Moribund Society and Anarchy by Jean Grave

We have shown that "the country" is a sonorous word designed to induce the workers to defend an order of things which oppresses them. We shall see now if the "love of country," this "holy sentiment," this "love of the soil which is born in everyone," is so deeply rooted in those who make the declaration; whether it rises from purely subjective causes, as among the workers, or from purely material causes, from vulgar preoccupations of mercantile interests. It is among the writings published by themselves for their own use that we must search for their innermost conviction. It is edifying.

To hear them when they are addressing the workers there is nothing so sacred as the country; every citizen should be ready to sacrifice his life or his liberty for the defense of the country. In fine, according to them the country represents the highest degree of the general interest; to make sacrifices for it is to sacrifice for one's own and one's self. We have only to rummage among their treatises on political economy to convict them of lying; to see that all these high-sounding phrases, these sentiments which they parade, are nothing but bluffs for the benefit of the simpletons who let themselves be duped by the like, masks which they take care to leave in the dressing-room when among their intimates. Here is what one of their political doctors, whose authority is officially recognized, says: