Kropotkin - The State

'Man lived in Societies for thousands of years before the State had been heard of......so far as Europe is concerned the State is of recent origin - it barely goes back to the sixteenth century.....it is to ignore that the most glorious periods in Man's history are those in which civil liberties and communal life had not yet been destroyed by the State, and in which large numbers of people lived in communes and free federations.'

'In all its affairs the village commune was sovereign. Local custom was law and the plenary assembly of all the heads of family, men and women, was the judge, the only judge in civil and criminal matters.'

'...the Kabyles, the Mongols, the Malays, do not appeal to a government; they haven't one. being men of customary law and individual initiative, they have not been perverted from acting for themselves by the corrupting force of government and Church. They unite spontaneously. They form sworn brotherhoods, political and religious associations - guilds as they were called in the Middle Ages, and 'cofs' as they are called today by the Kabyles. And these 'cofs' extend beyond the boundaries of the hamlet; they extend far and wide into the desert and to foreign cities; and brotherhood is practised in these associations. To refuse help to a member of one's 'cof' - even at risk of losing all one's possessions and one's life - is to commit an act of treason to the 'brotherhood'; it is to be treated as one's 'brother's' murderer.'   

'.....from the fifth to the twelfth and even until the fifteenth century. Under the name of guilds, friendships, brotherhoods, etc., associations abounded for mutual defence, to avenge affronts suffered by some members of the union and to express solidarity, to replace the 'eye for an eye' vengeance by compensation, followed by the acceptance of the aggressor into the brotherhood; for the exercise of trades, for aid in case of illness, for defence of the territory; to prevent encroachments of a nascent authority; for commerce; for the practice of 'good neighbourliness;' for propaganda - in a word for all that Europeans, educated by the Rome of the Caesars and the Popes, nowadays expect from the State. It is even very doubtful whether there was a single man in that period, free man or serf, apart from those who had been banned by their own brotherhoods, who did not belong to a brotherhood or some guild, as well as to his commune.' 

'Far from being the bloodthirsty beast he was made out to be in order to justify the need to dominate him, man has always preferred peace and quiet.'

'The 'street' or the parish represented the territorial unit, corresponding to the earlier village community. each street or parish had its popular assembly, its forum, its popular tribunal, its priest, its militia, its banner and often its seal, the symbol of sovereignty. Though federated with other streets it nevertheless maintained its independence.'