Voltairine De Cleyre

“ Lum did. Hence his “boards of administration,” chosen by “natural selection,” not majority vote, having jurisdiction only over affiliated industries, in no wise meddling with affairs they do not understand, and in no wise enforcing their decisions, even within their limits, by legal penalties. Krapotkin’s illustrations in his “Anarchist Communism are very much in point.
In conclusion, my intention has been to show Mr Black’s incompetency to criticize Mr. Lum. That he is equally incompetent to criticize the other Anarchists quoted could be easily demonstrated. ”

“ Equal freedom! This is the foundation rock of the Individualists! And the sentence quoted might have been written by any one of them. But Lum preferred the word mutualism to individualism, because he recognized the progress of society not only towards freedom, but towards solidarity. And in Mr. Blacks second quotation, while registering his protest against the authoritative “central bureau” of Socialism, which would create solidarity from the top down, he explains how such solidarity might grow from the bottom up, after the natural process of growth. ”

“ That all forms of production are passing phases dependent upon circumstances which it is impossible to foresee; and hence wisdom in the matter will content itself by saying laissez faire.
Lum, however, believed that the factory represented not only power and machinery but division of labor and as division of labor appears as a continuous process in all organic life, from protista up, he could hardly conceive a reversal of the law in the case of the social organism. ”