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 TUCKERIt 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 TUCKERIn 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 TUCKERMan’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 TUCKERMarx, 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 TUCKERSuch security is equal liberty. But it is not necessarily equality in the use of the earth.
BENJAMIN TUCKERAfter the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy.
BENJAMIN TUCKERIt 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 TUCKERThus, the same blow that strikes interest down will send wages up.
BENJAMIN TUCKERAggression is simply another name for government.
BENJAMIN TUCKERMonopoly and privilege must be destroyed, opportunity afforded, and competition encouraged. This is Liberty’s work, and Down with Authority her war-cry.
BENJAMIN TUCKERIt is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the bully, and the bullet.
BENJAMIN TUCKER[T]he State . . . gives idle capital the power of increase, and, through interest, rent, profit, and taxes, robs industrious labor of its products.
BENJAMIN TUCKEROne 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 TUCKERWe are here, on earth. Not one of us has any right to the earth.
BENJAMIN TUCKERGovernment is the assumption of authority over a given area and all within it, exercised generally for the double purpose of more complete oppression of its subjects and extension of its boundaries.
BENJAMIN TUCKERHe who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man,
BENJAMIN TUCKER