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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The place of the individual in society
+    
+This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
+at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
+you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
+before using this eBook.
+
+Title: The place of the individual in society
+
+
+Author: Emma Goldman
+
+Release date: August 16, 2023 [eBook #71418]
+
+Language: English
+
+Original publication: Chicago: Free Society Forum, 1940
+
+Credits: Fritz Ohrenschall, Louise Pattison and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLACE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                 _The_
+        PLACE OF THE INDIVIDUAL
+               IN SOCIETY
+
+    [Illustration: Author Photograph]
+
+            By EMMA GOLDMAN
+
+
+
+
+“NATIONALISM AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE”
+
+_By_ RUDOLF ROCKER
+
+
+This profound work will revolutionize the intellectual world of thought
+by showing that the heretofore accepted notions as to the underlying
+causes of Social Phenomena are only partially true and therefore,
+inadequate to explain how social changes are affected.
+
+Many great thinkers have sought to formulate a “Philosophy of History”
+which would enable us to analyze and explain, as well as predict social
+and historical events. Buckle, Hegel, Marx and Spengler are just a few
+among the great thinkers who have contributed to this great task, but
+Rocker with his profound understanding and in his illuminating style
+shows why the “Hegelian Dialectics”, “Marx’s Economic Determinism” and
+“The Spenglerian Philosophy of Destiny” have failed.
+
+In this veritable encyclopedia of knowledge, we see before us, in a
+living procession, the great cultures of all ages. The thoughts and
+ideals of the Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans become
+accessible to us with the same clarity and understanding as the thoughts
+and ideals of our contemporaries. No intelligent person regardless of
+his school of thought, can afford to miss reading this great work.
+
+“Nationalism and Its Relation to Culture” will be published in two
+volumes and sold at $7.50 for both volumes. We offer You this great work
+at a price of $5.00, if you SUBSCRIBE IN ADVANCE.
+
+This monumental work will soon be off the press. We urge you to send
+your subscriptions now--in advance. By so doing, you will help our
+committee complete the work and you will save $2.50.
+
+SUBSCRIBE TODAY.
+
+Subscriptions can be mailed to the following committees:
+
+    ADELAIDE SCHULKIND
+    104 Fifth Avenue
+    New York, New York
+
+    B. YELENSKY
+    3332 Potomac Ave.
+    Chicago, Illinois
+
+    C. V. COOK
+    1038 S. Alvarado St.
+    Los Angeles, Calif.
+
+
+
+
+THE INDIVIDUAL, SOCIETY AND THE STATE
+
+By
+
+EMMA GOLDMAN
+
+
+The minds of men are in confusion, for the very foundations of our
+civilization seem to be tottering. People are losing faith in the
+existing institutions, and the more intelligent realize that capitalist
+industrialism is defeating the very purpose it is supposed to serve.
+
+The world is at a loss for a way out. Parliamentarism and democracy are
+on the decline. Salvation is being sought in Fascism and other forms of
+“strong” government.
+
+The struggle of opposing ideas now going on in the world involves social
+problems urgently demanding a solution. The welfare of the individual
+and the fate of human society depend on the right answer to those
+questions. The crisis, unemployment, war, disarmament, international
+relations, etc., are among those problems.
+
+The State, government with its functions and powers, is now the subject
+of vital interest to every thinking man. Political developments in all
+civilized countries have brought the questions home. Shall we have a
+strong government? Are democracy and parliamentary government to be
+preferred, or is Fascism of one kind or another,
+dictatorship--monarchical, bourgeois or proletarian--the solution of the
+ills and difficulties that beset society today?
+
+In other words, shall we cure the evils of democracy by more democracy,
+or shall we cut the Gordian knot of popular government with the sword of
+dictatorship?
+
+My answer is neither the one nor the other. I am against dictatorship
+and Fascism as I am opposed to parliamentary regimes and so-called
+political democracy.
+
+Nazism has been justly called an attack on civilization. This
+characterization applies with equal force to every form of dictatorship;
+indeed, to every kind of suppression and coercive authority. For what is
+civilization in the true sense? All progress has been essentially an
+enlargement of the liberties of the individual with a corresponding
+decrease of the authority wielded over him by external forces. This
+holds good in the realm of physical as well as of political and economic
+existence. In the physical world man has progressed to the extent in
+which he has subdued the forces of nature and made them useful to
+himself. Primitive man made a step on the road to progress when he first
+produced fire and thus triumphed over darkness, when he chained the wind
+or harnessed water.
+
+What role did authority or government play in human endeavor for
+betterment, in invention and discovery? None whatever, or at least none
+that was helpful. It has always been the =individual= that has
+accomplished every miracle in that sphere, usually in spite of the
+prohibition, persecution and interference by authority, human and
+divine.
+
+Similarly, in the political sphere, the road of progress lay in getting
+away more and more from the authority of the tribal chief or of the
+clan, of prince and king, of government, of the State. Economically,
+progress has meant greater well-being of ever larger numbers.
+Culturally, it has signified the result of all the other
+achievements--greater independence, political, mental and psychic.
+
+Regarded from this angle, the problems of man’s relation to the State
+assumes an entirely different significance. It is no more a question of
+whether dictatorship is preferable to democracy, or Italian Fascism
+superior to Hitlerism. A larger and far more vital question poses
+itself: Is political government, is the State beneficial to mankind, and
+how does it affect the individual in the social scheme of things?
+
+The individual is the true reality in life. A cosmos in himself, he does
+not exist for the State, nor for that abstraction called “society,” or
+the “nation,” which is only a collection of individuals. Man, the
+individual, has always been and, necessarily is the sole source and
+motive power of evolution and progress. Civilization has been a
+continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals
+against the State and even against “society,” that is, against the
+majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship. Man’s
+greatest battles have been waged against man-made obstacles and
+artificial handicaps imposed upon him to paralyze his growth and
+development. Human thought has always been falsified by tradition and
+custom, and perverted false education in the interests of those who held
+power and enjoyed privileges. In other words, by the State and the
+ruling classes. This constant incessant conflict has been the history of
+mankind.
+
+Individuality may be described as the consciousness of the individual as
+to what he is and how he lives. It is inherent in every human being and
+is a thing of growth. The State and social institutions come and go, but
+individuality remains and persists. The very essence of individuality is
+expression; the sense of dignity and independence is the soil wherein it
+thrives. Individuality is not the impersonal and mechanistic thing that
+the State treats as an “individual”. The individual is not merely the
+result of heredity and environment, of cause and effect. He is that and
+a great deal more, a great deal else. The living man cannot be defined;
+he is the fountain-head of all life and all values; he is not a part of
+this or of that; he is a whole, an individual whole, a growing,
+changing, yet always constant whole.
+
+Individuality is not to be confused with the various ideas and concepts
+of Individualism; much less with that “rugged individualism” which is
+only a masked attempt to repress and defeat the individual and his
+individuality. So-called Individualism is the social and economic
+=laissez faire=: the exploitation of the masses by the classes by means of
+legal trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic indoctrination of
+the servile spirit, which process is known as “education.” That corrupt
+and perverse “individualism” is the strait-jacket of individuality. It
+has converted life into a degrading race for externals, for possession,
+for social prestige and supremacy. Its highest wisdom is “the devil take
+the hindmost.”
+
+This “rugged individualism” has inevitably resulted in the greatest
+modern slavery, the crassest class distinctions, driving millions to the
+breadline. “Rugged individualism” has meant all the “individualism” for
+the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve
+a handful of self-seeking “supermen.” America is perhaps the best
+representative of this kind of individualism, in whose name political
+tyranny and social oppression are defended and held up as virtues; while
+every aspiration and attempt of man to gain freedom and social
+opportunity to live is denounced as “un-American” and evil in the name
+of that same individualism.
+
+There was a time when the State was unknown. In his natural condition
+man existed without any State or organized government. People lived as
+families in small communities; They tilled the soil and practiced the
+arts and crafts. The individual, and later the family, was the unit of
+social life where each was free and the equal of his neighbor. Human
+society then was not a State but an =association=; a =voluntary=
+association for mutual protection and benefit. The elders and more
+experienced members were the guides and advisers of the people. They
+helped to manage the affairs of life, not to rule and dominate the
+individual.
+
+Political government and the State were a much later development,
+growing out of the desire of the stronger to take advantage of the
+weaker, of the few against the many. The State, ecclesiastical and
+secular, served to give an appearance of legality and right to the wrong
+done by the few to the many. That =appearance= of right was necessary the
+=easier= to rule the people, because no government can exist without the
+=consent= of the people, consent open, tacit or assumed. Constitutionalism
+and democracy are the modern forms of that alleged consent; the consent
+being inoculated and indoctrinated by what is called “education,” at
+home, in the church, and in every other phase of life.
+
+That consent is the belief in authority, in the necessity for it. At its
+base is the doctrine that man is evil, vicious, and too incompetent to
+know what is good for him. On this all government and oppression is
+built. God and the State exist and are supported by this dogma.
+
+Yet the State is nothing but a =name=. It is an abstraction. Like other
+similar conceptions--nation, race, humanity--it has no organic reality.
+To call the State an organism shows a diseased tendency to make a fetish
+of words.
+
+The State is a term for the legislative and administrative machinery
+whereby certain business of the people is transacted, and badly so.
+There is nothing sacred, holy or mysterious about it. The State has no
+more conscience or moral mission than a commercial company for working a
+coal mine or running a railroad.
+
+The State has no more existence than gods and devils have. They are
+equally the reflex and creation of man, for man, the =individual=, is the
+only reality. The State is but the shadow of man, the shadow of his
+opaqueness of his ignorance and fear.
+
+Life begins and ends with man, the individual. Without him there is no
+race, no humanity, no State. No, not even “society” is possible without
+man. It is the individual who lives, breathes and suffers. His
+development, his advance, has been a continuous struggle against the
+fetishes of his own creation and particularly so against the “State.”
+
+In former days religious authority fashioned political life in the image
+of the Church. The authority of the State, the “rights” of rulers came
+from on high; power, like faith, was divine. Philosophers have written
+thick volumes to prove the sanctity of the State; some have even clad it
+with infallibility and with god-like attributes. Some have talked
+themselves into the insane notion that the State is “superhuman,” the
+supreme reality, “the absolute.”
+
+Enquiry was condemned as blasphemy. Servitude was the highest virtue. By
+such precepts and training certain things came to be regarded as
+self-evident, as sacred of their truth, but because of constant and
+persistent repetition.
+
+All progress has been essentially an unmasking of “divinity” and
+“mystery,” of alleged sacred, eternal “truth”; it has been a gradual
+elimination of the abstract and the substitution in its place of the
+real, the concrete. In short, of facts against fancy, of knowledge
+against ignorance, of light against darkness.
+
+That slow and arduous liberation of the individual was not accomplished
+by the aid of the State. On the contrary, it was by continuous conflict,
+by a life-and-death struggle with the State, that even the smallest
+vestige of independence and freedom has been won. It has cost mankind
+much time and blood to secure what little it has gained so far from
+kings, tsars and governments.
+
+The great heroic figure of that long Golgotha has been Man. It has
+=always= been the individual, often alone and singly, at other times in
+unity and co-operation with others of his kind, who has fought and bled
+in the age-long battle against suppression and oppression, against the
+powers that enslave and degrade him.
+
+More than that and more significant: It was man, the individual, whose
+soul first rebelled against injustice and degradation; it was the
+individual who first conceived the idea of resistance to the conditions
+under which he chafed. In short, it is always the individual who is the
+parent of the liberating =thought= as well as of the =deed=.
+
+This refers not only to political struggles, but to the entire gamut of
+human life and effort, in all ages and climes. It has always been the
+individual, the man of strong mind and will to liberty, who paved the
+way for every human advance, for every step toward a freer and better
+world; in science, philosophy and art, as well as in industry, whose
+genius rose to the heights, conceiving the “impossible,” visualizing its
+realization and imbuing others with his enthusiasm to work and strive
+for it. Socially speaking, it was always the prophet, the seer, the
+idealist, who dreamed of a world more to his heart’s desire and who
+served as the beacon light on the road to greater achievement.
+
+The State, every government whatever its form, character or color--be it
+absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or
+Bolshevik--is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of
+change and opposed to it. Whatever changes it undergoes are always the
+result of pressure exerted upon it, pressure strong enough to =compel= the
+ruling powers to submit peaceably or otherwise, generally
+“otherwise”--that is, by revolution. Moreover, the inherent conservatism
+of government, of authority of any kind, unavoidably becomes
+reactionary. For two reasons: first, because it is in the nature of
+government not only to retain the power it has, but also to strengthen,
+widen and perpetuate it, nationally as well as internationally. The
+stronger authority grows, the greater the State and its power, the less
+it can tolerate a similar authority or political power along-side of
+itself. The psychology of government demands that its influence and
+prestige constantly grow, at home and abroad, and it exploits every
+opportunity to increase it. This tendency is motivated by the financial
+and commercial interests back of the government, represented and served
+by it. The fundamental =raison d’etre= of every government to which,
+incidentally, historians of former days wilfully shut their eyes, has
+become too obvious now even for professors to ignore.
+
+The other factor which impels governments to become even more
+conservative and reactionary is their inherent distrust of the
+individual and fear of individuality. Our political and social scheme
+cannot afford to tolerate the individual and his constant quest for
+innovation. In “self-defense” the State therefore suppresses,
+persecutes, punishes and even deprives the individual of life. It is
+aided in this by every institution that stands for the preservation of
+the existing order. It resorts to every form of violence and force, and
+its efforts are supported by the “moral indignation” of the majority
+against the heretic, the social dissenter and the political rebel--the
+majority for centuries drilled in State worship, trained in discipline
+and obedience and subdued by the awe of authority in the home, the
+school, the church and the press.
+
+The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence
+from it is the greatest crime. The wholesale mechanisation of modern
+life has increased uniformity a thousandfold. It is everywhere present,
+in habits, tastes, dress, thoughts and ideas. Its most concentrated
+dullness is “public opinion.” Few have the courage to stand out against
+it. He who refuses to submit is at once labelled “queer,” “different”
+and decried as a disturbing element in the comfortable stagnancy of
+modern life.
+
+Perhaps even more than constituted authority, it is social uniformity
+and sameness that harass the individual mast. His very “uniqueness,”
+“separateness” and “differentiation” make him an alien, not only in his
+native place, but even in his own home. Often more so than the foreign
+born who generally falls in with the established.
+
+In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition,
+early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not
+enough to make sensitive human beings feel =at home=. A certain atmosphere
+of “belonging,” the consciousness of being “at one” with the people and
+environment, is more essential to one’s feeling of home. This holds good
+in relation to one’s family, the smaller local circle, as well as the
+larger phase of the life and activities commonly called one’s country.
+The individual whose vision encompasses the whole world often feels
+nowhere so hedged in and out of touch with his surroundings than in his
+native land.
+
+In pre-war time the individual could at least escape national and family
+boredom. The whole world was open to his longings and his quests. Now
+the world has become a prison, and life continual solitary confinement.
+Especially is this true since the advent of dictatorship, right and
+left.
+
+Friedrich Nietzsche called the State a cold monster. What would he have
+called the hideous beast in the garb of modern dictatorship? Not that
+government had ever allowed much scope to the individual; but the
+champions of the new State ideology do not grant even that much. “The
+individual is nothing,” they declare, “it is the collectivity which
+counts.” Nothing less than the complete surrender of the individual will
+satisfy the insatiable appetite of the new deity.
+
+Strangely enough, the loudest advocates of this new gospel are to be
+found among the British and American intelligentsia. Just now they are
+enamored with the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” In theory only, to
+be sure. In practice, they still prefer the few liberties in their own
+respective countries. They go to Russia for a short visit or as salesmen
+of the “revolution,” but they feel safer and more comfortable at home.
+
+Perhaps it is not only lack of courage which keeps these good Britishers
+and Americans in their native lands rather than in the millenium come.
+Subconsciously there may lurk the feeling that individuality remains the
+most fundamental fact of all human association, suppressed and
+persecuted yet never defeated, and in the long run the victor.
+
+The “genius of man,” which is but another name for personality and
+individuality, bores its way through all the caverns of dogma, through
+the thick walls of tradition and custom, defying all taboos, setting
+authority at naught, facing contumely and the scaffold--ultimately to be
+blessed as prophet and martyr by succeeding generations. But for the
+“genius of man,” that inherent, persistent quality of individuality, we
+would be still roaming the primeval forests.
+
+Peter Kropotkin has shown what wonderful results this unique force of
+man’s individuality has achieved when strengthened by =co-operation= with
+other individualities. The one-sided and entirely inadequate Darwinian
+theory of the struggle for existence received its biological and
+sociological completion from the great Anarchist scientist and thinker.
+In his profound work, _Mutual Aid_, Kropotkin shows that in the animal
+kingdom, as well as in human society, co-operation--as opposed to
+internecine strife and struggle--has worked for the survival and
+evolution of the species. He demonstrated that only mutual aid and
+voluntary co-operation--=not= the omnipotent, all-devastating State--can
+create the basis for a free individual and associational life.
+
+At present the individual is the pawn of the zealots of dictatorship and
+the equally obsessed zealots of “rugged individualism.” The excuse of
+the former is its claim of a new objective. The latter does not even
+make a pretense of anything new. As a matter of fact “rugged
+individualism” has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Under its
+guidance the brute struggle for physical existence is still kept up.
+Strange as it may seem, and utterly absurd as it is, the struggle for
+physical survival goes merrily on though the necessity for it has
+entirely disappeared. Indeed, the struggle is being continued apparently
+=because= there is no necessity for it. Does not so-called overproduction
+prove it? Is not the world-wide economic crisis an eloquent
+demonstration that the struggle for existence is being maintained by the
+blindness of “rugged individualism” at the risk of its own destruction?
+
+One of the insane characteristics of this struggle is the complete
+negation of the relation of the producer to the things he produces. The
+average worker has no inner point of contact with the industry he is
+employed in, and he is a stranger to the process of production of which
+he is a mechanical part. Like any other cog of the machine, he is
+replaceable at any time by other similar depersonalized human beings.
+
+The intellectual proletarian, though he foolishly thinks himself a free
+agent, is not much better off. He, too, has a little choice or
+self-direction, in his particular metier as his brother who works with
+his hands. Material considerations and desire for greater social
+prestige are usually the deciding factors in the vocation of the
+intellectual. Added to it is the tendency to follow in the footsteps of
+family tradition, and become doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, etc.
+The groove requires less effort and personality. In consequence nearly
+everybody is out of place in our present scheme of things. The masses
+plod on, partly because their senses have been dulled by the deadly
+routine of work and because they must eke out an existence. This applies
+with even greater force to the political fabric of today. There is no
+place in its texture for free choice of independent thought and
+activity. There is a place only for voting and tax-paying puppets.
+
+The interests of the State and those of the individual differ
+fundamentally and are antagonistic. The State and the political and
+economic institutions it supports can exist only by fashioning the
+individual to their particular purpose; training him to respect “law and
+order;” teaching him obedience, submission and unquestioning faith in
+the wisdom and justice of government; above all, loyal service and
+complete self-sacrifice when the State commands it, as in war. The State
+puts itself and its interests even above the claims of religion and of
+God. It punishes religious or conscientious scruples against
+individuality because there is no individuality without liberty, and
+liberty is the greatest menace to authority.
+
+The struggle of the individual against these tremendous odds is the more
+difficult--too often dangerous to life and limb--because it is not truth
+or falsehood which serves as the criterion of the opposition he meets.
+It is not the validity or usefulness of his thought or activity which
+rouses against him the forces of the State and of “public opinion.” The
+persecution of the innovator and protestant has always been inspired by
+fear on the part of constituted authority of having its infallibility
+questioned and its power undermined.
+
+Man’s true liberation, individual and collective, lies in his
+emancipation from authority and from the belief in it. All human
+evolution has been a struggle in that direction and for that object. It
+is not invention and mechanics which constitute development. The
+ability to travel at the rate of 100 miles an hour is no evidence of
+being civilized. True civilization is to be measured by the individual,
+the unit of all social life; by his individuality and the extent to
+which it is free to have its being, to grow and expand unhindered by
+invasive and coercive, authority.
+
+Socially speaking, the criterion of civilization and culture is the
+degree of liberty and economic opportunity which the individual enjoys;
+of social and international unity and co-operation unrestricted by
+man-made laws and other artificial obstacles; by the absence of
+privileged castes and by the reality of liberty and human dignity; in
+short, by the true emancipation of the individual.
+
+Political absolutism has been abolished because men have realized in the
+course of time that absolute power is evil and destructive. But the same
+thing is true of all power, whether it be the power of privilege, of
+money, of the priest, of the politician or of so-called democracy. In
+its effect on individuality it matters little what the particular
+character of coercion is--whether it be as black as Fascism, as yellow
+as Nazism or as pretentiously red as Bolshevism. It is power that
+corrupts and degrades both master and slave and it makes no difference
+whether the power is wielded by an autocrat, by parliament or Soviets.
+More pernicious than the power of a dictator is that of a class; the
+most terrible--the tyranny of a majority.
+
+The long process of history has taught man that division and strife mean
+death, and that unity and co-operation advance his cause, multiply his
+strength and further his welfare. The spirit of government has always
+worked against the social application of this vital lesson, except where
+it served the State and aided its own particular interests. It is this
+anti-progressive and anti-social spirit of the State and of the
+privileged castes back of it which has been responsible for the bitter
+struggle between man and man. The individual and ever larger groups of
+individuals are beginning to see beneath the surface of the established
+order of things. No longer are they so blinded as in the past by the
+glare and tinsel of the State idea, and of the “blessings” of “rugged
+individualism.” Man is reaching out for the wider scope of human
+relations which liberty alone can give. For true liberty is not a mere
+scrap of paper called “constitution,” “legal right” or “law.” It is not
+an abstraction derived from the non-reality known as “the State.” It is
+not the =negative= thing of being free =from= something, because with
+=such= freedom you may starve to death. Real freedom, true liberty =is
+positive=: it is freedom to something; it is the liberty to be, to do;
+in short, the liberty of actual and active opportunity.
+
+That sort of liberty is not a gift: it is the natural right of man, of
+every human being. It cannot be given; it cannot be conferred by any law
+or government. The need of it, the longing for it, is inherent in the
+individual. Disobedience to every form of coercion is the instinctive
+expression of it. Rebellion and revolution are the more or less
+conscious attempt to achieve it. Those manifestations, individual and
+social, are fundamentally expressions of the values of man. That those
+values may be nurtured, the community must realize that its greatest and
+most lasting asset is the unit--the individual.
+
+In religion, as in politics, people speak of abstractions and believe
+they are dealing with realities. But when it does come to the real and
+the concrete, most people seem to lose vital touch with it. It may well
+be because reality alone is too matter-of-fact, too cold to enthuse the
+human soul. It can be aroused to enthusiasm only by things out of the
+commonplace, out of the ordinary. In other words, the Ideal is the spark
+that fires the imagination and hearts of men. Some ideal is needed to
+rouse man out of the inertia and humdrum of his existence and turn the
+abject slave into an heroic figure.
+
+Right here, of course, comes the Marxist objector who has outmarxed Marx
+himself. To such a one, man is a mere puppet in the hands of that
+metaphysical Almighty called economic determinism or, more vulgarly, the
+class struggle. Man’s will, individual and collective, his psychic life
+and mental orientation count for almost nothing with our Marxist and do
+not affect his conception of human history.
+
+No intelligent student will deny the importance of the economic factor
+in the social growth and development of mankind. But only narrow and
+wilful dogmatism can persist in remaining blind to the important role
+played by an idea as conceived by the imagination and aspirations of the
+individual.
+
+It were vain and unprofitable to attempt to balance one factor as
+against another in human experience. No one single factor in the complex
+of individual or social behavior can be designated as the factor of
+decisive quality. We know too little, and may never know enough, of
+human psychology to weigh and measure the relative values of this or
+that factor in determining man’s conduct. To form such dogmas in their
+social connotation is nothing short of bigotry; yet, perhaps, it has its
+uses, for the very attempt to do so proved the persistence of the human
+will and confutes the Marxists.
+
+Fortunately even some Marxists are beginning to see that all is not well
+with the Marxian creed. After all, Marx was but human--all too
+human--hence by no means infallible. The practical application of
+economic determinism in Russia is helping to clear the minds of the more
+intelligent Marxists. This can be seen in the trans-valuation of Marxian
+values going on in Socialist and even Communist ranks in some European
+countries. They are slowly realising that their theory has overlooked
+the human element, _den Menschen_, is a Socialist paper put it.
+Important as the economic factor is, it is not enough. The rejuvenation
+of mankind needs the inspiration and energising force of an ideal.
+
+Such an ideal I see in Anarchism. To be sure, not in the popular
+misrepresentations of Anarchism spread by the worshippers of the State
+and authority. I mean the philosophy of a new social order based on the
+released energies of the individual and the free association of
+liberated individuals.
+
+Of all social theories Anarchism alone steadfastly proclaims that
+society exists for man, not man for society. The sole legitimate purpose
+of society is to serve the needs and advance the aspiration of the
+individual. Only by doing so can it justify its existence and be an aid
+to progress and culture.
+
+The political parties and men savagely scrambling for power will scorn
+me as hopelessly out of tune with our time. I cheerfully admit the
+charge. I find comfort in the assurance that their hysteria lacks
+enduring quality. Their hosanna is but of the hour.
+
+Man’s yearning for liberation from all authority and power will never be
+soothed by their cracked song. Man’s quest for freedom from every
+shackle is eternal. It must and will go on.
+
+
+    This pamphlet is sponsored by the Free Society Forum
+    1241 N. California Avenue
+    Chicago, Illinois
+
+
+
+
+     “The Vanguard”
+
+     An anarchist--Communist Publication
+
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+     New York
+
+     Subscription $1.00 per year.
+
+
+
+
+     “Bolshevism Promises and Reality”
+
+     by
+
+     G. Maximov
+
+     One of the most effective and best documented pamphlets on the
+     Russian Revolution, by a man who lived through its various
+     stages.
+
+     Sponsored by the Free Society Forum.
+
+
+     Single Copy 5c
+
+     in Lots of 100
+
+     3c a copy, plus postage
+
+     B. Yelensky, Secretary
+
+     3332 Potomac Avenue
+
+     Chicago, Illinois
+
+
+
+
+     LIVING MY LIFE
+
+     by
+
+     _Emma Goldman_
+
+     Recognized as one of the greatest autobiographies ever written.
+
+     Formerly $5.00
+
+     Now available for $1.49
+
+     through
+     THE GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING COMPANY
+     GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
+
+     “A human document of the most absorbing thought.”
+
+     The N. Y. Times
+
+     “A life unmatched by any woman of our time.”
+
+     The N. Y. Herald-Tribune
+
+
+
+
+     “jaybass” [Illustration: printers logo] printing
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note
+
+
+Obvious typographical errors corrected as follows:
+
+  On Page 3: ‘Is political goverment, is the State...’--corrected to
+      ‘government’.
+  On Page 10: ‘But for the “genuis of man,” that...’--corrected to
+      ‘genius’.
+  On Back Cover: ‘...most absorbing though.’--corrected to
+      ‘thought’.
+
+Punctuation errors corrected without note.
+
+Questionable spellings of ‘millenium’, ‘wilful’ and ‘wilfully’ retained.
+
+_Text_ denotes italic and =text= denotes bold in this e-text version.
+
+The title given on the cover of this Pamphlet and the title given on
+the first page are indeed different.
+
+
+
+        
+            *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLACE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY ***
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