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 TUCKERThere are some troubles from which mankind can never escape …. have never claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow from authority ….
More Benjamin Tucker Quotes
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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.
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[T]he State . . . gives idle capital the power of increase, and, through interest, rent, profit, and taxes, robs industrious labor of its products.
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The main question … is not what motive inspired the law, but what it will be possible for men of bad motive to do with the law.
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The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control.
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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.
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As a choice of blessings, liberty is the greater; as a choice of evils, liberty is the smaller. Then liberty always says the Anarchist. No use of force except against the invader.
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Give woman equality with man, by all means; but do it by taking power from man, not giving it to woman.
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We are here, on earth. Not one of us has any right to the earth.
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We are here to let in the light of Liberty upon political superstition.
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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.
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I define Anarchism as the belief in the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of liberty; or, in other words, as the belief in every liberty except the liberty to invade.
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The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that ‘the best government is that which governs least,’ and that which governs least is no government at all.
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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.
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Whoso knows what these two schools want and how they propose to get it understands the Socialistic movement.
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The student of Liberty must constantly endeavor to disassociate his imagination from sanguinary dramas of assassination and revolt.
BENJAMIN TUCKER