Preach it, Peter

Anarchist Communism maintains that most valuable of all conquests
—individual liberty—and moreover extends it and gives it a solid basis—
economic liberty—without which political liberty is delusive; it does not ask
the individual who has rejected god, the universal tyrant, god the king, and
god the parliament, to give unto himself a god more terrible than any of
the preceding—god the Community, or to abdicate upon its altar his
independence, his will, his tastes, and to renew the vow of asceticism which
he formerly made before the crucified god. It says to him, on the contrary,
"No society is free so long as the individual is not so! Do not seek to modify
society by imposing upon it an authority which shall make everything right;
if you do, you will fail as popes and emperors have failed. Modify society so
that your fellows may not be any longer your enemies by the force of
circumstances: abolish the conditions which allow some to monopolise the
fruit of the labour of others; and instead of attempting to construct society
from top to bottom, or from the centre to the circumference, let it develop
itself freely from the simple to the composite, by the free union of free
groups. This course, which is so much obstructed at present, is the true
forward march of society: do not seek to hinder it, do not turn your back on
progress, but march along with it! Then the sentiment of sociability which is
common to human beings, as it is to all animals living in society, will be able
to develop itself freely, because our fellows will no longer be our enemies,
and we shall thus arrive at a state of things in which each individual will be
able to give free rein to his inclinations, and even to his passions, without
any other restraint than the love and respect of those who surround him."

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We do not advocate Communism and Anarchy because we imagine men to
be better than they really are; if we had angels among us we might be
tempted to entrust to them the task of organising us, though doubtless
even they would show the cloven foot very soon. But it is just because we
take men as they are that we say: "Do not entrust them with the governing
of you. This or that despicable minister might have been an excellent man if
power had not been given to him. The only way of arriving at harmony of
interests is by a society without exploiters and without rulers." It is
precisely because men are not angels that we say, "Let us arrange matters
so that each man may see his interest bound up with the interests of
others, then you will no longer have to fear his evil passions."

-- Peter Kropotkin, The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution