......................................................... ·-·--······· .......... - .. ................ ............................................................ A.B.C. OF ANARCHISM No, my friend, you are mistaken, At first sight it may appear as if that was a just and sensible idea. But in reality it proved impractical, not to speak of the injustice and hann it worked all round. "How so?" It was impractical because it required an army of officials to keep tab on the people who worked or didn't work. It led to incrimination and recrimination and endless disputes about official decisions. so· that within a short time the number of those who didn't work was doubled and even trebled by the effort to force people to work and to guard against their dodging or doing bad work. It was the system of compulsory labour which soon proved such a failure that the Bolsheviki were compelled to give it up. Moreover, the system caused even greater evils in other directions.' Its injustice lay in the fact that you cannot break into a person's heart or mind and decide what peculiar physical or mental condition makes it temporarily impossible for him to work. Consider further the precedent you establish by introducing a false principle and thereby rousing the opposition of those who feel it wrong and oppressive and therefore refuse co-operation. A rational community will find it more practical and beneficial to treat all alike, whether one happens to work at the time or not rather than create more non-workers to watch those already on hand, or to build prisons for their punishment and support. For if you refuse to feed a man, for whatever cause, you drive him to . theft and other crimes-and thus you yourself create the nec!,ssity for courts, lawyers, judges, jails, and warders, the upkeep of whom is far more burdensome than to feed the offenders. And these you have to feed, anyhow, even if you put them in prison. The revolutionary community will depend more on awakening the social consciousness and solidarity of its delinquents than on punishment. It will rely on the example set by its working members, and it will be right in doing so. For the natural attitude of the industrious man to the shirker is such that the latter will find the social atmosphere so unpleasant that he will prefer to work and enjoy the respect and good will of his fellows rather than to be despised in idleness. Bear in mind that it is more important, and in the end more practical and useful, to do the square thing rather than to gain a seeming immediate advantage. That is, to do justice is more vital than to punish. For punishment is never just and always, harmful to both sides, the punished and the, punisher ; harmful even more spiritually than physically, and there is no greater harm than that, 86 Biblloteca G r.o Bianco
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