Multilingual Anarchy Collection Living our Lives in Anarchy by Philippe L. De Coster, B.Th., D.D. With contribution to Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman Two Great Anarchists and World Servers © April 2014 – Ebook Skull Press Publications, Ghent, Belgium Living Our Lives in Anarchism by Philippe L. De Coster, B.Th., D.D. I like to tell you something of the purpose which lies behind Anarchism and of the general plan into which it is strongly recommended that the Anarchists fit. A quote from Emma Goldman in the book “Living My Life”: Anarchism: - The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law: the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful as well as unnecessary.” Anarchism is in fact a work of loving synthesis and it emphasizes the unity in real brotherhood, and a channel for humanitarian activities. In fact, the platform of Anarchism, outside all world religions is built by many “left-handed” groups, but working under the same inspiration. As such the Anarchists are world- servers. Among the Anarchists are the Scientific Servers. They reveal the essential of all scientific work motivated by love of humanity and its welfare. Among the Anarchists are the Psychologists in service, with an up-to-date psychology. Their major task today is to relate, through approved techniques, the mind “Higher Self Within” and the personality, for a better humanity. This is a transition of energy from within to without, from a thought centre to another thought centre, transmitting as such the energy of ideas. Never forget that the world of ideas is a world of dynamic force centres. These ideas have to be contacted and noted and their energy has to be assimilated and transmitted. Among the Anarchists there are also Financiers and Economists, working exclusively with the energies and forces which express themselves through the interchange and the values of commerce for the good of the people and meet the needs of the poor and the working class. They deal with the Law of Supply and Demand and with the great principle of Sharing which governs Anarchy purposes. However, all the different groups are intended to work together eventually just as the various departments of a huge organisation work effectively together as a unit. 2 Anarchists endeavour to function smoothly and intelligently among themselves and in interrelation with each other. Integrity, fusion and understanding is the Anarchy order of our task and the sequence of development. Anarchism bring each group member into conscious rapport through naming and loving, and as such seeing all members as a circle of living points of light within our own circle, but also beyond. Imagine the powerful effect of all those Anarchic points of light as fusing and blending to make a radiant sun, with rays of light going out towards the four corners of the earth. All our teaching today, based on our founders of Anarchism as Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman and others, are handed over today through Internet and any other media in true and selfless service to mankind. The strength and the weakness of Anarchism lie in the fact that the individuals who compose it are not only egoically linked but that there is also a strong personality tie among us, with all the weaknesses which that may entail, and a deep, if unrealised, affection between us. The strength of this situation is found in the fact that this condition of unconscious friendship is to be found as the result of many lives of close association in the Anarchic work and also in past personality relations and family ties we have among us. Together we must hold to the Anarchic values, assuming the willingness to listen to each other and to admit the possibility of failure confronting governments and capitalism, and in self-forgetfulness in the other. Look yourselves and life squarely in the face and fearlessly see things just as they are in truth. One of the first lessons which an Anarchist needs to learn is that where he thinks he is the strongest and where he finds the most satisfaction is very frequently the point of greatest danger and of weakness. Let us move on, Anarchists, comrades along the path of service to mankind for freedom. Let us enter into that only light and tread the way as such to world peace and not to personal illumination as do the capitalists. Lose sight of yourself in loving other people as such you also love yourself. This means not to feed on personal satisfaction in a constant managing of other’s personal affairs. Within you is the gift of love and understanding. Use it for the sake of Anarchy, and that means for others and yourself. © Philippe De Coster, Ghent, Belgium. 3 The Jobless by Alexander Berkman Generally speaking, there is neither any sincere and intelligent plan among the reformers, of whatever hue, to solve this great problem, nor any possibility of a thorough and final solution of unemployment within the legal and industrial boundaries of present-day capitalist society. Unemployment is no sporadic phenomenon [sic] of modern life. It is inherent in the character and mode of functioning of our industrial system. The jobless man is always with us, and industrial crises or stagnation, eliminating hundreds of thousands of workers, for a longer or shorter period, from the field of labour, are events of regular and inevitable recurrence. The causes of unemployment are ridiculously simple, and therefore so little understood. Sociologists, political economists, and reformists have succeeded in so confusing the issue that the real facts of the problem have been all but buried beneath a mass of fictious issues concerning the tariff, money problems, stringency of the market, and similar aberrations. Yet the fundamental causes underlying all these so-called problems and, above all, the paramount problem of constant unemployment on a comparatively small scale and periodic unemployment for great masses of workers, are only too evident. They are these: the producer, deprived of the full equivalent of his product, cannot buy the latter back. As a result, products accumulate in the hands of the non-producers, till a point is reached when a halt is called to production. Hence closed mills and factories, and men out of work. In other words: when much food, clothing and shelter has been produced, the producer is thrown out of work and is thus doomed to do without the very things of which we have the greatest abundance. That is to say, the more wealth the worker creates, the poorer he is; the more food on hand, the greater the starvation; the more products are being accumulated, the greater the army of the unemployed. Surely 'tis no more simple a problem that its existence is a travesty upon all sanity or humanity. The solution -- the only possible one -- consists in the producer receiving the full value of his product, or its equivalent. This involves the termination of capitalist 4 production for profit, and the organization of co-operative social production for use. Such a change in the very fundamentals of capitalist society is inevitable, both for reasons of social necessity as well as because of the growing class consciousness and solidarity of labour. But though inevitable, its accomplishment will require considerable time. Meanwhile the unemployed by the hundred thousands are tramping the streets of our industrial centres, many of them homeless and hungry. What is being done in this matter by the lords of life, or by the municipal, State and national governments? Why, practically nothing. Even the labor unions, nay, even the Socialist party organs know no better solution to offer than the need of new legislation. And while new laws are being discussed, proposed, voted on and passed, then vetoed or declared unconstitutional, only to be discussed again, amended and passed, and finally found inapplicable or impossible of execution; then labor departments created and commissioners appointed to "investigate thoroughly" the whole situation and catalogue the unemployed by trade, number, nationality, sex, age, and colour, -- while months, aye, years, pass in this graft game of high-paid politicians and reformers, what are the unemployed, hungry and homeless, to do? How are they to exist? Surely, every hungry man has a right to bread; has a right to demand it, for he is entitled to it by laws more sacred than any man-made statutes -- the laws of human need, of self-preservation. And whoever dare refuse a starving man bread, let him take heed. It was Marie Antoinette, if we remember right, who scorned the demand of the Paris mob, when it cried for bread. She probably regretted her hauteur when the same "mob" took her head in exchange. 5 Convention of unemployed, N.Y., May 1908, J. Eads How & Alex Berkman disputing 6 7 8 9 10 Emma Goldman, Companion of Alexander Berkman, Anarchists Emma Emma Goldman with Alexander Berkman Emma Emma Goldman was a crusader for Anarchism, feminism, and the labour movement. She was also an essayist and is best known as the first editor of Mother Earth, a magazine providing a forum for feminist and anarchist writers. Emma Goldman was born June 27, 1869, in Kaunas, Lithuania, a province of the Russian Empire, during the early stages of revolt against czarism and the rise in popularity of communism. The seeds of the Bolshevik revolt were already being sown in the towns and villages throughout the country where discontent with czarist rule was strongest. Emma Goldman, who described herself as a born rebel, came into the world as the third daughter of Abraham Emma Goldman and Taube Emma Goldman.