Kropotkin Slideshow 2024 PDF

 The Revolution as the Metaphorical and Actual Mastery of Nature The solution can only consist in the practical recognition of the social nature of the modern forces of production, and therefore in the harmonizing with the The possibility of securing for every member of so...

 The Revolution as the Metaphorical and Actual Mastery of Nature The solution can only consist in the practical recognition of the social nature of the modern forces of production, and therefore in the harmonizing with the The possibility of securing for every member of society, by socialized character of the means of means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day-by-day more full, production. And this can only come but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development about by society openly and directly and exercise of their physical and mental faculties — this taking possession of the productive possibility is now, for the first time, here, but it is here. forces which have outgrown all control, With the seizing of the means of production by society, except that of society as a whole. production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the The social character of the means of producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by production and of the products today systematic, definite organization. The struggle for individual existence disappears. reacts against the producers, periodically disrupts all production and Then, for the first time, man, in a certain sense, is exchange, [and] acts only like a law of finally marked off from the rest of the animal Nature, working blindly, forcibly, kingdom, and emerges from mere animal destructively … But once their nature is conditions of existence into really human ones. The understood, they can, in the hand whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ working together, be transformed from man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now master demons into willing servants. comes under the dominion and control of man, who The difference is as that between the for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord destructive force of electricity in the The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature III. Proletarian Revolution. Solution foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used of the contradictions. The with full understanding, and so mastered by him. proletariat seizes the public Man's own social organization, hitherto power, and by means of this confronting him as a necessity imposed by transforms the socialized means Nature and history, now becomes the result of his of production, slipping from the own free action. The extraneous objective forces hands of the bourgeoisie, into that have, hitherto, governed history, pass under public property. By this act, the the control of man himself. Only from that time proletariat frees the means of will man himself, more and more consciously, production from the character of make his own history — only from that time will capital they have thus far borne, the social causes set in movement by him have, in and gives their socialized the main and in a constantly growing measure, character complete freedom to the results intended by him. It is the ascent of work itself out. Socialized man from the kingdom of necessity to the production upon a predetermined kingdom To accomplishof this freedom. act of universal emancipation is the historical plan becomes henceforth possible. mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the The development of production historical conditions and the very nature of this act, to impart to the makes the existence of different now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions classes of society thenceforth an and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to anachronism. In proportion as accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the anarchy in social production proletarian movement, scientific Socialism. vanishes, the political authority of the State dies out. Man, at last the ANARCHIST ECOLOGY Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902; from essays published in the journal The Nineteenth Century in the 1890s) “From the point of view of the moralist the animal world is on about the same level as a gladiator’s show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight – whereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn his thumbs down, as no quarter [mercy] is given.” -- Thomas Huxley, “The Struggle for Existence in Human Society” (1888) It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less- improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. - Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859), last paragraph “On the other hand, wherever I saw animal life in abundance, as, for instance, on the lakes where scores of species and millions of individuals came together to rear their progeny; in the colonies of rodents; in the migrations of birds which took place at that time on a truly American scale along the Usuri; and especially in a migration of fallow-deer which I witnessed on the Amur, and during which scores of thousands of these intelligent animals came together from an immense territory, flying before the coming snow, in order to cross the Amur where it is narrowest—in all these scenes of animal life which passed before my eyes, I saw Mutual Aid and Mutual Support carried on to an extent which made me suspect in it a feature of the greatest importance for the maintenance of life, the preservation of each species, and its further evolution (xxxvii).” -- Kropotkin, “Introduction” to Mutual Aid “Life in societies is the most powerful weapon in the struggle for life, taken in its widest sense… Life in society enables the feeblest [animals] to resist, or protect themselves from, the most terrible birds of prey; it permits longevity; it enables the species to rear its progeny with the least waste of energy … it enables the gregarious animals to migrate in search of new abodes. Intelligence is an eminently sociably faculty …. The fittest are thus the most sociable animals, and sociability appears the chief factor of evolution.” (68-69)  “The strongest birds of prey are powerless in face of the associations of our smallest bird pets. Even eagles – even the powerful and terrible booted eagle, and the martial eagle, which is strong enough to carry away a hare or a young antelope in its claws – are compelled to abandon their prey to bands of those beggars the kites, which give the eagle a regular chase as soon as they see it in possession of a good prey.” (44-45” “What an immense difference between the force of a kite, a buzzard or a haw, and such small birds as the meadow-wagtail; and yet these little birds, by their common “it is evident that in their action and courage, prove superior to the powerfully winged and armed robbers!” societies [parrots] find infinitely (45) more protection than they possibly might find in any ideal development of tooth or claw” (48) Parable of the Miserable Predator “Take, for instance, one of the numberless lakes of the Russian and Siberian Steppes. Its shores are peopled with millions of aquatic birds, belonging to at least a score of different species, all living in perfect peace—all protecting one another. … And here are the robbers [raptors] – the strongest, the most cunning ones, those ‘ideally organized for robbery.’ And you hear their hungry, angry, dismal cries as for hours in succession they watch the opportunity of snatching from this mass of living beings one single unprotected individual. But as soon as they approach, their presence is signalled by dozens of voluntary sentries, and hundreds of gulls and terns set to chace the robber. Maddened by hunger, the robber soon abandons his usual precautions; but, attacked from all sides, he is again compelled to retreat. From sheer despair he falls upon the wild ducks; but the intelligent, social birds rapidly gather in a flock and fly away if the robber is an erne; they plunge into the lake if it is a falcon; or they raise a cloud of water-dust and bewilder the assailant if it is a kite. And while life continues to swarm on the lake, the robber flies away with cries of anger, and looks out for carrion, or for a young bird or field-mouse not yet used to obey in time the warnings of its comrades. In the face of an exuberant life, the ideally armed robber must be satisfied with the off-fall of that life.” (51) The Social Darwinists “speak of the animal world as if nothing were to be seen in it but lions and hyenas plunging their bleeding teeth into the flesh of their victims!” (55). “Society has not been created by man; it is anterior to man.” (66) - Kropotkin’s rejoinder to a line from Social Darwinists Thomas Huxley, who was himself paraphrasing Rousseau: ‘The first men who substituted mutual peace for that of mutual war – whatever the motive which impelled them to take that step – created society.’ Krop The RHETORIC OF ANIMAL ASSOCIATION and the question of “anthropomorphism” Russian falcons are “so sociable” that they have been witnessed “coming together every fine afternoon about four o’clock, and enjoying their sports till late in the night” (43) When birds gather for migration, “they come together at a given place, for several days in succession before they start, and they evidently discuss the particulars of the journey.” (53) Speaking of white-tailed eagles sharing carrion on the Russian steppes, Kropotkin glosses their “rules of propriety”: “the old ones, which, as a rule, begin the meal first – such are their rules of propriety – already were sitting upon the haystacks of the neighborhood and kept watch, while the younger ones were continuing their meal” (41) “The crane is in continual activity from early in the morning till late in the night; but it gives a few hours only in the morning to the task of searching its food … All the remainder of the day is given to society life” (47) Marmots “prefer having each one their own dwelling; but they live in big villages.” (58) “Whole families” of American prairiedogs “come out of their galleries and indulge in play. The young ones scratch one another, they worry one another, and display their gracefulness while standing upright, and in the meantime the old ones keep watch. They go visiting one another, and the beaten footpaths which connect all their heaps testify to the frequency of the visitations.” (59) As evidence of fellow-feeling, solidarity, and care among reindeer and other ruminants, Kropotkin remarks on “the anxiety displayed by all individuals in a herd of chamois as long as all of them The aspiration for justice, freedom, free expression is *in* Nature, not in our purportedly distinctively human capacity to transcend it… o “Let me only remark that with the beavers, the muskrats, and some other rodents, we already find that feature which will be so distinctive of human communities – that is, work in common.” (59) o “Moreover, it is evident that life in societies would be utterly impossible without a corresponding development of social feelings and, especially, of a certain collective sense of justice growing to become a habit. If every individual were constantly abusing its personal advantages without the others interfering in favor of the wronged, no society-life would be possible.” (69) o “Sociability thus puts a limit to physical struggle, and leaves room for the development of better moral feelings.” (69) Kropotkin’s Medievalism: “The more we learn about the medieval city, the more we are convinced that at no time has labour enjoyed such conditions of prosperity and such respect as when city life stood at its highest. More than that; not only many aspirations of our modern radicals were already realized in the middle ages, but much of what is described now as Utopian was accepted then as matter of fact. We are laughed at when we say that work must be pleasant, but— “everyone must be pleased with his work,” a medieval Kuttenberg ordinance says, “and no one shall, while doing nothing … appropriate for himself what others have produced by application and work.” (195) The “federation spirit”: “In a word, federations between small territorial units, as well as among men united by common pursuits within their respective guilds, and federations between cities and groups of cities constituted the very essence of life and thought during that period. [The Middle Ages] may thus be described as an immense attempt at securing mutual aid and support on a grand scale, by means of the principles of federation and association carried on through all manifestations of human life and to all possible degrees.” (208) “The results of that new move which mankind made in the medieval city were immense. At the beginning of the eleventh century the towns of Europe were small clusters of miserable huts, adorned but with low clumsy churches, the builders of which hardly knew how to make an arch; the arts … were in their infancy; learning was found in but a few monasteries. Three hundred and fifty years later, the very face of Europe had been changed. The land was dotted with rich cities, surrounded by immense thick walls which were embellished with by towers and gates, each of them a work of art in itself… The crafts and arts had risen to a degree of perfection which we can hardly boast of having superseded in many directions, if the inventive skill of the worker and the superior finish of his work be appreciated higher than rapidity of fabrication. The navies of the free cities furrowed in all directions the Northern and the Southern Mediterranean … Over large tracts of land well-being had taken the place of misery; learning had grown and spread. The methods of science had been elaborated; the basis of natural philosophy had been laid down; and the way had been paved for all the mechanical inventions of which our own times are so proud.” (209) The transvaluation of Medieval Architecture: “The very fact that of all arts architecture—a social art above all—had attained the highest development, is significant in itself. To be what it was, it must have originated from an eminently social life. Medieval architecture attained its grandeur—not only because it was a natural development of handicraft; not only because each building, each architectural decoration, had been devised by men who knew through the experience of their own hands what artistic effects can be obtained from stone, iron, bronze, or even from simple logs and mortar; not only because each monument was a result of collective experience, accumulated in each “mystery” or craft—it was because it was born out of a grand idea … out of a conception of brotherhood and unity fostered by the city. It had an audacity which could only be won by audacious struggles and victories; it had that expression of vigour, because vigour permeated all the life of the city. A cathedral or a communal house symbolized the grandeur of an organism of which every mason and stone-cutter was the builder, and a medieval building appears—not as a solitary effort to which thousands of slaves would have contributed the share assigned them by one man’s imagination; all the city contributed to it. … Like the Acropolis of Athens, the cathedral of a medieval city was intended to glorify the grandeur of the victorious city, to symbolize the union of its crafts, to express the glory of each citizen in a city of his own creation. After having achieved its craft revolution, the city often began a new cathedral in order to express the new, wider, and broader union which had been called into life.” (211-212) “Utopian Socialists: Charles Fourier (1772-1837), Henri de Saint Simon (1760-1825), Robert Owen (1771-18 To the crude conditions of capitalistic production and the crude class conditions correspond crude theories. The solution of the social problems, which as yet lay hidden in undeveloped economic conditions, the Utopians attempted to evolve out of the human brain. Society presented nothing but wrongs; to remove these was the task of reason. It was necessary, then, to discover a new and more perfect system of social order and to impose this upon society from without by propaganda, and, wherever it was possible, by the example of model experiments. These new social systems were foredoomed as Utopian; the more completely they were worked out in detail, the more they could not avoid drifting off into pure phantasies. To all these, Socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason and justice, and has only to be discovered to conquer all the world by virtue of its own power. And as an absolute truth is independent of time, space, and of the historical development of man, it is a mere accident when and where it is discovered. With all this, absolute truth, reason, and justice are different with the founder of each different school.