Anarchist Manifesto

*** Anarchy is Order ***

If I were to heed the meaning vulgarly attributed to certain words then, since vulgar error has taken „anarchy‟ to be synonymous with „civil war‟, I should be horrified by the title with which I have headed this publication, in that I have a horror of civil strife.

At the same time I account it a pleasure and an honour that I have never been party to a band of conspirators nor any revolutionary battalion; a pleasure and an honour because it furnishes the basis upon which I can establish, for one thing, that I have been enough of an honest man not to pull the wool over the people's eyes, and, for another, that I have been astute enough not to let the wool be pulled over my own eyes by the ambitious. I have watched - I cannot claim unmoved but at any rate with the utmost serenity - the passage of fanatics and charlatans, moved to pity for some and to utter contempt for the rest. And when, in the wake of these bloody struggles - having forced my enthusiasm not to overstep the narrow confines of syllogism - I have sought to draw up a balance-sheet of the benefits that each corpse has bought, the sum has added up to zero, and zero means nothing. That nothing horrifies me; civil war horrifies me also.

Consequently, if I have inscribed ANARCHY on the mast-head of this newspaper, it cannot have been because I take that word in the sense attributed to it - much mistakenly, as I shall be explaining anon - by the governmentalist factions, but rather to ensure that it receives the etymological rights it deserves in a democracy. Anarchy is the negation of governments. Governments, whose pupils we are, have naturally found nothing better to devise than to school us in fear and horror of their destruction. But as governments in turn are the negations of individuals or of the people, it is reasonable that the latter, waking up to essential truths, should gradually come to feel a greater horror at its own annihilation than that of its masters.

Anarchy is an ancient word, but, for us that word articulates a modem notion, or rather, a modern interest, the idea being daughter to the interest. History has described as "anarchic" the condition of a people wherein there are several governments in contention one with another, but the condition of a people desirous of being governed but bereft of government precisely because it has too many is one thing and the condition of a people desirous of governing itself and bereft of government precisely because it wishes none quite another. In ancient times, indeed, anarchy was civil war, not because it meant absence of governments but, rather, because it meant a multiplicity of them and competition and strife among the governing classes. The modern notion of absolute social truth or pure democracy has ushered in an entire series of discoveries or interests which have turned the terms of the traditional equation upside down. Thus anarchy, which, when contrasted with the term monarchy, means civil war, is, from the vantage point of absolute or democratic truth, nothing less than the true expression of social order.

Indeed:

Who says anarchy, says negation of government;

Who says negation of government says affirmation of the people;

Who says affirmation of the people, says individual liberty;

Who says individual liberty, says sovereignty of each;

'Who says sovereignty of each, says equality;

Who says equality, says solidarity or fraternity;

Who says fraternity, says social order;

By contrast:

Who says government, says negation of the people;

Who says negation of the people, says affirmation of political authority;

Who says affirmation of political authority, says individual dependency;

Who says individual dependency, says class supremacy;

Who says class supremacy, says inequality;

Who says inequality, says antagonism;

Who says antagonism, says civil war,

From which it follows that who says government, says civil war.

Whether what I have just stated is new, eccentric or frightful, I cannot tell. I do not know, nor do I care to know. What I do know is that I can boldly argue my case against all of the White and Red governmentalist prose of past, present and future. The truth is that, on this terrain - the terrain of the free man untainted by ambition, diligent in his work, contemptuous of command and refractory to submissiveness - I throw down the gauntlet to functionarism's every argument, all of the rationale of marginalisation and all the champions of taxation -- be it monarchist or republican - and regardless of whether it go by the name of progressive, proportional, territorial, capitalist and whether it be on property or on consumption.

Yes, anarchy is order, whereas government is civil war.

When my intellect looks past the wretched details underpinning the day to day dialectic, I discover that the intestinal strifes which, throughout the ages, have decimated humankind, are bound up with a single cause, to wit: the destruction or preservation of government.

In the realm of politics, sacrifice of self for the purpose of the maintenance or installation of a government has always meant having one's throat cut and one's entrails torn out. Point me to a place where men openly slaughter one another and I will show you a government behind all the carnage. If you try to explain civil war away as other than the manner of a government's trying to ensconce itself or agovernment's refusal to quit the stage, you are wasting your time; you will not be able to come up with anything.

And the reason is simple.

A government is set up. In the very instant of its creation, it has its servants and, as a result, its supporters; and the moment that it has its supporters it has its adversaries too. That very fact alone quickens the seed of civil war, because the government, resplendent in its authority, cannot possibly act with regard to its adversaries the way it does with regard to its supporters. There is no possibility of the former's not feeling its favour, nor of the latter's not being persecuted. From which it follows that there is likewise no possibility of conflict between the favoured faction and the oppressed faction not arising from this disparity, sooner or later. In other words, once the government is in place, the favouritism that is the basis of privilege and which provokes division, spawns antagonism and civil strife becomes inevitable.

From which it follows that government is civil war.

There need only be a government supporter on the one hand and an adversary of the government on the other for strife to erupt among the citizenry: it is plain that, outside of the love or hatred borne towards the government, civil war has no raison d'etre, which means to say that for peace to be established, the citizenry need merely refrain from being, on the one hand, supporters and, on the other, adversaries of the government.

But refraining from attacking or defending the government so as to render civil war impossible is nothing short of paying it no heed, tossing it on to the dung heap and dispensing with it in order to lay the foundations of social order.

Now, if dispensing with government is, on the one hand, the establishment of order, and, on the other, the enshrinement of anarchy, then order and anarchy go hand in hand

From which it follows that anarchy is order.

Before I proceed any further, I would ask the reader to beware of the bad impression that may be made by the personal format which I have adopted for the purpose of facilitating argument and refining thought. In this exposition, I represent, not so much the author, as the reader and listener: I stands for man.

*** Traditional Collective Interest a Fiction ***

Posed in these terms, the matter - rising above socialism and the unfathomable chaos into which it has been plunged by the petty chieftains of its several tendencies - enjoys the merit of clarity and precision. I am an anarchist, a political and social Huguenot; I deny everything and affirm naught but myself: because the sole truth of which I have material and moral proof and tangible, comprehensible and intelligible evidence, the only real, startling, non-arbitrary truth not susceptible to interpretation, is myself I am. There I have a positive fact. Everything else is abstraction and, in mathematics, would be designated as „x‟, an unknown quantity; and I need not trouble myself with it.

In essence, society consists of a vast combination of material and personal interests. The collective or State interest - by virtue of which dogma, philosophy and politics together have thus far demanded wholesale or partial forswearing of individuals and their assets - is a sheer figment which, in its priestly garb, has furnished the basis for the fortunes of all the clergy, from Aaron right up to Monsieur Bonaparte. This imagined interest has no existence outside of legislation.

It has assuredly never been the case, never will be the case and cannot be the case that upon this earth there exists an interest higher than mine, an interest to which I am obliged to make even a partial sacrifice of my interest. If there are men upon this earth and if I am a man, my interest is the equal of any other's. I cannot owe more than is owed to me; and cannot receive more than the measure which I give. But I owe no debt to him that gives me nothing; so I owe no debt to that collective rationale (or indeed government) because the government gives me nothing and never could give me the equal of what it takes from me (and which, by the way, it itself does not have). In every instance, the best judge of the appropriateness of a choice and the one who ought to determine if it ought to be repeated is myself; and in this regard I have no advice nor lessons nor, above all, orders to await from anyone else. It is the duty and not just the entitlement of every individual to apply this line of argument to himself and not to forget it. That is the true, intuitive, unchallengeable and indestructible basis of the only human interest that should be taken into consideration: the personal interest and individual prerogative. Does this mean that I wish utterly to deny the collective interest? Certainly not. Except that, having no taste for talking to no purpose, I have nothing to say. Having laid down the basis for the personal interest, I operate with regard to the collective interest just as I ought to operate with regard to society when I introduced the individual.Society is the inescapable consequence of the aggregation of individuals; likewise the collective interest a providential and inevitable consequence of the aggregation of personal interests. The collective interest will only be fully realised to the extent that it leaves personal interest untouched; because, if the collective interest is understood to be the interest of all, in any society it requires only trespass against the interest of one single individual for the collective interest to cease immediately from being in everyone's interest and, as a result, for it to cease to exist

In the inevitable course of things, the collective interest is a natural consequence of the individual's interest. So true is this that the community will not seize my field so as to lay out a thoroughfare or will not ask me to retain my trees for the improvement of the air without offering me compensation. But, just as it is in its interest to compensate me, so it is in mine to defer to it. So much for the collective interest which grows out of the nature of things. There is another which is accidental and abnormal - war. It is not susceptible to this rule. It conjures up another rule and always does a good job of that. We need concern ourselves only with that which is constant. - But when the name of collective interest is bestowed upon the one in light of which they shut down my workshop, prevent me from pursuing such and such an activity, impound my newspaper or my book, trespass against my liberty, ban me from becoming a lawyer or doctor on the basis of my personal study and clientele, issue me with the order not to sell this or purchase that, when, in short, they dub collective interest that which they invoke in order to prevent me from earning my living openly, in the manner of my choosing and under everyone's gaze, I declare that I cannot understand it, or rather, that I understand only too well.

In order to keep the collective interest safe, a man who has cured his neighbour unlawfully it is an offence to do good unlawfully - is condemned on the pretext that he has no qualification; a man is prevented from championing the cause of a (free) citizen who has placed his trust in him; a writer is arrested; a publisher ruined; a propagandist thrown into prison; a man who cried out or behaved in a certain fashion is sent before the criminal assizes.

What do all these outrages profit me? What do they profit you? From the Pyrenees to the Channel and from the Ocean to the Alps I race, asking each and every one of the thirty six million Frenchmen what they have profited from these inane acts of cruelty perpetrated in their name against wretches whose families moan, whose creditors fret, whose affairs are on the road to ruin and who, once they manage to struggle free of the rigours visited upon them, may well commit suicide out of disgust or turn to crime out of hatred. And, faced with that question, not one knows what I meant to say, every single one disclaims responsibility for what has occurred and the wretchedness has drawn no response from anybody. Tears have been shed and interests damaged in vain. Yet this is the savage monstrosity that goes by the name of the collective interest! As for myself, let me state that if this collective interest is not some dismal mistake, I would describe it as the vilest mischief!

But let us cease to be this irate and bloody figment and let us say that, since the only way of arriving at the collective interest is through safeguarding of personal interests, it is apparent and sufficiently demonstrated that, in terms of sociability and economics, the most important thing is to foster the personal interest above anything else. On which grounds I am correct in saying that the only social fact is the natural fact, the individual, the self.

*** Individualist Dogma the Only Fraternal Dogma ***

I do not wish to hear tell of revelation, tradition or Chinese, Phoenician, Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, German or French philosophies; outside of my faith or my religion, for which I am answerable to none, I do not know what use to make of the ramblings of ancestors; I have no ancestors. As far as I am concerned, the creation of the world dates from the day I was born; as far as I ant concerned, the world must end on the day when my body and the breath which go together to make up my individual existence are returned to the earth. I am first roan and I will be last man. My history is a summary of the history of humankind; I know nothing else and wish to know nothing else. When I am suffering, what comfort can I derive from someone else's good fortune? When I am enjoying myself; what does my enjoyment profit those who are suffering? What do I care for what was done before me? How can what will be done after me affect me? I need be neither a burnt offering to dead generations nor an example to posterity. I am encapsulated within the span of my existence, and the only problem I must resolve is the problem of my well-being. I have but one doctrine and that doctrine has but a single formula, and that formula but a single word: ENJOYMENT.

Whoever recognises that is honest; whoever denies it an impostor.

It is the formula of a crude individualism, of an innate selfishness; I do not at all deny that; I confess it, place it on record and exult in it. If there is anyone who might feel himself harmed by it and would chastise me for it, bring him before me so that I may question him. Does my selfishness do you some harm? If you say no, you have no grounds for objection, because I am at liberty in respect of anything not likely to do you harm. If you say yes, you are cheats, because my selfishness is nothing more than my assertion of self-ownership, an appeal to my identity, a protest against all overlordship. If you feel harmed by the carrying out of this act of self-possession, by my assertion of rights over my own person - which is to say, over the least questionable of my assets - you are acknowledging that I am your possession, or, at the very least, that you have designs upon me. You are exploiters (or are becoming such), monopolists, lusting after other men's goods, so many thieves.

There is no middle ground. Selfishness is either righteousness or robbery; I must either be my own property or be counted among someone else's assets. It is unthinkable that I should be asked to abjure myself for the benefit of others, because if everyone were to abjure themselves as I do, nobody would gain anything more than he had lost by this inane game and as a result would be left the same, which is to say, would derive no profit from it. Plainly, that would render the initial sacrifice a nonsense. And if the self-sacrifice of all cannot bring benefit to all, it must of necessity profit only some. In which case the latter will be masters of everything, as will, in all likelihood, those who will be hurt by my selfishness. So let them grit and bear it.

Every man is an egoist; anyone ceasing to be such becomes an object. Anyone claiming that he need not be so, is a thief

Ah! but of course I understand! The word is jarring to the ear; thus far you have used it for those who are not content with their own assets, those who lay hands upon other men's goods; but such people belong to the human race whereas you do not. Do you know what you are doing when you bemoan their rapaciousness? Registering your own imbecile status. Up to now you have believed in the existence of tyrants. Well, you were mistaken. There are only slaves. Where none obeys, none commands.

Listen well to this: the dogma of resignation, of self-sacrifice, of self-renunciation has always been preached at peoples.

And the upshot of it? Papacy and sovereignty by the grace of God. Oh, but the people has been resigned, has annihilated itself and has long denied itself

What do you think? Is this right?

True, the greatest pleasure in which those somewhat befuddled bishops, the assemblies which have replaced the kings, the ministers who have replaced the princes, the prefects who have replaced the dukes - those greater vassals - the prefects who have =placed the barons - those lesser vassals - and that entire retinue of subordinate officials who stand in for feudalism's knights and petty nobles, can indulge; the greatest pleasure, I say, in which this entire financial nobility, can indulge, is to retreat as quickly as they can into the traditional dogma of resignation, self-sacrifice and self-denial. Among their number you will still find protectors who will counsel you to scorn riches - and you will be in danger of their stripping them from you -- and you will find among them fanatics who, in order to salvage your soul, will preach continence to you - reserving for themselves the right to offer consolation to your wives, your daughters or your sisters. Which is fine. Thanks be to God that we do not lack for devoted friends ready to stand condemned in our place whilst we abide by the old paths of righteousness from which they stand politely back, doubtless lest they impede our progress along them.

How come all these relayers of the old hypocrisy are no longer feeling so at home upon the seats established by their predecessors? How come? Because selflessness is on the wane and individualism on the rid, because man is finding himself a handsome enough figure to dare tear off the, ash and finally show himself in his true light.

Selflessness is slavery, shabbiness wail abjection; it is king, government, tyranny, mourning and civil war.

Individualism, on the other hand, is redemption, greatness, chivalry; it is man, people, liberty, fraternity and order.

*** The Social Contract a Monstrosity ***

Let everyone in society look to his own self and confirm himself alone and the sovereignty of the individual is established, government bereft of its raison d'etre, all supremacy undone and man the equal of his fellow-man.

That done, what remains? What remains is everything that governments have striven in vain to destroy: the essential and imperishable basis of nationality; the community that all authorities disrupt and disorganise so as to overthrow; the municipality, that fundamental, age-old organisation which weathers all disorganisation and destruction. The community has its administration, its jurymen, its judicial organs; and, if it does not, it will conjure them. Thus, France, being self-organised along municipal lines, she is also democratically self- organised. Insofar as her internal arrangements are concerned, there is nothing that needs doing; it has all been done; the individual is free and sovereign within the nation.

Now, ought the nation or the community to have some synthetic, central agency to handle certain shared concrete material interests and act as interlocutor between the community and the outside world? This is not a problem for anyone; and I cannot see that we need fret unduly about what everyone accepts is reasonable and necessary. What is at issue is the government; but a functional mechanism, a chancellery formed at the instigation of self-regulating communities, may, if need be, constitute an administrative commission, but not a government.

Do you know what makes a mayor a bully in a community? The existence of the civil governor. Do but dispense with the latter, and the former must rely solely upon the persons who appointed him and the freedom of everyone is assured.

An institution answerable to the community is not a government; a government is an institution to which the community is obedient. That upon which the influence of the individual __can be brought to bear cannot be described as a government; government is the name reserved for that which crushes individuals beneath the weight of its influence.

In short, what is at issue is not the /civil act/ - the nature and character of which I shall set out anon - but rather the /social contract/.

There is not and cannot be a social contract, for one thing because society is not an artificial construct, nor a scientific fact, nor a mechanical combination; society is a providential and indestructible phenomenon. Like all animals with social habits, men are by nature social. Man's natural condition is of itself the state of society; thus it is absurd, if not outrageous, to try to establish by contract that which is already and inevitably constituted. Secondly, because my social disposition, my pursuits, faith, feelings, affections, tastes, interests and habits alter every year or every month or daily, or several times per day and I am not disposed to enter into a commitment to anyone, by word of mouth or writing, not to change my pursuit, conviction, sentiment, affection, interest, or habit. And, since I contend that, had I entered into any such undertaking, it would only have been for the purpose of breaking it, let me state that, had I been forced into giving it, it would have been at once the most barbarous and most odious of tyrannies.

In spite of this, the social lives of every one of us started with a contract. Rousseau' invented this question and for the last sixty years our legislation has been informed by the genius of Rousseau. It is by virtue of a contract drafted by our forebears and subsequently renewed by the leading citizens of the Constituent Assembly, that the government forbids us to see, hear, utter, write or do anything other than we are allowed to. So much for the people's prerogatives, the alienation of which gives rise to the establishment of the government Insofar as I am concerned, I dispute it and I leave it to others to serve it, pay for it, love it and, ultimately, perish for it. But even should the French people as a whole agree to be governed in matters of education, religion, finance, industry, art, labour, affections, tastes, habits, movements and even in matters of foodstuffs, I am fully entitled to declare that its voluntary servitude in no wise commits me, any more than its stupidity places my intelligence in question. And yet, in fact, its servitude envelops me and I cannot possibly escape it. No doubt about it; it is well known that the submission of six, seven or eight million individuals to one man or more than one involves my own submission to that very same man or men. I defy anyone to characterise this act as anything other than treachery and I assert that never on this earth has the barbarism of a people been translated as such outright banditry. Indeed, the sight of a moral coalition of eight million slaves ranged against one free man is a spectacle of wickedness against the barbarousness of which one could not invoke civilisation without making it appear ridiculous or odious in the sight of the world.

But I cannot believe that all my countrymen are premeditatedly sensible of the necessity to serve. What I feel they all should feel; what I think, they all ought to think; because I am no more and no less than a man; I am on the same plain and onerous terms as any working man. I am startled and shocked that with every step I take along the way, every thought that surfaces in my head, every venture that I would embark upon, every wage that I need earn, there is some law or regulation telling me: So far and no further; Perish that thought; Steer clear of that venture; Leave half your wage here. Confronted by the many obstacles looming on every side, my cowed spirit sinks into brutishness: I know not where to turn; I know not what to do, I know not what to become.

Who to the scourge of atmospheric disasters, air pollution, insalubrious climate, the lightning that science has mastered has added this occult and savage power, this evil genius laying in wait for humankind from birth, to see it devoured by humankind itself? Who? Men themselves. Not content with having to contend with the hostile elements, they have made enemies of men.

The masses, as yet all too docile, are innocent of all the brutality committed in their name and to their detriment. They are innocents, but not ignorant; I believe that, like myself, they are sensible of it and outraged; I believe that, like me, they would make haste to halt it; except that, unable to distinguish the cause properly, they do not know how to act. I am trying to enlighten them on both counts.

Let us start by pointing a finger at the guilty.

*** Of the Attitude of the Parties and their Newspapers ***

The sovereignty of the people has no mouthpiece among the French press. Bourgeois or noble, clerical, republican or socialist, the newspapers are all servitude and sheer domesticity; they polish and buff and dust the trappings of some political war-horse in preparation for the tournament in which the prize is power - in which, consequently, the prize is my servitude and the servitude of the people.

With the exception of La Ptvsse2 which occasionally (when its editors grow forgetful enough of their pride to remain aloof) displays some elevated sentiments and with the exception of La Voix du Peuple3 which, from time to time, breaks with the old routine in order to cast a little light on the general interest, there is not one French newspaper that I can read without being moved either to great pity or profound contempt for the writer.

On the one hand I watch the man whose head is swathed in the aura of supreme power and whose hands clutch the sceptre consecrated by that investiture, turning to governmental journalism, to a journalism that owes its might to the gold raised by taxation and to the army's steel. I watch him approach with fire in his eye and foam on his lips, his fists clenched like some king of the ring, some boxing hero, whimsically and with brutal perversity challenging an unarmed adversary utterly defenceless against him and from whom he need fear absolutely nothing, and labelling the latter thief, murderer and incendiary. He stalks him like a wild animal, denying him food and tossing him into prison without a word of explanation and revelling in the act, wallowing in the glory thus won, as if a fight with unarmed people implied some risk and as if he were braving some danger.

I find such cowardice instructive.

On the other hand, we have opposition journalism, that grotesque, ill-educated slave; which squanders its time on complaints, whining and begging for mercy; which says, with every gob of spit and blow it receives: you treat me ill, you are unjust, I have done nothing to offend you. And answers the charges levelled against it as if they had some legitimacy. I am no thief, no murderer and no incendiary; I have the utmost regard for religion, I love the family, I respect property; it is, rather, yourselves who hold these things in contempt. I am better than you and yet you oppress me. You are unjust.

Such baseness revolts me!

Faced with polemicists such as these among the opposition, I can understand the authorities' brutality; I can understand it because, after all, when the weakling is abject, it is easy to overlook his weakness and see only the abject condition. This is an irritant, something to be plucked up and trampled underfoot the way one would tread on an earthworm. And abjection is something that I cannot comprehend in a group of men who style themselves democrats and speak in the name of the people, the font of all greatness and all dignity.

Anyone who speaks in the people's name is speaking up for righteousness; now I fail to understand how righteousness should bristle, I cannot understand how it should deign to bandy words with injustice, much less that it should stoop to lamentation and supplication. Oppression may be endured, but when its demise is the object, one does not bandy words with it, because to bandy words is to compromise.

The authorities have been established; you have given yourselves a master, you have placed yourselves (and, thanks to your adorable counsel and initiatives, the entire country has placed itself) at the disposal of a few men. Those men use the force that you have bestowed upon them; and they use it against you. And you are reconciled with them? What were you thinking? That they would use it against themselves? You could not have thought that; so, what is the basis of your complaint? Power must, of necessity, be deployed for the advantage of those who possess it and to the detriment of those bereft of it, it cannot be deployed without detriment to one faction and advantage to the other.

What would you yourselves do if you were so invested? You would either not use it for anything (which would be purely and simply tantamount to forswearing your investiture) or you would employ it to your own advantage and to the detriment of those now in possession of it and who would no longer have it. Whereupon you would cease your lamentation, whining and pleading for mercy, in order to step into the shoes of those who insult you and to place them in yours. But what does the reversal matter to me? I, who never have any power and who yet make it; I who pay out money to the oppressor, whomsoever he may be and from wheresoever he may come; I, come what may, am always the oppressed. What matter to me this see-saw alternatively humbling and exalting cowardice and abjection? What have I to say about government and opposition, except that the latter is tyranny in the making and the former tyranny ready-made? Why should I hold this champion in deeper contempt than the other, when neither cares for anything except the building of his pleasures and his fortunes upon my pain and my ruination?

*** Power the Enemy ***

In France there is not a single newspaper that does not support a party, no party that does not aspire to power, no power that is not the enemy of the people.

There is no newspaper that does not support a party because there is no newspaper on a par with that level of popular dignity where blithe, supreme contempt for sovereignty prevails. The people is as impassive as righteousness, as overbearing as strength, as noble as liberty; parties are as turbulent as error, as irascible as impotence, as base as servility.

There is no party without aspiration to power, because a party is essentially political and, as a result, is composed of the very essence of power, the root of all politics. If a party were to cease to be political, it would cease being a party and would melt back into the people, which is to say, into the realm of interests, production, industrial pursuits and intercourse.

There is no power that is not the enemy of the people, because, no matter what the attendant conditions, no matter who the man invested with it, no matter how it may be described, power is always power, that is to say, the irrefutable badge of abdication of the people's sovereignty and consecration of supreme overlordship. La Fontaine4 said it before me: the master is the enemy.

Power is the enemy in social terms and in political terms.

In the social realm:

Because agricultural industry, the lynchpin of all the nation's industries, is crushed by the taxes imposed upon it by the authorities and devoured by usury (the inescapable result of financial monopoly), the practice of which by its disciples or agents is guaranteed by the powers-that-be.

Because labour, which is to say, intelligence, is expropriated by power at bayonet point, for the benefit of capital (an element inherently coarse and dull-witted), which would logically be industry's lever were it not that the powers-that-be thwart direct partnership between capital and labour. And it turns from lever to coffin, all because of the powers-that-be, which keep them apart, the powers-that-be which pay out only half of what they owe and which, when they pay out nothing at all, have - through their manipulation of the laws and the courts - some government institution standing by to postpone by many a long year the satisfaction of the appetite of the wronged working man.

Because commerce is stunted by the banks' monopoly - to which the powers-that- be hold the key -- and tightly restricted by the slip knot of stultifying regulation - more of the handiwork of the powers-that-be. And commerce has togrow rich indirectly, fraudulently, over the heads of women and children, whilst it is forbidden to go bankrupt on pain of disgrace (this is a contradiction that would be proof indeed of idiocy, were it not that it is to be found among the most. spiritual people on this earth).

Because education is inscribed, truncated and reduced to the narrow dimensions of the model devised by the powers-that-be, in such a way that any intelligence not bearing its seal of approval might as well not exist

Because, although he attends neither chapel, church nor synagogue, the non- attender must, thanks to the meddling of the powers-that-be, bear the costs of chapel, church and synagogue.

Because - to make a long story short -- anyone who does not hear, see, speak, write, think and act as the powers-that-be require him to hear, see, speak, write, feel, think and act, is criminalised.

In the political realm:

Because the parties only exist and bleed the country with and for power.

It is not Jacobinism that the Legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists and moderates fear: it is the power of the Jacobins.

It is not Legitimism that the Jacobins, Orleanists, Bonapartists and moderates fight against: it is the power of the Legitimists.

Likewise, all of these parties which can be seen swarming over the surface of the country the way that foam floats upon a boiling liquid have not declared war on one another because of any doctrinal differences, but precisely because of their common aspiration to power. If each and every one of those parties could know for sure that it would not feel the weight of the power of some one of its enemies, their antagonism would be banished in an instant, the way it was on 24 February 18485, when the people, having overthrown the powers-that-be, swept the parties aside.

From which it follows that a party, any party, exists and is feared only because of its aspiration to power. And if somebody bereft of power represents no danger, it must consequently be true that anybody possessing power is automatically a danger; from which it must be abundantly proven that there is no other public enemy but power.

Consequently, in social and political terms, power is the enemy. And, as I shall be demonstrating anon that all parties crave power, it follows that each and every party is, premeditatedly, an enemy of the people.