elijahcraig
12th June 2004, 10:36
Particularly like this part:
Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't
know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing
but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the
movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.
Entire Text:
ON AUTHORITY
by Frederick Engels
written 1872
published 1874 in the Italian
_Almanacco Repubblicano_
Transcribed from Robert C. Tucker, editor,
_The Marx-Engels Reader_; New York: W. W. Norton and Co.,
second edition, 1978 (first edition, 1972), pp 730-733
A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against
what they call the _principle of authority_. It suffices to tell them
that this or that act is _authoritarian_ for it to be condemned. This
summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has
become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely.
Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the
imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority
presupposes subordination. Now, since these two words sound bad, and the
relationship which they represent is disagreeable to the subordinated
party, the question is to ascertain whether there is any way of dispensing
with it, whether -- given the conditions of present-day society -- we
could not create another social system, in which this authority would be
given no scope any longer, and would consequently have to disappear.
On examining the economic, industrial and agricultural conditions which
form the basis of present-day bourgeois society, we find that they tend
more and more to replace isolated action by combined action of
individuals. Modern industry, with its big factories and mills, where
hundreds of workers supervise complicated machines driven by steam, has
superseded the small workshops of the separate producers; the carriages
and wagons of the highways have become substituted by railway trains, just
as the small schooners and sailing feluccas have been by steam-boats.
Even agriculture falls increasingly under the dominion of the machine and
of steam, which slowly but relentlessly put in the place of the small
proprietors big capitalists, who with the aid of hired workers cultivate
vast stretches of land.
Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon
each other, displaces independent action by individuals. But whoever
mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to
have organisation without authority?
Supposing a social revolution dethroned the capitalists, who now exercise
their authority over the production and circulation of wealth. Supposing,
to adopt entirely the point of view of the anti-authoritarians, that the
land and the instruments of labour had become the collective property of
the workers who use them. Will authority have disappeared, or will it
only have changed its form? Let us see.
Let us take by way if example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must
pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to
the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in
different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an
engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current
repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the
products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men,
women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the
hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for
individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an
understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed,
must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular
questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of
production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by
decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if
possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will
always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled
in an authoritarian way. The automatic machinery of the big factory is
much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have
been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the
portals of these factories: _Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate!_
[Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!]
If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the
forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him,
in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all
social organisation. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry
is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power
loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.
Let us take another example -- the railway. Here too the co-operation of
an infinite number of individuals is absolutely necessary, and this
co-operation must be practised during precisely fixed hours so that no
accidents may happen. Here, too, the first condition of the job is a
dominant will that settles all subordinate questions, whether this will is
represented by a single delegate or a committee charged with the execution
of the resolutions of the majority of persona interested. In either case
there is a very pronounced authority. Moreover, what would happen to the
first train dispatched if the authority of the railway employees over the
Hon. passengers were abolished?
But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will
nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas.
There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and
absolute obedience of all to the will of one.
When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid
anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the
following: Yes, that's true, but there it is not the case of authority
which we confer on our delegates, _but of a commission entrusted_! These
gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have
changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock
at the whole world.
We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter
how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things
which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us
together with the material conditions under which we produce and make
products circulate.
We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and
circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale
agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority.
Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being
absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely
good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with
the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists
confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future
would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions
of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but
they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they
passionately fight the world.
Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out
against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that
the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a
result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions
will lose their political character and will be transformed into the
simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of
society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be
abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth
to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social
revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever
seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing
there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its
will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon --
authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party
does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means
of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris
Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority
of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the
contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't
know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing
but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the
movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.
I really would like everyone passing through this site to read this. If you are an Anarchist or "anti-authoritarian", I would gladly see you attempt to refute Fred's points.
Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't
know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing
but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the
movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.
Entire Text:
ON AUTHORITY
by Frederick Engels
written 1872
published 1874 in the Italian
_Almanacco Repubblicano_
Transcribed from Robert C. Tucker, editor,
_The Marx-Engels Reader_; New York: W. W. Norton and Co.,
second edition, 1978 (first edition, 1972), pp 730-733
A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against
what they call the _principle of authority_. It suffices to tell them
that this or that act is _authoritarian_ for it to be condemned. This
summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has
become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely.
Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the
imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority
presupposes subordination. Now, since these two words sound bad, and the
relationship which they represent is disagreeable to the subordinated
party, the question is to ascertain whether there is any way of dispensing
with it, whether -- given the conditions of present-day society -- we
could not create another social system, in which this authority would be
given no scope any longer, and would consequently have to disappear.
On examining the economic, industrial and agricultural conditions which
form the basis of present-day bourgeois society, we find that they tend
more and more to replace isolated action by combined action of
individuals. Modern industry, with its big factories and mills, where
hundreds of workers supervise complicated machines driven by steam, has
superseded the small workshops of the separate producers; the carriages
and wagons of the highways have become substituted by railway trains, just
as the small schooners and sailing feluccas have been by steam-boats.
Even agriculture falls increasingly under the dominion of the machine and
of steam, which slowly but relentlessly put in the place of the small
proprietors big capitalists, who with the aid of hired workers cultivate
vast stretches of land.
Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon
each other, displaces independent action by individuals. But whoever
mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to
have organisation without authority?
Supposing a social revolution dethroned the capitalists, who now exercise
their authority over the production and circulation of wealth. Supposing,
to adopt entirely the point of view of the anti-authoritarians, that the
land and the instruments of labour had become the collective property of
the workers who use them. Will authority have disappeared, or will it
only have changed its form? Let us see.
Let us take by way if example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must
pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to
the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in
different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an
engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current
repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the
products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men,
women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the
hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for
individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an
understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed,
must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular
questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of
production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by
decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if
possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will
always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled
in an authoritarian way. The automatic machinery of the big factory is
much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have
been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the
portals of these factories: _Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate!_
[Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!]
If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the
forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him,
in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all
social organisation. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry
is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power
loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.
Let us take another example -- the railway. Here too the co-operation of
an infinite number of individuals is absolutely necessary, and this
co-operation must be practised during precisely fixed hours so that no
accidents may happen. Here, too, the first condition of the job is a
dominant will that settles all subordinate questions, whether this will is
represented by a single delegate or a committee charged with the execution
of the resolutions of the majority of persona interested. In either case
there is a very pronounced authority. Moreover, what would happen to the
first train dispatched if the authority of the railway employees over the
Hon. passengers were abolished?
But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will
nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas.
There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and
absolute obedience of all to the will of one.
When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid
anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the
following: Yes, that's true, but there it is not the case of authority
which we confer on our delegates, _but of a commission entrusted_! These
gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have
changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock
at the whole world.
We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter
how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things
which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us
together with the material conditions under which we produce and make
products circulate.
We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and
circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale
agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority.
Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being
absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely
good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with
the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists
confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future
would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions
of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but
they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they
passionately fight the world.
Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out
against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that
the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a
result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions
will lose their political character and will be transformed into the
simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of
society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be
abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth
to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social
revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever
seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing
there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its
will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon --
authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party
does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means
of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris
Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority
of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the
contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't
know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing
but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the
movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.
I really would like everyone passing through this site to read this. If you are an Anarchist or "anti-authoritarian", I would gladly see you attempt to refute Fred's points.