The law has no claim to human respect. It has no civilizing mission; its only purpose is to protect exploitation.
Peter KropotkinRead
When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote argues against the notion that abolishing the State requires perfect individuals; instead, it emphasizes that we should not make people worse through oppressive institutions.
Peter Kropotkin's quote challenges the common argument that a stateless society can only exist if people are morally superior to their current nature. He asserts that the goal is not to push for an unrealistic ideal of perfection but rather to prevent societal institutions from exacerbating human flaws. By abolishing the State, the aim is to create a society that does not corrupt or degrade human nature further, advocating for a system that respects the inherent dignity and capabilities of individuals.
Themes
StateSocietyInstitutionsHuman NatureAbolition
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about government reform, one could use this quote to emphasize the need for less oppressive structures.
More from Peter Kropotkin
All quotes →Have not prisons - which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any other spot of the globe - always been universities of crime?
Peter KropotkinRead
Man is appealed to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at best tribal, but by his perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can re-trace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support- not mutual struggle- has had the leading part.
Peter KropotkinRead
It is only by the abolition of the State, by the conquest of perfect liberty by the individual, by free agreement, association, and absolute free federation that we can reach Communism — the possession in common of our social inheritance, and the production in common of all riches.
Peter KropotkinRead
Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor.
Peter KropotkinRead
No evolution is accomplished in nature without revolution. Periods of very slow changes are succeeded by periods of violent changes. Revolutions are as necessary for evolution as the slow changes which prepare them and succeed them.
Peter KropotkinRead
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