Paul Eltzbacher - The Great Anarchists: Ideas and Teachings of Seven Major Thinkers

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Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2004, is a republication of Anarchism, originally published by Benjamin R. Tucker, New York, in 1908. The Translators Preface and the plates have been omitted from this edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eltzbacher, Paul, 18681928.

[Anarchismus. English]

The great anarchists : ideas and teachings of seven major thinkers / Paul Eltzbacher ; translated by Steven T. Byington.

p. cm.

Originally published: Anarchism. New York : B.R. Tucker, 1908.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

9780486121123

1. Anarchism. 2. Anarchists. I. Title.

HX828.E5413 2004
335.830922dc22

2004056028

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation
43632203
www.doverpublications.com

Gratefully dedicated to the memory of my father
DR. SOLOMON ELTZBACHER
18321889

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

1. We want to know Anarchism scientifically, for reasons both personal and external.

We wish to penetrate the essence of a movement that dares to question what is undoubted and to deny what is venerable, and nevertheless takes hold of wider and wider circles.

Besides, we wish to make up our minds whether it is not necessary to meet such a movement with force, to protect the established order or at least its quiet progressive development, and, by ruthless measures, to guard against greater evils.

2. At present there is the greatest lack of clear ideas about Anarchism, and that not only among the masses but among scholars and statesmen.

Now it is a historic law of evolution

Now they say that Anarchism culminates in the negation of every programme,

Now it is said that Anarchism rejects law,

Now it is declared that in the future society of Anarchism there is no tie of contract binding persons together;

Now it is said in general that Anarchism rejects property,

Now it is asserted that Anarchism conceives of its realization as taking place through crime,

3. Two demands must be made of everybody who undertakes to produce a scientific work on Anarchism.

First, he must be acquainted with the most important Anarchistic writings. Here, to be sure, one meets great difficulties. Anarchistic writings are very scantily represented in our public libraries. They are in part so rare that it is extremely difficult for an individual to acquire even the most prominent of them. So it is not strange that of all works on Anarchism only one is based on a comprehensive knowledge of the sources. This is a pamphlet which appeared anonymously in New York in 1894, Die historische Entwickelung des Anarchismus , which in sixteen pages gives a concise presentation that attests an astonishing acquaintance with the most various Anarchistic writings. The two large works, L anarchia e gli anarchici, studio storico e politico di E. Sernicoli, 2 vol., Milano, 1894, and Der Anarchismus, kritische Geschichte der anarchistischen Theorie von E. V. Zenker, Jena, 1895, are at least in part founded on a knowledge of Anarchistic writings.

Second, he who would produce a scientific work on Anarchism must be equally at home in jurisprudence, in economics, and in philosophy. Anarchism judges juridical institutions with reference to their economic effects, and from the standpoint of some philosophy or other. Therefore, to penetrate its essence and not fall a victim to all possible misunderstandings, one must be familiar with those concepts of philosophy, jurisprudence, and economics which it applies or has a relation to. This demand is best met, among all works on Anarchism, by Rudolf Stammlers pamphlet, Die Theorie des Anarchismus, Berlin, 1894.

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM

1.GENERAL

The problem for our study is, to get determinate concepts of Anarchism and its species. As soon as such determinate concepts are attained, Anarchism is scientifically known. For their determination is not only conditioned on a comprehensive view of all the individual phenomena of Anarchism; it also brings together the results of this comprehensive view, and assigns to them a place in the totality of our knowledge.

The problem of getting determinate concepts of Anarchism and its species seems at a first glance perfectly clear. But the apparent clearness vanishes on closer examination.

For there rises first the question, what shall be the starting-point of our study? The answer will be given, Anarchistic teachings. But there is by no means an agreement as to what teachings are Anarchistic; one man designates as Anarchistic these teachings, another those; and of the teachings themselves a part designate themselves as Anarchistic, a part do not. How can one take any of them as Anarchistic teachings for a starting-point, without applying that very concept of Anarchism which he has yet to determine?

Then rises the further question, what is the goal of the study? The answer will be given, the concepts of Anarchism and its species. But we see daily that different men define in quite different ways the concept of an object which they yet conceive in the same way. One says that law is the general will; another, that it is a mass of precepts which limit a mans natural liberty for other mens sake; a third, that it is the ordering of the life of the nation (or of the community of nations) to maintain Gods order of the world. They all know that a definition should state the proximate genus and the distinctive marks of the species, but this knowledge does them little good. So it seems that the goal of the study does still require elucidation.

Lastly rises the question, what is the way to this goal? Any one who has ever observed the conflict of opinions in the intellectual sciences knows well, on the one hand, how utterly we lack a recognized method for the solution of problems; and, on the other hand, how necessary it is in any study to get clearly in mind the method that is to be used.

2. Our study can come to a more precise specification of its problem. The problem is to put concepts in the place of non-conceptual notions of Anarchism and its species.

Every concept-determining study faces the problem of comprehending conceptually an object that was first comprehended non-conceptually, and therefore of putting a concept in the place of non-conceptual notions of an object. This problem finds a specially clear expression in the concept-determining judgment (the definition), which puts in immediate juxtaposition, in its subject some non-conceptual notion of an object, and in its predicate a conceptual notion of the same object.

Accordingly, the study that is to determine the concepts of Anarchism and its species has for its problem to comprehend conceptually objects that are first comprehended in non-conceptual notions of Anarchism and its species; and therefore, to put concepts in the place of these non-conceptual notions.

3. But our study may specify its problem still more precisely, though at first only on the negative side. The problem is not to put concepts in the place of all notions that appear as non-conceptual notions of Anarchism and its species.

Any concept can comprehend conceptually only one object, not another object together with this. The concept of health cannot be at the same time the concept of life, nor the concept of the horse that of the mammal.

But in the non-conceptual notions that appear as notions of Anarchism and its species there are comprehended very different objects. To be sure, the object of all these notions is on the one hand a genus that is formed by the common qualities of certain teachings, and on the other hand the species of this genus, which are formed by the addition of sundry peculiarities to these common qualities. But still these notions have in view very different groups of teachings with their common and special qualities, some perhaps only the teachings of Kropotkin and Most, others only the teachings of Stirner, Tucker, and Mackay, others again the teachings of both sets of authors.

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