The Conquest of Bread

I received a printed copy from a friend after saying I hadn't read any classic anarchist literature.

Published in 1892, the book is as much a political commentary on that time as it is the conception for how things should change. The fact that clothing is a recurring issue, that the common people are often in rags and tatters, is unrelatable with the state of manufacturing today. In Kropotkin's time the machines where on the ascendant, but the outstanding demand was so great that people still went wanting. Much more relatable was the issue of rent. At one point he talks of people spending up to half of their income on rent, and I already know of cases where people pay more.

Thus it's interesting to see that a lot of the material want that Kropotkin was motivated by has been improved without an anarcho-communist revolution (his main point of agitation) but through social and liberal democracy, even partly neoliberalism (i.e. distribution of electronics.)

Workers are treated almost as if they are noble savages. While I agree that people are a hell of a lot better at dealing with adversity than we all realize, I do think Kropotkin's assumptions are overly optimistic. There are is a diversity of personality in every strata of society.

But let me say positively: this book's aim is to prove that a "better world is possible", which seems to have been in doubt then as now. It seems many elite thought that production could not meet all human demands, and that therefore there had to be elite and poverty. Kropotkin goes through branches of industry, political arrangements and technological developments to prove - with significant use of examples and figures - that all human needs can certainly be provided for.

As for "steampunk": the steam engine was there, the internal combustion engine not yet. I have never in my life read something by an anarchist/leftist/etc that was so enthusiastic about coal! And fair enough, at the time it must have seemed miraculous. Grapes in Scotland!:

"In the north of England, on the Scotch frontier, where coal only costs 3 shilling a ton at the pit's mouth, they have long since taken to growing hot house grapes."

But how much coal? Talking about a greenhouse market garden:

"... they obtain 143 tons of fruit and early vegetables, using for this extraordinary culture less than 1000 tons of coal."

Yikes, 10:1 ratio of coal to veggies... What was that about veganism? Oh yeah, that was also not a thing then:

"... the three principal products bread, meat and milk."

Overall, the book is optimistic despite bubbling over into the idealistic. Feminism does present, but a concern for non-human life is not spoken of. It motivates struggle, but does little to articulate how. Definitely worth a read for people interested in political history.

And as a finishing point, and testament to Kropotkin's technological optimism, he predicts solar panels:

"A Mouchot of the future will invent a machine to guide the rays of the sun and make them work, so that we shall no longer seek sun-heat stored in coal in the depths of the earth."

Reread for the (sad) 100th anniversary of Kropotkin's death.

Required reading for anyone exchanging labor for wages.

I found the book quite sharp and still thought-provoking for something written a century ago. Its message is relevant as ever, as we're plunged into the dystopia of corporatism and decay by those at the top exploiting the labor force. It is radical and revolutionary and I would heartily recommend it for anyone interested in the actual meaning and nature of work and its dynamics and how societies organize and form around both labor and culture.

Sure, some parts are out of date. But so much of it remains true even today. There's a saying about lectures that say that the best questions a lecturer can get are the ones answered by the very next slide. Well, that is exactly what happened to me, again and again, with the chapters of this book. Most amazingly, a question a friend raised in a discussion we had about chapter 8 was answered by the very first sentence of chapter 9. Can't be better than that.