Plea for Anarchy – Albert Parsons (1886)

Table of Contents:

[Albert] Parsons’ Plea for Anarchy (1886)
On the Prospect of Anarchy in America [an interview with Lucy E. Parsons] (1886)
Publisher’s Note [by Lucy E. Parsons] (1887)

Parsons’ Plea for Anarchy

From the New York Herald, August 30, 1886, republished in the book, “Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as Defined by Some of Its Apostles”, by Albert Parsons, published by Lucy Parsons in 1887

So much is written and said nowadays about socialism or anarchism, that a few words on this subject from one who holds to these doctrines may be of interest to the readers of your great newspaper.

Anarchy is the perfection of personal liberty or self-government. It is the free play of nature’s law, the abrogation of the statute. It is the negation of force or the domination of man by man. In the place of the law maker it puts the law discoverer and for the driver, or dictator, or ruler, it gives free play to the natural leader. It leaves man free to be happy or miserable, to be rich or poor, to be mean or good. The natural law is self-operating, self-enacting, and cannot be repealed, amended or evaded without incurring a self-imposed penalty. The statute law is license. Anarchy is liberty. The socialistic or anarchistic programme leaves the people perfectly free to unite or disunite for the purpose of production and consumption. It gives absolute freedom of contract by and between individuals or associations, and places the means of life — capital — at the disposal of the people. To those persons who may regard these aspirations as merely sentimental or utopian, I invite their attention to the operation of our capitalistic system, as outlined by Marx and others.

The capitalist system originated in the forcible seizure of natural opportunities and rights by a few, and converting these things into special privileges, which have since become vested rights formally entrenched behind the bulwarks of statute law and government. Capital could not exist unless there also existed a class, a majority class, who are propertyless — that is, without capital. A class whose only mode of existence is by selling their labor to capitalists. Capitalists maintained, fostered and perpetuated by law. In fact, capital is law, statute law, and law is capital.

Labor is a commodity, and wages is the price paid for it. The owner of the commodity, labor, sells it (himself) to the owner of capital in order to live. Labor is the expression of the energy or power of the laborer’s life. This energy or power he must sell to another person in order to live. It is his only means of existence. He works to live. But his work is not simply a part of his life. On the contrary, it is the sacrifice of it. It is a commodity which under the guise of ‘free labor’ he is forced by necessity to hand over to another party. The aim of the wage laborer’s activity is not the product of his labor. Far from it. The silk he weaves, the palace he builds, the ores he digs from out the mine are not for him. The only thing he produces for himself is his wage, and silk, ores and palace are merely transformed for him into a certain quantity of means of existence — viz: a cotton shirt, a few pennies and the mere tenancy of a lodging house.

And what of the laborer who for twelve or more hours weaves, spins bores, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stones, carries loads, and so on? Does his twelve hours weaving, spinning, boring, turning, building, shoveling, etc., represent the active expression or energy of his life? On the contrary, life begins for him exactly where this activity, this labor of his ceases — viz: at his meals, in his tenement house, in his bed. His twelve hours work represents for him as a weaver, builder, spinner, etc., only so much earnings as will furnish him his meals, clothes and rent. Capital ever grows with what it feeds on — viz: the life, the very existence, the flesh and blood of the men, women and children of toil. The wage slaves are ‘free’ to compete with each other for the opportunity to serve capital and capitalists to compete with each other in monopolizing the laborer’s products. This law of ‘free’ competition establishes the iron law of subsistence wages. Thus in every country the average wage of the working people is regulated by what it takes to maintain a bare subsistence and perpetuate their class.

The increase of capital grows with every stroke of the laborers. So does his dependence. To-day there are but two classes in the world — to wit: the capitalist class and the wage class; the latter a hereditary serving class, dependent upon the former for work and bread; the former a dictating class, dominating and exploiting the latter.

The struggle of classes, the conflict between capital and labor is for possession of the labor product of the laborers. As profits rise wages fall, and as wages rise profits fall. As the share of the capitalist (his profit) increases, the share of the laborer (his wages) diminishes, and the interest of the capitalist class is in direct antagonism to the interests of the wage class. Profit and wages for every class are in inverse proportion. Wage laborers are doomed by the capitalist system to forge for themselves the golden chains which bind them more securely in industrial slavery. Thus the industrial war wages — to wit: the captains and generals of industry contest with each other as to who can dispense with the greatest number of industrial soldiers. This brings on a rapid sub-division and simplification of the productive process, the employment of women and children, and the introduction of labor-saving machinery. Result, surplus laborers.

The United States Commissioner of Labor Statistics tells us in last year’s report that over one million able-bodied men were in compulsory idleness, and that the general average of wages for the whole wage class was estimated at fifty-five cents per day. As the struggle for existence intensifies among the laborers the struggle among capitalists for profits intensifies also. The crisis? What is it? When the dead level of cost of production is reached, which is near if not already at hand-the capitalist system — being no longer able to preserve the lives of its slaves — the wage workers — will collapse, will fall of its own weight, and fail because of its own weakness. Modern enterprise and commercialism is the old-time piracy of our fathers legalized, made respectable and safe. The homeless, the destitute, hungry and ragged, and ignorant and miserable, are the victims, the creatures, the offspring, the product of our modern system of legalized piracy. The capitalist system has its morality — a plastic, convenient morality — which it puts on or off like a coat.

The golden rule of the carpenter’s son is made subservient to the laws of trade, whose morality and religion are expounded in the churches (temples of Mammon) where the clergy propagate that good philosophy which teaches man (poor man) that he is here to suffer, denouncing as atheistic and anarchistic that other philosophy which says to man: “Go! The earth is the gift of God to the whole human race. Discover nature’s laws, apply them and be happy.”

To quarrel with socialism is silly and vain. To do so is to quarrel with history; to denounce the logic of events; to smother the aspirations of liberty. Mental freedom, political freedom, industrial freedom — do not these follow in the line of progress? Are they not the association of the inevitable?

A. R. PARSONS

_{Image from the book, Life of Albert R. Parsons, by Lucy E. Parsons}

On the Prospect of Anarchy in America

[Published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1886, and the New York World, partially republished in the newspaper of the Knights of Labour and the book, “Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as Defined by Some of Its Apostles”, by Albert Parsons, published by Lucy Parsons in 1887]

New York, October 21 [1886].— Mrs. Lucy Parsons, wife of the Chicago anarchist, who is one of the seven now under sentence of death for bomb throwing in the Haymarket riots in Chicago, has been stopping with friends in this city since Saturday night [Oct. 16, 1886]. Her abode has studiously been kept secret from reporters, and the most diligent search failed to discover her. After the meeting Sunday afternoon she withdrew to the seclusion of a house uptown. Yesterday she passed, in paying her respects to her anarchist friends, at the home of an East Side saloonkeeper, where the Post-Dispatch correspondent found her. Mrs. Parsons, who said she had not sought for newspaper notoriety since she came to New York, seated herself in an easy chair and chatted intelligently and earnestly about the cause she represented for a full hour. In reply to the reporter’s inquiry as to the prospect of anarchy in this country and the world in general, the woman anarchist dropped her eyes for a moment in deep thought and said:

This is the evolutionary stage of anarchism. The revolutionary period will be reached when the great middle classes are practically extinct. The great monopolies and corporations and syndicates, met with on every hand, are now rapidly extinguishing the middle classes, which we regard as the great bulwark between the monopoly and the great producing or working classes. There will come a time when there will be in this world only two classes, the possessing class and the non-possessing class, the middle classes having been forced into the wage class owing to the enormous capital now needed to remain in the field of production. These two classes will therefore find themselves arrayed against each other; a struggle in the revolutionary stage will come, and the order of things in the world will be changed by the people themselves.

Will the change come peaceably?

I think not, for all history shows that every attempt to wrest from the wealthy and powerful that which they have has been made by force. The vanguard of this struggling army will be found in America, because Americans will never submit to being forced to the conditions of the European masses. All the signs of the times show that the fight will begin here. Witness the strikes without number that have swept up and down this broad land like a great cyclone. Millionaires are made here in one generation whereas it takes centuries in Europe, and that is a fact that proves that Americans will respond to the call quicker. the wage system in this country has now reached its full development. It no longer satisfies the needs and wants of the people; facts which are illustrated by the poverty and starvation to be met with in the midst of plenty.

When this struggle comes and culminates in the sovereignty of the people, what sort of a state will follow under anarchism?

Well, first let us look at the derivation of anarchism. It means ‘without rule.’ We presuppose that the wage system has been abolished. There wage-slavery ends and anarchy begins, but you must not confuse this state with the revolutionary period, as people are in the habit of doing. We hold that the trade unions are the embryonic group of the ideal groups, including all industrial trades, such as the farmer, shoemaker, hatter, printer, painter, cigarmaker, and others who will maintain themselves apart and distinct from the whole. We ask for the decentralization of power from the central government into the groups or classes. The farmers will supply so much of the land products, the shoemakers so much in shoes, the hatter so many hats, and so on, all of them measuring the consumption by statistics which will be accurately compiled. Land will be in common, and there will be no rent, no interest, and no profit. Therefore, there will be no Jay Goulds, no Vanderbilts, no corporations, and no moneyed power. Drudgery, such as exists today, will be reduced to a minimum. The number of hours of labor will be reduced and people will have more time for pleasure and cultivation of the mind. We base all these results on natural reasons, believing that nature has implanted in every man, in common with all his fellows, certain instincts and certain capacities. If a man won’t work, nature makes him starve. So in our State you must work or starve. But we claim that the sum of human happiness will be increased while the drudgery, poverty, and misery of the world today, all due to the powerful concentration of capital, will be done away with. It will be impossible for a man to accumulate Gould’s wealth, because there would be no such thing as profit. There would be no overproduction, because only enough of any one article would be produced to meet the demand. [“There will be no political parties, no capitalists, no rings, no kings, no statesmen and no rulers.” – an additional line in the version published in “Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis“.]

How is this change to be brought about?

That comes in the revolutionary stage and will happen, as I said, when the final great struggle of the masses against the moneyed powers takes place. The money and wages now found in the possession of the wage class represents the bare necessities of life; nothing over when the bills from one week to another are paid. The rest goes to the profit-taking classes and that is why we call the system wage slavery.

What criticism of the present form of government do you make?

All political government must necessarily become despotic, because all government tends to become centralized in the hands of the few, who breed corruption among themselves and in a very short time disconnect themselves from the body of the people. The American republic is a good illustration. Here we have a semblance of a republic, of a democracy, but it has fallen into the hands of a powerful few, who rule with a despotism absolutely impossible in Europe. I have but to refer you to the Carter Harrison interview not long ago in the [New York] World, in which he remarked that the atrocities committed by the Haymarket Anarchists in Chicago would not have been suffered in any monarchy in Europe, and would have overturned Victoria’s throne. We see in this Government a huge machine turned against the will of the people by those who control it. Congressmen and Senators buy their seats of office, and are not in sympathy with the people. We claim these things are made possible because of our economic condition; in other words, people must be economically free before they are in condition to even have a choice as to a political form of government.

What have you to say of the Chicago troubles?

Regarding the sentence to death of the seven brave men, I must express my sense of its injustice. The evidence on trial did not show that they were guilty of bomb-throwing, but even if it did show the bomb was thrown by an anarchist, yet they were not violating any law of the Constitution, for that instrument expressly defines the free right of all men to meet in unmolested assemblage. Police interference was not warranted, yet even after the police did appear there was no unimpeachable witness who could swear that he saw the bomb thrown. The mad who did swear to the bomb-throwing was a bad chap, wrung in by the prosecution to aid their purposes. We produced a number of witnesses in the defense to prove that the man lied, and what is more, we have the best evidence in the world to show that the jury was bought for the price of $100,000, and when the next hearing takes place we shall have some startling testimony. Already a strong public sympathy has been aroused in Chicago in favor of the doomed men. The case will come up in the Supreme Court in March [1887], and failing then to secure a new trial, we shall possibly be able to carry the case to the federal court.

Mrs. Parsons will remain in this city about three weeks, during which time she will lecture a number of times. She is under engagement to speak in Brooklyn, Newark, Orange, Jersey City, New Haven, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland.

Publisher’s Note

From the book, “Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as Defined by Some of Its Apostles”, by Albert Parsons, published by Lucy Parsons in 1887

To my friends and the public:

With the aid of friends, I am enabled to present for your perusal and consideration, the last efforts of my dear deceased husband, to enlighten the seekers after truth and information upon the great and burning questions of the age: the relations of the wage-earner to the wage-absorber in society.

This book, as the reader is doubtless aware, was prepared near the close of an eighteen months’ incarceration in a lonely, narrow, prison-cell. If it should at times lack any of the old-time vigor which characterized his former writings, please remember that the author was debarred from all the advantages and elements that go to making up a full and complete life; that from the day on which he voluntarily came forward and gave himself into the hands of the State, (the “Law and Order” people,) he had never breathed a breath of pure, fresh air, never looked upon a growing sprig of grass, never beheld either earth or sky; that nothing met his eye but frowning, bare stone walls relieved only by bolts, bars and chains; that in his 6×8 inner tomb he was confined twenty one hours six days in the week, and forty hours on “the Lord’s day” — from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning; and that he was denied the company of friends excepting the few moments when granted the privilege of conversing with them through a close wire netting, and having never touched the hand of even his wife, save twice, through all the long period of his imprisonment.

Should there be a tinge of sadness in these last words of a noble and courageous soul, remember they were written beneath the shadow of that coming tragedy, whose gloom fell athwart all true and loving hearts.

With these few remarks — meaning no apology where none is needed — I present to you these last efforts of one who lived in the world with the one purpose of making it better and happier for his having lived.

And now, I speak as one who knows and has the right to speak: No nobler, purer, truer, more unselfish man ever lived, than Albert R. Parsons, and when he and his comrades were sacrificed on the altar of class hatred, the people of the nineteenth century committed the hideous crime of strangling their best friends.

Fraternally yours,

LUCY E. PARSONS

Parsons’ Plea for Anarchy

On the Prospect of Anarchy in America

Publisher’s Note

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