The Conquest of Bread

Notes
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin NOTES (1) Consult "La Répartition métrique des impôts," by A. Toubeau, two vols., published by Guillaumin in 1880. (We do not in the least agree with Toubeau's conclusions, but it is a real encyclopædia, indicating the sources which prove what can be obtained from the soil.) "La Culture maraîchere," by M. Ponce, Paris, 1869. "Le Potager Gressent," Paris, 1885, an excellent practical work. " Physiologie et culture du blé," by Risler, Paris, 1881. "Le blé, sa culture intensive et extensive," by Lecouteux, Paris, 1883. " La Cité Chinoise," by Eugène Simon. " Le dictionnaire d'agriculture, " by Barral (Hachette, editor). "The Rothamstead Experiments," by Wm. Fream, London, 1888--culture without manure, etc. (the " Field " office, editor). "Fields, Factor... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 17 : Agriculture
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER XVII Agriculture I POLITICAL ECONOMY has often been reproached with drawing all its deductions from the decidedly false principle, that the only incentive capable of forcing a man to augment his power of production is personal interest in its narrowest sense. The reproach is perfectly true; so true that epochs of great industrial discoveries and true progress in industry are precisely those in which the happiness of all was the aim pursued, and in which personal enrichment was least thought of. Great investigators and great inventors aimed, without doubt, at the emancipation of mankind. And if Watt, Stephenson, Jacquard, etc., could have only foreseen what a state of misery their sleepless nights would bring to the workers, they would probably have burned their designs and broken th... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 16 : The Decentralization of Industry
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER XVI The Decentralization of Industry I AFTER the Napoleonic wars Britain all but succeeded in ruining the main industries which had sprung up in France at the end of the preceding century. She became also mistress of the seas and had no rivals of importance. She took in the situation, and knew how to turn its privileges and advantages to account. She established an industrial monopoly, and, imposing upon her neighbors her prices for the goods she alone could manufacture, accumulated riches upon riches. But as the middle-class Revolution of the eighteenth century abolished serfdom and created a proletariat in France, industry, hampered for a time in its flight, soared again, and from the second half of the nineteenth century France ceased to be a tributary of Eng... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 15 : The Division of Labour
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER XV The Division of Labor I POLITICAL ECONOMY has always confined itself to stating facts occurring in society, and justifying them in the interest of the dominant class. Thus it is in favor of the division of labor created by industry. Having found it profitable to capitalists it has set it up as a principle. Look at the village smith, said Adam Smith, the father of modern Political Economy. If he has never been accustomed to making nails he will only succeed by hard toil in forging two to three hundred a day, and even then they will be bad. But if this same smith has never done anything but nails, he will easily supply as many as two thousand three hundred in the course of a day. And Smith hastened to the conclusion--"Divide labor, specialize, go on specializing; let us... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 14 : Consumption And Production
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER XIV Consumption And Production I LOOKING at society and its political organization from a different standpoint than that of authoritarian schools- for we start from a free individual to reach a free society, instead of beginning by the State to come down to the individual- we follow the same method in economic questions. We study the needs of individuals, and the means by which they satisfy them, before discussing Production, Exchange, Taxation, Government, etc. To begin with, the difference may appear trifling, but in reality it upsets official Political Economy. If you open the works of any economist you will find that he begins with PRODUCTION, the analysis of means employed nowadays for the creation of wealth; division of labor, manufacture, machinery, accumulati... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Agreeable Work
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER X Agreeable Work I WHEN Socialists declare that a society, emancipated from Capital, would make work agreeable, and would suppress all repugnant and unhealthy drudgery, they get laughed at. And yet even to-day we can see the striking progress made in this direction; and wherever this progress has been achieved, employers congratulate themselves on the economy of energy obtained thereby. It is evident that a factory could be made as healthy and pleasant as a scientific laboratory. And it is no less evident that it would be advantageous to make it so. In a spacious and well-ventilated factory work is better; it is easy to introduce small ameliorations, of which each represents an economy of time o... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Our Riches
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER I Our Riches I THE human race has traveled far since, those bygone ages when men used to fashion their rude implements of flint, and lived on the precarious spoils of the chase, leaving to their children for their only heritage a shelter beneath the rocks, some poor utensils--and Nature, vast, ununderstood, and terrific, with whom they had to fight for their wretched existence. During the agitated times which have elapsed since, and which have lasted for many thousand years, mankind has nevertheless amassed untold treasures. It has cleared the land, dried the marshes, pierced the forests, made roads; it has been building, inventing, observing, reasoning; it has created a complex machinery, wrest... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin PREFACE ONE of the current objections to Communism and Socialism altogether, is that the idea is so old, and yet it could never be realized. Schemes of ideal States haunted the thinkers of Ancient Greece; later on, the early Christians joined in communist groups; centuries later, large communist brotherhoods came into existence during the Reform movement. Then, the same ideals were revived during the great English and French Revolutions; and finally, quite lately, in 1848, a revolution, inspired to a great extent with Socialist ideals, took place in France. "And yet, you see," we are told, "how far away is still the realization of your schemes. Don't you think that there is some fundamental error in you... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Food
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER V Food I IF the coming Revolution is to be a Social Revo lution it will be distinguished from all former uprisings not only by its aim, but also by its methods. To attain a new end, new means are required. The three great popular movements which we have seen in France during the last hundred years differ from each other in many ways, but they have one common feature. In each case the people strove to overturn the old regime, and spent their heart's blood for the cause. Then, after having borne the brunt of the battle, they sank again into obscurity. A Government, composed of men more or less honest, was formed and undertook to organize--the Republic in 1793, Labor in 1848, and the Free Commune i... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Ways and Means
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER VIII Ways and Means I IF a society, a city, or a territory, were to guaran tee the necessaries of life to its inhabitants (and we shall see how the conception of the necessaries of life can be so extended as to include luxuries), it would be compelled to take possession of what is absolutely needed for production; that is to say-- land, machinery, factories, means of transport, etc. Capital in the hands of private owners would be expropriated and returned to the community. The great harm done by bourgeois society, as we have already mentioned, is not only that capitalists seize a large share of the profits of each industrial and commercial enterprise, thus enabling them to live without working, ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)