#title Our Enemy is the Slave
#author Noël Demeure
#SORTtopics slavery, individualist anarchism, voluntary servitude
#date August 30, 1906
#source Retrieved on 24<sup>th</sup> September 2020 from https://www.marxists.org/subject/anarchism/demeure/slaves.htm
#lang en
#pubdate 2020-09-24T22:06:49
#notes Originally published in <em>l’anarchie</em>. Translated by Mitchell Abidor.



Most of us foolishly say that our main enemy is our master. I think it would be more exact to say that our enemy is the slave.

A slave myself, I hold it against myself that that’s what I am and try to free myself from this state. But it isn’t my master who prevents me from being free (man against man the fight would be even), but the mass of slaves among whom I live, the soldiers, voters, etc. And so my enemies are the slaves. But since there are too many of them for them to be defeated through violence, I do what I can to make them my allies. When they will be my friends there will be no more masters.