The Conquest of Bread: The Founding Book of Anarchism

by Pyotr Kropotkin

“the emancipation of the working-men must be accomplished by the working-men themselves.”

labour unions themselves would have to get hold of the instruments of production, and organize production themselves.

that now the child of the civilized man finds ready, at its birth, to his hand an immense capital accumulated by those who have gone before him.

Climate is no longer an obstacle. When the sun fails, man replaces it by artificial heat; and we see the coming of a time when artificial light also will be used to stimulate vegetation.

It is because, having reduced the masses to a point at which they have not the means of subsistence for a month, or even for a week in advance, the few only allow the many to work on condition of themselves receiving the lion’s share.

By what right then can any one whatever appropriate the least morsel of this immense whole and say — This is mine, not yours?

And if the children of those who perished by thousands while excavating the railway cuttings and tunnels were to assemble one day, crowding in their rags and hunger, to demand bread from the shareholders, they would be met with bayonets and grape-shot, to disperse them and safeguard “vested interests.”

Everything has become private property, and he must accept, or die of hunger.

The working people cannot purchase with their wages the wealth which they have produced,

Fine sermons have been preached on the text that those who have should share with those who have not, but he who would act out this principle is speedily informed that these beautiful sentiments are all very well in poetry, but not in practice.

All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one’s part in the production of the world’s wealth.

No more of such vague formulas as “The Right to work,” or “To each the whole result of his labour.” What we proclaim is the right to well-being; well-being for all!

Well-being for all is not a dream.

Cheat the peasant no longer with scraps of paper

No, the danger which will menace it lies in timidity, prejudice, and half-measures.

“Dare, dare, and yet again, dare!” The bold thought first, and the bold deed will not fail to follow.

Who, then, can appropriate to himself the tiniest plot of ground, or the meanest building, without committing a flagrant injustice?

But, however tumble-down and squalid your dwelling may be, there is always a landlord who can evict you.

that to be housed rent-free is a right proclaimed aloud by the people

It is not the people’s way to clamour for the moon.

Only let us fully understand that a revolution, intoxicated with the beautiful words Liberty, Equality, Solidarity would not be a revolution if it maintained slavery at home.

I have been reading this in a physical copy and would have highlighted so much more in this chapter.

By admitting: that the only guarantee not to be robbed of the fruits of your labour is to possess the instruments of labour — which is true — the economists only prove that man really produces most when he works in freedom,

This is all we can deduct from their argumentation, and we maintain the same ourselves.

Lol

And in every case we could show the unquestionable superiority of communal work compared to that of the wage-earner or the isolated private owner.

Because, to do manual work now, means in reality to shut yourself up for ten or twelve hours a day in an unhealthy workshop, and to remain riveted to the same task for twenty or thirty years, and maybe for your whole life.

So when we speak of a possible idleness, we must well understand that it is a question of a small minority in society;

People already work so hard for so little

Whoever observes with an intelligent eye sees well enough that the child reputed lazy at school is often the one which does not understand what he is badly taught.

Yup

A boy who is lazy at Greek or Latin would work admirably were he taught in science, especially if taught by the medium of manual labour. A girl reputed nought at mathematics becomes the first mathematician of her class if she by chance meets somebody who can explain to her the elements of arithmetic she did not understand. And a workman, lazy in the workshop, cultivates his garden at dawn, while gazing at the rising sun, and will be at work again at nightfall, when all nature goes to its rest.

This is beautiful.

They are people gone astray in a direction that does not answer to their temperament nor to their capacities.

Wow

They say laziness or crime, without giving themselves the trouble to analyse their cause.

Again Wow

Engineers, scientists, and doctors merely exploit their capital — their diplomas — as middle-class employers exploit a factory, or as nobles used to exploit their titles of nobility.