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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

Voting is merely a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable…
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Bully Lying Voting
War and Authority are companions; Peace and Liberty are companions.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Authority Liberty War
It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the bully, and the bullet.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Beyond Bullet More Representative
Whoso knows what these two schools want and how they propose to get it understands the Socialistic movement.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Movement School Socialistic Understand
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

Choice Individual Men Swag
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

Kings Leader Wings
Is not the very beginning of privilege, monopoly and industrial slavery this erecting of the ballot-box above the individual?
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Privilege Slavery Voting
The student of Liberty must constantly endeavor to disassociate his imagination from sanguinary dramas of assassination and revolt.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Drama Imagination Liberty
Capital will be set free, business will flourish, new enterprises will start, labor will be in demand, and gradually the wages of labor will rise to a level with its product.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Business Capital Demand Labor Product
We are here to let in the light of Liberty upon political superstition.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Liberty Light Political
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

Country Names School
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

Effort Justice Real
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

Children Maintenance School
The cost of justice can be justly paid only by the invader.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Cost Invaders Justice
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
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
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
Such security is equal liberty. But it is not necessarily equality in the use of the earth.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Equality Liberty Use
But which is the State’s essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Aquarium Care Essential
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
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
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

Always Bless Choice Invade Liberty
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
After 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 TUCKER

Absolute Manner Men Modern Monarch Ordinary
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

Discovery Eugenics Mean
He 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 … or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Democracy Invasion Men
If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the State.
BENJAMIN TUCKER

Anarchist Anarchy Government

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.

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Popular Authors

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