It will be said in reply, “But if a primitive agricultural society, like the Russian, can live without government, what are those millions to do, who have given up agriculture and are living an industrial life in towns?  We cannot all cultivate the land.”

“The only thing every man can be, is an agriculturist,” is the correct reply given by Henry George to this question.

“But if everybody now returned to an agricultural life,” it will again be said, “the civilization mankind has attained would be destroyed, and that would be a terrible misfortune.  Therefore, a return to agriculture would be an evil and not a benefit for mankind.”

A certain method exists whereby men justify their fallacies.  People, accepting the fallacy into which they have fallen as an unquestionable axiom, unite this fallacy and all its effects into one conception, call it by one word, and then ascribe to this conception and word a special, indefinite and mystical meaning.  Such conceptions and words are the Church, Science, Justice, the State, and Civilization.  Thus, the Church becomes not what it really is, a number of men who have all fallen into the same error, but a “communion of those who believe rightly.”  Justice becomes, not a collection of unjust laws framed by certain men, but the designation of those rightful conditions under which alone it is possible for men to live.  Science becomes not what it really is, the chance dissertations that at a given time occupy the minds of idle men, but the only true knowledge.  In the same way Civilization becomes not what it really is, the outcome of the activity (falsely and harmfully misdirected by force-using governments) of the Western nations, who have succumbed to the false idea of freeing themselves from violence by violence, but the unquestionably true way towards the future welfare of humanity. 

“Even if it were true,” say the supporters of civilization, “that all these inventions, technical appliances, and products of industry are now only used by the rich and are inaccessible to working men, and cannot therefore as yet be considered a benefit to all mankind, this is so only because these mechanical appliances have not yet attained their full perfection and are not yet distributed as they should be.  When automation is still further perfected, the workmen are freed from the power of the capitalists, and all the works and factories are in their hands, the machines will produce so much of everything and it will all be so well distributed that everybody will have the use of everything.  No one will lack anything, and all will be happy.”

They do not mention the fact that we have no reason to believe that the working men, who now struggle so fiercely with one another for existence, or even for more of the comforts, pleasures, and luxuries of existence, will suddenly become so just and self-denying that they will be content to equally share the benefits the machines are going to give them.  Leaving that aside, the very supposition that all these works with their machines, which could not have been started or continued except under the power of government and capital, will remain as they are when the power of government and capital have been destroyed is quite an arbitrary supposition.

To expect this is the same as it would have been to expect that, after the emancipation of the serfs on one of the large, luxurious Russian estates, which had a park, conservatories, arbors, a private theatrical troupe, an orchestra, a picture gallery, stables, kennels and store-houses filled with different kinds of garments, all these things would be in part distributed among the liberated peasants and in part kept for common use.  One would think it was evident that, on an estate of that kind, neither the houses, clothes, nor conservatories of the rich proprietor would be suitable for the liberated peasants, and that they would not continue to keep them up.  In the same way, when the working people are emancipated from the power of government and capital, they will not continue to maintain the arrangements that have arisen under these powers, and will not go to work in factories and works which could only have come into existence owing to their enslavement, even if such factories could be profitable and pleasant for them.

It is true that, when the workers are emancipated from slavery, one will regret all this cunning machinery which weaves so much beautiful stuff so quickly, and makes such nice sweets, looking-glasses, and the like.  But, in the same way, after the emancipation of the serfs, one regretted the beautiful racehorses, pictures, magnolias, musical instruments and private theatres that disappeared.  Just as the liberated serfs bred animals suited to their way of life and raised the plants they required, and the racehorses and magnolias disappeared by themselves, so also the workmen, freed from the power of government and capital, will direct their labor to quite other work than at present.

“But it is much more profitable to bake all the bread in one oven than for everybody to heat his own, and to weave twenty times as quickly at a factory than on a handloom at home,” say the supporters of civilization, speaking as if men were dumb cattle for whom food, clothing, dwellings, and more or less labor were the only questions to solve.

An Australian savage knows very well that it would be more profitable to build one hut for himself and his wife, yet he erects two, so that both he and his wife may enjoy privacy.  The Russian peasant knows very decidedly that it is more profitable for him to live in one house with his father and brothers, yet he separates from them, builds his own cottage, and prefers to bear privations rather than obey his elders, or quarrel and have disagreement.  “Better but a pot of broth, and to be one’s own master.”  I think the majority of reasonable people will prefer to clean their own clothes and boots, carry their own water, and trim their own lamps than go to a factory and do obligatory labor for one hour a day to produce machines that would do all these things.

When coercion is no longer used, nothing of all these fine machines that polish boots and clean plates, nor even of those that bore tunnels and forge steel, will probably remain.  The liberated workmen will inevitably let everything that was founded on their enslavement perish, and will inevitably begin to construct quite other machines and appliances, with other aims, of other dimensions, and very differently distributed.  This is so plain and obvious that men could not help seeing it if they were not under the influence of the superstition of civilization,

It is this widespread and firmly fixed superstition that causes all indications of the falseness of the path the Western nations are travelling, and all attempts to bring the erring peoples back to a free and reasonable life, to be rejected, and even to be regarded as a kind of blasphemy or madness.  There is a blind belief that the life we have arranged for ourselves is the best possible life, and it is held by the chief agents of civilization – its government officials, scientists, artists, merchants, manufacturers, and authors – while making the workers support their idle lives.  It causes these agents to overlook their own sins and to feel perfectly sure that their activity is, not an immoral and harmful activity (as it really is), but a very useful and important one, and that they are, therefore, very important people and of great use to humanity.  And this belief leads them to think that all the stupid, trifling, and nasty things produced under their direction – cannons, fortresses, cinematographs, cathedrals, motors, explosive bombs, phonographs, telegraphs, and steam powered printing machines that turn out mountains of paper printed with nastiness, lies and absurdities – will remain just the same when the workers are free, and will always be a great boon to humanity.

Yet to people free from the superstition of civilization, it is perfectly obvious that all those conditions of life, which among the Western nations are now called “civilization,” are nothing but monstrous results of the vanity of the upper, governing classes.  Such were the productions of the Egyptian, Babylonian and Roman despots: the pyramids, temples and seraglios.  And such were the productions of the Russian serf-owners, which the slaves arranged for their lords: palaces, orchestras, private theatrical troupes, artificial lakes, lace, hunting packs, and parks.

It is said that, if men cease to obey governments and return to an agricultural life, all the industrial progress they have attained will be lost, and that, therefore, to give up obeying government and to return to an agricultural life would be a bad thing.  But there is no reason to suppose that a return to agricultural life, free from government, would destroy such industries and achievements as are really useful to mankind, and which do not require the enslavement of men.  And if it stopped the production of that endless number of unnecessary, stupid, and harmful things on which a considerable portion of humanity is now employed, and rendered impossible the existence of the idle people who invent all the unnecessary and harmful things by which they justify their immoral lives, that does not mean that all that mankind has worked out for its welfare would be destroyed.  On the contrary, the destruction of everything that is kept up by coercion would evoke and promote an intensified production of all those useful and necessary technical improvements which, without turning men into machines and spoiling their lives, may ease the labor of the agriculturists and render their lives more pleasant.

The difference will only be that, when men are liberated from power and return to agricultural labor, the objects produced by art and industry will no longer aim at amusing the rich, satisfying idle curiosity, preparing for human slaughter, preserving useless and harmful lives at the cost of useful ones, or producing machines by which a small number of workmen can somehow produce a great number of things or cultivate a large tract of land.  Instead, they will aim at increasing the productivity of those laborers who cultivate their own allotments with their own hands, and help to better their lives without taking them away from the land or interfering with their freedom.