Let us begin with the question of private crime.[50] Anarchists maintain that the criminal is manufactured by bad social conditions and would disappear in such a world as they aim at creating.[51] No doubt there is a great measure of truth in this view.There would be little motive to robbery, for example, in an Anarchist world, unless it were organized on a large scale by a body of men bent on upsetting the Anarchist regime.It may also be conceded that impulses toward criminal violence could be very largely eliminated by a better education.But all such contentions, it seems to me, have their limitations.To take an extreme case, we cannot suppose that there would be no lunatics in an Anarchist community, and some of these lunatics would, no doubt, be homicidal.Probably no one would argue that they ought to be left at liberty.But there are no sharp lines in nature; from the homicidal lunatic to the sane man of violent passions there is a continuous gradation.Even in the most perfect community there will be men and women, otherwise sane, who will feel an impulse to commit murder from jealousy.These are now usually restrained by the fear of punishment, but if this fear were removed, such murders would probably become much more common, as may be seen from the present behavior of certain soldiers on leave.Moreover, certain kinds of conduct arouse public hostility, and would almost inevitably lead to lynching, if no other recognized method of punishment existed.There is in most men a certain natural vindictiveness, not always directed against the worst members of the community.For example, Spinoza was very nearly murdered by the mob because he was suspected of undue friendliness to France at a time when Holland was at war with that country.
Apart from such cases, there would be the very real danger of an organized attempt to destroy Anarchism and revive ancient oppressions.Is it to be supposed, for example, that Napoleon, if he had been born into such a community as Kropotkin advocates, would have acquiesced tamely in a world where his genius could find no scope? I cannot see what should prevent a combination of ambitious men forming themselves into a private army, manufacturing their own munitions, and at last enslaving the defenseless citizens, who had relied upon the inherent attractiveness of liberty.It would not be consistent with the principles of Anarchism for the community to interfere with the drilling of a private army, no matter what its objects might be (though, of course, an opposing private army might be formed by men with different views).Indeed, Kropotkin instances the old volunteers in Great Britain as an example of a movement on Anarchist lines.[52] Even if a predatory army were not formed from within, it might easily come from a neighboring nation, or from races on the borderland of civilization.So long as the love of power exists, I do not see how it can be prevented from finding an outlet in oppression except by means of the organized force of the community.
[50] On this subject there is an excellent discussion in the before- mentioned work of Monsieur Naquet.
[51] ``As to the third--the chief--objection, which maintains the necessity of a government for punishing those who break the law of society, there is so much to say about it that it hardly can be touched incidentally.The more we study the question, the more we are brought to the conclusion that society itself is responsible for the anti-social deeds perpetrated in its midst, and that no punishment, no prisons, and no hangmen can diminish the numbers of such deeds; nothing short of a reorganization of society itself.Three-quarters of all the acts which are brought every year before our courts have their origin, either directly or indirectly, in the present disorganized state of society with regard to the production and distribution of wealth--not in the perversity of human nature.As to the relatively few anti-social deeds which result from anti- social inclinations of separate individuals, it is not by prisons, nor even by resorting to the hangmen, that we can diminish their numbers.By ourprisons, we merely multiply them and render them worse.By our detectives, our `price of blood,' our executions, and our jails, we spread in society such a terrible flow of basest passions and habits, that he who should realize the effects of these institutions to their full extent, would be frightened by what society is doing under the pretext of maintaining morality.We must search for other remedies, and the remedies have been indicated long since.'' Kropotkin, ``Anarchist Communism,'' pp.31-32.
[52] ``Anarchist Communism,'' p.27.
The conclusion, which appears to be forced upon us, is that the Anarchist ideal of a community in which no acts are forbidden by law is not, at any rate for the present, compatible with the stability of such a world as the Anarchists desire.In order to obtain and preserve a world resembling as closely as possible that at which they aim, it will still be necessary that some acts should be forbidden by law.We may put the chief of these under three heads:
1.Theft.
2.Crimes of violence.
3.The creation of organizations intended to subvert the Anarchist regime by force.
We will briefly recapitulate what has been said already as to the necessity of these prohibitions.
