The Father of Anarchism on capitalism

[zasterguava]

2 hypothetical situations from the father of anarchism, Bakunin:

"Suppose that I, a manufacturer, need a hundred workers and that exactly a hundred
workers present themselves in the market - only one hundred, for if more came, the supply would
exceed demand, resulting in lowered wages. But since only one hundred appear, and since I, the
manufacturer, need only that number - neither more nor less - it would seem at first that complete
equality was established; that supply and demand being equal in number, they should likewise be
equal in other respects. Does it follow that the workers can demand from me a wage and conditions
of work assuring them of a truly free, dignified, and human existence? Not at all! If I grant them
those conditions and those wages, I, the capitalist, shall not gain thereby any more than they will.
But then, why should I have to plague myself and become ruined by offering them the profits of my
capital? If I want to work myself as workers do, I will invest my capital somewhere else, wherever I
can get the highest interest, and will offer my labor for sale to some capitalist just as my workers
do.

If, profiting by the powerful initiative afforded me by my capital, I ask those hundred workers to
fertilize that capital with their labor, it is not because of my sympathy for their sufferings, nor
because of a spirit of justice, nor because of love for humanity. The capitalists are by no means
philanthropists; they would be ruined if they practiced philanthropy. It is because I hope to draw
from the labor of the workers sufficient profit to be able to live comfortably, even richly, while at
the same time increasing my capital - and all that without having to work myself. Of course I shall
work too, but my work will be of an altogether different kind and I will be remunerated at a much
higher rate than the workers. It will not be the work of production but that of administration and
exploitation... I know full well that under these conditions that if I were a capitalist, who needs a hundred workers to fertilize my capital, that on employing these workers, all the advantages are for me, all the disadvantages for them."

and,

"If I offer my labor at the lowest price, if I consent to have you live off my labor, it is certainly not because of devotion or brotherly love for you. And no bourgeois economist would dare to say that it was, however idyllic and naive their reasoning becomes when they begin to speak about reciprocal affections and mutual relations which should exist between employers and employees. No, I do it because my family and I would starve to death if I did not work for an employer. Thus I am forced to sell you my labor at the lowest possible price, and I am forced to do it by the threat of hunger."


Here are two quotations cited by Bakunin from economists perspectives:

"The simple worker who owns nothing more than his hands, has nothing else to sell than his
labor. He sells it more or less expensively; but its price whether high or low, does not depend on
him alone: it depends on an agreement with whoever will pay for his labor. The employer pays as
little as possible; when given the choice between a great number of workers, the employer prefers
the one who works cheap. The workers are, then, forced to lower their price in competition each
against the other. In all types of labor, it necessarily follows that the salary of the worker is limited
to what is necessary for survival." (Turgot)

"Wages are much higher when more demand exists for labor and less if offered, and are lowered accordingly when more labor is offered and less demanded. It is the relation between supply and demand which regulates the price of this merchandise called the workers' labor, as are regulated all other public services. When wages rise a little higher than the price necessary for the workers' families to maintain themselves, their children multiply and a larger supply soon develops in proportion with the greater demand. When, on the contrary, the demand for workers is less than the quantity of people offering to work, their gains decline back to the price necessary for the class to maintain itself at the same number. The families more burdened with children disappear; from them forward the supply of
labor declines, and with less labor being offered, the price rises... In such a way it is difficult for the
wages of the laborer to rise above or fall below the price necessary to maintain the class (the
workers, the proletariat) in the number required." (J.B. Say)


And a rebuttal to a tired argument:

"But the capitalist, the business owner, runs risks, they say, while the worker risks nothing. This
is not true, because when seen from his side, all the disadvantages are on the part of the worker. The
business owner can conduct his affairs poorly, he can be wiped out in a bad deal, or be a victim of a
commercial crisis, or by an unforeseen catastrophe; in a word he can ruin himself. This is true. But
does ruin mean from the bourgeois point of view to be reduced to the same level of misery as those
who die of hunger, or to be forced among the ranks of the common laborers? This so rarely
happens, that we might as well say never. Afterwards it is rare that the capitalist does not retain
something, despite the appearance of ruin. Nowadays all bankruptcies are more or less fraudulent.
But if absolutely nothing is saved, there are always family ties, and social relations, who, with help
from the business skills learned which they pass to their children, permit them to get positions for
themselves and their children in the higher ranks of labor, in management; to be a state functionary,
to be an executive in a commercial or industrial business, to end up, although dependent, with an
income superior to what they paid their former workers.
The risks of the worker are infinitely greater. After all, if the establishment in which he is
employed goes bankrupt, he must go several days and sometimes several weeks without work, and
for him it is more than ruin, it is death; because he eats everyday what he earns... If it happens sometimes that the worker makes a small savings, it is quickly consumed by the
inevitable periods of unemployment which often cruelly interrupt his work, as well as by the
unforeseen accidents and illnesses which befall his family. The accidents and illnesses that can
overtake him constitute a risk that makes all the risks of the employer nothing in comparison:
because for the worker debilitating illness can destroy his productive ability, his labor power. Over
all, prolonged illness is the most terrible bankruptcy, a bankruptcy that means for him and his
children, hunger and death."

On the inequality between worker and employer:

"What is it that brings the capitalist to the market? It is the urge to get rich, to increase his capital, to gratify his ambitions and social vanities, to be able to indulge in all conceivable pleasures. And what brings the worker to the market? Hunger, the necessity of eating today and tomorrow. Thus, while being equal from the point of juridical fiction, the capitalist and the worker are anything but equal from the point of view of the economic situation, which is the real situation. The capitalist is not threatened with hunger when he comes to the market; he knows very well that if he does not find today the workers for whom he is looking, he will still have enough to eat for quite a long time, owing to the capital of which he is the happy possessor. If the workers whom he meets in the market present demands which seem excessive to him, because, far from enabling him to increase his wealth and improve even more his economic position, those proposals and conditions might, I do not say equalize, but bring the economic
position of the workers somewhat close to his own - what does he do in that case? He turns down
those proposals and waits. After all, he was not impelled by an urgent necessity, but by a desire to
improve his position, which, compared to that of the workers, is already quite comfortable, and so
he can wait. And he will wait, for his business experience has taught him that the resistance of
workers who, possessing neither capital, nor comfort, nor any savings to speak of, are pressed by a
relentless necessity, by hunger, that this resistance cannot last very long, and that finally he will be
able to find the hundred workers for whom he is looking - for they will be forced to accept the
conditions which he finds it profitable to impose upon them. If they refuse, others will come who
will be only too happy to accept such conditions."

On the fallacy of voluntary associations between employer and worker:

"The worker always has the right to leave his employer, but has he the means to do so? And if he does quit him, is it in order to lead a free existence, in which he will have no master but himself? No, he does it in order to sell himself to another employer. He is driven to it by the same hunger which forced him to sell himself to the first employer. Thus the worker's liberty, so much exalted by the economists,
jurists, and bourgeois republicans, is only a theoretical freedom, lacking any means for its possible
realization, and consequently it is only a fictitious liberty, an utter falsehood. The truth is that the
whole life of the worker is simply a continuous and dismaying succession of terms of serfdom
-voluntary from the juridical point of view but compulsory in the economic sense - broken up by
momentarily brief interludes of freedom accompanied by starvation; in other words, it is real
slavery... But, one may say, in that case the worker can quit. Easier said than done. At times the worker
receives part of his wages in advance, or his wife or children may be sick, or perhaps his work is
poorly paid throughout this particular industry. Other employers may be paying even less than his
own employer, and after quitting this job he may not even be able to find another one. And to
remain without a job spells death for him and his family. In addition, there is an understanding
among all employers, and all of them resemble one another. All are almost equally irritating, unjust,
and harsh. Is this calumny? No, it is in the nature of things, and in the logical necessity of the relationship existing between the employers and their workers"

This is merely a footnote regarding the overwhelming anti-capitalist thought of anarchists throughout history. You will find similar, excellently written, attacks on capitalism by the other most respected anarchists such as Kropotkin, Proudhon, Goldman etc. I don't suppose many 2+2'ers here are aware but there are also some revisionist anarchists whom propose a stateless society with capitalism [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]But for arguments sake I figured it best to stick to the grain.