f
and burying it at the earliest possible moment. The modern nation or
centralised State is a hideous monstrosity, the offspring of
capitalism in its various phases; in its present shape the outcome of
the developed capitalism of the great industry. We quite admit that in
form it may, and probably will, survive the earlier stage of
Socialism, but its ultimate disappearance is none the less certain.
The sentiment of the national patriotism will then, let us hope, be
reduced to its last expression--the holding of annual dinners, or some
harmless festivity of this sort, such as is affected by the natives of
certain English counties resident in the metropolis. The Nationalist
movement, therefore, is an old Radical 'plank' which clearly no longer
belongs to us as Socialists."[1077]

The Socialist-Anarchist hates State government in every form. To him a
Social-Democratic State is quite as hateful as any other form of
government: "The State is the evil, the inveterate foe of labour--be
the Government Autocratic, Bureaucratic, or Social-Democratic. For
what, after all, is our vaunted nose-counting, majority-ridden
Democracy but an expansion of the old-time tyranny of monarch and
oligarch, inasmuch as the Governmentalist, whatever his stripe, is
doomed to act on the two root principles of statecraft--force and
fraud? And, obviously, so long as that is so, his particular profession
of political faith is almost a matter of indifference."[1078] "What
was, what is the State, wherever it exists, but a community of human
beings barbarically held together by a well-drilled gang of
magistrates, soldiers, policemen, gaolers, and hangmen?"[1079] Mr.
Blatchford, who is apparently never quite sure in his mind whether he
is a Socialist, a Communist, or an Anarchist, gives voice to his
Anarchist sentiments in the words: "Rightly or wrongly, I am opposed to
godship, kingship, lordship, priestship. Rightly or wrongly, I am
opposed to imperialism, militarism, and conquest. Rightly or wrongly, I
am for universal brotherhood and universal freedom."[1080]

Another influential Socialist writer exclaims: "What is freedom but
the unfettered use of all the powers which God for use has
given?"[1081]--a sentiment which is heartily endorsed by all
Anarchists. However, the unfettered use of all powers means that the
will of the individual, not the will of society, is the supreme law.
It means the denial of the supremacy of society, the State,
government