Alexander Jonas

“ And as the supply of labor is, or soon becomes greater than the demand for it, the competition of capitalists for the world’s market of their goods prevents them from paying more for labor than what it costs to keep its soul and body together. Production is no longer calculated to satisfy consumption of merchandize; no producing capitalist can foresee how large the demand for his merchandize will be ”

“ Modern production is essentially anarchical, though under the skillful semblance of law. The majority of men are, or soon become, disinherited, because land, buildings, money—all the great means of labor are the property of capitalists, which is protected by State and church; they must, in order to live, sell their only property, their working force, for what capitalists will pay for it, which is rarely more than one-half of its real value. Labor becomes a merchandize, which, like every other, is sold for what it will bring. ”

“ Thus it was again the method of production which revolutionized all religion, State constitutions, social organizations and laws, The invention of gunpowder, gradually eradicating knighthood and, through the discovery and conquest of America, inaugurated the modern period, in which capital became supreme arbiter of the fate of nations, and set the human mind discovering and inventing, dissolving all old prejudices, superstitions and dogmas. This fourth great period of development cultivated for the second time in history an excessive individualism and established anarchy. ”

“ If that is not sufficient to render production cheap, and labor submissive, and profits large, foreign cheap labor is imported, and the organization of laborers for mutual protection of their standard of life is warred against. Men are made cheap for the sake of rendering merchandize cheap. Few men can now follow a congenial vocation and natural inclination to work; they must drudge as servants of machines and overseers, simply for the profit of capitalists. ”

“ We are fully outspoken in our ideas and aims, all our working for redemption is above board, we shun secret organization for our purposes. Our platform of principles, which will be found at the conclusion of this treatise, means what it professes, no more, no less.
We, therefore, protest against being confounded and in any way identified with Anarchists of any type; we are the implacable enemies of all anarchism. ”

“ The very language is full of hypocrisy and deception. Industry is nowadays the means of supporting, by overwork of a majority, in idleness and sensuous luxury, a minority which cannot even claim any merits! "Law and Order" are pretexts for throwing mankind into a state of anarchy and all but universal dissatisfaction!
They call wages labor—"free labor"—while it must be sold afresh from day to day, in order to continue existence ”

“ Our Socio-Democratic science demonstrates that the present form of Society and Government works its own speedy destruction. Seen from the economical standpoint, society produces more, and is able to produce many times more, than it can consume. Side by side with enormous stores of grain, flour, victuals, millions of men, women and children are unable to procure by work the means wherewith to buy sufficient food. ”

“ From this short exposition it may be seen that Socialism is the most decided enemy to both the Anarchism of the capitalistic class, and the Anarchism of those revolutionists who have rendered more or less crazy by the cruelties and revolting injustice of our present "law and order." In fact, this latter class of Anarchists hate us more than they hate the other class of Anarchists, or anybody. If they were paid by Bismarck, or Czar Alexander III., or Jay Gould for destroying our organization, they could not more efficiently go about it than they really do. ”

“ Most of the old inventions and discoveries, together with the contemporary method of production and distribution of products, were lost, as was the best portion of antique science and art. Yet a vestige of ancient democracy and communism was preserved through the German conquerors, and institutions were founded which secured a sufficiency of support for every walk in life. Everybody was more or less provided for and could hardly ever become entirely helpless. In the walled cities a new democracy sprang up, and new inventions and discoveries were made, or old ones renewed. ”

“ We do not in the least deny that we have little hope for an entirely peaceful renewal of society and politics, and that we may have to fight for the redemption of the working class from the threatening complete thraldom. ”

“ They call property what is not the fruit of one's own labor, while there cannot be any other reasonable title to property than work. And this list of hypocritical confusion of terms might be lengthened ad libitum. In fact, all institutions of society and law are nowadays hypocritical, and demoralize the public sense of truth and honesty.
It is the merit of Social Democracy to have established this new cognition and science. It has cleared up what never could be explained by the old political economy: the cause of commercial crises; of the impoverishment of the majority in every nation ”

“ No doubt, they are guilty, not only in the opinion of the existing iniquitous law, but of eternal humane law; but far more guilty are the present incompetent and inhumane rulers of society and the State. Their reeking corruption, their perversion of all truth in science and morals to base ends, their incompetence to remedy the evils which they inflict upon the innocent majority of sufferers under their unnatural and immoral laws condemn them. We do not deny that there are, in this ruling class, very many well-meaning, but misinformed persons ”

“ Socialism and Anarchism are opposites which have nothing in common but their appurtenance to Social Science. Socialists and Anarchists as such are enemies. They pursue contrary aims, and the success of the former will destroy forever the fanatical hopes of the latter.
It is true that in theories, both are thoroughly dissatisfied with the present state of human society and its politics, and that they severely criticize almost all the economical and political constitutions and laws, teachings and practices, as now understood. ”

“ They call capital the one portion of the proceeds of labor which is not consumed, but accumulated for further production, and they omit to mention that it is the one portion of the proceeds of labor which is withheld from the laborer, of which he is robbed under the permission of law; in short, that capital is the accumulated stealings and pickings from the property of other men. ”

“ But this is rendered impossible by the modern system of production, which, since the discovery of steam-power and since the general introduction of machines, is in all branches of industry carried with such gigantic means and appliances as but a few are able to possess.
The present industrial system is coöperative in one respect only, which is: That not, as in former times, the individual works alone for his own account, but dozens, hundreds and thousands of men work together in shops, in mines, on huge farms and lands, coöperating according to the most efficient division of labor. ”

“ And this insane state of things is formed at a time when the most stupendous discoveries and inventions are known and may be made almost to order. The age of scientific wonders and technical perfection is also the age of total inability of the learned world to remedy the simplest wants of the greatest number of persons! ”

“ When the working in metals was invented, and new, powerful weapons gave some tribes an ascendancy over others, wars on a larger scale were inaugurated for the conquest of land and the enslavement of weaker tribes—and thus monarchic and feudalistic institutions, based on enslaved labor, arose and founded large realms, laws for the government of the slaves and all but the lawgivers who rarely obeyed their own laws. ”

“ Socialism, on the other hand, is an antipode of Anarchism. It presupposes human society as a growth which develops itself from the simplest beginnings in oldest tines through many changes into what it is. Society cannot be dissolved and reorganized. ”

“ Consumption is artificially stimulated; a hundred ingenious means are invented to make people buy what they do not really need, simply because it is cheap and showy. Here comes the invention of thousands of new and steadily improved machines and a nicer subdivision of labor manipulations, to produce always more cheaply and to monopolize the world's markets with the aid of conquests, treaties colonization and the ruin of old native industries. Women and children are pressed into the service of manufactories and to supplant men, especially the expert and educated handicraftsmen. ”

“ Our Communism is not sectarian, but truly universal, and compatible with the highest degree of liberty which is at all attainable. The most correct term for our Communism would, perhaps, be Collectivism, as it is now called in France. ”

“ Scientific truth and discoveries may hasten or retard its development, but can little change it. This is the fundamental doctrine of that most modern form of Socialism which was originated by Karl Marx, which calls itself Social Democracy, and is so widely spread in Germany and many other countries of Europe, and bids fair to convert mankind. ”

“ It is by working for wages, i. e., for less than the proceeds of our labor, by creating a surplus value for people who might work, but do not work, and by thus creating private capital in their hands, that we ruin society and politics. ”

“ It destroys liberty because the economical subjection of the wage-workers to the owners of the means of production immediately leads to their political dependence, and it finally frustrates the pursuit of happiness, which is never possible when life and personal liberty are in constant danger. ”

“ After a vain attempt at re-establishing, in the old Greek and Roman republics, the original communistic democracy and republic, despotism remained victorious, and after the conquest of the Roman Empire through German and Mongol barbarians, their communism was blended with the Roman physical and mental despotism in the feudalism of the Middle Age. ”

“ He wants no association but with men of his own turn of mind, no rule of. the majority, no submission under any will but his own, no discipline. He imagines that human society may be reorganized in the following way: When persons enough are converted to his ideas, all present institutions are to be destroyed, State and church, property and laws, of course,foremost. ”

“ Nations professing the religion of universal brotherhood carry on wars with the most perfect means of murder and destruction that may be imagined. Millions of soldiers in the Old World, and even in the New, are kept on foot, avowedly to guard the peace among nations who worship as God the great herald of "Peace on earth and good will among men!" ”

“ The Anarchist worships at the shrine of Liberty. Liberty is his goddess, and his only diety, in theory at least. He rejects all laws imposed on him from without, and respects only such laws as he himself ordains. ”

“ According to this doctrine which is well established by historical and scientific research, human society began in tribes which were enlarged families of blood relationship and had a communistic and democratic institution, such as we still find preserved among Indians, Arabs, nomadic tribes generally, and traces or remnants of which may yet be witnessed in old customs of every civilized nation. At this stage of development the first division of labor was invented, together with the first attempts at agriculture, the taming of wild animals and the improvement of plants into plants of culture. ”

“ Less than a century after the spurious discovery made by Malthus that mankind would multiply in a geometrical, and their food only in an arithmetical progression, the fact is established, that food and all the first necessities of man are being produced in a far greater ratio than we find purchasers! ”

“ The execrable nonsense, the incredible folly is a tangible reality, that there are too many workers of every kind and—at the same time—too many persons unable to purchase what they could produce, just because there is too much merchandize of every kind for sale. Men by the million are becoming superfluous because they have not the means to work, while such means exist in too great an abundance. ”

“ Reorganization then may begin by the voluntary association of groups of such persons as are thoroughly in accord; these groups may form larger societies for certain special purposes of work or enjoyment; and these societies may agree with other such for still more special aims, and so on till all mankind is voluntarily organized. And since men are changeable in their ideas, purposes and whims, each of the group societies and their connections may dissolve and differently reorganize themselves, as often as they see fit, without ever applying constraint upon one another. ”

“ Such a condition, which under the present industrial régime cannot but become more and more aggravated, is inconsistent with the interests of mankind, with the principles of justice and true democracy, as it destroys those rights which the Declaration of Independence of the United States held to be inalienable in all men, viz: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ”