POSITIVITY OF ANABC 1SM prtnclples do not matter so much as the ab111tyto seize upon each partlcular situation and make the best use of it hlch one can. Anarchlsm is not histortcal because it 1s conCl'med with universal man, that man its detractors describe as a \mere abstraction or ideaUzation. It is this concern, however, whlch allows anarchists to see and respect in each living individ~al man far more than meets the occasion or the eye. The hlstoey conscious communist takes men as they are as a result o~ capitalist exploitation, and sets out to satisfy their needs and ....... aspirations as they happen to be after being condltioned and partly created by capitallst exploitation and domination. Damnable as capltallsm ts, it does not follow, as the communist way of thinking too readlly assumes, that what directly opposes 1t is unqualifiedly good, namely that the proletariat, as the antithesis of the bourgeoisie, has all the virtues which the. latter lacks and none of its vices. Because of his unhistortcal vision of man, the ana.rchist can see that the proletarian. whom communism glorlfles, is a product o! industrial exploitation, a massifled, standardized and instrumentalized sort of man. He can see that communist parties, which have no intention of ending industrial exploitation, but hold that by ceasing to -be capitalist 1t ceases to be exploitation, are the inheritors and continuators of capitalism in that they foster and profit by a warped and diminished form of humanity. •. As we suggested ln «Social Anarchism>, exploitation 1s not merely economical. There 1s an exploitation of the ethical capital of a given society, of the fruits of good wm, of social Instincts and renunciation, whatever its promptings, of doing violence and injury to one's !ellow-men. Even more damnable than its exploitation, 1s the stifllng and suppression of the ethical capital, are all the measures taken to prevent its enjoyment and growth. The crudest form of slavery 1s that 1n which human beings are treated like cattle, as if their needs were no more than cattle's are supposed to be, and not to be worrted about. The great advantage of the medieval serf over the slave of antiquity who toiled in a mine or oared on a galley was that he was permitted a social Ufe w1th1n the circle of hls famlly and v1llage, and that he shared in a culture, that of Chr1st1anity, whlch stretched both vertically and horizontally beyond the narrow 11m1tsof his immediate experience. O! course, this Christian culture contalned an ideological element which served admirably for the purposes of domination of feudal lords and clergy, and it was ruthlessly intolerant, though on occasion asslmllative, of pre-existing indigenous cultures. Culture it was 111
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