OBÉIR
OBJECTION (DE CONSCIENCE) et IDÉAL ANARCHISTE.
OBJECTION (de conscience)
OBJET, OBJECTIF, OBJECTIVITÉ, OBJECTIVISME
OBSCÉNITÉ
OBSCURANTISME
OBSERVATION
OBSERVATION
OBSERVATOIRE
OBSESSION
OCCULTISME
ŒUVRE
OFFENSIVE
OFFICIEL, OFFICIEUX
OISIF, OISIVETÉ
OLIGARCHIE
OMNIPOTENCE
OMNISCIENCE
OMNIUM
ONANISME
ONÉIDA
ONTOLOGIE
OPPORTUNISME
OPPOSITION
OPPRESSER, OPPRESSEUR, OPPRESSION, OPPRIMANT, OPPRIMER
OPTIMISME
OPTIMISME
OPTIMISME
OR
ORACLE
ORATEUR
ORDRE
ORDER, n (from the Latin ordo, same meaning)
The word Order gives rise to multiple definitions; it has a multitude of meanings; it appears in a host of expressions and is taken to encompass a wide range of senses. A long list of these expressions can be found in all the encyclopedias (Larousse, Bescherelle, La Châtre, Littré, Trousset, etc.).
From a general perspective, the word “Order “corresponds to the idea of arrangement, disposition, relationship, regularity, balance and harmony among the various parts of a whole. Thus, what we call order in the universe is the constant relationship of all the bodies that gravitate in immeasurable space and, more specifically, because it is more familiar to us, within the solar system to which our terraqueous globe belongs. The sum of observations and findings that, over the slow passage of centuries, have been made and transmitted to us by scientists, has gradually led humankind to discover the marvelous mechanism that determines the relationships existing between the countless parts of the Cosmos and ensures what we have come to call “Order” in nature. This order is a fact; it is also a necessity (see that word), since it is at the origin of all that exists and since what exists can no more not exist than it can exist otherwise.
It is also in this way that, between the various parts of the human body, there is an established order: an order resulting from the constant relations that link the multiple parts of this body to the phenomenon of Life, an order which regulates the functions and attributes of each organ, an order which requires the satisfaction of all the needs inherent in the very arrangement of these organs, an order which attests to the rules of interdependence and the relations of solidarity, the observation of which agrees with the maintenance of life and the violation of which leads, suddenly or in a longer or shorter period of time, but inevitably, to death.
In this Anarchist Encyclopedia, I intend to study the word “Order” and the ideas it contains only from a social point of view.
In human society, as in nature and the human body, the idea of “order” implies that of arrangement, disposition, relationship, regularity, balance and harmony among the units that constitute the various parts of the social body. If the expression “the social body” is frequently used to designate society, it is because, between the constitution of the individual and that of society — which is, after all, simply the sum of the individuals who compose it — there exists, without being identical, a profound and striking analogy.
Order — and by this I mean the arrangement, the disposition, the state of balance and harmony that results from the relationships established between all the people who make up the social body — this Order, I say, is as indispensable to the life of the social body as it is to the life of the human body, and any deviation from the rules established by this order leads, sometimes abruptly, more often over a longer or shorter period, but also inevitably, to the death of a social organization, as it does to the death of a living being. Continuing this analogy, I would say that Order is health for the social body, and disorder is illness or an accident leading to death. This simple overview suffices to affirm the necessity of Order within Society.
To this day, it has been believed, and a considerable number still persist in believing, that order in society is a function of the authority exercised within it. This opinion is not solely held by those who openly approve of regimes more or less marked by personal and absolute authority — monarchy, empire, directory, dictatorship — and who systematically condemn all concessions wrested from the masters by the spirit of liberty. It is still very common, even almost unanimous, in republican and democratic circles. Lacking logic and boldness, democrats persist in believing that leaders are necessary; timid and hesitant, republicans remain attached to the concept of a necessarily hierarchical society. Both groups, having failed to eradicate the authoritarian virus that permeated their ancestors, believe it necessary to impose limits on the practice of liberty, limits which, they argue, prevent it from descending into license. These theorists of republican and democratic liberalism are genuinely indignant at the abuses, scandals, injustices, inequalities — in short, the disorder — that regimes of personal and absolute authority have engendered in the past and continue to provoke in the countries where they are in force; they are struck by the appalling chaos that these regimes, where sovereign authority reigns without checks and balances, have invariably produced. But these proponents of Liberty — whom Liberty frightens — stop halfway, at roughly the same distance from unlimited Authority and unbridled Liberty, and they decide in favor of a mixed regime, a hybrid system, which, according to them, is neither unlimited Authority nor boundless Liberty; a regime which, they say, opposing with equal force the excesses of Authority and the excesses of Liberty, is the only one capable of creating and maintaining “Order” in Society. These alchemists are searching for the philosopher’s stone.
Order in Society requires that the rights and duties of each individual be clearly defined, equally distributed, fairly respected and rationally balanced, corresponding, by virtue of their normal operation, to the most complete possible satisfaction of all the needs inherent in the existence, well-being and happiness of all the units that compose society. It does not seem possible to me to conceive of order otherwise than I have just defined it. Any privilege reserved for a certain number can only be so at the expense of others; any right granted to one part of the population and refused to the other constitutes an inequality that is the starting point of a multitude of injustices, the consequence of which is to corrupt all relation and engender all disorders. Every hierarchy necessarily implies superiority here and inferiority there; and while the distance separating humanity at the top of the hierarchy from that at the nearest lower rung is relatively small, this gap widens and reaches enormous proportions when comparing the fraction seated at the summit with that relegated to the bottom. A further complication is that the organization of any hierarchical society results in a gradual decrease in the number of people rising towards the top and a gradual increase in the number of individuals pushed towards the bottom. An observer who followed this dual movement of ascent and descent, and mathematically recorded the number of occupants at each rung in the direction of these two extremes, would find that this number is limited, at the very top, to a privileged few, and that it reaches incredible proportions at the very bottom.
The most elementary common sense screams to anyone who doesn’t plug their ears that such an organization of society generates disorder and that it would truly be miraculous if order reigned there or could reign there.
I have just written that those who sit at the top are a handful. They are the supreme holders of Power: heads of State and ministers, and of Wealth: princes of Finance, Commerce and Industry.
Heads of state and ministers know that the numerous and valuable perks that accompany their positions arouse envy and fuel the vanity and ambition of those who aspire to take their place; they are well aware that the oppression they inflict upon the masses infuriates all those who suffer its consequences and who consider liberty the most precious of all possessions. Princes of finance, commerce and industry do not conceal the fact that their immense wealth is a challenge and an insult to the system of deprivation and the impoverishment of the vast multitude whose labor they so odiously exploit. Thus, this caste of rulers and property owners has understood the necessity, in order to legitimize the social order from which it benefits, of erecting that monument of imposture that is the Legislation. Through the School, the masters of the State and of Capital teach children that the Law is the highest expression of Justice. Through the Press, which Power and Money place at their mercy, they proclaim that respect for the Law is, at the same time as the highest virtue and the first duty of every honest person, the guarantee of the rights, security, property and liberty of each and every individual. But they do not indulge in the illusion of hoping that such teaching will suffice to protect them from the individual and collective revolts that oppression and poverty can provoke. Therefore, they enlist and involve in maintaining their domination and safeguarding their wealth a considerable number of people whom they recruit from the middle and lower classes, with whose complicity (magistrates, police officers, prison guards, soldiers and civil servants of all kinds) they protect themselves against what they call disorder and bring back into line what they call Order the recalcitrant rebels.
I have already quoted (see the word Anarchy) the admirable words that Pierre Kropotkin uttered concerning “Order.” I want to quote them again. They date back half a century, but—alas!—they are still relevant and will continue to be so as long as society remains authoritarian and capitalist:
Order today — what they mean by ‘Order’ — is nine-tenths of humanity working to provide luxury, pleasure, and the satisfaction of the most abhorrent passions for a handful of idlers. Order means depriving these nine-tenths of everything that is essential for a healthy life and the rational development of intellectual qualities. Reducing nine-tenths of humanity to the state of beasts of burden, living from day to day, without ever daring to think of the pleasures that the study of science and artistic creation provide — that is ‘Order’!
‘Order’ is misery, famine having become the normal state of society.
Order is the woman who sells herself to feed her children; it is the child reduced to being locked in a factory or dying of starvation. It is the ghost of the worker rising up at the gates of the rich, the ghost of the people rising up at the gates of the rulers.
Order is a tiny minority raised in government chairs and pulpits, which imposes itself on the majority for this reason and trains its children to later occupy the same functions, in order to maintain the same privileges through cunning, corruption, force and massacre.
Order is the continual war of man against man, of trade against trade, of class against class, of nation against nation. It is the cannon that never ceases to roar; it is the devastation of the countryside, the sacrifice of entire generations on the battlefields, the destruction in a single year of the riches accumulated by centuries of hard labor.
Order is servitude, the shackling of thought, the degradation of the human race, maintained by the sword and the whip.
And Kropotkin, to give more force to his thought, continues in these terms:
And disorder, what they call disorder: It is the uprising of the people against this ignoble Order, breaking its chains, destroying its shackles and marching towards a better future. It is what is most glorious in the history of humanity: it is the revolt of thought on the eve of revolutions; it is the overturning of hypotheses sanctioned by the immobility of previous centuries; it is the blossoming of a whole flood of new ideas, of audacious inventions; it is the solution of the problems of science.
Disorder is the abolition of the ancient slave, the insurrection of the communes, the abolition of feudal serfdom, the attempts to abolish economic serfdom.
Disorder is the insurrection of the peasants rising up against the priests and the lords, burning the castles to make way for the cottages, coming out of their dens to take their place in the sun.
Disorder — what they call disorder — is the era in which entire generations endure a ceaseless struggle and sacrifice themselves to prepare a better existence for humanity, freeing it from the shackles of the past. It is the era in which the genius of the people takes flight and, in a few years, makes gigantic strides, without which humankind would have remained in the state of ancient slavery, a crawling, debased brute steeped in misery.
Disorder is the blossoming of the most beautiful passions and the greatest devotions; it is the epic of humanity’s supreme love!
This is what Kropotkin wrote some fifty years ago. Since then, the disorder has increased fantastically. One could say it has reached its peak, for it would be extremely difficult to imagine it worse and almost impossible to conceive of it as more revolting and infamous. Yesterday, there was the forever cursed War, with its seventy-three million mobilized and its tens of millions of victims, with its waste, its devastation and its ruins, with the hideous unleashing of the basest and most savage instincts, with the desires for revenge and the ever more fierce competition of greed that are hurtling humanity toward a fall into new abysses. Today, there is the lamentable situation of thirty million unemployed who, having produced without measure, are condemned to wander from city to city, from country to country, from profession to profession, offering their labor, which no one is willing to employ. It is the gradual erosion of wages for those who remain in factories and fields; it is, for over one hundred million people (the unemployed and their families), hardship now and destitution tomorrow. It is the financial collapse, disrupting modes of exchange and shaking the foundations of the values upon which the economic system rests, from one end of the world to the other. It is the monstrous spectacle of a prodigious accumulation of goods, alongside which those who, through their labor, created this insane overabundance are condemned to tighten their belts more and more. It is the even more revolting spectacle of millions of tons of merchandise burned, dumped at sea, used as fuel, or simply destroyed, to maintain market prices, when these products, consumed as they could and should be, would satisfy so many unmet needs! Finally, to crown this inextricable disorder, there is the clearly perceptible cracking of the entire political, economic and moral machinery of a world that is sustained only by the speed acquired, by the force of tradition and prejudices and by the terror inspired and the submission imposed by violence erected as a system of government, violence which, through prison, exile and massacre, postpones the hour of collapse, without, however, warding off its inevitability.
And it is this appalling disorder that the masters have the audacity to call “Order;” and it is the socialists, the syndicalists and the anarchists who are working to destroy such an Order, whom they cynically treat as men of disorder and persecute as such. It is frankly inconceivable.
It goes without saying that the monstrous disorder that characterizes the current organization, or, to be more precise, the current social disorganization, cannot continue indefinitely. Without needing the gift of second sight, it is reasonable to predict, with certainty, its collapse in the more or less distant future.
In any society, order can only proceed from the principle of Authority or the principle of Liberty: it can only rest on imposed constraint or on freely organized agreement; it can only be the consequence of Force or of Reason. Authority, Constraint and Force on the one hand; or Liberty, Agreement and Reason on the other: one must choose one or the other. If Order rests on Authority, it can only be maintained through governmentally systematized violence. In this case, Order, synonymous with privilege, hierarchy, injustice and inequality, is unstable, fragile and provisional; it is constantly exposed to being disturbed and broken by the uprising of the multitude over which it claims to impose itself; and, then, order presents itself only in the form of the policeman and the executioner of the penal colony and the massacre. If its foundation lies in Reason and Agreement, that is to say, Liberty, it finds its support in the voluntary and conscious consent of all, in the egalitarian distribution of the fruits of common labor, in the mutual respect for the rights and duties of each individual, and in the equilibrium that automatically results from the satisfaction of felt needs. The mother of Justice and Equality, Liberty gives Order a remarkable stability. Order can only exist within a society composed of free, equal, and united individuals.
— Sébastien FAURE.
ORDRE (SELON LE SOCIALISME RATIONNEL)
ORDER (ACCORDING TO RATIONAL SOCIALISM)
The question of order concerns humanity in multiple ways, and particularly from a social perspective. It is to society what atmosphere is to the life of beings and things. It represents an essential rule for general harmony.
The success or failure of an enterprise, an operation, etc., depends on the application of order in individual and social relationships.
From a physical standpoint, order encompasses everything that exists, including what we consider monstrosities as well as what conforms to the rule. Storms and calms, illness and health, humidity and dryness, the end of our world and its beginning and duration all fall within the realm of physical order. All these manifestations presuppose not a constructive and ordering mind, but simply eternal laws inherent in matter itself, and intelligent beings capable of perceiving them.
This inevitable order must not be confused with the social order, nor with the moral order, which, in relation to humankind, is the only true one, essentially encompassing intelligence, freedom, truth, justice, reality and, in reality, absolute harmony. The moral order is the relation between free acts and their necessary consequences. This order can only concern individuals who are essentially identical to one another. In this order, there is responsibility; one reaps what one sows; and the law is what must be. Everything is connected, everything is good, even when this good manifests itself through a relative evil. This is the determined order.
It is quite different with regard to the material order, which is what is. Here, the word “order” is used figuratively and relates only to the intellect that conceives it. Units are illusory, and things between which there is necessarily inequality or difference belong to this order, which is coordination through succession or post-position. Everything that exists in nature is, by that very fact, says Colins, and by that fact alone, in order. Nothing is bound to it except by the reasoning that appreciates and understands it.
It is through social order that physical order interferes with public life and modifies it. Social order thus appears to us to be the result of obedience to the scientific… authority… of the time. As long as ignorance persists, this authority is expressed by force based on sophistry; just as when truth imbued with justice reigns, reason will dominate force: order and society go hand in hand and are synonymous. Without order, no society is possible; and society among men, equal in essence but unequal in their organization, exists only by virtue of reason. Brutal physical force is the negation of reason and consequently of order. Force disguised under the guise of justice, while undermining it, nevertheless pays homage to it and, by that very fact, in that era, gives rise to a relative order based on faith.
There is and can be no true order except through reason. Social order is the result of the union and association of people for the sake of the agreement of their ideas. As long as these ideas are not debated, it suffices that their supposed truth be accepted without social contestation. If they are debated, if the law permits it, it is evident that the truth must be demonstrated in an irrefutable manner.
This can be explained: order in society is the consequence of voluntary, that is to say reasoned, submission to real authority, or at least to what society accepts as being the authority deriving from truth.
Depending on the era of social ignorance — and, to this day, society knows no other era — or the era of knowledge, authority is represented by force or by reason, that is to say, science. In the moral order, the law changes with the times; and, depending on whether people reason more or less well, or even more or less poorly, disorder soon follows an ephemeral order that is merely the expression of flawed reasoning.
The question of social order boils down entirely to whether or not morality entails an inevitable sanction. Once this question is resolved, all social questions are resolved along with it; they simply need to be deduced from it.
It is by resolving it in a spiritualist, more or less Christian, sense that force subjected society, in a period of ignorance, to the only order of which it was capable: order through faith. In a materialist sense, it is by leaving the moral question unresolved, without addressing it, that men of doubt contribute to the gradual march of disorder.
Hence the inextricable disorder of our time, in which our faltering society struggles, always preoccupied with repairing yesterday’s disasters, and incapable of foreseeing and establishing a new order of social security. This will remain the case for a long time to come because the ruling and propertied classes, who make the laws as they shape customs and the general mentality, have the greatest interest in maintaining this precarious order, which cannot be denounced enough, for it protects their privileges and their independence by enshrining the enslavement of the masses.
— Elie SOUBEYRAN.
ORGANE
ORGAN noun. — Formerly, and erroneously, this word (fr: organe) was often considered feminine, due to its feminine ending. (Littré)
Anatomy: a part of the body constituted by the close union of its parts. Organs, by coming together for the same function, form systems. The concept of an organ is dominated by that of synergy, which itself depends on the nervous system. We distinguish between homotypic organs (corresponding organs of the same organism), homologous organs (organs that correspond in different individuals), and analogous organs (morphologically different organs that fulfill the same physiological role.)
Mechanics: Devices that transmit the motion supplied by the engine to the tools. Due to the large number of components, each specific to a particular type of work, no rigorous classification is possible. As a reference, we can simply cite Lantz’s classification: Transformation of a movement: 1. continuous circular in continuous circular motion (rollers, belts, gears, etc); 2. continuous circular to alternating circular motion (connecting rod and crank, eccentrics, cams, etc.); 3. continuous circular in continuous straight line motion (winch, rack and pinion, screw, etc.); 4. continuous circular in reciprocating rectilinear motion (connecting rod, eccentrics, etc.); 5. alternating circular motion (balancers, pedals, etc.); 6. circular alternating in continuous straight line motion (snap-fits); 7. circular alternating in rectilinear alternating motion (bow); 8. continuous straight line in continuous straight line motion (pulleys); 9. alternating straight line in alternating straight line motion (grooves.)
Organ (figuratively), means of expression or action. Newspaper. The major organs, known as “news outlets,” are in the pay of financial powers and shape public opinion. Each caters to the desires of a specific clientele, but all contribute to the same goal: ensuring the continuity of capitalist domination. By their connections, they are corrupt organs; by their work, organs of corruption. Independent organs, few in number and with a precarious existence, have a much more limited reach. Their influence, however, should not be underestimated, for they serve that great force: truth.
ORGANISATION
ORGANIZATION n. (from the Greek organon, instrument) — (Social organization, organism and individual autonomy) — Supporters of authoritarian regimes like to contrast Organization and Liberty. They say that: “No organization exists that does not require a person to relinquish some of their liberty, even if they joined willingly or collaborated in establishing its statutes. Furthermore, since an unorganized society is no longer conceivable in our state of civilization, a libertarian community is not viable.” The belief in this incompatibility comes: first, from the fact that most of the organizations into which man has been incorporated were not the result of his initiative, but were imposed on him by force or tradition; second, from the fact that the conception we have of liberty is often erroneous; finally, from the fact that we are accustomed to wrongly equating organized society with a living organism.
Do the members of an association having a clearly defined goal, recognized as useful by each of them, relinquish their liberty by contractually committing themselves to dedicate their strength and will to the pursued objective, to the extent and for the duration necessary to achieve it? The sociologist Tarde argued in the affirmative: “The moment that I am told that my own will compels me, that will no longer exists: it has become foreign to me, so that it is exactly as if I were receiving an order from someone else.”
To reason in this way, to claim the right to inconstancy, is to misunderstand the essence of human nature. The law of Lenz-Le Chatelier applies to the living world as well as to the world of matter: a change in the external environment produces in the living being, as a reaction to this abnormal factor, “a functional adaptation tending to eliminate the action that disturbs the system and which must disappear, the environment returning to normal.” To live is to ensure the constancy of one’s being. The being, however, undergoes continuous variations; but, from adulthood onward, and for a long period, physical changes, adaptations to temporary variations in the environment, are of small magnitude. If we are tempted to suppose that it is otherwise with regard to psychic behavior, it is because we are unwittingly yielding to an old spiritualist prejudice: the soul, distinct from the body, would not obey the same laws as the natural world; the magnitude and direction of its variations would be indeterminate.
In reality, this is not the case; we normally remain the same throughout our lives as adults, and it is this consistency that forms the foundation of our personality. To change constantly is a sign of mental weakness and a serious diminishment of individuality. Thus, a contract that would not be enforceable against a minor, who is still in formation, can, on the other hand, be entered into by an adult without compromising their independence. What can change are the circumstances that distort the purpose of the contract; therefore, custom, and even legislation, recognize that unforeseen events can invalidate it. Subject to these reservations, contractual relationships, arising from the self-determination of individuals, are not in opposition to their liberty.
⁂
Spiritualism is not alone in giving us a false idea of the relationship between liberty and organization. Superficial materialism, which believes it perceives too absolute a similarity between the individual organism and social organization, is no less likely to mislead us. An attempt has been made to attribute to the brain a function of authority: its task would be to restrain instinctive impulses and tendencies, to subject them to its control, to discipline them. This would justify the presence within the social body of a governing organ regulating collective life, compelling each subordinate element, group or individual, to renounce the exercise of any activity that does not contribute to achieving what is considered the general interest. The source, nature, and subject of this general interest are not specified.
We know how dangerous it is to seek to establish a parallel between a nation composed of individuals performing multiple functions, subject to variation, and a complex of living elements integrated very early into a fabric where neither their location nor their role will undergo significant changes. But we must also denounce a misconception arising from the old conception of the hierarchy of physiological functions, and show that the coordination of activities in no way implies any constraint imposed on the functioning of the organs.
Every free act requires coordination accompanied by a rudimentary psychism. A glance at the behavior of beings at any level of the animal kingdom clearly demonstrates this. In the smallest species, the amoeba for example, the assimilation or rejection of the ingested particle, depending on whether it is edible or not, already requires a rudimentary discernment, the performance of an action that corrects the effect of a first action. “The stimuli from the external environment do not give rise to a fatal reaction… on the contrary, there is choice, combination, strategy, therefore a phenomenon that resembles (but to what degree, we do not know) the will of superior beings.” (P. Portier. Rev. Scient. September 12, 1931.) Needless to say, the coordination here is accomplished without the intervention of a nervous system, without the injunction of a brain.
Experiments in decerebration clearly show that the harmony of reactions is achieved to a large extent without the interference of these organs. “A decapitated frog, suspended vertically, lets its hind legs dangle; one pinches a toe more or less firmly: the foot moves away from the hand by a more or less complete flexion of the leg… The simplest movement of a leg, such as withdrawal by flexion, is fundamentally a complicated phenomenon requiring coordination.” (Lapicque, 1930.) It is said, no doubt, that under the action of a higher center, an extensor muscle is inhibited to allow flexion. But let us consider the act from another perspective: we will say that the energy of a flexor muscle is released. There is therefore no constraint, no hindrance, but a systematic choice, an adaptation to the circumstances of the functioning of a system. As decerebration becomes less complete in an animal, the connections between sensations and pathways of nervous energy flow become more varied, and the actions more complex. Each additional layer added to the nervous system brings new possibilities to the expansion of the being. In anencephalic children, who are born completely without a brain, living for one or two days, “appropriate stimulation of the oral cavity provokes energetic sucking movements, then swallowing.” “As for the sense organs, they prove to be completely inexcitable.” A child, on the other hand, in whom the infirmity was less complete, lived for four months. “This being, lacking only the telencephalon, exhibited motor reactions following visual and auditory stimulation… it closed its eyelids if a bright light was shone on its retina, and it never recognized its mother.” (J. Lhermitte)
The superposition and hierarchy of nerve centers, instead of restricting activity, actually enriches the individual’s faculties. The nervous system, carrying the impulse generated by external forces from the surface to the center, transmits it from relay to relay to any number of organs and muscles; it performs an integrative action, making the organism a unified whole. It is so far removed from its role of exercising any independent, authoritarian action that the following law has been formulated: “Every instinct tends to destroy itself upon becoming conscious. Whenever reflection is constantly focused on an instinct, on a spontaneous inclination, it tends to alter it… If a pianist, for example, plays a piece learned mechanically from memory, he must play with confidence and fluidity, without observing himself too closely, without trying to understand the instinctive movement of his fingers: to reason about a system of reflexive actions or habits is always to disturb it.” (Guyau) The act that was followed by success, that was integrated into the personality, can and must, under the same circumstances, be reproduced without authoritarian intervention from the brain.
What we observe, therefore, is the autonomy of a number of functions associated and harmonized with one another, becoming progressively more complex. There is no manifestation of “hegemony of central apparatuses, and in centralization one can only see the synergistic and interdependent activity of autonomous segments, due to the evolutionary interpenetration of their elements.” (Brugia, University of Bologna, 1929.)
⁂
Why should this autonomy, which reigns in a group of living cells whose solidarity is particularly close since it results from contiguity, shared environment, and nervous and humoral connections, be denied to the partial functions in the social body, to individuals in the function?
Curiously, these possibilities were clearly highlighted by conservative jurists and, it must be said, often rejected by them when they saw where logic led them. Professing, no doubt, Veuillot’s principle — demanding liberty when adversaries are in power, denying it to them when one is in control — they vigorously contested the sovereignty of the State. They opposed it with the theory of the Institution.
An institution is an idea, a work, or an enterprise that is realized and legally enshrined within a social environment: it results from the communion of people around an idea. It is the body, the reality, the being born of this communion; it is an idea endowed with ways and means that allow it to establish itself, to be realized, to perpetuate itself, by taking on a physical form and objective existence. The elements of an institution are therefore: the guiding idea; authority, that is to say, an organized power that is not an end in itself, that serves the guiding idea for its realization and finds its limits in the demands of this realization; the communion of all members of the group around the guiding idea and its realization. (Hauriou, Renard, Delos.)
By virtue of this last condition, the individual, even more so than the proponents of the doctrine believe, escapes the risk of being sacrificed to collective forces. Among collaborators voluntarily united in the pursuit of a common goal, there may be recognition of superior knowledge or experience, but there is no, strictly speaking, subjugation to an authority. Moreover: “The hold of each institution over its members is not total, but is measured by the guiding idea, the specialized object of the institution, which thus defines the limits of the power of institutional authority.” (G. Morin, 1931) On the contrary: “Every fully formed organization is a closed vessel, that is to say, a prison for the individual. Social life has found a very simple means of liberation, which is the multiplication of organizations destined to compete for the same individual. This individual can then set them against each other, or seek protection from one against another.” (Hauriou, Early Works)
The overall organization does not imply any more authority. “The nation’s unique genius lies in its ability to unite in a decentralized and, so to speak, ganglionic manner, thanks to a string of autonomous institutions connected to one another.” (Hauriou) “The autonomous institutions, which in some respects may challenge the sovereignty of the nation, must collaborate with the state’s public services while remaining independent of them and acting as a counterweight.” (Gurvitch, 1931)
But if public services are themselves constituted as autonomous institutions, whose function is to harmonize the interplay of fragmented institutions encompassing the immense variety of civic and economic activities, can’t every vestige of an authoritarian state, of sovereignty, disappear? And isn’t it towards this social structure that we are gradually moving?
— G. GOUJON
ORGANISATION
ORGANIZATION
In its proper sense, this word refers to the arrangement of the various parts of a body to perform its intended functions. For example: the organization of the human body. Figuratively, it refers to the plan and division of labor to be carried out to achieve a particular goal, or by virtue of which that goal is achieved. For example: the organization of a congress; the political organization of a society. The word “organization” is also used to designate any group formed according to a plan and dedicated to achieving its objectives. Thus, we say “syndical organizations” to refer to groups formed for this purpose.
An organization in formation presupposes a goal that it pursues and, necessarily, precise rules in accordance with that goal. A rational organization is one in which the goal is clearly defined, and the means of achieving it are recognized, after careful examination, as conforming to the data of experience. Each member is called upon to fulfill the role best suited to their abilities, in perfect harmony of action for the whole. A flawed organization is one in which, the goal being poorly defined and the choice of means of action left to chance, there is confusion, disorder and, ultimately, a waste of time and energy in internal struggles. An organization is disciplined when each of its members, realizing both the importance of the desired result and the significance of their own role, places the success of the undertaking above all other considerations and acts accordingly, even at the expense of certain personal desires.
An organization does not necessarily need a despot at its head to function properly, but observation shows that it only comes into being and develops if active individuals, leaders endowed with initiative and possessing particular administrative skills, give it life and ensure its prosperity. If they disappear and are not replaced, the organization declines, dissension erupts, and the members of the group disperse.
To successfully implement an organizational plan, it is of paramount importance not only to consider the conclusions of abstract logic or the dictates of emotion, but also, and above all, the resources and perils presented by the specific environment in which one intends to operate at a given time. The psychology of Latin peoples is not that of Germanic or Slavic peoples. The mentality of the peasant is not that of the urban worker. The opportunities offered by an educated and sensitive environment are not those offered by an illiterate, superstitious, and brutal one. It has been said: “To be is to struggle; to live is to conquer.” It remains no less true that to exist persistently and to struggle successfully, one must place oneself within certain conditions dictated by the nature of our surroundings. No living being can, without condemning itself to death, escape the rule of a minimum of adaptation to the natural environment in which it evolves.
The same applies to the most diverse organizations, with regard to the social atmosphere and economic conditions in which they are called upon to develop. One of the main causes of the malaise suffered by the great civilized nations in 1931 stems from the fact that, in the age of rampant mechanization, there is a stubborn insistence on maintaining an organization of production and consumption more in keeping with the eras of craftsmanship than with the age of large, sophisticated factories.
— Jean MARESTAN
ORGANISATION
ORGANIZATION
The way in which the parts that make up a living being are arranged to fulfill certain functions, as Larousse succinctly puts it. Clearly, and always, this word has had a broader meaning. And, nowadays, this meaning is expanding as the tendency towards organization, which is one of the essential characteristics of our time, develops, becomes more precise, and gives rise to increasingly significant and far-reaching experiments, conquests, and achievements.
It is therefore quite normal that the word “organization,” which has taken such an important place in the modern social vocabulary, appears in this Encyclopedia.
Indeed, although it originally referred to the way in which the cells of a living being were arranged to fulfill their functions and thus ensure the life and reproduction of that being, there is no doubt that it already expressed the way in which these functions were accomplished, according to certain principles, such as regularity, specialization, coordination, solidarity, association and interdependence, that is to say a whole system of life both individual and collective.
All these principles, which are the expression of so many biological laws, and preside over the combined, synchronous activity of the cells of a living being, retain, in fact, all their value if they are applied to the communities formed by these living beings and, more particularly, to human communities.
And so, since their origin, these communities have always sought, under the pressure of necessities, needs, and aspirations of their members, to get closer to the natural order, by using organization.
Human efforts have always tended — and tend more than ever — towards uniting the activity of their fellow human beings; towards specializing the efforts of each individual, according to their abilities; towards coordinating and combining these efforts; towards joining forces with other communities of the same nature, in order to better ensure the life of all and each individual.
However, being less disciplined than the cells of a living being, whose activity is ordered by natural function, humans often misunderstand the most fundamental biological laws because they are unaware of them or believe they can break them without danger.
The result is, moreover, never long in coming. Whenever a cell or group of cells in a human community comes into conflict with other cells, whenever one or more of them encroaches on the task, function and freedom of others, the entire community, disoriented in its activity, suffers a crisis.
The intensity and consequences of this crisis are directly related to the size and strength of the small, hostile groups that clash within the human community. This explains the causes, characteristics, and consequences of social struggles, including revolution.
To give an accurate picture of these struggles, it would be necessary to recount the entire history of humankind. This is absolutely impossible. (For information on the struggles supported by workers’ organizations, please refer to my study of the General Confederation of Labour, EA, Volume 1, pages 388 to 416).
I will therefore limit myself to observing that, throughout history, humankind has tended, even amidst its fratricidal struggles, to organize itself. The progress it has made in all areas is the fruit of organization, and more than ever, individuals are trying to group together, to associate, to federate, in terms of their interests of all kinds; they are seeking what can constitute, through synthesis, their collective interest. To achieve this goal, they have created organizations (see the book *Workers’ Unions and the Social Revolution*, pages 109 to 192, in which I explain the principles of federalism and the functioning of workers’ organizations, from the Union to the International, in the image of a living being, striving to function according to the same principles).
And there is no doubt that, if they had succeeded in eliminating everything that opposes their relations: privileges, property, authority and all their attendant compressive, coercive and oppressive apparatuses, and in substituting equality, solidarity and mutual aid for them, the true human community would be a reality.
Unfortunately, this stage has not yet been reached. Men are divided into two large social classes, one of which, the smaller but more powerful, imposes its will on the other through the instruments it has created.
At the moment, each class, clearly separated from the other, seeks to gather all its forces on the level of its particular interests and moves them in a determined direction, to achieve its goals, which are diametrically opposed to those of the other class.
Two great opposing forces are thus in permanent conflict: one tends to maintain and strengthen the current social order; the other to destroy it, in order to give birth to a new order, as natural as possible.
The first is organized according to the centralist and statist principle, common to capitalism and all political parties; the second is organized according to the federalist principle, in accordance with the order it wants to establish.
The decisive clash, following secondary struggles, is inevitable. And it is from this clash, the outcome of which is beyond doubt, that the fraternal community will emerge, based, like human organization, on solidarity, mutual aid, and the interdependence of all social components.
These are the very foundations of revolutionary, federalist and anti-statist syndicalism: of this free grouping of workers that will destroy capitalism and open the way to Anarchy, the supreme stage of Humanity.
— Pierre BESNARD
ORGANISATION (Point de vue de l’Anarchisme)
ORGANIZATION (Anarchist Perspective)
Organization is simply the practice of cooperation and solidarity; it is the natural, necessary condition of social life; it is an inescapable fact that is imposed on everyone, both in human society in general and in any group of people having a common goal to achieve.
Man neither wants nor can live in isolation; he cannot even truly become human and satisfy his material and moral needs except in society and with the cooperation of his fellow human beings. It is therefore inevitable that all those who do not organize themselves freely, either because they are unable to do so or because they do not feel the pressing need to do so, must submit to the organization established by other individuals, usually constituted into ruling classes or groups, for the purpose of exploiting the labor of others for their own benefit.
And the age-old oppression of the masses by a privileged few has always been the consequence of the inability of most individuals to agree and organize themselves on the basis of shared interests and sentiments with other workers in order to produce, to enjoy life, and, if necessary, to defend themselves against exploiters and oppressors. Anarchism remedies this state of affairs with its fundamental principle of free organization, created and maintained by the free will of its members, without any kind of authority—that is, without any individual having the right to impose their own will on others. It is therefore natural that anarchists seek to apply to their private lives and to the life of their party this same principle upon which, according to them, all human society should be founded.
Some controversies might suggest that there are anarchists resistant to any form of organization; but, in reality, the numerous, far too numerous, discussions we have on this subject, even when obscured by semantic issues or exacerbated by personal disputes, ultimately concern only the method, not the principle, of organization. Thus, comrades who are most vocally opposed to organization organize themselves just like everyone else, and often better than others, when they are serious about accomplishing something. The key, I repeat, lies entirely in the application.
I am convinced that a more general, better structured, more constant organization than those achieved so far by the anarchists, even if it did not manage to eliminate all the errors, all the shortcomings, perhaps inevitable in a movement which, like ours, is ahead of its time and which, for that reason, struggles against the incomprehension, indifference and often the hostility of the majority, would at least, undoubtedly, be an important element of strength and success, a powerful means of promoting our ideas.
I believe it is especially necessary and urgent for anarchists to organize themselves to influence the course taken by the masses in their struggle for improvement and emancipation. Today, the greatest force for social transformation is the workers’ movement (the trade union movement), and the course of events and the goal of the next revolution depend, to a large extent, on its leadership. Through their organizations, founded to defend their interests, workers become aware of the oppression under which they suffer and the antagonism that separates them from their employers; they begin to aspire to a better life; they become accustomed to collective struggle and solidarity; and they can succeed in winning all the improvements compatible with the capitalist and statist system. Then it’s either revolution or reaction.
Anarchists must recognize the usefulness and importance of the labor movement; they must foster its development and make it one of the levers of their action, striving to bring about a social revolution through the cooperation of trade unionism and other progressive forces. This revolution will entail the abolition of classes, total freedom, equality, peace, and solidarity among all human beings. But it would be a fatal illusion to believe, as many do, that the workers’ movement will, by its very nature, achieve such a revolution on its own. On the contrary: in all movements founded on immediate material interests (and a broad workers’ movement cannot be established on any other basis), there must be the ferment, the impetus, the concerted work of people of ideas who fight and sacrifice themselves for a future ideal. Without this lever, every movement inevitably tends to adapt to circumstances; it breeds a conservative spirit and a fear of change among those who succeed in obtaining better conditions. Often new privileged classes are created, which strive to maintain and consolidate the state of affairs that one would like to overthrow.
Hence the pressing need for truly anarchist organizations which, both inside and outside the unions, fight for the complete realization of anarchism and seek to sterilize all seeds of corruption and reaction.
But it is clear that to achieve their goal, anarchist organizations must, in their constitution and operation, be in harmony with the principles of anarchism. Therefore, they must be in no way imbued with an authoritarian spirit, they must know how to reconcile the free action of individuals with the necessity and pleasure of cooperation, they must serve to develop the consciousness and initiative of their members, and they must be an educational tool in the communities where they operate and a moral and material preparation for the desired future.
It seems to me that it is a false idea (and in any case unrealizable) to unite all anarchists in a “General Union”, that is to say in a single active revolutionary collective.
We anarchists can call ourselves all part of the same party if, by the word “party,” we mean the entirety of those who are on the same side, who share the same general aspirations, who, in one way or another, struggle for the same end against common adversaries and enemies. But this does not mean that it is possible—and perhaps not even desirable—for us all to unite in a single, specific association.
The environments and conditions of struggle differ too much, the possible modes of action which divide the preferences of the various are too numerous and also the differences in temperament and personal incompatibilities too numerous for a General Union, carried out seriously, not to become an obstacle to individual activities and perhaps even a cause of the most bitter internal struggles, rather than a means to coordinate and total the efforts of all.
How, for example, could one organize in the same way and with the same personnel a public association dedicated to propaganda and agitation among the masses, and a secret society, forced by the political conditions in which it operates to conceal its aims, methods, and agents from the enemy? How could the same tactics be adopted by educationalists convinced that propaganda and the example of a few are sufficient to gradually transform individuals and, consequently, society, and by revolutionaries convinced of the necessity of violently overthrowing a state of affairs that is sustained only by violence, and of creating, against the violence of the oppressors, the conditions necessary for the free exercise of propaganda and the practical application of ideal gains? And how can one keep united people who, sometimes for particular reasons, neither like nor respect one another, and yet can also be good and useful militants of anarchism?
An anarchist organization, in my view, must be established on the following foundations: full autonomy, full independence, and consequently, full responsibility of individuals and groups; free agreement among those who believe it useful to unite and cooperate in a common endeavor; and a moral duty to uphold commitments made and to do nothing that contradicts the accepted program. On these foundations, practical forms and instruments capable of giving real life to the organization are adapted: groups, federations of groups, federations of federations, meetings, congresses, committees responsible for correspondence or other functions. But all of this must be done freely, so as not to hinder the thought and initiative of individuals, and only to amplify effects that would be impossible or virtually ineffective if isolated.
In this way, the Congresses, within an anarchist organization, while suffering, as representative bodies, from all the imperfections that are known and that experience points out, are free from all authoritarianism because they do not make the law, nor do they impose their own deliberations on others. They serve to maintain and extend personal relationships among the most active comrades, to summarize and encourage the study of programs on the ways and means of action, to make known to all the situation in the various regions and the most urgent action in each of them, to formulate the various opinions circulating among anarchists and to compile a kind of statistical record of them, and their decisions are not binding rules, but suggestions, advice, proposals to be submitted to all those concerned; they only become binding and enforceable for those who accept them and to the extent that they do so. The administrative bodies they appoint—Correspondence Commission, etc. — have no power of direction, take initiatives only on behalf of those who solicit and approve these initiatives, have no authority to impose their own views, which they can certainly support and propagate as groups of comrades, but which they cannot present as the official opinion of the organization. They publish the resolutions of the Congresses, the opinions and proposals that groups and individuals communicate to them; they are useful to anyone who wishes to use them for easier relations between groups and for cooperation between those who agree on various initiatives; but everyone is free to correspond directly with whomever they please or to make use of other committees appointed by special groups. In an anarchist organization, each member can profess all opinions and employ all tactics that are not in contradiction with the accepted principles and do not harm the activity of others. In any case, a given organization lasts as long as the reasons for union are stronger than the reasons for dissolution; Otherwise, it dissolves and gives way to other, more homogeneous groups. Certainly, the duration and permanence of an organization are conditions for success in the long struggle we must wage, and, moreover, it is natural for every institution to instinctively aspire to last indefinitely. But the duration of a libertarian organization must be a consequence of the spiritual affinity of its members and the capacity of its constitution to adapt to changing circumstances; when it is no longer capable of a useful mission, it is best that it cease to exist.
Some comrades may find that an organization such as I conceive it, and such as has already been implemented, more or less successfully, at different times, is of little effectiveness. I understand. These comrades are obsessed with the success of the Bolsheviks in their country; they would like, like the Bolsheviks, to unite the anarchists into a kind of disciplined army which, under the ideological and practical leadership of a few commanders, would march, compact, to assault the current regimes and, having achieved material victory, would direct the formation of the new society. And perhaps it is true that with this system, assuming that some anarchists are willing and that the commanders are men of genius, our material strength would increase. But to what end? Wouldn’t what happened to socialism and communism in Russia happen to anarchism? These comrades are eager for success, and so are we, but in order to live and conquer, we must not renounce the reasons for living and distort the nature of any eventual victory. We want to fight and conquer, but as anarchists and for anarchism.
— Errico MALATESTA
ORGANISATION (et AUTORITÉ)
ORGANIZATION (and AUTHORITY)
The problem of authority having been examined elsewhere (notably under authority, liberty, etc.), we will return to it here only for the sake of understanding our thesis and insofar as our point of view, imbued with relativism and based on the observation and study of contingencies, may differ from the theoretical absolutes of classical anarchism.
Authority is obviously a major source of abuse, and of the worst kind. It is nothing other than the exercise of the tyranny of the strong over the weak; it is the consecration of social inequality and the means of maintaining that inequality. But the term is ambiguous. A distinction must be made between this authority — the authority of the master, without explanation or oversight — and the authority of the technician who directs labors. There are still other forms of authority: in a difficult situation, a community may spontaneously follow the authority, that is, the leadership of the most intelligent individual, or it may submit to the authority, that is, the influence of the one who demonstrates the greatest moral worth.
What we are fighting against is the spirit of domination, authority founded on the rule of will (sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.) Authority by divine right is nothing other than the authority of the strongest. We no longer express ourselves in this way, but we proclaim the inviolability of the principle of authority, “necessary for the conduct of men and the proper functioning of the social machinery.”
Abandoning divine right, the right of the “Elite” to rule, for the public good, is invoked. This is a new term that replaces “aristocracy,” which meant the same thing, since it signified “government by the best.” But “aristocracy” is a term now discredited. What is the elite, what is the aristocracy? The aristocracy was once recruited by birthright. Today, money has broadened the recruitment of the elite.
Let others strive, if they wish, to find another meaning for the word “elite;” in social reality, the term applies to those who hold positions, honors, money, that is to say, to those who, in fact, hold supremacy.
The wealthy class needs an authority to ensure its own security. It needs gendarmes and riot police to monitor strikes and prevent them from exceeding certain limits. It needs a moral authority that maintains a sense of vassalage and instills in people’s minds the danger of questioning the principle of authority. The authority of whites in the colonies and that of the elite in Europe are called protection: protection of the strong over the weak, because the weak do not know how to behave and have not learned to restrain their “evil instincts.” Is civilization linked to the supremacy of parasites?…
The protection of the strong against the weak is also confused with the defense of the weak against the strong. In theory, it is proclaimed that the law protects the weak; in practice, if the weak, by associating or unionizing, have not created a force, it is most often against them that the law turns. Those who protect never willingly relinquish their protection. They never consider their charges sufficiently educated. The latter must win their emancipation by force. Even when those who protect in good faith intend to protect their subjects, they find it difficult to understand that their role is over and that they must abandon the people to the vagaries of liberty.
The Bolsheviks always claimed that their ideal was to establish liberty and that the dictatorship of the proletariat (more precisely, the dictatorship of the Bolshevik government) was a provisional regime. It is highly unlikely that the Bolshevik dictatorship will disappear on its own. They established a dictatorship under the pretext of bringing about the triumph of the revolution; it will take another revolution to overthrow the dictatorship.
Nowadays, it is not technicians who drive production; it is financiers and businessmen who have technicians (engineers and skilled workers) and laborers under their command, without owing them the slightest guarantee or protection, yet claiming to demand obedience and loyalty. Generally speaking, and increasingly so, the supremacy of money has replaced that of technology. The authority of the ruling class rests on the ownership of the means of production and not on the value of its labor. Now it is this authority that is finally being challenged.
The question of authority is usually debated in a state of great confusion. Authoritarian bodies, which are class-based, are conflated with those that are security bodies. Furthermore, the defenders of bourgeois domination are always careful to incorporate intellectual and technical authority into the characteristic qualities of the parasitic class.
Now, alongside collective authority, individual authority must also be considered. The authority of the intelligent individual and that of the technician are self-evident, without those who possess it needing to resort to coercive methods. Nevertheless, we see intelligent but emotionally detached individuals using force out of contempt for humanity. And, on the other hand, representatives of technical authority may find it more convenient to use the same method, especially if they have an authoritarian streak. But, outside of positions of authority, where the authoritarian spirit finds fertile ground for development and self-affirmation in a society founded on social hierarchy, we find the authoritarian spirit — that is, the spirit of domination — in many individuals. And this is truly the evil spirit against which every community must defend itself.
One of the errors of the first anarchists was believing that liberty alone would be enough to usher in a golden age on Earth. Every community needs a moral code (let’s say, a set of rules) and agents to ensure security and protect the vulnerable. For individual security, however, regular justice, with its courts and the guarantee of a defense, is preferable to mob justice with its excesses, abuses and cruelties. Custom has always sought to ensure security by combating selfish impulses, that is, the spirit of domination. However, it failed to prevent, in the past, hereditary aristocratic domination, nor, today, the domination of money.
Trust is the system toward which humanity strives. There is no trust without liberty. Absolute liberty? There never will be, for there will always be public opinion. We cannot suppress it, nor is it desirable. But we must work to educate it and make it less enslaved by conformity. Public opinion will always demand measures of order against the philistines. Let us hope that their numbers will decrease with the transformation of society, the disappearance of conflicting interests and the softening of manners, and that the public will increasingly learn to educate itself. But security personnel will still be necessary, for example at intersections, to protect pedestrians and ensure the safe passage of traffic against the recklessness of reckless youths and the vanity of authoritarian fools, stubbornly refusing to yield the right of way.
As for the insane, the unbalanced and the impulsively selfish, we must find ways to protect ourselves from them. First, we must reduce their numbers through a rational fight against alcoholism, syphilis and infectious diseases. Then, we must give due attention to the education of the mentally disabled and place them in professions sheltered from social upheaval. Protecting them, monitoring them and, finally, isolating them, if necessary, would be the role of a public health agency, not a justice system focused on punishment and vengeance, but with all the guarantees and means of defense afforded to offenders today, and, moreover, with the guarantee of independent expert assessments.
⁂
Labor is the true framework of morality. If in primitive times it was eclipsed by the valor of war, if in our time it is diminished by the supremacy of money, it is destined to assume its full importance in a society freed from parasitism. Regular activity is the best regulator of impulses. The worker becomes attached to their task when they participate in a endeavor that interests them; they become aware of their responsibility and also of their own usefulness in social life. The idler is sustained by nothing; however much they strive to kill time, they have only a vague awareness of their uselessness and inferiority. They are a slave to their whims and are not satisfied with themselves. Vanity takes precedence within them, precisely because they have no personal worth.
But labor involves a technical hierarchy and authority, to which all workers are subject. Is this not proof of the necessity of sovereign Authority in all things: political, social and moral? (I am speaking of that Authority to which no sensible person can refuse, because it is included in the very functioning of the things it governs and is, in short, nothing other than the Authority of Reason.)
Let us avoid generalizations and, above all, lumping together things that are not comparable. There is no absolute liberty; we are not free, of course, to disregard the laws of gravity. But it is wrong to conclude that physical and social phenomena are similar. While everyone is subject to the authority of technology, while everyone is obliged to adapt their efforts to the rules of the art, to scientific methods or to the processes of their trade, this does not imply moral obedience and subservience to superiors outside of professional matters. And, even in this domain, obedience to technical rules cannot lead to servility or moral decay. People can remain morally equal, being collaborators, each with their own purpose.
It remains true that labor teaches people solidarity and an understanding of the scales of values. Each person determines their own worth by what they are capable of doing. They receive instructions from those with broader skills, not because these individuals impose an arbitrary will, but because they share, to some extent, the knowledge they have acquired. Everyone can contribute, within their own area of expertise, to the improvement of technology. The organization of labor in a society where education is extended to all, according to each person’s abilities, appears as a vast collaboration.
But today, the scale of values in the economic sphere is far removed from that of intelligence and abilities. Modern society is founded on authoritarian hierarchy and the maintenance of privileges. Factory management does not tolerate workers intervening in the organization of labor; for them, it is a matter of prestige and dignity. Many department heads are mediocre individuals whom chance has placed in their positions. Moreover, it is thanks to wealthy, or relatively well-off, parents that they have been able to acquire a certain level of education and receive the veneer of training necessary to make themselves heard. Thus, it is also the accident of birth, and not personal merit, that has earned them their position. To defend their authority, they strive to maintain a distance. The more mediocre they are, the more arrogant and pretentious they become. Many who hold positions of authority fear losing their prestige if they admit a simple mistake, if they acknowledge wrongdoing toward a subordinate. Even sometimes at their own expense, they will dismiss or remove a subordinate to avoid having to back down. What a pathetic authority it is, supported only by itself and by regulations! It is the weak, the vain, the foolish who need this rigid authority to defend their mediocrity, their vanity, and their stupidity.
They cry out against the “bad attitude.” How is it that others know how to make themselves understood and respected, where authoritarians encounter only stubborn or hypocritical hostility? The latter replace understanding with obedience, and affectionate respect with fear. Still others, disorganized and uncoordinated, incapable of judgment and decision-making, have no influence over their subordinates; they only know how to create chaos around themselves.
Knowing how to lead requires a real aptitude. There are people incapable of guiding others. Just as some scientists are poor teachers, or an excellent teacher doesn’t always know how to conduct original research, so too some engineers, capable of working usefully in a laboratory, are incapable of managing a workshop, although there is no incompatibility between the two roles.
Perhaps a science, or rather a technique, of management will one day emerge? Today, under the current system, is normal management, characterized by concord and harmony, even possible? The issue of wages deters workers, as it forces them to constantly struggle against their perceived inadequacy; a poorly paid worker is a poor worker. Furthermore, they feel held in a position of inferiority and considered inferior. The vexing issue of discipline and shop rules, with their foolish draconianism, prevents any collaboration.
In the society of the future — and in any society, if we disregard the previous points — leadership should take into account two important points. And everyone, even those who have not worked in a factory, can see this for themselves, because these two points apply equally to the education of children and to the work of adults.
First, it is necessary to understand management as technical guidance, not nitpicking supervision. Nothing is more irritating than having someone looking over your shoulder, monitoring your every move. The boss who wants to do everything, who, beyond simply giving instructions, wants to control their implementation down to the smallest detail, does the worst possible job. Subordinates lose all initiative; they wait for orders for the smallest things; they no longer dare to act independently; they develop a distaste for work.
In a regime of liberty, everyone does their task to the best of their ability, some through well-established habit, others with an intelligent conscience. Both groups feel they have accomplished their labor under their own control and have acted for the best; they derive satisfaction from it.
This doesn’t mean the technical manager should simply tell everyone their task without further explanation. It’s not enough to say, “Here’s your task, do it; the rest is none of your business.” Everyone needs to know where they’re going, why they’re doing this or that, what their effort consists of and how it relates to the collective effort. Humans aren’t automatons; they need explanation. Explaining, making things understandable — that’s the second point, essential for good management, which fosters collaboration rather than subordination.
Thus, everyone has a sense of their usefulness. They also have a sense of a certain autonomy. I am not speaking of the unbalanced, the mentally challenged, the abnormal, who could not be part of a free team because they do not know how to enjoy liberty; free collaborative work is impossible, for example, with alcoholics, and there are individuals who, without being alcoholics, exhibit the same mental imbalance and the same lack of responsibility. Even eccentrics and, what is worse, lazy people could not adapt to regular labor. Collective authority is sometimes more tyrannical than individual authority. If future society does not accept parasitism, career guidance organizations will have to help individuals choose an occupation that corresponds not only to their intellectual abilities but also to their moral character. Note that character changes with age, that young people need change, that their curiosity pushes them to the right and left, while stabilization occurs with age.
With the scientific development of production, technical management is increasingly replacing the personal direction of a more or less capable leader. To give a very basic example, one could say that modern technology has imposed precision, thereby eliminating enormous waste in human activity.
The role of management would simply be to put everyone in their place, though certainly not permanently. Individuals, especially young people, can expand their knowledge and may need to change jobs or environments. When a manager has carefully selected employees based on their interests and abilities, and has seen them in action, they no longer need supervision, so to speak; they truly have collaborators, not subordinates.
Instead of a technical manager recruiting their team, one can imagine that in the future, the factory board will choose the engineers, assess their skills, and place each person in their appropriate role or help them find the right position. One can also imagine the factory or technical department organizing itself much like a football team — a simple comparison, but one that bears some resemblance to the contract work practiced in the printing industry.
The division of labor in contemporary society still entails an unpleasant form of subordination because this society is founded on social hierarchy. However, social evolution seems to indicate a growing decline in respect for hierarchies. What will remain, then, is a hierarchy of intelligence and technical skills, undoubtedly easier to accept if, from childhood, all individuals had the opportunity to develop their abilities. Moreover, each person, performing their task, has their own specific purpose and should not be placed on a morally inferior level. They can find other ways to express their moral, artistic, or intellectual personality outside the factory.
Excessive specialization is one of the scourges of sophisticated machinery. But if production increases thanks to modern processes, the resulting benefit should be to give more leisure time to both engineers and workers. If I were a novelist, I could easily imagine someone with no taste for numbers or technology, content with the well-ordered work of a manual laborer, while, outside the factory, he would run a musical society or a literary magazine in which some of his colleagues holding the most important positions in the factory would participate. But a worker who considered the time spent at the factory only as a social chore could just as easily, during his leisure time, take an interest in gardening, raising animals or simply devote himself to meditation. What I mean is that the division of labor in mechanical production should not inherently involve a feeling of inferiority, although, in a society where everyone’s abilities could be fully developed, intelligence, in all its forms, would always retain its rights. A truly intelligent person most often retains the benefits of their intelligence, even outside their area of expertise.
The important thing is to feel a sense of independence and to ensure that adherence to scientific methods, rules of art or professional processes does not lead to any social or moral subjugation for anyone. This aspiration is not incompatible with the rules of general production organization: centralization has never yielded good results. It begins when the economic enterprise exceeds the limits of the human mind, when the central body can no longer fully understand how the various parts function, when there is no longer direct collaboration between it and those carrying out the work, when the latter lose their right to criticize and are unable to make their observations understood. The central body arrogates to itself the privilege of always being right and of knowing everything. Collaboration is replaced by authoritarian control; and understanding and explanation by discipline. These enterprises, which at a certain point in their growth appeared as a definite improvement over small businesses, but which have overshot the optimal stage and reached an excessive size, seem to prosper because they have long relied on a monopoly and their financial superiority over their competitors. But they are gradually shaken by internal conflicts and ruined by waste. They are destined to disappear. Only a federal organization, which would scarcely be possible except with a cooperative structure, can, while respecting the autonomy of the member establishments, ensure an overall view of production and an agreement for common collaboration.
What I have just said about economic organization also applies to social organization. For good administration, people must administer themselves, or at least always be able to control the administration. The democratic system already presupposes control by the governed. But in large, centralized states, control completely escapes the citizens. Bureaucracies are immune to any direct action and possess true omnipotence. The administration forms a centralized machine that no one can touch, except for minor details, not even an emperor like Marcus Aurelius, who must limit himself to setting an example of virtue. A coup d’état is ineffective, since it does not change the personnel. Only a revolution, by tearing everything down, can allow for reconstruction. But if reconstruction is based on the same principle of centralization, new abuses will arise. The only way to avoid statism and centralized bureaucracy is through a federal system. That the elementary bodies, the communes, probably larger than the current communes, should federate for their education, hygiene and communication services, and come to an agreement with the groups or unions, or production cooperatives, also organized in independent federations, this, it seems to us, is the solution for the future.
⁂
Should we draw a conclusion? There can be no absolute formula for resolving the complexity of the problem. For example, affirming the excellence of liberty is not enough to erase the need for protection: protection of the weak, and children in particular, against the brutality or selfishness of unscrupulous people; protection of society against dangerous impulsive individuals (the insane, alcoholics, etc.) Liberty is not an entity; it has no absolute value. It is, on the one hand, a tendency of being and, on the other hand, it is a method — the method for harmonizing this tendency with life in society. Moreover, it already appears to be the best method in education for the intellectual and, above all, moral development of children. Freud’s great merit lies in having drawn attention to the disastrous consequences of authority in education. Trust provides mental equilibrium. Repression through fear distorts character. The child unconsciously seeks to combat their inferior position through lies, revenge or hypocrisy. Instead of setting unstable children on the right path, tyrannical education creates antisocial individuals or even outright deranged people. Liberty, meaning trust, is also the best method in all forms of organization. It is certainly not an easy method. Those involved in the organization’s operation cannot hide behind authority from above or behind rigid rules. Their role depends on the division of labor and a technical need, not on an all-powerful hierarchy. They are, if not servants, then at least collaborators with the children or the public, not their masters. They must explain the rules to users, and these rules must be flexible enough to serve merely as a working method, allowing for intelligent modification in specific applications. Users also need to understand how the organization functions and its difficulties. The coercive method is much more convenient, but it only provides a false sense of security. What is it based on? The infallibility of principles. But this is a completely unfounded assumption. Subjecting people to authoritarian systems and doctrines, even those of people who sincerely believe they have found the solution that will bring happiness to humanity, is extremely dangerous, because social life is always more complex than the narrow and sometimes selfish views of dictators.
Social evolution tends toward liberty, that is, toward methods of liberty in all organizations. Dictatorship, in its brutal form, exists only among backward peoples. Liberty is the only system conducive to human experimentation, that is, to progress. Conformity is the triumph of mediocrity. I have just said that liberty is gradually taking hold in all forms of organization. Yet what prevents liberty from flourishing is the division of society into classes and social inequality.
Apart from economic inequality, against which only revolution seems effective, humanity’s pursuit of material and moral well-being — in other words, security — is beginning to lead to the abandonment of centralized and authoritarian organizations in favor of federal and free ones. Much remains to be done to combat the statism of governments and administrations. But organization is essential. Liberty is inapplicable where there is no organization.
I conclude that an organization is necessary to guarantee security and individual liberty against the selfishness of others and the spirit of domination. There are people with an authoritarian and unscrupulous mindset, against whom it is necessary to defend ourselves.
Let’s be clear. Liberty is not compatible with just any organization. It is not compatible with the absolutism of a tyrant, any more than it is with the supremacy of a parasitic class. Nor is it compatible with a statism where bureaucracy reigns supreme and where the actions of individuals are subject to a uniform rule. The conquest of liberty can only be achieved by destroying centralized and authoritarian organizations, where individuals are enslaved, in order to establish federal and free organizations, where individuals can act and react as equals, where intelligence and skills can develop their intellectual and technical influence (without hereditary privileges), where the morality of mutual aid and trust replaces that of bluster and prestige, the usual foundation of dominating Authority, which most often serves only to mask its own mediocrity.
— M. PIERROT
ORGANISATION (COMMUNALE)
(COMMUNAL) ORGANIZATION
From an anarchist perspective, communal organization can be viewed in two ways: either in the aftermath of a revolution in which the proletariat has liberated itself, or within capitalist society itself. It is certainly convenient to imagine oneself beyond the “great day;” one can then sweep aside all the obstacles that surround us and build one’s project in a consistent manner. The need for action for every healthy individual who subscribes to our ideas should compel everyone everywhere to work, even now, outside the State, on solutions that may be provisional, but which would indicate the direction to follow.
But let us first consider a future organization that is faithful to our principles. Let us take as an example a small town or village, between 200 and 1,000 inhabitants; there we will find the fundamental antitheses: culture and industry, producers and consumers, urban and rural people.
Here are some of the points on which the organization must focus: education at all levels and with all the related issues attached to it; hygiene, from the basic necessities: maternity, water distribution and street cleaning, the question of slaughterhouses, to more complex issues, preventive treatment establishments, sanatoriums, etc… Then, assistance to the elderly and the infirm, the question of comfortable housing for each family, that of agricultural production, that of the distribution of products, each study being accompanied by that of possible resources.
Those who see the value of a particular project meet, discuss, and study the needs and means of addressing them — in other words, the financial question (it’s convenient to continue using the term “money” in everyday language, without implying the preservation of a monetary system; obviously, it would be better to say: rely on the work of those who can be counted on); subscriptions are collected among the group members, and appeals are made to prominent figures in the community or to all the inhabitants. In this regard, there are two observations on which it seems necessary to base our decisions: that no one ever refuses to contribute to a project whose necessity or simply usefulness they feel; and, secondly, that the aid now known as “subsidies” or “grants” is simply taken from the money the State has extracted from us and from which it agrees, as a special favor, to give us alms after keeping four-fifths for its own purposes. In other words, we must rely only on ourselves. This is not to say that general solidarity cannot be invoked; but, in principle, each group must be self-sufficient, just as an individual is self-sufficient. Only then can individuals associate without ulterior motives, help one another, and work together in a spirit of mutual support.
Let us first remain within the realm of primary education; with the upkeep of the teachers, delegated by their union, and of the school buildings secured, there are numerous projects to attend to: school library, documentary film screenings, distribution of notebooks and books, improvement of furniture and teaching equipment, hot soup for children in rural areas, organization of excursions, games, celebrations, and trips to the seaside or the mountains. Each of these activities can be the subject of a special group, committee, or commission, as one might wish.
Once a decision has been made, one of the members will be chosen to carry it out, because while as many people as possible should be involved in suggesting solutions, few are needed to act; even one person is preferable. The best anarchist is the one who knows to obey the occasion.
Another major question concerns land cultivation. If we imagine a future after the revolution, one of the first liberating acts will be the takeover of large estates by the agricultural proletariat it created. And perhaps, in that case, the development of workers’ unions will be advanced enough to allow a direct transition, with the help of technicians, to cooperative farming, without landowners. But in very large districts, large estates no longer exist, and the peasant has taken the land, fulfilling a hope we celebrated fifty years ago. The peasant has taken the land and he works it himself. Certainly, there are plots too small for a family to earn a living; there are plots too large for the owner to cultivate alone. Adjustments are therefore necessary, but it does not seem that there is any reason to make major changes to this state of affairs.
Since the principle is that the community becomes the owner, improvements should focus on pooling efforts and using machinery rather than dispossessing the current landowner. It is no longer a question of periodic divisions of fields among heads of households, but rather of maximizing the community’s benefit from the entire territory; it is about ensuring that every family is well housed and that comfort gradually extends to everyone.
The main points on which innovators can focus their efforts, hoping to be understood, will include, for example, joint purchasing, currently poorly managed by agricultural unions; collaboration with labor unions for the provision of machinery redeemable in agricultural products; the creation of numerous experimental fields; and, above all, insurance against inclement weather. Each of these activities requires serious study and raises the crucial question of the beneficial relationship between urban and rural areas.
Even if the anarchist living in the countryside cannot find immediate grounds for action in his own environment, he must carefully study local conditions and know what solutions he would propose when the time comes to act, so as to be able to resist the orders emanating from the capital. If initiative were to play its role in provincial towns and rural areas, the people of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” would be fidgeting in vain in their armchairs, having donned the slippers of the bourgeois rulers. In particular, it would be necessary to know precisely who the actual cultivators of the land are in each commune, whether legal owners or not; these are the ones to whom the commune of tomorrow will entrust production, excluding those who live off the labor of others.
One can criticize the “delegation of power,” believing there’s an imperceptible progression from choosing a delegate to appointing representatives. Perhaps, but the anarchist is precisely there to prevent this shift from one to the other. Furthermore, there’s a crucial difference: on the one hand, a specific and narrow goal, limited to the execution of a task; on the other, a general, long-term mandate. Entrusting someone with organizing a celebration, buying and installing a machine or overseeing the lunchtime meals of rural children attending school — these are logical and intelligent actions. It’s up to us to ensure that this doesn’t become a pernicious function for both those who delegate and for the delegates.
Everything we have said so far is, after all, merely for the satisfaction of narrow local self-interest. But there are many other problems that arise, and initiatives must be directed toward their solution. It is not simply a matter of each village making improvements in its own sphere; it is also necessary that the more fortunate, in some order, help the less fortunate; that the town become aware of the needs of the surrounding villages and hamlets. In other words, each center must act as an arbiter within its own community. And again, this will give rise to groups seeking ways to address specific needs: children living too far from a school, land without access roads, or the struggle against an authoritarian figure who maintains a community under his control.
But that’s not all; beyond the territory of our small town and neighboring villages — our canton, to use the current term — there are a vast array of issues to address. First, in the realm of education, there are the vocational schools for all trades, through which the integral education we so readily advocate must be achieved, and the specialized schools where our young people of both sexes will become well-rounded individuals. Then, we must consider major institutions: museums, libraries, laboratories, observatories, and we must also take into account the research needs of the entire world, not just those conducted within the territory we call our homeland.
All these activities, requiring our cooperation even in the smallest hamlets across the globe, lead us to discuss the “budget.” For the moment, this word masks many shady dealings, but to get to the heart of the matter, every community must contribute its share to what is useful happening outside its borders. Let us forget the current state and its taxes, but contribute to useful general expenditures. In education, if our small community provides primary schooling and this costs each inhabitant one hundred francs per person (or five hundred per household), let us add half that amount to bring our young people to the age of productive members of society. If the maintenance of local roads costs us a similar sum, let us add half that amount or more for major transportation routes, for ports, for power grids, for serious experiments in harnessing tidal power, and so on. A similar voluntary contribution is also needed for public health services.
Thus, the force of circumstances leads us to a voluntary “tax” for projects whose usefulness, even necessity, we recognize. On what basis should it be established? There are only two that are simple and unambiguous: the land area and the number of adults capable of working. Fifty years ago, much attention was paid to the single tax, which was not as foolish as it might seem to anarchists; it essentially consists of levying taxes at the very source of our subsistence. 50 million hectares at 500 francs each amounts to 25 billion; 25 million individuals between the ages of 20 and 60, at 1,000 francs each, also amounts to 25 billion. Without dwelling in any way on any of the figures above, nor on a number of details that would be important, let us not be deluded into imagining that the dismantling of the State would lead to the elimination of all general expenditures.
To return to the topic of communal organization, I would say that certain mechanisms are essential to it, mechanisms whose personnel are now fully unionized: teachers, doctors, railway workers, postal workers, road maintenance workers. It also needs an accountant, not to establish debits and credits, but to have a clear account of how activities are managed. Merchants will find opportunities in the role they know well, now serving the community and no longer enriching themselves at its expense. Those living off investments will rejoin the ranks of the working class if they are able, and if they are elderly, they will benefit from the conditions the community provides to its active members: old-age pensions, sickness benefits, and so on.
There is a more serious question than the use of the bourgeoisie in our current society. There are idlers even among the poor, therefore parasites. But our conception of a better society is not that of a barracks where soup is distributed only to those who have completed their day’s work. We say: the average person needs to exercise their muscles and their intellect; machines now generally allow us to alleviate excessively arduous work. We therefore have no fear that production will run out of workers. That some are weary of the current coercion and want to rest when they see the opportunity is perfectly natural; that there are abnormal individuals, tired before they’ve even started work, cannot be denied. Above all, there is something else; Dreamers, artists if you will — poets or painters, sculptors or musicians — craftspeople who value the beauty of their work over its quantity, and that’s all to the good. Call them parasites from a purely utilitarian point of view, but let’s be glad to have them around us. No doubt they wouldn’t be worse off if they contributed a few hours a day to meet general needs, but that’s a minor point. The community will always benefit from adopting practices of kindness and accepting only those who offer their help willingly.
And here is our picture of a communal organization in the aftermath of the revolution:
Commissions, each with a specific purpose to fulfill and gathering the necessary resources. Members elected, chosen, adopted, on a short-term basis; one of them, the executing agent, responsible.
Commissions for the selfish needs of the locality, commissions for arbitration between the villages and hamlets of the canton; commissions dealing with external relations, that is to say, sending delegates to the arbitration commissions of the major districts, region or nation.
Commissions for education, for supply, for distribution, for housing, for hygiene, for agriculture, for industry, etc., etc. — What else? By multiplying each of these activities by three, as has just been said, this gives a fairly active communal life.
— Paul RECLUS
ORGANISATION (SELON LE SOCIALISME RATIONNEL)
ORGANIZATION (ACCORDING TO RATIONAL SOCIALISM)
All organization is the result of reasoning, which is to say that: to organize is to reason. Reasoning is therefore the sole organizer, and since true reasoning is inherent to humankind, it follows that all organization relates to humanity.
Thus, since man is the only being who reasons, knows it and proves it by the care he takes to ensure that his work survives him as much as possible, it follows that good or bad reasoning creates good or bad organization, depending on whether he himself is good or bad.
It so happens, however, that organization and reasoning, harmonious at one time, are flawed at other times. This has been, is and will be so long as there is no truth-measure as a guide, as a criterion. Humanity, so progressive in the observational sciences relating to the physical order, has not taken a single step in the science of reasoning, which is the true science, since it is only through reasoning that truth can and must be determined.
The first step humanity takes toward understanding truth will bring it into contact with its goal. True truth has no degrees; it is neither more nor less; it is. When it is embraced by society, humanity will be regenerated, and social organization can be achieved for the benefit of all, but not before.
Let us remember that there is no truly general organization other than that of society itself. All other organizations are, to some degree, derived from it. As we have said, to measure accurately, one needs a measuring stick, and when society lives in ignorance of this stick, it very often happens that its calculations are wrong. When the truth is known, society will organize itself, in its vital interest, according to reason, that is to say, in order and with complete justice. It will constitute the moral organization.
Similarly, when society organizes property and wealth in relation to each individual’s labor and merit, it will establish the material organization. Until the period of legal knowledge transforms, for the benefit of the general community, what is currently established only for the profit of a few, the organization remains perpetually in danger. Our legislators are not burdened by such scruples. What would be the point of their function if they did not have to continually patch up the edifice that totters at the slightest breeze? All organizations have been formed under the influence of empiricism. Thus, the existence of the proletariat and the liberation of labor, or its enslavement, depend on the organization of general property. This organization touches upon the crux of the social question, and the future of society depends upon it.
Property is, in principle, an absolute and equal right inherent in all humanity, in society. The organization of this right is always dependent on the temporary necessity that governs social man, currently represented by a few individuals. The same organization of property, even in an age of social understanding, cannot be applied equitably in the same way to landed property and movable property. Failing to carefully distinguish, in proposals for a social economy, between landed wealth, a general form of property, and movable wealth is to expose oneself to the most serious errors and to arrive at disappointments when one hoped for significant benefits.
Socially and particularly, it is easy to recognize that there is a chasm between landed property, which is the passive source of all wealth, and movable wealth, which is the result of working the land or what comes from it.
Without land ownership on the one hand, and without labor on the other — that is to say, without humankind — the Universe and its riches would be as if they did not exist. What could all the wealth that clutters shops, factories, and warehouses possibly mean to a horse, a dog, or a monkey, apart from their vital and instinctive needs?
The principle of property, which has the land as its foundation and labor as its organizing principle, cannot be called into question; but the organization of property must be profoundly reformed if we want — otherwise than as hypocrisy — the exploitation of the masses to disappear, remembering, in order to take it into account, that there are several kinds of property. While landed property must belong to everyone, so that there may be order and true freedom, movable property, which represents the Products of Labor, must belong to those who created it. Let us remember that the latter condition can only be achieved through the implementation of the former.
But to hope for this economic and social realization, it is necessary that thought evolve toward justice, that it come to understand the true interest of the Individual and of Society. Under the regime of Faith, thought is organized by revelation, just as under that of science and truth, it will be organized by reason. Currently, there is an incompatibility between education and instruction. The former recognizes a morality — at least for the people — and the latter, in its deterministic materialism, denies it. Education is of the utmost importance for society; people owe to it their first moral nature and their second organic nature. The sufferings of which we complain are the inevitable consequence of our education and, consequently, of our more or less arbitrary actions.
Nowadays, thought, developing in an atmosphere of uncertainty, remains subject to doubt, so that it represents no scientific organization. Without a determined goal, in the absence of any principle, thought drifts at the mercy of the passions of an organism to which it is enslaved.
Before thought is organized in accordance with science and reason, all organization of labor is chaotic and leads to social absurdity. On this point, the examples offered by contemporary democracies, as well as the Soviet republic, prove that in none of these countries is the organization of labor established on sufficiently solid and just foundations to be viable.
Political economy, which dictates its organizing will, finds itself obliged to inaugurate, accidentally, sometimes dumping methods, at other times it is interested in rationalization, and in each case it notes the overabundance of labor supply for a demand limited to a single category of consumers relatively restricted in relation to the means of production.
It is the duty of Social Economy to highlight the disastrous consequences of this state of affairs, while simultaneously demonstrating the beneficial effects that would result from the social organization it advocates. Currently, the existing organization no longer meets the needs of the future, and order is constantly disrupted or on the verge of being so.
— Elie SOUBEYRAN
ORGANISME
ORGANISM
The similarity in the functioning of a living being and a group of living beings has led some sociologists to deduce from their observations lessons that they try to adapt to social life and that they believe are comparable to the animal’s own activity.
Thus, since every living organism is a set of organs adapted to different functions, it was considered legitimate to compare society to a living organism, the various human groups to organs, and each individual to a cell.
To fully appreciate the significance of this comparison, it is necessary to understand both social and bodily functions. A living being is composed of a fixed number of principal organs, whose coordination ensures its vitality. The absence or loss of one of these organs leads to its death, more or less rapidly. Death, or the end of organic coordination, invariably results in the death of all cells. Here, the cessation of collective functioning leads to the cessation of individual functioning.
However, this is not the case for social functioning. A human society can be composed of a very variable number of human groups, without well-defined forms, and, on the other hand, social dissolution will not lead to the death of every human being, since each of them will be able to live elsewhere.
This difference between the two cases stems from the fact that the organic cellular specialization of metazoans has determined particular reactions in each cell and created a kind of artificial environment that removes them from individual struggle against the environment, whereas the social environment has not achieved such a deformation.
This fact is clearly demonstrated by the fact that numerous cells taken from various organs and cultured in frequently renewed artificial media have been successfully kept alive for over ten years and allowed to proliferate. As soon as this artificial medium becomes insufficient or is removed, these cells die; however, under optimal conditions, they live indefinitely, while their normal organic lifespan is significantly reduced. Therefore, any multicellular organism can be considered a collection of cells living in an artificial medium that is advantageous to each cell and absolutely essential for their preservation.
In fact, all these cells originate from a single cell, which, through successive divisions, gives rise to the various cell groups that progressively form all the organs and tissues of the living being. Embryology shows us this organization occurring through cell multiplication under the influence of the physicochemical forces of the environment. In this development, cell groups occupy different positions relative to the total number of cells, and the physicochemical phenomena of assimilation and dissimilation that characterize life do not occur in the same way in each group. Hence, increasingly pronounced differentiation occurs until the complete formation of the entire being.
It is easy to see that since this differentiation was determined by the very position of the cell groups in the organism in question, all these same cells are necessarily built for these particular functions and cannot live under other conditions.
This differentiation is not absolute in all multicellular organisms; there are plants whose various parts — leaves, stems, flowers — can reproduce the entire organism, and certain worms cut into sections can regenerate into as many adult worms. This demonstrates that these cells have retained the primitive capacities for assimilation and disassimilation.
Each cell can itself be considered a highly complex organism, since some infusoria, composed of a single cell containing a nucleus and cytoplasm, can in turn be divided into multiple fragments, each capable of reproducing the entire organism provided it contains a portion of the nucleus. The vital organic unit would therefore not be the cell, but a bipolar physicochemical combination whose essential characteristic is assimilation. This process cannot continue indefinitely within the same combination, because the increase in substance alters the exchanges with the environment and the equilibrium of the cell thus created. There is therefore cell multiplication and a new equilibrium among these cells. The agglutinating cause of these cells appears to be due to a skeletal secretion that modifies their motility and consequently their exchanges with the environment. The resulting agglutination further accentuates these modifications, creating new differentiations and equilibria.
Observing the animal kingdom reveals the full spectrum of organismal complexity, from simple polyps composed of individual organs living together on the same plant, yet highly specialized and capable of independent existence, to the highly evolved mammalian organisms, including infusoria colonies exhibiting the earliest stages of sexuality and cellular differentiation. We can thus trace the loss of individuality of the cell and the formation of organisms that render any isolated cell incapable of survival.
We can deduce the following main facts from these organic examples: All the cells and organs of a living being are coordinated and in balance with each other because they originate from the same cell and have formed progressively according to their initial rhythm.
The organization of a living being is achieved through the very functioning of its cells under the influence of the environment, creating successive equilibria through conquest of the environment and assimilation of substances according to a dominant rhythm.
Cellular individualism or isolation preserves the vital integrity of the cell, but opposes any enrichment or differentiation since its successive divisions maintain it in the same equilibrium, always determining the same reactions.
The formation of the agglutinative skeleton determines species diversity, cell differentiation and specialization. Furthermore, this skeleton, highly characteristic of different species, resists specific variations and rapid changes in animals.
If we compare social environments to organic environments, we see that social groups that have formed and organized themselves slowly through indigenous growth exhibit greater unity and rigidity than those formed from heterogeneous elements of diverse origins. Coordination and joint action are closer, and collective functioning is more advantageous. On the other hand, the diversity of individual thought is greatly reduced, and the collective mentality is crystallized around immutable concepts.
Far from mitigating these distortions, our modern societies accentuate them through specializations that render humans incapable of performing all normal life functions. Some manual laborers or intellectuals cannot live outside the social environment that has deformed them to the point of depriving them of all initiative or skill.
Social institutions also form a kind of skeleton or framework that opposes the variations and transformations necessary for the improvement of the living conditions in which humans move.
From these facts, we can conclude that societies coordinated around an ethnic unity, naturally common to all its members, have an advantage; these members should, in their voluntary associations, retain their autonomy and individuality through the variety of their functions, making them suitable for all activities of life.
It is therefore erroneous and dangerous to equate man with a cell and to orient human psychology towards this crystallizing conception.
Man must remain a center of very personal activity and not become the cell of a vast organism outside of which he would be nothing.
— IXIGREC.
ORGUEIL
ORIENTATION
ORIENTATION (PROFESSIONNELLE)
ORIGINAL
ORNIÈRE
ORPHELINAT
ORTHODOXIE
OSSATURE
OUVRIER
OUVRIÉRISME
OUVRIÉRISME
L’OUVRIÉRISME (et les individualistes)
OXYGÈNE
