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22

the basis for a People's Militia, reinforced by all the technical and organizational attainments of military science. The people's militia, organized on an industrial basis, would be subordinated to the productive associations, and in times of peace would be engaged in productive efforts of a useful kind.

As to peace and public security, a citizen guard's service would be organized for this purpose, with the help of the House Committees. The citizens themselves would in turn fulfill the general duty of defense; that is to say, a self-defense with no central organ from above.

The existing courts would be replaced by voluntary tribunals of arbitration, and in cases of grave crimes, connected with manslaughter or offenses against liberty and equality, a special communal court of a non-permanent nature would be set up, since courts as permanent institutions would be abolished. Prisons would also be done away with. Schools, hospitals, doctors and --- above all --- public welfare and liberty might prove the safest means to get rid of criminals and crimes altogether.

Thus, as the warp of the fabric of future anarchist society, there can be laid down, in my opinion, the following three essential and basic institutions:

(a) producers' unions that would lead, through the syndicalization of production, to a fruitful communism of producers;

(b) consumers' associations that would lead, through utilization of co-operation, towards a consumers communism;

(c) territorial associations, leading, by way of communalism, to a unity in diversity, that is, a Confederation of Peoples based upon liberty and equality.

However, I do not imagine the future society to be cast in just this rather simplified and schematic mould. To my mind, indeed, it is likely to take on a far more complex configuration, wherein the main texture would be interwoven with such an infinite variety of interlinked groups, that it would readily respond to the most diverse demands and needs of the free human person.

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