rther prove our assertion let us mention the Volunteer
Topographers' Corps of Switzerland who study in detail the mountain
passages, the Aeroplane Corps of France, the three hundred thousand
British volunteers, the British National Artillery Association, and the
Society, now in course of organization, for the defence of England's
coasts, as well as the appeals made to the commercial fleet, the
Bicyclists' Corps, and the new organizations of private motorcars and
steam launches.

Everywhere the State is abdicating and abandoning its holy functions to
private individuals. Everywhere free organization trespasses on its
domain. And yet, the facts we have quoted give us only a glimpse of what
free government has in store for us in the future when there will be no
more State.

CHAPTER XII

OBJECTIONS

I

Let us now examine the principal objections put forth against Communism.
Most of them are evidently caused by a simple misunderstanding, yet they
raise important questions and merit our attention.

It is not for us to answer the objections raised by authoritarian
Communism--we ourselves hold with them. Civilized nations have suffered
too much in the long, hard struggle for the emancipation of the
individual, to disown their past work and to tolerate a Government that
would make itself felt in the smallest details of a citizen's life, even
if that Government had no other aim than the good of the community.
Should an authoritarian Socialist society ever succeed in establishing
itself, it could not last; general discontent would soon force it to
break up, or to reorganize itself on principles of liberty.

It is of an Anarchist-Communist society we are about to speak, a society
that recognizes the absolute liberty of the individual, that does not
admit of any authority, and makes use of no compulsion to drive men to
work. Limiting our studies to the economic side of the question, let us
see if such a society, composed of men as they are to-day, neither
better nor worse, neither more nor less industrious, would have a chance
of successful development.

The objection is known. "If the existence of each is guaranteed, and if
the necessity of earning wages does not compel men to work, nobody will
work. Every man will lay the burden of his work on another if he is not
forced to do it himself." Let us first note the incredible levity with
which this objection is raised, without even realizing that the real
question r