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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.

Benjamin Tucker

In times past…it was my habit to talk glibly of the right of man to land. It was a bad habit, and I long ago sloughed it off.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Ago Long Men Past
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

Ignorance May Punishment
Anarchism 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….. Nor does the Anarchistic scheme furnish any code of morals to be imposed upon the individual. “
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Business Law Men Mind Own
To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Injury Insult Liberty Men
The State is said by some to be a necessary evil; it must be made unnecessary.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Anarchy Evil Unnecessary
Peace and Liberty are companions. It is foolish in the extreme not only to resort to force before necessity compels, but especially to madly create the conditions that will lead to this necessity.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Condition Extreme Liberty Necessity Peace Strength
It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are effective that I uphold them, and it is because force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it. War and Authority are companions.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Passive Peaceful Resistance War
The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Justice Moments Victim
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

Answers Compulsory Leave May Mean
The shortest way to change a radical into a conservative, a liberal into a tyrant, a man into a beast, is to give him power over his fellows.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Men Power Tyrant
Give woman equality with man, by all means; but do it by taking power from man, not giving it to woman.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Equality Mean Power Taking Women
It will probably surprise many who know nothing of Proudhon save his declaration that ‘property is robbery’ to learn that he was perhaps the most vigorous hater of Communism that ever lived on this planet.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Book Mean
If I can go through life free and rich, I shall not cry because my neighbor, equally free, is richer. Liberty will ultimately make all men rich; it will not make all men equally rich.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Liberty May Men
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

Band People Principles
But the apparent inconsistency vanishes when you read his book and find that by property he means simply legally privileged wealth or the power of usury, and not at all the possession by the labourer of his products.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Apparent Mean Power Privilege Simply Usury Vanish
Whoso knows what these two schools want and how they propose to get it understands the Socialistic movement.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Movement School Socialistic Understand

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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