1 – Notion of happiness – We all have, in our life, our portions of sufferings, and even though when ours are minimum, we see around us everyday tragedies, individual disgraces and collective calamities.
The minimization of these sufferings constitutes the progress to which wise men, philosophers, pedagogues, workers,
etc. contribute to.
Whenever possible, people tenaciously seek to minimize these pains and reach a state of maximum happiness.
2 – Notion of good and evil – To everything that produces suffering we call it evil, and to everything that minimizes it, or increases happiness, we call it good.
However, to understand more deeply in what good and evil consist of, it is important to know what is the general process of life on earth.
3 – Universal energies – The world is a flux of energies. These energies manifest themselves under diverse aspects: light, color, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, etc.
The human body, as the body of any other living creature, is also a balance of energies amongst universal energies, or even more clearly, is a transformative machine of cosmic energies absorbed through food and through the air it breathes. When the machine, for any defect, becomes incapable of conveniently
working this transformation, the body is depleted and dies.
4 – Favorable and unfavorable energies – Nature, this is, the sum of all energies, is neither good nor evil; it is indifferent. Only the effects of natural phenomena over human life are good or bad. Thus for example, rain itself is neither good nor bad, however the same rain, in the same place, at the same time, can be good for one farmer and bad for another, depending on the kind of agricultural work or the topographic conditions.
For humanity therefore, there are only favorable and unfavorable energies.
5 – Useful energy – In this world, the vital problem of human beings, as for any other being, has to do with enjoying the energies that are favorable to their organisms, while voiding and diverting the unfavorable energies.
A waterfall that alters the navigation of a river is an unfavorable energy, but if captured to move turbines and supply electricity it becomes a favorable energy.
The energies susceptible of use by humanity are useful energies.
Now we can define good and evil with precision. Good is all that contributes to maintain or increase the usefulness of energies, and evil is everything that contributes to decrease or obstruct the usefulness of these energies.
6 – Five aspects of human energy – Human beings as transformers of cosmic energies, manifest these energies in their social existence in a fivefold aspect: physical, mental, moral,
practical and social. The first ones are vulgarly called vigor and health; the second ones, intelligence and culture; the third ones, will and character; the fourth ones, ability and vocation; the fifth ones, altruism and sociability.
We will see that under this fivefold vision we must base the entire education system.
7 – The human problem consists in obtaining from earth the greatest amount of general happiness.
This is achieved by science above all because it is the only field that studies the natural energies, discovers the means to exploit them, or diverts them whenever they are unfavorable…
…11 – Injustice of land appropriation – This right to the monopoly of land obtained through purchase, heritage, donation, war, etc., seems natural and just to us, because we have been used to it for thousands of years, however, we can easily evaluate the monstrosity that this entails with three
simple considerations:
a – Let’s suppose that an extraordinary inventor succeeds in appropriating all drinking water and imposes upon us the exchange of services or money for that water. Let’s imagine as well, that another one appropriates the atmosphere and starts selling us air balloons, and that another one captures the sunlight and yields it for money. We would think of them as infamous selfish people. The sun, the air, the rain, and the sea are natural gifts and nobody has the right to appropriate them to exploit another person. According to what bourgeois economy teaches us, natural gifts are and must be free, and should not be bought or paid for with work. So, what we find so monstrous about the air, the light, the sea, and the rain does not repulse us in the same way when it comes to land. However, it is the same case. Land is also a natural gift and nobody should appropriate or dismember it in order to exploit the work of another.
This is the fundamental injustice of the current organization to which anarchists rebel against, demonstrating that all other injustices derive from this one. Anarchism declares that the appropriation of land by an individual is – as the appropriation of water, air, or light – stealing from humanity. It is a criminal extortion, and the initial fail of all social disorders.
Contributed by
Juan Pablo Macías