IS ANARCHY POSSIBLE? _ All through life yo~ ~ill find that the need~ and inclinations of ueople make for assoc1at1on,for mutual protection and help. That Js the difference between managing things and governing men; between doing something from free choice and being compelled. It is the difference between liberty and constraint, between Anarchism · and government, because Anarchism means voluntary co-operat_ion instead of forced participation. It means harmony and order in place of interference and disorder: . . . "But who will protect_ us agamst cnme and cnmmals ? " you demand. • Rather ask yourself whether government really protects us against them. Does not government itself create and uphold conditions which make for crime ? Does not the invasion and violence upon which all governments rest cultivate the spirit of intolerance and persecution, of hatred and more violence? Does not crime increase with the growth of poverty and injustice fostered by government ? Is not government itself the greatest injustice and crime ? Crime is the result of economic conditions, of social inequality, of wrongs and evils of which government and monopoly are the parents. Government and law can only punish the criminal. They neither cure nor prevent crime. The only real cure for crime is to abolish its causes, and this the government can never do because it is there to preserve those very causes. .Crime can be -eliminated only by doing away with the conditions that create it. Government cannot do it. Anarchism means to do away \Vith those conditions. Crimes resulting from government, from its oppression and injustice, from ipequality and poverty, will disappear under Anarchy. These constitute by far the greatest percentage of crime. Certain other crimes will persist for some time, such as those resulting from jealousy, passion, and from the spirit of coercion and violence which dominates the world to-day. But these, the offspring of authority and possession, will also gradually disappear under wh~lesome conditions with the passing awa_yof the atmosphere that cultivated them. . Ana~c~y will therefore neither breed crime nor offer any soil for its t~nvmg. Occasional anti-social acts will be looked upon as survivals of former diseased conditions and attitudes, and will be treated as an unhealthy state of mind rather than of crime. , Anarchy :vould begin by feeding the " criminal " and securing ~im .wo~k m_stead of first watching him, arresting, trying, and imprisoning him, and finajiy ending by feeding him and the many then who have to watch and feed him. Surely even this example 23 B1blloteca G ro B1a'lco
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