Does a 19th century Russian aristocrat/anarchist have anything to say today?

A friend of mine recently posted the following quote:

"Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor." -Peter Kropotkin, 1842-1921.

This statement is ridiculous on its face - wealth springs from production, not from poverty. It seems like a 19^th century Russian anarchist could have nothing to say to us today. I wondered how someone could be so wrong, and did a little research into Kropotkin and his times, and think that his statement actually could be an important warning to us today.

Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) was a Russian activist who advocated anarchism. He was a proponent of a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between workers. He was before the Russian “communists” who established a dictatorship by force, and who were as far from “voluntary associations between workers” as you can get. He was a prince, from a time in Russia when the aristocracy used their monopoly on force to hold the serfs in virtual slavery, forcing the serfs to work and taking most of the output for themselves.

Those who tilled the soil or worked in factories were not allowed to keep their output; instead, those with power to use force against them took the output. Kropotkin’s quote does not state that critical fact – the poor were more wealthy (or could have been) had those with power not forcibly taken their wealth from them. It was not the wealth of the wealthy that made the poverty of the poor; it was the forcible taking (by the wealthy) that made the poverty of the poor. We can perhaps cut Kropotkin a little slack, since in his time and place the use of force to take another’s output was synonymous with wealth. There was no way for one person to produce great wealth. The only way to acquire great wealth was to use force to take it from many others. So in Kropotkin’s world, those with great wealth could only have great wealth by forcibly taking it from the poor. In that setting, his statement is largely true.

In our time this quote, and others like it, are used by those whose message is “that rich guy over there is causing you to be poor.  Vote for me and we’ll take some of his wealth and give it to you.” The first part of this is nonsense – Apple’s profits from the iPhone do not make you poor; the availability of the iPhone makes you richer. Your boss’s higher salary for knowing how to manage a complex business does not make you poor; his ability to manage the business makes it possible for you to earn a higher salary. The second part is pure evil – an invitation to join in forcible robbery from those who have produced, just because we outnumber them.

So what is causing you to be poor? Ignore for the moment that even the poor in the US today are wealthy beyond anything Kropotkin could imagine. What is causing you to be less wealthy than you desire? What is causing you to have less wealth than the total of what you produce?

It’s the same thing that it was in Kropotkin’s day – those who use force to take your production from you. It’s not Kropotkin’s milkman who voluntary trades his milk for Kropotkin’s grain. It’s not the computer company who voluntarily trades their computer for your time spent fixing cars or fixing teeth. It’s those who use force to take away the wealth you produce.

And who are those people? It’s not the wealthy, at least not the private sector wealthy. Pick your most hated billionaire – Gates, Soros, Trump, whoever. Unless they collude with government, they cannot use force to take away the product of your work. If they do, they will be subject to law. Unlike in Kropotkin’s day, Bill Gates can’t send his cavalry to your house and take away your stuff. George Soros can’t put you in his dungeons if you fail to work in his fields.

But the US government can, and does, use force to take away the product of your work. They will send the cavalry to your house to take away your stuff if you don’t pay all the taxes they say you owe. They will put you in the dungeons if you don't give them their tribute. An important clarification here – to the extent the wealthy use government force to get wealth (favored tax treatment, anticompetitive regulations, government guarantees, etc.), then they are in the party of the government-takers in this discussion and not in the party of the wealth-producers. The dividing line is not based on how much wealth you have; the dividing line is whether you get your wealth from voluntary trades, or get it by forcibly taking it from others.

Kropotkin’s statement is a worthy warning, but not about those who produce or have wealth. It is a warning about those who use force to take away wealth. In the US, that’s the government (and armed robbers). And, just as Kropotkin observed, that power is increasingly used to take wealth. How else can government workers be the highest paid class, have the lowest risk of being fired, the most generous pensions? How else could our rulers amass such fortunes on nothing more than a generous government salary, plus their power over us? Check on the finances of Joe Biden, Harry Reid, or Hilary Clinton. How can someone on a government salary amass such great wealth with nothing to trade but political power?

The US was founded on the notion of limited government, of voluntary associations among people. This notion allowed the greatest creation of wealth, and the greatest improvement in living standards, ever seen. But that notion is steadily eroding, and at an increasing pace. The average American works almost 1/3 of the year just to pay the taxes imposed by our rulers. We increasingly look to the force of government instead of our voluntary relationships with our neighbors. We vote for people who promise to fight for us, but who are they fighting against? Against our neighbors? Against those who work in and manage and own businesses that voluntarily supply the things we want? We don’t need someone to fight against them. We need someone to fight against those who use force to take from us. But in the US, that is only the government.

Hence our great quandary, and possibly the source of our downfall. We vote to trust the power of government to those who want the power of government, and then they use it to take from us. We need to vote to trust the power of government to those who don’t want to use the power of government against us, but those people don’t seem to run for office very often.