The Conquest Of Bread
The Conquest of Bread (French: La Conquête du Pain) is a book by the Russian anarchist and father of libertarian communism Piotr Kropotkin. Originally written in French, it first appeared as a series of articles in the anarchist newspapers Le Révolté and La Revolté (both edited by Kropotkin). It was first published as a book in Paris in 1892 with a preface by Élisée Reclus, who also suggested the title. Between 1892 and 1894 he was serialized, in part, in the London newspapers Freedom, of which Kropotkin was co-founder. It has been translated and reprinted numerous times: it was translated into Japanese, for example, by Kotoku Shusui in 1909.In this work, Kropotkin points out what he considers to be the failures of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism, and how he believes that these create misery and scarcity while promoting privilege for certain classes. He opts for the proposal of a decentralized economic system based on mutual aid and voluntary cooperation, finding that the trends for this type of organization already exist, both in evolution and in human society.