State Socialism And Anarchism And Other Essays

Author : Ambrose Bierce
Publisher : Independently Published
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 122 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (948 download)

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Download or read book The Shadow On The Dial written by Ambrose Bierce and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-01-15 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THERE is a deal of confusion and uncertainty in the use of the words "Socialist," "Anarchist,"and "Nihilist." Even the '1st himself commonly knows with as little accuracy what he is as the rest ofus know why he is. The Socialist believes that most human affairs should be regulated and managedby the State-the Government-that is to say, the majority. Our own system has many Socialisticfeatures and the trend of republican government is all that way. The Anarchist is the kind of lunaticwho believes that all crime is the effect of laws forbidding it-as the pig that breaks into the kitchengarden is created by the dog that chews its ear! The Anarchist favors abolition of all law andfrequently belongs to an organization that secures his allegiance by solemn oaths and dreadfulpenalties. "Nihilism" is a name given by Turgenieff to the general body of Russian discontent whichfinds expression in antagonizing authority and killing authorities. Constructive politics would seem, as yet, to be a cut above the Nihilist's intelligence; he is essentially a destructionary. He is sodiligently engaged in unweeding the soil that he has not given a thought to what he will grow there.Nihilism may be described as a policy of assassination tempered by reflections upon Siberia.American sympathy with it is the offspring of an unholy union between the tongue of a liar and theear of a dupe.Upon examination it will be seen that political dissent, when it takes any form more coherent thanthe mere brute dissatisfaction of a mind that does not know what it wants to want, finds expressionin one of but two ways-in Socialism or in Anarchism. Whatever methods one may think will bestsubstitute for a system gradually evolved from our needs and our natures a system existing only inthe minds of dreamers, one is bound to choose between these two dreams. Yet such is theintellectual delinquency of many who most strenuously denounce the system that we have that wenot infrequently find the same man advocating in one breath, Socialism, in the next, Anarchism.Indeed, few of these sons of darkness know that even as coherent dreams the two are incompatible.With Anarchy triumphant the Socialist would be a thousand years further from realization of hishope than he is today. Set up Socialism on a Monday and on Tuesday the country would be en fête, gaily hunting down Anarchists. There would be little difficulty in trailing them, for they have not somuch sense as a deer, which, running down the wind, sends its tell-tale fragrance on before.Socialism and Anarchism are the two extremes of political thought; they are parts of the samedung, in the sense that the terminal points of a road are parts of the same road. Between them, about midway, lies the system that we have the happiness to endure. It is a "blend" of Socialism andAnarchism in about equal parts: all that is not one is the other. Everything serving the commoninterest, or looking to the welfare of the whole people, is socialistic in the strictest sense of the wordas understood by the Socialist Whatever tends to private advantage or advances an individual orclass interest at the expense of a public one, is anarchistic. Cooperation is Socialism; competition isAnarchism. Competition carried to its logical conclusion (which only cooperation prevents or canprevent) would leave no law in force no property possible no life secure.Of course the words "cooperation" and "competition" are not here used in a merely industrial andcommercial sense; they are intended to cover the whole field of human activity.