the conquest of bread

The Conquest of Bread (French: La Conqute du Pain) is a book by the anarchist communist Peter Kropotkin. Originally written in French, it first appeared as a series of articles in the anarchist journals Le Rvolt and La Revolt (which were both edited by Kropotkin). It was first published as a book in Paris in 1892 with a preface by lise Reclus, who also suggested the title. Between 1892 and 1894 it was serialised, in part, in the London journal Freedom, of which Kropotkin was a co-founder. It has been translated and reprinted numerous times: it was translated into Japanese, for example, by Kotoku Shusui in 1909. It has been reprinted by Elephant Editions (1985), Vanguard Press (1995) and Freedom Press. In this work, Kropotkin points out the fallacies of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism, and how these create poverty and scarcity while promoting privilege. He goes on to propose a more decentralised economic system based on mutual aid and voluntary cooperation, asserting that the tendencies for this kind of organisation already exist, both in evolution and in human society.

Summary of chapters

Chapter 1: Our Riches

Kropotkin begins, in the part I of this chapter, by stating that humanity is rich, "surpassing the dreams of the fairy tales of the Thousand and One Nights". He then asserts, in part II, that these riches have been earned by generations of workers and inventors, creating and improving technology and making land more habitable. Kropotkin then tells us that these riches are being, and have been, appropriated by a small class of owners who "force people to produce, not the necessities of life, but whatever offers the greatest profits to the monopolists." "In this," he says, "is the essence of all Socialism." Part III concludes that

All things belong to all, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth.

Chapter 2: Well-Being For All

In this chapter, the author asserts that "well-being for all is not a dream," and goes on to show that "our riches" are being squandered, and this is the reason that well-being for all is not (yet) a reality. To back this up, Kropotkin tells us that a number of factors are at play, namely:

that much of workers' efforts and resources are wasted on producing useless luxuries;
that the market system often results in goods being deliberately wasted so that the price of said goods may remain high; and
that middlemen — all those who sit between the producer and consumer — take their own shares at each stage, Kropotkin explains, without actually contributing to the production of goods.

Chapter 3: Anarchist Communism

Having said that people should claim the right to live and then the right to well-being, Kropotkin proclaims that the only means of achieving "well-being for all" is Anarchist Communism.