Sitting on the threshold of the door from his humble home, Pedro, serious and hard worker, thinks, thinks, and thinks. He had been reading Regeneration, given to him from a skinny worker, nervous, with an intelligent look, as he was leaving for home. He actually had never read this paper, although he had heard about it, sometimes with disdain, other times mad, and sometimes enthusiastically.
As he is sitting at the threshold of his door, Pedro thinks and thinks hard, so hard his head hurts, just with the question, thinking, "How could we possibly live without a government?" It's eight o'clock in the morning, the last day of April. Roses open their petals so the sun can kiss them; hens, busied digging and trying to find worms, while the gallant rooster, opening and dragging his wings, fencing them, asks for love.
Pedro walks and walks. Palms sway and swing their fronds under the shining sky, the swallows gathering mud to make their nests; Pedro is in the plain field; the herd pasture quietly, without the police beating them, hares, playing freely without the need of legislators trying to make them happy with their laws; birds enjoying life, no one demanding, "I rule; obey me!"
Pedro is experimenting with the free sensation, lifting the weight, and cries, "Yes, yes, it is possible to live without a government!"
The picture he sees in the life of the animals has given him the answer, and that answer has lifted the knocks of his headache. Those flocks of sheep at his sight have given him the idea that no government is needed to live in peace. Not having individual property, there is no need for someone to take care of that property from the attacks of the ones who do not possess anything. They do own, in common, the beautiful meadow, the crystal waters, and when the sun rays shine furiously, they participate together, from the shadow the trees project. Without government, those worthy animals do not kill each other, neither do they need judges, neither jailers nor bailiffs. By not extending between them private property there isn't that horrible rivalry, that cruel war between classes, from one individual towards another, debilitating solidarity, so powerful in animals of the same species.
Pedro breathes with all of his open lungs; a vast horizon opens in front of him; as it crumbles down before his intelligence, the dark scaffolding of worries, of prejudices, the atavisms, the bourgeoisie society carefully encouraging to continue this existence. Pedro had been thinking that it is indispensable to have masters and servants, rich and poor, governors and governed. Now he understands: the ones who are interested in the actual political, economic, and social systems continuing are the ones who impose the political, economic, and social inequalities to exist between humans.
Pedro thinks, thinks, thinks. Coyotes, wolves, ducks, wild horses, buffaloes, elephants, ants, sparrows, swallows, pigeons, and almost all animals live in union, and that society is based in practical solidarity at such degree that the poor human species has not attained it yet, in spite of conquests by science, the main cause of this human misfortune, the right of individual property which allows the stronger ones, the most intelligent, the meanest to hoard, for their exclusive advantage, the natural rich resources, and the product from human labor, leaving the rest without sharing the social inheritance, and subjected to work for a crumb of bread, when they have the right to have everything they need.
The weary heat of the noon sun tires Pedro, who finds refuge under the foliage of a tree, falling asleep. The insects fly and fly over him, like escaped jewels from show windows anxiously sparkling with the sun.
Pedro sleeps and dreams. He dreams himself in a vast land, where he finds thousands of coworkers laboring the fields, while from their throats rush out triumphant notes of the hymn "Work and Liberty." Never has a musician conceived a melody as such. As is, no none until them had felt as free and happy to be alive! Pedro works and sings just the same as the others, and after two hours, they seem as seconds, he and the rest start walking towards the village, where, smiling to see small houses surrounded with flower gardens, they see nothing is missing to make life happy and beautiful. All of them have cool and hot water, electricity, electric stoves, bathrooms, sinks, comfortable furniture, curtains, rugs, pianos, and pantries filled with provisions. Pedro, as the others, has his own home, happy with his wife and small children. Now nobody works for a salary. All are owners. The ones who like agricultural jobs, fine, together working the land; the ones who are inclined to the factories, have gathered together like their brothers from the fields. All industries, at last, have come in accord to produce, according to the needs of the community, putting the products of all the industries in a huge warehouse, where there is a free entry to all this working town. Everyone takes what he or she needs, as there is abundance of everything. The streets are free of beggars, of prostitutes, because everyone has their necessities satisfied. At the working scene one does not see an old person, as they worked when they were apt, and now they live peacefully, from the work of the strong ones, waiting for a quiet death, surrounded by loving sincere tokens of affection; the disabled enjoy the same privileges as the seniors.
To get to the result, the people from this region started to disregard all kind of authority, and at the same time, declared common property the land and the production machinery. They gathered the workers of each industry to discuss the way to better production, having at front, a list of the demands from the bourgeois's warehouses, and that now was at the disposition for all in a big warehouse.
Many unnecessary industries were eliminated, since there was not a reason for speculation anymore, and the work that previously used to move the policemen, the soldiers, the public and private office workers, helped with their contingency effort. There were no parasites of any kind anymore, as everyone of those inhabitants were at the same time producers and guardians, therefore being at the same time workers and owners.
What is the reason to have a government?
Which was the reason to destroy those people, when all of them felt like owners? Nobody could be better than the other. Each one would produce according to his effort and intelligence, and each one would consume to fill his needs. What would be the reason to hoard? That would have been stupid. Pedro feels happy and smiles while sleeping. Butterflies fly around him as if they were part of his dreams...
Suddenly Pedro feels a great pain on his head, and awakes startled. It is a policeman, a representative of Mrs. Authority, with which scared shy people believe they cannot live without. The pretty officer has just awoken, with a kick on the head, the good and peaceful laborer. Desperately, she orders him to go and sleep at home, or on the contrary he will go to jail for being vagrant.
Vagrant? When his master just told him there was no work--just two days after!
Pedro shakes with indignation; turns his back to the officer and leaves. His face shows a supreme resolve. Arrives home, kisses his small children, and, with great emotion, says good bye to his wife, to march towards the brave ones who fight at the exalt of "Hurrah Country and Freedom!"