A.B.C. OF ANARCHISM nerve of economic life; they alone can feed and save the revolution. Moreover, such home industries are not only a potent economic factor; they are also of the greatest social value. They serve to cultivate friendly intercourse between the farm and the city, bringing the two into closer and more ·solidaric contact. In fact, the home industries are themselves an expression of a most wholesome social spirit which from earliest times has manifested itself in village gatherings, in communal efforts, in folk dance and song. This normal and healthy tendency, in its various aspects, should be encouraged and stimulated by the revolution for the greater weal of the community. · The whole or industrial decentralisation in the revolution is unfortunately too little appreciated. Even in progressive labour ranks there is a dangerous tendency to ignore or minimise its importance. Most people are still in 'the' thraldom of the Marxian dogma that . centralisation is "more efficient and economical." They' close their eyes to the fact that the alleged "economy"" is achieved at the cost of the worker's limb ·and life, . that the "efficiency" degrades him to a mere industrial cog, deadens his soul, and kills his body. Furthermore, in a system of centralisation the administration of industry becomes constantly merged in fewer hands, producing a powerful bureaucracy of industrial overlords. It · would indeed be the sheerest irony if the revolution were to aim at such a result. It would mean the creation of a new master class. The revolution can accomplish the emancipation of labour only by gradual decentralisation, by developing the individual worker into a more conscious and determining factor i11 the process of industry, by making him the impulse whence proceeds all industrial and social activity. The deep significance of the social revolution lies in the abolition of the mastery of man over man, putting in its place the management of things. Only thus can be achieved industrial and social_freedom. / " Are you sure it wotild work? " you demand. I am sure of this : if that will not work, nothing else will. The plan I have outlined is a free communism, a life of voluntary co-operation and equal sharing. There is no other way of securing economic equality, which alone is liberty. Any other system must lead to capitalism. It is likely, of course, that a country in social revolution may try various economic experiments. A limited capitalism might be introduced in one part of the land or collectivism in another. But collectivism is only another form of the wage system and it would speedily tend to become the capitalism of the present day. For 96 B1blroteca Gino Bianco
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