Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin

But the monopoly of industrial production could not remain with England for ever.

The incredible riches which now astonish the foreigner in the private houses of England were accumulated during that period; the exceedingly expensive standard of life which makes a person considered rich on the Continent appear as only of…

But the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the privileged classes was going on at a speed never dreamed of before.

The terrible wars between France and England, which wars are often explained by merely political causes, had a much deeper meaning--an economical meaning.

The armies of the great Republic had struck a mortal blow to serfdom on the Continent; but with the return of reaction efforts were made to revive the decaying institution, and serfdom meant no industry worth speaking of.

At what cost has it been obtained, and how long will it last?

Grand it may be, but is it not a mere nightmare?

Is it not a grand sight, this busy and intricate exchange of produce all over the earth which has suddenly grown up within a few years?

All races of men contribute their share in supplying us with our staple food and luxuries, with plain clothing and fancy dress, while we are sending them in exchange the produce of our higher intelligence, our technical knowledge, our…

Each nation--her own agriculturist and manufacturer; each individual working in the field and in some industrial art; each individual combining scientific knowledge with the knowledge of a handicraft--such is, we affirm, the present…

A reorganised society will have to abandon the fallacy of nations specialised for the production of either agricultural or manufactured produce.

But we maintain also that any socialist attempt at remodelling the present relations between Capital and Labour will be a failure, if it does not take into account the above tendencies towards integration.

And each crisis accelerates the day when the present institutions of individual property and production will be shaken to their foundations with such internal struggles as will depend upon the more or less good sense of the now privileged…

Moreover, the workers plainly manifest their intention to support no longer patiently the misery occasioned by each crisis.

The industrial crises, which grow more acute and protracted, and are rendered still worse and still more acute by the armaments and wars implied by the present system, are rendering its maintenance more and more difficult.

But the present industrial system, based upon a permanent specialisation of functions, already bears in itself the germs of its proper ruin.

Of course, as long as society remains organised so as to permit the owners of the land and capital to appropriate for themselves, under the protection of the State and historical rights, the yearly surplus of human production, no such…

We proclaim integration; and we maintain that the ideal of society--that is, the state towards which society is already marching--is a society of integrated, combined labour.

When we thus revert from the scholastics of our text-books, and examine human life as a whole, we soon discover that, while all the benefits of a temporary division of labour must be maintained, it is high time to claim those of the…

So also do the industries; and the present tendency of humanity is to have the greatest possible variety of industries gathered in each country, in each separate region, side by side with agriculture.

In proportion as technical knowledge becomes everybody’s virtual domain, in proportion as it becomes international, and can be concealed no longer, each nation acquires the possibility of applying the whole variety of her energies to the…

Both are inseparable; and the combination, the integration of both brings about the grandest results.

Agriculture calls manufactures into existence, and manufactures support agriculture.

Variety is the distinctive feature, both of the territory and its inhabitants; and that variety implies a variety of occupations.

Each nation is a compound aggregate of tastes and inclinations, of wants and resources, of capacities and inventive powers.