The Conquest of Bread

The Conquest of Bread or La Conquête du Pain or Хлеб и воля is an 1892 book by Peter Kropotkin. In the work, Kropotkin points out what he considers to be the defects of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism and why he believes they thrive on and maintain poverty and scarcity. He goes on to propose a more decentralized communism based on mutual aid and voluntary cooperation, asserting that the tendencies for this kind of organization already exist, both in evolution and in human society.
== Summary ==
=== Chapter 1: Our Riches ===
Humanity has progressed very far since its inception, having "cleared the land, dried the marshes, pierced the forests, made roads; it has been building, inventing, observing, reasoning; it has created a complex machinery, wrested her secrets from Nature, and finally it has made a servant of steam." We can now produce so much stuff, and we can feed and clothe and keep everyone on Earth warm. 
But now, the great majority of humanity is poor and overworked, this is because the state has stolen the land, the mines, the factories, the farms and industry through war and theft from the people. No single person can claim to be the owner or inventor of something, since work is the result of hundreds of generations of people, as "Millions of human beings have laboured to create this civilization on which we pride ourselves to-day. Other millions, scattered through the globe, labour to maintain it. Without them nothing would be left in fifty years but ruins." In a world of such wealth and beauty, we cannot justify the extreme levels of poverty, misery and overwork pushed onto the working class who built our civilization.
=== Chapter 2: Well-Being for All ===
=== Chapter 3: Anarchist Communism ===
=== Chapter 4: Expropriation ===
=== Chapter 5: Food ===
=== Chapter 6: Dwellings ===
=== Chapter 7: Clothing ===
=== Chapter 8: Ways and Means ===
=== Chapter 9: The Need For Luxury ===
=== Chapter 10: Agreeable Work ===
=== Chapter 11: Free Agreement ===
=== Chapter 12: Objections ===
=== Chapter 13: The Collectivist Wages System ===
=== Chapter 14: Consumption And Production ===
=== Chapter 15: The Division of Labour ===
=== Chapter 16: The Decentralization of Industry ===
=== Chapter 17: Agriculture ===
== External Links ==
The Conquest of Bread at theanarchistlibrary
Category:Books