The Good Quote
Open menu
Quotes
Authors
Topics
More
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
Home
Authors
Benjamin Tucker
American
Activist
About the author
The right of such control is already admitted by the State Socialists, though they maintain that, as a matter of fact, the individual would be allowed a much larger liberty than he now enjoys.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Right
#Now
#Liberty
#State
#Control
#Fact
One thing, however, is sure, - that in all cases the effort should be to impose all the cost of repairing the wrong upon the doer of the wrong. This alone is real justice, and of course such justice is necessarily free.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Wrong
#Justice
#Effort
Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Society
#Socialism
#Discovery
Such security is equal liberty. But it is not necessarily equality in the use of the earth.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Security
#Liberty
#Earth
#Equality
The claim of the State Socialists, however, that this right would not be exercised in matters pertaining to the individual in the more intimate and private relations of his life is not borne out by the history of governments.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Right
#Life
#State
#History
The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Government
#Control
Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Act
#Murder
The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Injustice
The Anarchists answer that the abolition of the State will leave in existence a defensive association, resting no longer on a compulsory but on a voluntary basis, which will restrain invaders by any means that may prove necessary.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Will
#May
#State
#Existence
The two principles referred to are Authority and Liberty, and the names of the two schools of Socialistic thought which fully and unreservedly represent one or the other of them are, respectively, State Socialism and Anarchism.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Thought
#Liberty
#Authority
#State
#Principles
#Socialism
#Names
#Schools
Therefore coercion of the non-invasive, when justifiable at all, is to be justified on the ground that it secures, not a minimum of ' invasion, but a minimum of pain.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Pain
This brings us to Anarchism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the State should be abolished.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#May
#State
#Men
#Doctrine
To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Liberty
#Man
#Insult
#Force
#Injury
We are here, on earth. Not one of us has any right to the earth.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Right
#Earth
The exercise of authority over the same area by two States is a contradiction.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Authority
#Exercise
#states
#Contradiction
And capital punishment, however ineffective it may be and through whatever ignorance it may be resorted to, is a strictly defensive act, - at least in theory.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#May
#Ignorance
#Act
#Theory
#Punishment
The cost of justice can be justly paid only by the invader.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Justice
Almost the only persons who may be said to comprehend even approximately the significance, principles, and purposes of Socialism are the chief leaders of the extreme wings of the Socialistic forces, and perhaps a few of the money kings themselves.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#May
#Leaders
#Money
#Kings
#Principles
#Socialism
#Extreme
Marx, as we have seen, solved it by declaring capital to be a different thing from product, and maintaining that it belonged to society and should be seized by society and employed for the benefit of all alike.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Society
And this is the Anarchistic definition of the State: the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#People
#Act
But this is not to say that the society which inflicts capital punishment commits murder.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Society
#Murder
#Punishment
But which is the State's essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#State
#Care
#Aggression
Commanded love of all men indiscriminately is an obliteration of distinction between love and hate, and therefore is not love at all.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Love
#Men
#Hate
First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#May
#State
#First
#Government
#Men
#Choice
#Socialism
#Doctrine
For, just as it has been said that there is no half-way house between Rome and Reason, so it may be said that there is no half-way house between State Socialism and Anarchism.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Reason
#May
#State
#Socialism
#Rome
I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Society
#Murder
#Punishment
Aggression is simply another name for government.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Government
#Name
#Aggression
I insist that there is nothing sacred in the life of an invader, and there is no valid principle of human society that forbids the invaded to protect themselves in whatever way they can.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Life
#Nothing
#Society
In the matter of the maintenance and rearing of children the Anarchists would neither institute the communistic nursery which the State Socialists favor nor keep the communistic school system which now prevails.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Now
#Children
#State
#School
Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#Poor
#Labor
Defence was an afterthought, prompted by necessity; and its introduction as a State function, though effected doubtless with a view to the strengthening of the State, was really and in principle the initiation of the State's destruction.
Benjamin Tucker,
American
Activist
#State
#Necessity
#Destruction