If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the State.
BENJAMIN TUCKERAnd 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.
More Benjamin Tucker Quotes
-
-
Man’s only right to land is his might over it. If his neighbor is mightier than he and takes the land from him, then the land is his neighbor’s, until the latter is dispossessed by one mightier still.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
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.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
The right of the majority is absolute.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
We are here, on earth. Not one of us has any right to the earth.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
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 -
Aggression is simply another name for government.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
We are here to let in the light of Liberty upon political superstition.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
Thus, the same blow that strikes interest down will send wages up.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
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 -
The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
Anarchism is for liberty, and neither for nor against anything else. Anarchy is the mother of co-operation, yes, just as liberty is the mother of order; but, as a matter of definition, liberty is not order nor is Anarchism co-operation.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
Whoso knows what these two schools want and how they propose to get it understands the Socialistic movement.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
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 -
Voting is merely a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable…
BENJAMIN TUCKER