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Observations on Anarchy 63 | author = | override_author = John Papworth..."

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{{header
| title = [[../|ANARCHY 66 (Vol 6 No 8) AUGUST 1966]] Observations on Anarchy 63
| author =
| override_author = [[Author:John Papworth|John Papworth]], [[Author:John Pilgrim|John Pilgrim]], [[Author:Jeff Robinson|Jeff Robinson]], [[Author:F.B.|F.B.]], and [[Author:Laurens Otter|Laurens Otter]]
| section =
| previous = [[../Observations on Anarchy 62|Ovservations on {{sc|anarchy}} 62]]
| next = [[../Adrian Mitchell, poet 1966|Adrian Mitchell, poet 1966]]
| notes =
}}

<div style="max-width:500px; margin:auto;">{{p|245}}
<div style="text-align:justify;">{{p|s1}}'''OBSERVATIONS ON [[Anarchy 63/Anarchism, society and the socialised mind|ANARCHY 63]]:'''

'''ANARCHISM, SOCIETY AND THE''' '''SOCIALISED MIND'''

{{sc|[[Author:Francis Ellingham|Francis ellingham]]{{s}} [[Anarchy 63/Anarchism, society and the socialised mind|article]] in [[Anarchy 63|anarchy 63]]}}, is extremely valuable and thought-provoking, but it seems to me that much of his argument remains open to question. I think his attempt to make a key distinction between a society and an anarchist ''milieu'' is unreal and can only be {{p|246}}sustained by giving to both words a very particular meaning, a meaning which is not contained in the general currency of either. It also leads him to adopt quite indefensible positions. To argue, for example that {{qq|society}} before the {{w|Industrial Revolution|Industrial_Revolution}} did not exist, or that {{qq|the {{w|Greeks|Ancient_Greece}} had no concept of, or word for, {{q|society}},}} is surely to narrow the word to apply simply to the very special phenomena that the Industrial Revolution has helped to create.

{{tab}}This distinction is not only unreal, it is unimportant, and has the unfortunate consequence of obscuring the major distinction that the Industrial Revolution has helped to create. This is not simply the greater size of the social unit (to which Francis Ellingham refers), but the greater ''scale'' of organisation. All {{w|pre-industrial societies|Pre-industrial_society}} had this much in common, they were small-scale and dominated by the nature of the relationships of their members. They were human-scale communities. Even the {{w|Roman Empire|Roman_Empire}} was, perforce, a large number of human-scale communities linked by a common rule and legal system. The reason for this emphasis on a human-scale was simple. In the absence of mechanical transport a community was restricted largely to the capacity of its members to reach most parts of it with a fair degree of facility on foot. A secondary factor was the very large degree of economic self-sufficiency that was practised.

{{tab}}After the Industrial Revolution the scale on which all operations of trade and government were conducted grew to enormous proportions. The change was not only quantitative, it was qualitative too, for these operations ceased to be human-scale they became machine-scale. Armed with the new powers of machines and machine methods of organisation and administration the forces operating here no longer do battle against the forces of freedom within the social order, that stage is long past. Today they are determining the very nature of the social order. This is why, despite the spread of ballot-box-<bwr>mongering, there is less freedom in our societies today than there was 100, or even 200, years ago.

{{tab}}This is the major consequence of the growth of machine-scale societies and it seems clear that even if these societies do not succeed in destroying us altogether with the new ways of war that they have produced, they will achieve an even more disastrous diminution of freedom over the next 100 years.

{{tab}}A shopkeeper or trader in a human-scale community is a potential danger to freedom because he is always seeking to extend his scale of operations until they dominate and, at least in part, control the rest of the community. In such circumstances, however, this potential threat rarely becomes actual since the countervailing forces (other shopkeepers, the small scale of other fields of economic activity, the potency of a small-scale community{{s}} moral code and so on) will act as an effective brake on his ambitions.

{{tab}}In a machine-scale society this brake is removed. Rival traders are merged, taken over or simply driven to bankruptcy; the machine-scale of the trader{{s}} new operations is buttressed by a similar scale in other spheres, in banking, transport, government and so on; and as {{p|247}}for morality and such commands as {{qq|love thy neighbour}}, which may be taken to be incompatible with his economic exploitation or subjugation, it is ignored. The new power is able to ignore it because the power of morality is a product of human relations within a human community. Under machine-scale operations community is murdered and replaced by the mass. Since the members of a mass are no longer in a power-relationship with each other and are merely instruments of a remote centre, they can have no moral relationships (for there is then no power of sanctions, ostracism and so on to enforce them). Men no longer devote the toil of their daily lives to the common good, they become subordinate and passive parts of the machine-scale schemes of others for profit.

{{tab}}It is our own age, and one that has the temerity to attach to itself the label of progress, that singles out for its acclaim and reward not its artists or philosophers, or even its statesmen, but its grocers, its pork butchers, its purveyors or soap and butter substitutes.

{{tab}}It is instructive that Francis Ellingham shares the defect of much anarchist literature in refusing to grapple seriously with the problem of economic organisation. This is curious, for even {{w|Marx|Karl_Marx}} was merely acknowledging the obvious when he insisted on the key role of economics as a determinant social force. (He was surely wrong to insist it is ''the'' dominant social force, but that is another story.)

{{tab}}At one point Francis Ellingham declares that prior to the Industrial Revolution the state played no direct part in economic affairs. This is surely a slip of the pen, or has he ever consulted any of the standard texts on the history of the {{w|English wool trade|Medieval_English_wool_trade}}, and the efforts of the state to regulate it in minutest detail? Has he never heard of the {{w|Tudor|Tudor_period}} {{qq|{{w|Statute of Apprentices|Statute_of_Artificers_1563}}}} and the numerous attempts made under the first {{w|Elizabeth|Elizabeth_I_of_England}}, to go no further back, to regulate wages and prices? What does he suppose the {{w|Luddites|Luddite}} were fighting for if not to retain these elements of economic paternalism in face of the powers of the new machine forces?

{{tab}}Does he know nothing of the same monarch{{s}} role in financing the trading-cum-piracy activities of {{w|Drake|Francis_Drake}} and, later, of the new companies of {{w|Merchant Venturers|Society_of_Merchant_Venturers}}? And at a time when the Church was an integral part of the state organisation and engrossing a major share of the community{{s}} economic increment does he suppose all those vast and splendid cathedrals were built with a mixture of prayer, asceticism and the freewill offerings of the credulous?

{{tab}}This omission leads to a failure to recognise the basic cause of our current political dilemma. Owing to the vast scale of the forces employed it is now impossible for people at the base to control them, ''even if they should want to.'' A generation or so ago {{w|Robert Michels|Robert_Michels}} made the reason for this clear, although he omitted to spell out the mechanics of it. He pointed out that mass political parties (and it holds true of almost any mass organisation) have an inbuilt {{w|disposition towards oligarchic leadership|Iron_law_of_oligarchy}}. Anarchists, of course, start with this kind of assumption, but what are the mechanics?

{{tab}}As an organisation grows, decision-making is necessarily operated on a representational basis. The bigger the scale the more remote the representation and the more powerful the mechanism by which representatives are selected. In politics this is true at both the primary (party) stage of selecting a candidate, and at the secondary stage of a public election. As the scale continues to grow there comes a point where the power of the representative machinery, however organised, becomes greater than the power of the electorate. We are a long way past this stage today. What needs determining is just what form of social organisation we can have which is susceptible to the control of all the members of a given society.

{{tab}}Talk here of an {{qq|anarchist ''milieu''}} is hopelessly vague and impracticable, and certainly provides no kind of tangible alternative to which masses of bewildered and disillusioned people can turn.

{{tab}}Since the dominant aspect of our powerlessness is the sheer bigness of the scale of the forces confronting us, is it reasonable to suppose that the first requisite is ''small-scale'' forms of organisation which it is possible for us to control?

{{tab}}The commonest answer one is apt to receive to such a suggestion, is, {{qq|We can{{t}} put the clock back}}. One can only reply to this that if we can devise some form of social organisation which will reap the real benefits of technology without allowing machines and machine-scale operations to distort and pervert human needs we shall have made the most significant step towards social progress in the history of mankind.

{{sig|{{w|London}}|{{sc|[[Author:John Papworth|john papworth]]}}}}

{{c|*}}
</div>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Observations on anarchy 063}}
[[Category:Anarchist philosophy]]
[[Category:Sociology]]
[[Category:Letters to the editor]]

@@ Line 110: / Line 110: @@
 {{tab}}The {{w|Greek|Ancient_Greek}} word {{l|''politikon''|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD}} which, as Elling&shy;ham so rightly says, we must not as&shy;sume is ident&shy;ical with our polit&shy;ics, is in fact the art of living in a {{w|polis|Polis}}. (A {{l|''polis''|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CF%8C%CE%BB%CE%B9%CF%82}}{{dash|a city}}being in {{w|Greek times|Ancient_Greece}} hardly larger than a mod&shy;ern vil&shy;lage, or, if a mega&shy;polis, a {{w|market town|Market_town}}.) Since neither the word urb&shy;an&shy;ity, nor the word civil&shy;ised (both with sim&shy;ilar deriv&shy;a&shy;tions), gives the mean&shy;ing, while the word polit&shy;ics as we under&shy;stand it is tot&shy;ally un&shy;re&shy;lated, it is per&shy;fectly ac&shy;cur&shy;ate as a trans&shy;la&shy;tion to render the word as so&shy;cial or so&shy;ci&shy;ate. I know of no other trans&shy;la&shy;tion giv&shy;ing a com&shy;par&shy;ably fair render&shy;ing of the term.
-{{tab}}While we are on the sub&shy;ject, {{l|''anarkhia''|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%80%CE%BD%CE%B1%CF%81%CF%87%CE%AF%CE%B1}} did not mean ab&shy;sence of gov&shy;ern&shy;ment, it meant a so&shy;ci&shy;ety or state which gov&shy;erned it&shy;self with&shy;out {{w|''archons''|Eponymous_archon}}, who were a curi&shy;ous sort of elec&shy;ted priest-<wbr>king; and it would not have been thought in&shy;con&shy;gru&shy;ous for a Greek to say of a city that it was ''anarkhia'' and that it had a {{l|''tyrannois''|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%84%CF%85%CF%81%CE%AC%CE%BD%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%B9%CF%82}}, a self-<wbr>made king. I did once come across a Greek term for the ab&shy;sence of gov&shy;ern&shy;ment, but un&shy;fortun&shy;ately forgot it, {{l|''Akephalous''|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%AD%CF%86%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82}} (with&shy;out<!-- 'with' in original --> head) is about as near as one can get.
+{{tab}}While we are on the sub&shy;ject, {{l|''anarkhia''|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%80%CE%BD%CE%B1%CF%81%CF%87%CE%AF%CE%B1}} did not mean ab&shy;sence of gov&shy;ern&shy;ment, it meant a so&shy;ci&shy;ety or state which gov&shy;erned it&shy;self with&shy;out {{w|''archons''|Eponymous_archon}}, who were a curi&shy;ous sort of elec&shy;ted priest-<wbr>king; and it would not have been thought in&shy;con&shy;gru&shy;ous for a Greek to say of a city that it was ''anarkhia'' and that it had a {{l|''tyrannois''|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%84%CF%85%CF%81%CE%AC%CE%BD%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%B9%CF%82}}, a self-<wbr>made king. I did once come across a Greek term for the {{l|ab&shy;sence of gov&shy;ern&shy;ment|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%BA%CF%85%CE%B2%CE%B5%CF%81%CE%BD%CE%B7%CF%83%CE%AF%CE%B1#Greek}}, but un&shy;fortun&shy;ately forgot it, {{l|''Akephalous''|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%AD%CF%86%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82}} (with&shy;out<!-- 'with' in original --> head) is about as near as one can get.
 {{tab}}Incid&shy;ent&shy;ally a state&shy;less but also tot&shy;al&shy;it&shy;ar&shy;ian so&shy;ci&shy;ety, be&shy;sides being a con&shy;tra&shy;dic&shy;tion in terms is not a {{w|Marx&shy;ist|Marxism}} ideal, any more than it is anar&shy;chist. {{w|Marx|Karl_Marx}} be&shy;lieved that to reach the state&shy;less so&shy;ci&shy;ety one had first to pass through the tot&shy;al&shy;it&shy;ar&shy;ian, but no&shy;where did he, or even {{w|Lenin|Vladimir_Lenin}}, sug&shy;gest that the two might co-<wbr>exist.

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−	{{sc\|Most of [[Author:Francis Ellingham\|francis ellingham]]{{s}} criticisms}} of [[Author:John Pilgrim\|John Pilgrim]] and [[Author:Ian Vine\|Ian Vine]] spring from a misinterpretation of their {{sc\|anarchy}} articles, that old bugbear{{dash}}semantic confusion.	+	{{p\|s3}}{{sc\|Most of [[Author:Francis Ellingham\|francis ellingham]]{{s}} criticisms}} of [[Author:John Pilgrim\|John Pilgrim]] and [[Author:Ian Vine\|Ian Vine]] spring from a misinterpretation of their {{sc\|anarchy}} articles, that old bugbear{{dash}}semantic confusion.

	{{tab}}According to F.E., both J.P. and I.V. are {{qq\|so-<wbr>called anarchists}} because they rate something higher than the individual, namely some concept of society into which the individual must fit or else. Now, there are anarchists ({{qq\|anarchists}} if you prefer it) who seem especially concerned with something called {{qq\|society}}, to which individuals have {{qq\|duties}} and which must always be the first consideration. Similarly there are anarchists (I used to be one) who set up blueprints for anarchy and believe that other people {{qq\|should}} work towards them and mould themselves (or be moulded) into the kind of person that would make the dream societies work. Examples are extreme pacifists, anarcho-<wbr>syndicalists, technology worshippers (there {{sc\|will}} be automation, comrades) and extreme simple-<wbr>lifers, a position F.E. himself once defended in {{w\|{{sc\|freedom}}\|Freedom_(newspaper)}} although with sound arguments and not just emotional dogmatism.		{{tab}}According to F.E., both J.P. and I.V. are {{qq\|so-<wbr>called anarchists}} because they rate something higher than the individual, namely some concept of society into which the individual must fit or else. Now, there are anarchists ({{qq\|anarchists}} if you prefer it) who seem especially concerned with something called {{qq\|society}}, to which individuals have {{qq\|duties}} and which must always be the first consideration. Similarly there are anarchists (I used to be one) who set up blueprints for anarchy and believe that other people {{qq\|should}} work towards them and mould themselves (or be moulded) into the kind of person that would make the dream societies work. Examples are extreme pacifists, anarcho-<wbr>syndicalists, technology worshippers (there {{sc\|will}} be automation, comrades) and extreme simple-<wbr>lifers, a position F.E. himself once defended in {{w\|{{sc\|freedom}}\|Freedom_(newspaper)}} although with sound arguments and not just emotional dogmatism.

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		+	{{p\|s5}}{{sc\|[[Author:Francis Ellingham\|Francis ellingham]] quotes out of context}} a statement from [[Author:John Pilgrim\|John Pilgrim]]{{dash\|by no means original to John}}(indeed almost axiomatic to most people), deduces something from this which does not follow, uses something like a {{w\|Stalinist\|Stalinism}} amalgam to saddle John and those who agree with him with the pro-<wbr>prison views of [[Author:Ian Vine\|Ian Vine]], chides John for someone else{{s}} mistranslation from the Greek{{dash}}which in fact was not a mistranslation, though Ellingham repeats another common mistranslation later; and bases an article on this fallacy. If this were the best that individualists could do, even my low opinion of them would sink.
		+
		+	{{tab}}Without society the human animal cannot develop into a human being. This does not, to anyone with any knowledge of logic, necessarily mean that all forms of society are conducive to such development, and Ellingham if he has read John{{s}} articles or those of any other {{qq\|socialised}}-<wbr>thinking anarchists as he terms us, knows perfectly well that it is the contention of anarchist-<wbr>communist revolutionaries, as of gradualists like John, that all authoritarianism in society inevitably corrupts human development. A short reference to [[Author:Peter Kropotkin\|Kropotkin]] or {{w\|Malinowski\|Bronisław_Malinowski}} would, incidentally, have given observed evidence for the axiom{{dash}}more important to anarchists than Aristotle.
		+
		+	{{tab}}In point of fact, since I came into the anarchist movement I have {{p\|253}}met some half-<wbr>dozen anarchists who are not insistent on the need to abolish prisons, one would have called herself an anarchist communist, I doubt if Ian Vine would do so, and four were definitely individualist anarchists, as of course was {{w\|Benjamin Tucker\|Benjamin_Tucker}}, who was prepared to retain hanging.
		+
		+	{{tab}}The {{w\|Greek\|Ancient_Greek}} word {{l\|''politikon''\|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD}} which, as Ellingham so rightly says, we must not assume is identical with our politics, is in fact the art of living in a {{w\|polis\|Polis}}. (A {{l\|''polis''\|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CF%8C%CE%BB%CE%B9%CF%82}}{{dash\|a city}}being in {{w\|Greek times\|Ancient_Greece}} hardly larger than a modern village, or, if a megapolis, a {{w\|market town\|Market_town}}.) Since neither the word urbanity, nor the word civilised (both with similar derivations), gives the meaning, while the word politics as we understand it is totally unrelated, it is perfectly accurate as a translation to render the word as social or sociate. I know of no other translation giving a comparably fair rendering of the term.
		+
		+	{{tab}}While we are on the subject, {{l\|''anarkhia''\|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%80%CE%BD%CE%B1%CF%81%CF%87%CE%AF%CE%B1}} did not mean absence of government, it meant a society or state which governed itself without {{w\|''archons''\|Eponymous_archon}}, who were a curious sort of elected priest-<wbr>king; and it would not have been thought incongruous for a Greek to say of a city that it was ''anarkhia'' and that it had a {{l\|''tyrannois''\|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%84%CF%85%CF%81%CE%AC%CE%BD%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%B9%CF%82}}, a self-<wbr>made king. I did once come across a Greek term for the absence of government, but unfortunately forgot it, {{l\|''Akephalous''\|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%AD%CF%86%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82}} (without<!-- 'with' in original --> head) is about as near as one can get.
		+
		+	{{tab}}Incidentally a stateless but also totalitarian society, besides being a contradiction in terms is not a {{w\|Marxist\|Marxism}} ideal, any more than it is anarchist. {{w\|Marx\|Karl_Marx}} believed that to reach the stateless society one had first to pass through the totalitarian, but nowhere did he, or even {{w\|Lenin\|Vladimir_Lenin}}, suggest that the two might co-<wbr>exist.
		+
		+	{{tab}}There are several dozen other inaccuracies or errors of logic in Ellingham{{s}} article, but I believe this is a fair cross-<wbr>section and is adequate to demolish his argument.
		+
		+	{{sig\|{{w\|Oxon.\|Oxford}}\|{{sc\|[[Author:Laurens Otter\|laurens otter]]}}}}

	{{tab}}		{{tab}}

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	{{sig\|{{w\|London}}\|{{sc\|[[Author:Jeff Robinson\|jeff robinson]]}}{{tab}}}}		{{sig\|{{w\|London}}\|{{sc\|[[Author:Jeff Robinson\|jeff robinson]]}}{{tab}}}}
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		+	{{p\|s4}}{{sc\|I have just got round to reading}} [[Author:Francis Ellingham\|Francis Ellingham]] in [[Anarchy 63\|{{sc\|anarchy}} 63]]. How a writer of his ability can really believe such crazy nonsense is incomprehensible. As for {{w\|Aristotle\|Aristotle}}, does it really matter whether or not he considered man to be a social animal? More apt surely is {{w\|Bakunin\|Mikhail_Bakunin}}{{s}} view of man as {{qq\|not an isolated individual but a social being}}. And again, {{qq\|The individual is a product of Society. Without Society, man is nothing. All productive labour is, before all, social labour, production only being possible by the combination of the labour of past and present generations; there has never been any labour which could be called individual labour}}.
		+
		+	{{tab}}The fallacy of spurious individualism is even more obvious today than it would have been to Bakunin. Can we imagine Ellingham{{s}} ''milieu'' operating transcontinental railways, ocean liners or airways; or for that matter, the everyday production of the necessities of life. Why waste time (and space in {{sc\|anarchy}}) on such fantasy? I am aware that F.E. does not approve of technology and automation. I am sure that he would reject the necessity of air travel with scorn. But does he really think the time will come when these things will be no more? If so, his only hope is a tiny community on an unnoticed islet. His theories have no relevance to realities. To quote Bakunin again, {{qq\|The concept of man as an isolated individual is a metaphysical and theological concept}}. Individualists have no part in life today, if indeed they ever had. Their place is with the religious and mystical bodies with which they are related, to put into practice (if they can) the individual salvation they profess.
		+
		+	{{tab}}The true expression of the individual can only be when the conflict of economic interest, embodied in and essential to, the private ownership of the means of producing wealth is ended and common and social ownership with identity of interest substituted. That this necessitates social organisation is undoubted. This does not mean {{qq\|one opinion}} though as F.E. fears. On the contrary, the energies and mind would really be freed and the individual become sovereign as a result of being free economically. This is the way to the true individualism which can be attained by no other means. Nor is there any substance in the totalitarian objection. Governments exist for one purpose and one purpose only, the protection of private property. This is so even when the seemingly benevolent and {{qq\|Welfare State}} legislation in enacted, the necessary brake on the worst excesses of private ownership. With the passing of Authority which would have no place in a free community, there could be no restriction on liberty, Ian Vine notwithstanding. Unsocial acts are the direct result of unsocial conditions. There is no cure for such acts under private ownership, as centuries of legal oppression have proved. Nor would Ellingham{{s}} ideas be more effective (if they could be put into practice) since they have no material basis. Like {{w\|Ingersoll\|Robert_G._Ingersoll}} on the Heavenly Father, the anarchism and ideals of the Individualists are {{w\|the baseless shadow of a wistful human dream}}.
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		+	{{sig\|{{w\|Woldingham\|Woldingham}}\|[[Author:F.B.\|{{sc\|f.b.}}]]}}

@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 {{tab}}This dis&shy;tinc&shy;tion is not only un&shy;real, it is un&shy;im&shy;port&shy;ant, and has the un&shy;fortun&shy;ate con&shy;se&shy;quence of ob&shy;scur&shy;ing the ma&shy;jor dis&shy;tinc&shy;tion that the Indus&shy;trial Re&shy;volu&shy;tion has helped to create. This is not simply the greater size of the so&shy;cial unit (to which Francis Elling&shy;ham re&shy;fers), but the greater ''scale'' of organ&shy;isa&shy;tion. All {{w|pre-<wbr>indus&shy;trial so&shy;ciet&shy;ies|Pre-industrial_society}} had this much in com&shy;mon, they were small-<wbr>scale and dom&shy;in&shy;ated by the na&shy;ture of the rela&shy;tion&shy;ships of their mem&shy;bers. They were human-<wbr>scale com&shy;mun&shy;it&shy;ies. Even the {{w|Roman Empire|Roman_Empire}} was, per&shy;force, a large num&shy;ber of human-<wbr>scale com&shy;mun&shy;it&shy;ies linked by a com&shy;mon rule and legal sys&shy;tem. The reason for this em&shy;phasis on a human-<wbr>scale was simple. In the ab&shy;sence of mech&shy;an&shy;ical trans&shy;port a com&shy;mun&shy;ity was re&shy;stric&shy;ted largely to the cap&shy;a&shy;city of its mem&shy;bers to reach most parts of it with a fair degree of facil&shy;ity on foot. A sec&shy;ond&shy;ary factor was the very large degree of econ&shy;omic self-<wbr>suf&shy;fi&shy;ciency that was prac&shy;tised.
-{{tab}}After the Indus&shy;trial Re&shy;volu&shy;tion the scale on which all oper&shy;a&shy;tions of trade and gov&shy;ern&shy;ment were con&shy;duc&shy;ted grew to enor&shy;mous pro&shy;por&shy;tions. The change was not only quant&shy;it&shy;at&shy;ive, it was qual&shy;it&shy;at&shy;ive too, for these oper&shy;a&shy;tions ceased to be human-<wbr>scale they be&shy;came machine-<wbr>scale. Armed with the new powers of machines and machine meth&shy;ods of organ&shy;isa&shy;tion and ad&shy;min&shy;ist&shy;ra&shy;tion the forces oper&shy;at&shy;ing here no longer do battle against the forces of free&shy;dom with&shy;in the so&shy;cial order, that stage is long past. To&shy;day they are de&shy;term&shy;in&shy;ing the very na&shy;ture of the so&shy;cial order. This is why, de&shy;spite the spread of ballot-<wbr>box-<bwr>monger&shy;ing, there is less free&shy;dom in our so&shy;ci&shy;eties today than there was 100, or even 200, years ago.
+{{tab}}After the Indus&shy;trial Re&shy;volu&shy;tion the scale on which all oper&shy;a&shy;tions of trade and gov&shy;ern&shy;ment were con&shy;duc&shy;ted grew to enor&shy;mous pro&shy;por&shy;tions. The change was not only quant&shy;it&shy;at&shy;ive, it was qual&shy;it&shy;at&shy;ive too, for these oper&shy;a&shy;tions ceased to be human-<wbr>scale they be&shy;came machine-<wbr>scale. Armed with the new powers of machines and machine meth&shy;ods of organ&shy;isa&shy;tion and ad&shy;min&shy;ist&shy;ra&shy;tion the forces oper&shy;at&shy;ing here no longer do battle against the forces of free&shy;dom with&shy;in the so&shy;cial order, that stage is long past. To&shy;day they are de&shy;term&shy;in&shy;ing the very na&shy;ture of the so&shy;cial order. This is why, de&shy;spite the spread of ballot-<wbr>box-<wbr>monger&shy;ing, there is less free&shy;dom in our so&shy;ci&shy;eties today than there was 100, or even 200, years ago.
 {{tab}}This is the ma&shy;jor con&shy;se&shy;quence of the growth of machine-<wbr>scale so&shy;ci&shy;eties and it seems clear that even if these so&shy;ci&shy;eties do not suc&shy;ceed in de&shy;stroy&shy;ing us al&shy;to&shy;gether with the new ways of war that they have pro&shy;duced, they will achieve an even more dis&shy;ast&shy;rous di&shy;min&shy;u&shy;tion of free&shy;dom over the next 100 years.
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 [[Category:Anarchist philosophy]]
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 {{DEFAULTSORT:Observations on anarchy 063}}
 [[Category:Anarchist philosophy]]
 [[Category:Sociology]]
 [[Category:Utopianism]]
 [[Category:Letters to the editor]]