischievous to respect other people’s rights and defer voluntarily to the needs of society.
Actually, even in the most corrupt of men, we have always encountered something akin to a need to be held in good regard and to be loved and, in certain circumstances, such a capacity for sacrifice and such consideration for the needs of others as to give us hope that, once the on-going causes of the gravest antagonisms have been banished along with private property, it will not be hard to secure the freely given cooperation of each to the welfare of all.
Be that as it may, we anarchists are not the whole of mankind and we certainly cannot make the whole of human history on our own; but we can and should strive for the realization of our ideals by trying to banish strife and coercion from the life of society, insofar as this is feasible.
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That said, Merlino is right to argue that parliamentarism cannot be banished entirely and that even in the society of our dreams there is going to be some trace
