A series of communistic societies is still flourishing in South Dakota. They are known as the Brotherhood Societies.

Several communities of North Italian Protestants have flourished in the South, particularly in Valdese, North Carolina, and near Gainesville, Texas.

Nonreligious communities. In 1822 Robert Owen, a great English philanthropist and a firm believer in what was then called socialism, came to America for the purpose of establishing an ideal community. He delivered many addresses and created much enthusiasm. In looking about for a location he found that the Harmonists, who were then living in New Harmony, Indiana, were desirous of selling out and moving back to Pennsylvania. He bought all their real estate and proceeded to establish a colony of his own. He was a man of great ability, who had made a fortune of his own, which he devoted liberally to the propagation of his ideas. His colony, however, was made up of idealists who were more in the habit of talking about their theories of society than of working to produce wealth; it was a good illustration of the inability of any community to live on talk. It lasted a little over two years. Numerous other experiments of the same kind were tried, none of which lasted for a single year. One at Yellow Springs, Ohio, lasted for several months.

About 1841 the works of a French communist, Fourier, were translated and published in this country. They created great enthusiasm, and a large number of experiments were made. The most notable of these was Brook Farm, Massachusetts, which was started independently but afterward adopted the plan of Fourier. This experiment was notable mainly because of the great names in its list of members. Some of the most distinguished men and women of that day, in letters and in scholarship, joined the Brook Farm community. The most successful of the Fourier experiments, however, was the North American Phalanx in New Jersey. It lasted for thirteen years. An experiment at Hopedale, Massachusetts, was only partially

communistic; it lasted seventeen years and then became a joint-stock association.

As indicated above, the most successful of all the nonreligious communities in this country was the Icarian community in Iowa. Its members were followers of Étienne Cabet, a French communist, who wrote a very attractive book entitled "A Voyage in Icaria." It awoke the slumbering idealism of many French people who desired to form a commonwealth after the description of the life of the Icarians. Cabet led his followers to this country and landed in New Orleans, hoping to establish them in northeastern Texas. The land proved to be inaccessible and the climate not very agreeable. They returned to New Orleans discouraged, but learned that the Mormons had recently been driven out of Nauvoo, Illinois. They proceeded by boat to Nauvoo and established themselves, finding plenty of vacant houses and factory buildings. Here they prospered for a number of years, but they wished to find a situation where they could be more to themselves, and a tract of land was bought in southwestern Iowa, not very far from the present town of Corning. There they lived under the communistic system until 1895, when they gave up communism and came over to an individualistic régime.

A large number of other societies have been established by the followers both of Robert Owen and of Fourier and, in recent years, by the admirers of Laurence Gronlund and Edward Bellamy.

Results. It may seem as though the experiences of these numerous communistic societies tended to throw discredit upon all communistic ideals. The advocates of communism, however, insist that the principles of communism are still sound, even though a thousand communities have failed. To an impartial observer it looks as though communism might work very well if people were built on a communistic plan. If they have a passion for communism, or a powerful religious emotion which will overcome their individualistic and particularistic tend

encies, they may live together peaceably under communism. Unless they are inspired with religious zeal or a genuine passion for communism, it seems as though the natural individuality, not to say the contrariness, of human nature would continue to break up all communistic societies in the future as it has in the past.

But why, it may be asked, will not communism work in a large national group as it now works in a small family group? It does not seem to work particularly well in some families. In those few abnormal cases where the members of the family have no particular affection for one another, the question of the division of the family funds is a difficult one. If the father is selfish and cares nothing for the others he becomes an autocrat and spends all or the greater part of his income upon himself. If the others feel the same way toward him and one another they quarrel among themselves. But in a normal case, where an intense affection for one another prevails, there is no quarreling and everything is shared in common.

If it were possible for the members of a large national group to feel toward one another as do the members of a normal family, communism or almost any other system might work well. But the average man's capacity for affection is limited. It would take one with a genius for friendship to feel a warm affection for even a hundred separate individuals, to say nothing of a hundred million. It would be practically impossible for any of us to feel toward each and every one of a hundred million people, only a few of whom we had ever seen, precisely as we do toward our own brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, and other very near relatives. This is sufficient reason why communism cannot be made to work well.

CHAPTER LIII

ANARCHISM

In some respects anarchism is the diametric opposite of communism and almost the diametric opposite of socialism; in other respects it is somewhat similar to both. Anarchism and socialism represent opposite tendencies in that the socialist proposes to enlarge the power and function either of the state or of some kind of public organization, whereas the anarchist proposes to eliminate all authority, or all control of one person by another. Such organization as shall exist under anarchism shall be purely voluntary. Voluntary groups may be formed as large or as small as the individual members care to have them. The relations of one group to another shall likewise be on a purely voluntary or contractual basis. There shall be no state with a military arm or with police power of any kind.

Anarchism and socialism resemble each other in that both revolt, either in part or in whole, against any system which gives one man power or authority over another. Many of the advocates of socialism object to private capital primarily on the ground that it gives one man (namely, the capitalist employer) power and authority over another man, the propertyless laborer. The anarchist says, regarding this opinion: "It is good so far as it goes. We anarchists are likewise opposed to giving one man power or authority over another. The private ownership of capital does what the socialist says it does, and that is wrong. We are therefore opposed to the private ownership of capital. But capital is not the only source of authority. The government likewise gives one man power or authority over another; the capitalist employer does not in fact have as much power or authority as a judge or a policeman, a governor or a president. The socialist, therefore, is only a halfway anarchist. He is

opposed to one source of power and authority; we are opposed to both sources."

May government eventually become unnecessary? The underlying philosophy of anarchism is of various kinds. There is one system of thought which is frequently but improperly called anarchistic. It is held by certain people that government and compulsion are made necessary by the imperfections in human nature, that if we were so highly developed morally that each individual would voluntarily do what he ought to do or what was in the public interest, then it would not be necessary to use authority or compulsion on anybody; but that since there are individuals with undeveloped moral natures,-individuals who do not voluntarily and automatically respond to the needs of society, it is therefore necessary that they be compelled to do what they ought to do, or (which is the same thing) what they would do if they were fully developed.

In the closing paragraphs of his monumental work on sociology, which was in turn the culmination of his great system of synthetic philosophy, Herbert Spencer1 sums up his ideas as to the ultimate end of all social progress in the following eloquent words:

But if the process of evolution which, unceasing throughout past time, has brought life to its present height, continues throughout the future, as we cannot but anticipate, then, amid all the rhythmical changes in each society, amid all the lives and deaths of nations, amid all the supplantings of race by race, there will go on that adaptation of human nature to the social state which began when savages first gathered together into hordes for mutual defence-an adaptation finally complete. . .

On the one hand, by continual repression of aggressive instincts and exercise of feelings which prompt ministration to public welfare, and on the other hand by the lapse of restraints, gradually becoming less necessary, there must be produced a kind of man so constituted that while fulfilling his own desires he fulfils also the social needs. . .

1 The Principles of Sociology (second edition), Vol. III, pp. 598–601. London, 1897.