A-Infos (en) France, SOCIALISME LIBERTAIRE: THE PRICE OF AN ENTIRE WORLD (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

"The society of hierarchy and money in which we live generates violence 
every day, while simultaneously producing a thick layer of moral 
anesthesia that makes this violence bearable. The capacity to perceive 
violence-a necessary condition for revolt-has become something that 
requires an effort. Daily interactions are a vast, complex game of 
disguising this brutality. --- The primary rule is to fragment 
individual activity, making it impossible to view people as whole 
beings. What would a worker think if the full chain of cause and effect 
behind the repetitive little motions of his daily routine were suddenly 
laid bare before him? The machines he operates churn out exploitation, 
misery, suffering, and death. Yet, he must make a conscious effort to 
connect the skeletal child he saw on TV in Africa with the raw materials 
he uses and the products he manufactures. Remaining fixated on a tiny 
remote control acts as an anesthetic for the conscience. The petty 
bureaucrat who spends eight hours a day filling out forms does not 
see-once he is home-the immigrant facing deportation; the immigrant is 
not there. He does not see the person being locked up because they fail 
to match the stamped paperwork. He himself has never turned the key on 
another human being.

The passive contemplation of work that lies entirely beyond our control 
is the same state of mind that chains us to our screens. The spectators 
are the very people who step out of factories and offices. One can 
bemoan one's job just as easily as one bemoans the politician appearing 
on television." But what if, behind that politician's back, one could 
see human beings crushed by the law, dead from asbestos exposure, 
bombed, torn by barbed wire, or tortured in some police station-what if, 
behind the politician's grimace, one could see the suffering? What would 
happen then?

The violence we perceive is only the violence that is represented. The 
Mafia kills for money. Citizens are outraged by this, and the more 
outraged they are, the more innocent they feel when spending money (the 
"big Mafia"). Terrorists detonate bombs on trains. Citizens are 
outraged, and the more outraged they are, the more at ease they feel 
when voting (the "big terrorists"). So many people-who collect money 
every day, deposit it in banks, and shop at supermarkets-have never held 
a weapon, never threatened, injured, or killed anyone. They work for 
insurance companies, the postal service, customs, or who knows what 
else; they are peace-loving people who loathe bloodshed and brutal 
violence. Decent folk. They never wanted to see the violence, and 
consequently, they never saw it.

In its abstraction, the economy seems to run on its own. That is why 
money appears innocent. One perceives no violence in a stack of 
banknotes, and so, it is assumed, no violence exists. But just try 
reaching out and taking the goods without handing over the corresponding 
exchange value-the socially determined value, or in other words, the 
general equivalent: money. Society, previously fragmented, suddenly 
unites to react against this violation of private property. The 
capitalist, the judge, the police officer, the prison guard, the 
journalist, the priest, and the psychologist will hasten to defend it-to 
explain to you that the value of a thing lies not in your enjoyment, 
your activity, or your need, but in a mysterious social measure that 
allows one to obtain the commodity on the sole condition of joining the 
long procession of its courtiers and accepting the capitalist, the 
judge, and the rest. They will come to explain the value of work and to 
preach the habit of viewing things in terms of the time one must allow 
to be stolen in order to acquire the commodity-that is what money is-and 
thus to sanctify it, to serve it, and to define your own worth based on 
the commodity rather than the other way around. They will come to remind 
you that respect for property is love for humanity; that if you think 
otherwise, you are suffering from mental or family issues-perhaps 
seeking your father's attention through theft-and that, in short, you 
need help, monitoring, education, and integration. They will drag you 
before a court and throw you in prison. And if you resist, they will 
beat you, shoot at you, and gun you down. When someone disrupts the 
habitual circulation of money, the true face of the commodity emerges: 
violence. "Stealing, robbing-how is that possible?" wonders the citizen, 
focused on their remote control, their forms, and the screen. Why choose 
illegal activity over work? Perhaps because someone who lays hands 
directly on money subtracts time-life itself-from the organization of 
the economy. They subtract from the dead time of labor the possibility 
of doing what one wants, of dreaming, talking, loving, and building 
one's own projects. Less time for work, more time to destroy it. Money 
is time. Attacking property does not, of course, mean escaping 
exploitation by the market system (believing such a thing amounts, once 
again, to focusing on one's own outstretched hand-and thus accepting yet 
another form of moral anesthesia). What is gained, when one has the 
strength to attack property, is simply a few more possibilities.

Things are no longer measured on the scale of money (and thus of 
extorted activity, of sacrifice), but lend themselves instead to 
experimentation, to the gift, to use, and to destruction. Work no longer 
appears merely as a wage (the first of its chains), but as a social 
organization, as a set of relationships. When one withdraws from the 
wage-in the strict sense of the word-one gains a few extra tools in the 
struggle against the economy (provided, at least, that one does not 
allow oneself to be subjugated by money, by the role of the thief, or by 
specialization). Yet this struggle is either diffuse, or it is nothing. 
Only when looting becomes a widespread practice, when the principle of 
free access arms itself against exchange value, when relationships are 
no longer mediated by commodities and individuals set their own terms 
for things-only then does the destruction of the commodity and money (a 
destruction inseparable from that of the State and all hierarchy) become 
a real possibility.

But when the authorities discover such intentions behind a robbery, they 
raise the price to be paid. Then the price of the penalty is raised; 
then goods become even more costly, for what is being called into 
question is the very existence of capitalists, judges, cops, prison 
guards, journalists, priests, psychologists, bureaucrats, workers, and 
bank robbers. No price should seem too high for that."

SOURCE: SALTO - Subversion & Anarchy

https://www.socialisme-libertaire.fr/2026/04/le-prix-d-un-monde-entier.html
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