Chapter VIII. The Fallacy of Anarchism

CHAPTER VIII The Fallacy of Anarchism To call anarchism a fallacy after having stated that savages have no government, which is certainly a condition of anarchy, must sound like flat inconsistency, unless it is borne in mind that the mode of the conversion of energy must correspond to the mode of association. Anarchy is practicable only to savagery. It has been attempted with an agricultural economy, which is more advanced, and the result is highly instructive. The religious sect of Dukhobors have made the trial, exhaustively. Within its limits, their reasoning was completely consistent. They were resolved to have no government whatever, not even self-government as the term is understood in describing a formal organization. A reporter * making a factual study of a Dukhobor colony in Canada asked a Dukhobor if he would promise not to burn some manuscript notes if they were left about. This would have been the easiest kind of promise to fulfill, being mere abstention from an act which no conceivable circumstances subsequently arising could make necessary in the given instance.

The Dukhobor answered that he "would not want to burn those notes." The reporter conceded that undoubtedly the Dukhobor at the moment thought he would not, but supposing he felt otherwise later? In that case, the Dukhobor said, "if the Spirit truly moved me to do it, then I would have to burn them." The essence of self-government consists in keeping promises ; the formal organization is instituted by agreement, and its power is delegated for the purpose of maintaining contract *SLAVA BOHU: The story of the Dukhobors. J. F. C. Wright. 71 72 THE GOD OF THE MACHINE freely entered into—the contract embodied in the constitution, and private contracts between individuals. The Dukhobors were quite logical in avoiding the first step toward self-government, since they did not wish to have any. But the sect throughout its existence has alternated between disputes which stopped production and autocratic leadership which disposed of a large share of the product arbitrarily. Such is the inevitable outcome of the most conscientious attempt to remain in a condition of anarchy after the moral relationship of the members of the community has been extended in space and time to permit a higher economy than that of savagery.

Labor is wasted -y and the members of the community are held down to poverty, distress, and ignorance. The stage of development in which government becomes necessary is easily discovered 5 and its correspondence to the mode of the conversion of energy, or failure when the synchronization is not right, can be discerned. What has not hitherto been elucidated is the specific connection of the mechanism of government and the productive order. This has led to various conflicting guesses as to the origin and nature of government. One theory of history asserts that government arises from war, and therefore is force fer se. This is doubly false since it is a reversal of the true relation. It has been adopted by philosophers committed to the doctrine of the Absolute State, because it is the sole argument they can muster which seems to afford them a factual base; but it rests only upon the error of fost hocy ergo frofter hoc.

Government by force is a contradiction in terms and an impossibility in physics. Force is what is governed. Government originates in the moral faculty. The subsidiary relation of force to the moral faculty is self-evident from the location of the source of the energy applied in human affairs 5 and this relationship is demonstrable by the mechanism of every known or imaginable mode of human association. The earliest form of society, subsisting by the direct bounty of nature and held together THE FALLACY OF ANARCHISM 73 by the instinct of species, is that of the savage. The Eskimos are believed to exhibit a survival of the Stone Age culture, scarcely modified until recent times. Their habitat does not permit accumulation of possessions beyond portable objects and small caches of food; neither may they hope for improvement in their lot beyond an obvious narrow margin. Old age is brief; incompetence, sickness, or severe disability mean death. Marriage is a working partnership easily dissolved j and sex behavior is accordantly lax. The process of conversion of energy has the smallest possible circuit, with the man as hunter bringing in raw materials and the woman forthwith turning them into consumption goods; these go into maintenance, and the children are replacement. The group cannot become very large; it must disperse and wander, and cannot establish a regular place of assembly. Hence it has no secular head. No Eskimo has authority over another; but Stefansson notes that without seeking it the abler men have influence without privilege. Under acute necessity, which is the mold of pure custom, the Eskimos really have no government, no political structure or agency whatever.

Eskimos do not make war. Their energy is absorbed in the immediate struggle for existence; and their environment, the white Arctic waste, eliminates the possible aspect of war as sport, which consists in surprise, escape, and pursuit. In temperate regions, savages do make war; and still have no formal government. But war and leadership, with an informal council, seem to be synchronous developments. This is what lends plausibility to the theory that government originates in war and therefore that government fer se is force. The error can be maintained only by rejecting both the facts of savage behavior and the specific testimony of intelligent savages as to the meaning and purpose of what has been called the council of war. The significant point is that in their beginnings neither chief nor council had any fower. They exercised only accredited influence. The chief had no permanence of tenure and no positive authority. Coun74 THE GOD OF THE MACHINE cil and chief debated when war was in prospect; but the manifest occasion for their exhortations was to instill prudence, that is, to speak for peace. This was put on record by a famous chief, old Seattle, who had been instrumental in uniting a number of Pacific Coast tribes. When the white men came, he saw that his people were done for. In a valedictory oration, acceding to a treaty, he explained, recapitulating the function of the chief simply as matter of fact: * "Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and then they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better."

Chief Seattle described an indisputable physical phenomenon, a diversion of surplus energy. Obviously primitive war can be begun and carried on by impulse on the part of the fighting men. In the conditions, it could not be conducted by any other means. If the young men were in militant mood, nothing could conceivably restrain them except persuasion. They are the force. Thus the council might either prevent war by moral influence, or sanction it, or admit their inability to forbid it, while ready to make peace afterward. In no case could the council, the old men, apply force, either for prevention or to compel war. They simply had none. Likewise in such primitive warfare no authoritative command is possible; every man must fight on his own. The chief could offer advice on crude strategy, and give an example of bravery and expertness. That was about all. Consequently he was chosen for wisdom as much as for valor.