Pnewtext-04. qxd

sake of not consuming; that liberty means oppression and mad-
ness among the people; and that Mr. Louis Blanc absolutely
must attend to it.
Socialists Fear All Liberties
Well, what liberty should the legislators permit people to
have? Liberty of conscience? (But if this were permitted, we
would see the people taking this opportunity to become athe-
ists.)
Then liberty of education? (But parents would pay profes-
sors to teach their children immorality and falsehoods; besides,
according to Mr. Thiers, if education were left to national liberty,
it would cease to be national, and we would be teaching our chil-
dren the ideas of the Turks or Hindus; whereas, thanks to this
legal despotism over education, our children now have the good
fortune to be taught the noble ideas of the Romans.)
Then liberty of labor? (But that would mean competition
which, in turn, leaves production unconsumed, ruins business-
men, and exterminates the people.)
Perhaps liberty of trade? (But everyone knows—and the
advocates of protective tariffs have proved over and over again—
that freedom of trade ruins every person who engages in it, and
that it is necessary to suppress freedom of trade in order to pros-
per.)
Possibly then, liberty of association? (But, according to
socialist doctrine, true liberty and voluntary association are in
62
pNEWTEXT-04.qxd  7/13/2004  11:35 AM  Page 62

---

contradiction to each other, and the purpose of the socialists is to
suppress liberty of association precisely in order to force people
to associate together in true liberty.)
Clearly then, the conscience of the social democrats cannot
permit persons to have any liberty because they believe that the
nature of mankind tends always toward every kind of degrada-
tion and disaster. Thus, of course, the legislators must make
plans for the people in order to save them from themselves.
This line of reasoning brings us to a challenging question: If
people are as incapable, as immoral, and as ignorant as the
politicians indicate, then why is the right of these same people to
vote defended with such passionate insistence?
The Superman Idea
The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another
question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I
know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of
mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free,
how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good?
Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to
the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are
made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers
maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to
its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are
so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and
to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and
63
pNEWTEXT-04.qxd  7/13/2004  11:35 AM  Page 63

---

the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and
virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let
them show their titles to this superiority.
They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Cer-
tainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally
superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in
demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this nat-
ural superiority.
The Socialists Reject Free Choice
Please understand that I do not dispute their right to invent
social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to
try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I
do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law—by
force—and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes.
I do not insist that the supporters of these various social
schools of thought—the Proudhonists, the Cabetists, the Fouri-
erists, the Universitarists, and the Protectionists—renounce
their various ideas. I insist only that they renounce this one idea
that they have in common: They need only to give up the idea of
forcing us to acquiesce to their groups and series, their social-
ized projects, their free-credit banks, their Graeco-Roman con-
cept of morality, and their commercial regulations. I ask only
that we be permitted to decide upon these plans for ourselves;
that we not be forced to accept them, directly or indirectly, if we
find them to be contrary to our best interests or repugnant to
our consciences.
64
pNEWTEXT-04.qxd  7/13/2004  11:35 AM  Page 64

---

But these organizers desire access to the tax funds and to
the power of the law in order to carry out their plans. In addition
to being oppressive and unjust, this desire also implies the fatal
supposition that the organizer is infallible and mankind is
incompetent. But, again, if persons are incompetent to judge for
themselves, then why all this talk about universal suffrage?
The Cause of French Revolutions
This contradiction in ideas is, unfortunately but logically,
reflected in events in France. For example, Frenchmen have led
all other Europeans in obtaining their rights—or, more accu-
rately, their political demands. Yet this fact has in no respect pre-
vented us from becoming the most governed, the most regu-
lated, the most imposed upon, the most harnessed, and the most
exploited people in Europe. France also leads all other nations
as the one where revolutions are constantly to be anticipated.
And under the circumstances, it is quite natural that this should
be the case.
And this will remain the case so long as our politicians con-
tinue to accept this idea that has been so well expressed by Mr.
Louis Blanc: “Society receives its momentum from power.” This
will remain the case so long as human beings with feelings con-
tinue to remain passive; so long as they consider themselves inca-
pable of bettering their prosperity and happiness by their own
intelligence and heir own energy; so long as they expect everything
from the law; in short, so long as they imagine that their relation-
ship to the state is the same as that of the sheep to the shepherd.
65
pNEWTEXT-04.qxd  7/13/2004  11:35 AM  Page 65

---