Government 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 TUCKERThe exercise of authority over the same area by two States is a contradiction.
More Benjamin Tucker Quotes
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Therefore coercion of the non-invasive, when justifiable at all, is to be justified on the ground that it secures, not a minimum of ‘ invasion, but a minimum of pain.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
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 -
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 -
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 -
If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the State.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
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 -
Is not the very beginning of privilege, monopoly and industrial slavery this erecting of the ballot-box above the individual?
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
But which is the State’s essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
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 -
Marx, 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 TUCKER -
Mind your own business” is its own moral law. Interference with another’s business is a crime and the only crime, and as such may properly be resisted.
BENJAMIN TUCKER -
The exercise of authority over the same area by two States is a contradiction.
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 -
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







