Tens of thousands of acres of forest-lands belonging to one proprietor, while thousands of people close by have no fuel, need protection by violence.So, too, do factories and works where several generations of workmen have been defrauded, are still being defrauded.Yet more do hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain, belonging to one owner, who has held them back till a famine has come, to sell them at triple price.But no mail, however depraved, except a rich man or a government official, would take from a countryman living by his own labour the harvest he has raised or the cow he has bred, and from which he gets milk for his children, or the sokha's,*** the scythes, and the spades he has made and uses.If even a man were found who did take from another articles the latter had made and required, such a man would rouse against himself such indignation from every one living in similar circumstances that he would hardly find his action profitable for himself.A man so unmoral as to do it under such circumstances would be sure to do it under the strictest system of property defence by violence.It is generally said, "Only attempt to abolish the rights of property in land and in the produce of labour, and no one will take the trouble to work, lacking the assurance that he will not be deprived of what he has produced."We should say just the opposite: the defence by violence of the rights of property immorally obtained, which is now customary, if it has not quite destroyed, has considerably weakened people's natural consciousness of justice in the matter of using articles-that is, the natural and innate right of property-without which humanity could not exist, and which has always existed and still exists among all men.
And, therefore, there is no reason to anticipate that people will not be able to arrange their lives without organised violence.
Of course, it may be said that horses and bulls must be guided by the violence of rational beings-men; but why must men be guided, not by some higher beings, but by people such as themselves? Why ought people to be subject to the violence of just those people who are in power at a given time? What proves that these people are wiser than those on whom they inflict violence?
The fact that they allow themselves to use violence toward human beings indicates that they are not only not more wise, but are less wise than those who submit to them.The examinations in China for the office of mandarin do not, we know, ensure that the wisest and best people should be placed in power.
And just as little is this ensured by inheritance, or the whole machinery of promotions in rank, or the elections in constitutional countries.On the contrary, power is always seized by those who are less conscientious and less moral.
It is said, "How can people live without governments - that is, without violence?" But it should, on the contrary, be asked, "How can people who are rational live, acknowledgmg that the vital bond of their social life is violence, and not reasonable agreement?"One of two things-either people are rational or irrational beings.
If they are irrational beings, then they are all irrational, and then everything among them is decided by violence; and there is no reason why certain people should and others should not have a right to use violence.And in that case governmental violence has no justification.But if men are rational beings, then their relations should be based on reason, and not on the violence of those who happen to have seized power; and, therefore, in that case, again, governmental violence has no justification.* The artel in its most usual form is an association of workmen, or employees, for each of whom the artel is collectively responsible.-Translator **Serfdom was legalised about 1597 by Boris Godunoff, who forbade the peasants to leave the land on which they were settled.The peasants' theory of the matter was that they belonged to the proprietor, but the land belonged to them."We are yours, but the land is ours," was a common saying among them till their emancipation under Alexander II., when many of them felt themselves defrauded by the arrangement which gave half the land to the proprietors.-Trans.
*** The sokha is a light plough, such as the Russian peasants make and use.-Trans.
The Slavery of Our Times -- Ch 14 -- Leo TolstoyFrom The Slavery of Our Times by Leo Tolstoy
