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True Civilization
Josiah Warren
123. Now are heard the wails of distress from all quarters. The papers are filled with accounts of brutal violence on both sides -- villages burning -- men hanging -- ferocity let loose in every horrid shape and form. The heated passions on both sides become more and more ferocious, -- a curious way to promote "Union"! A frenzy of rage sweeps over the land while I write. The last step of despotism has been taken by both governments. Freedom of action and speech are annihilated in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Even these written words may prove the death-warrant of the writer. Nothing but the clamor of war and the fear of prisons and violent deaths, smother, for the moment, the low moan from desolated hearths and broken hearts from the depths of the hell we are in!
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/warren/3.html
The Science of Society, Stephen Pearl Andrews (1888)
"Protestantism, Democracy, and Socialism are identical in the assertion of the Supremacy of the Individual, - a dogma essentially contumacious, revolutionary, and antagonistic to the basic principles of all the older institutions of society, and to Society respectively. Not only is this supremacy or SOVEREIGNTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL a common element of all three of these great modern movements, but I will make the still more sweeping assertion that it is substantially the whole of those movements. It is not merely a feature, as I have denominated it, but the living soul itself, the vital energy, the integral essence or being of them all."
Protestants and Protestant churches may differ in relation to every other article of their creed, and do so differ, without ceasing to be Protestants, so long as they assert the paramount right of private or individual judgment in matters of conscience. It is that, and that only, which makes them Protestants, and distinguishes them from the Catholic world, which asserts, on the contrary, the supreme authority of the church, of the priesthood, or of some dignitary or institution other than the Individual whose judgment and whose conscience is in question. In like manner, Democrats and Democratic governments and institutions may differ from each other, and may very infinitely at different periods of time, and still remain Democratic, so long as they maintain the one essential principle and condition of Democracy, - namely, that all governmental powers reside in, are only delegated by, and can be, at any moment, resumed by the people, - that is, by the individuals, who are first Individuals, and who then, by virtue only of the act of delegating such powers, become a people, - that is, a combined mass of Individulas. It is this dogma, and this alone, which makes the Democrat, and which distinguishes him from Despotist, or defender of the divine right of kings.
Again, Socialism assumes every shade and variety of opinion respecting the modes of realizing its own aspirations, and, indeed, upon every other point, except one, which, when investigated, will be found to be the paramount rights of the Individual over the social institutions, and the consequent demand that all existing social institutions shall be so modified that the Individual shall be in no manner subjected to them. This, then, is the identical principle of Protestantism and Democracy carried into its application in another sphere. The celebrated formula of Fourier that “destinies are proportioned to attractions,” means, when translated into less technical phraseology, that society must be so reorganized that every man may be a law unto himself, paramount to all other human laws, and the sole judge for himself of the divine law and of the requisitions of his own Individual nature and organization. This is equally the fundamental principle of all the social theories, except in the case of the Shakers, the Rappites, etc., which are based upon rlegiouis whims, demanding submission, as a matter of duty, to a despotic rule, and which embody, in another form the readoption of the pops or conservative principle. They, therefore, while they live in a form of society similar in some respects to those which have been proposed by the various schools of Socialists, are, in fact, neither Protestants nor Democrats, and consequently, not Socialists in the sense in which I am now defining Socialism. The forms of society proposed by Socialism are the mere shell of the Doctrine, - means to the end, - a platform upon which to place the Individual, in order that he may be enabled freely to exercise his own Individuality, which is the end and aim of all. We have seen that the shell is one which may be inhabited by despotism. Possibly it is unfit for the habitation of any thing else than despotism which the Socialist hopes, by ensconcing himself therein, to escape. It is possible, even, that Socialism may have mistaken its measures altogether, and that the whole system of Association and combined interests and combined responsibilities proposed by it may be essentially antagonistic to the very ends proposed. All this however, if it be so, is merely incidental. It belongs to the shell, and not the substance, - to the means, and not the end. The whole programme of Socialism may yet be abandoned or reversed, and yet Socialism remain in substance the same thing. What Socialism demands is the emancipation of the Individual from social bondage, by whatsoever means will effect that design, in the same manner as Protestantism demands the emancipation of the Individual from ecclesiastical bondage, and Democracy from political. Whosoever makes that demand, or labors to that end, is a Socialist. Any particular views he may entertain, distinguishing him from other Socialists, regarding practical measures, or the ultimate forms of society, are mere specific differences, like those which divide the Protestant sects of Christendom.
"What Socialism demands is the emancipation of the Individual from social bondage, by whatsoever means will effect that design, in the same manner as Protestantism demands the emancipation of the Individual from ecclesiastical bondage, and Democracy from political. Whosoever makes that demand, or labors to that end, is a Socialist. Any particular views he may entertain, distinguishing him from other Socialists, regarding practical measures, or the ultimate forms of society, are the mere specific differences, like those which divide the Protestant sects of Christendom.
The definition of Socialism may surprise some into the discover of the fact that they have been Socialists all along, unawares. Some, on the other hand, who have called themselves Socialist my not at once be inclined to accept the definition. They may not perceive clearly that it is the emancipation of the Individual for which they are laboring, and affirm that it is, on the other hand, the freedom and happiness of the race. They will not however, deny that it is both; and a very little reflection will show that the freedom and happiness of each individual will be the freedom and happiness of the race, and that is freedom and happiness of the race can not exist so long as there is any individual of the race who is not happy and free. So the Protestant and Democrat may not always have a clear intellectual perception of the distinctive principle of their creeds. He may be attached to it from an instinctive sentiment, which he has never thoroughly analyzed, or even from the mere accidents of education and birth.
Protestantism proclaims that the individual has an inalienable right to judge for himself in all matters of conscience. Democracy proclaims that the Individual has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Socialism proclaims that the Individual has an inalienable right to that social position which his powers and natural organization qualify him, and which his tastes incline him to fill, and consequently, to that constitution or arrangement of the property relations, and other relations of society, whatsoever that may be, which will enable him to enjoy and exercise that right,- to adaptation of social conditions to the wants of each Individual, with all his peculiarities and fluctuations of taste, instead of the mounding of the Individual into conformity with the rigid requirements of a preconcerted social organization.
If this be a correct statement of the essential nature of Protestantism, Democracy, and Socialism, then Protestantism, Democracy, and Socialism are not actuated by three distinct principles at all. They are simply three partial announcements of one generic principle, which lies beneath all these movements, and of which they are the legitimate outgrowths or developments, modified only by the fact of different application of the same principle. This great generic principle, which underlies every manifestation of that universal unrest and revolution which is known technically in this age as "Progress," is nothing more nor less than "THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL." It is that which is the central idea and vital principle of Protestantism; it is that which is the central idea and vital principle of Democracy, and it is that which is the central idea nd vital principle of Socialism.
This being so, it is high time that the mutual affinity of these movements should be intelligently perceived and recognized by both the friend and the enemies of the movements themselves. It is high time that the scene of the battle-field should be shifted from the right or wrong of any or all of the partial developments of the principle to the right or wrong of the principle itself. The true issue is not whether Protestantism be good or evil, whether Democracy be good or evil, nor whether Socialism be good or evil, but whether the naked, bald, unlimited principle of the Sovereignty of the Individual, in human government and the administration of human affairs, be essentially good and true or essentially pernicious and false. This is the issue now up for trial before the world, and the definitive decision of which must be had before the final destiny of mankind upon earth can be even rough-hewn by the most vivid imagination, and certainly before any thing approximating scientific deduction respecting in can be had.
Break
Finally, this indestructibe and all-pervading Individuality furnishes, itself, the law, and the only true law, of order and harmony. Governments have hitherto been established, and have apologized for the unseemly fact that their existence, from the necessity of establishing and maintaining order; but order has never yet been maintained, revolutions and violent outbreaks have never yet been ended, public peace and harmony have never yet been secured, for the precise reason that the organic, essential, and indestructible natures of the objects which it was attempted to reduce to order have always been constricted and infringed by every such attempt. Just in proportion as the effort is less and less made to reduce men to order, just in that proportion they become more orderly, as witness the difference in the state of society in Austria and the United States. Plant an army of one hundred thousand soldiers in New York, as at Paris, to preserve the peace, and we should have a bloody revolution in a week; and be assured that the only remedy for what little of turbulence remains among us, as compared with European societies, will be found to be more liberty. When there remain positively no external restrictions, there will be positively no disturbance, provided always certain regulating principles of justice, to which I shall advert presently, are accepted and enter into the public mind, serving as substitutes for every species of repressive laws.
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/andrews/scienceofsociety.pdf