Quite some time ago, Kevin Carson posted excerpts from William Greene's Address of the Internationals thanks to the diligent historical work of Shawn Wilbur (whose transcriptions of important individualist texts are invaluable). I'm just now getting around to reading it (trying to clean out my "to read" list) but something struck me in Greene's denunciation of state privilege. When I've attacked the basis of corporate privilege in the past, defenders have countered that it's not a privilege per se because everybody is equally entitled to incorporate. Greene, an important figure in the development of mutualism, clarifies why this kind of "equality" is not the basis of a just society:
What is required at the present time is not so much equality before the laws as equal laws: that is to say, laws that do not themselves bring forth and perpetuate inequality; for laws organizing privilege have not, of necessity, a respect for particular persons; since they may have the effect to render it inevitable that a privileged class shall exist, without themselves designating the persons who are to compose that class. The privileged man of the period may say, "I took the world as I found it; and by taking the world as I took it, since we both of us have to deal with the same world, you also may perhaps, if you show the same talent, diligence, and perseverance that I showed, attain to a position similar to the one I hold. There is equality after all; for every one of us faces the same chances." The college sophomore may say to the freshman, "I kick you in accordance with time-honored custom; but I, also, was kicked, in my time, by my predecessors; and, if you wait patiently, you may, in your turn, kick your successors. There is an equality in the matter; for, ultimately, all kick, and all are kicked." Would there not be a better equality, and at the same time more justice and more dignity, if no one should kick, and no one should be kicked? Justice-not equal chances in injustice, not the satisfaction of knowing that you may, if you have luck, bite as much as you are bitten, and eat as much as you are eaten-ought to govern the world....
We don't need equal opportunity in exploitation and privilege. We don't need a fair chance at grabbing as much of the pie as we can. We need equal opportunity and a fair chance, without qualifications and restrictions. The only thing laws ever do is get in the way of opportunity and justice.
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