Anarchism and Force

So I would answer Mr. Bilgram's question, as put in his concluding paragraph, as follows: Anarchism does not repu diate the right of ownership, but it has a conception thereof sufficiently different from Mr. Bilgram's to include the possi bility of an end 'of that social organization which will arise, not out of the ruins of .government, but out of the transfor mation of government into voluntary association for defence. ANARCHISM AND FORCE BECAUSE I claim and teach that Anarchism justifies the ap plication of force to invasive men and condemns force only when applied to non-invasive men, Mr. Hugh o. Pentecost declares that the only difference between Anarchism on the one hand and Monarchism or Republicanism on the other is the difference between the popular conception of invasion and my own. If I were to assert that biology is the. science which deals with the phenomena of living matter and excludes all phenomena of matter that is not living, and if Mr. Pente cost were to say that, assuming this, the only difference be tween the biological sciences and the abiological is the differ ence between the popular conception of life and my own, he would take a position precisely analogous to that which he takes on the subject of Anarchism, and the one position would be every whit as sensible and every whit as foolish as the other.

The limit between invasion and non-invasion, like the limit be tween life and non-life, is not, at least in our present compre hension of it, a hard and fast line. But does it follow from this that invasion and non-invasion, life and non-life, are identical? Not at all. The indefinite character of the boun dary does no more than show that a small proportion of the I~ i I INDIVTDUALLIBERTY 7J phenomena of· society,. like '. a small . proportion of the phenomena of matter,. still resists·the. respective distinguishing tests to which by far the greater portion of such phenomena have .yielded and by which they have been classifi'ed. And however embarrassing .in practice may be. the reluctance of frontier phenomena to promptly arrange themselves on either side. of the. border in obedience. to the tests, it. is •stiH more embarrassing i11 theory to attempt to frame any rational view of society or life without recognition of these tests, by which, broadly speaking, distinctions have been established. Some of the most manifest distinctions. have never been sharply drawn.

IfMr. Pentecost willviewthe.subjectin this light and£()l low out the .reasoning thus. entered upon~he .willsoon discover that my conception or misconception of. what constitutes. in vasion does not at all affect the .scientific differentiation of Anarchismfrom.Archism. I may err grievously in attributing a.•....n•..•..•.•....inv..•..•.a••S.l.V•...••e•. or.. a•..·n.. o.•n.'-i.. nv..•..a.si.ve..•••C..h.•.a.rac.t.er.• t.o.. a g.l.ve.n.. 50.cial••...••p.h••.•,e.. - (.•••..nomen.on,and, if I act upon my error,! shall act Archisti ... cally; but the very fact that I am acting, not blindly and at hap-hazard, but in furtherance of an endeavor to conform to a generalization which is .the product of long experience and ~\' accumulating evidence, adds infinitely to the probability that I 1 shall discover my error. In trying.to draw more clearly the , line between invasion and non-invasion, .•all. of us, myself. in cluded, are •.destinedtomake many. mistakes, but by our .very mistakes we shaH approa.ch our goal..•• Only Mr. Pentecost and those who think withhi111 take themselves out of the path of progress by assuming that it is possible to live in harmony .simply by ignoringthe.£act of friction and the causes thereof.

The no..rule which Mr. Pente~ostbelieves in would amount in practice to submission to the rule .of the invasive .rnan. No-rule,. in the sense of. no-force-in-any-case, is a self-contra diction.The man Iwhoatte111pts to practice it becomes.... an abettor of. government by •declining' to resist it. So long.as Mr. Pentecost is wining. ~o left the. criminal .ride roughshod over. him and me, hi$. upl1'eferencenot to be ruled at all" is~ nothing but a beatHic r~veUing in sheerest moonshine>and Utopia.