Benjamin Tucker Quotes
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The Anarchists believe in the family; they only insist that free competition and experiment shall always be allowed in order that it may be determined what form of family best secures this object.
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Defence was an afterthought, prompted by necessity; and its introduction as a State function, though effected doubtless with a view to the strengthening of the State, was really and in principle the initiation of the State's destruction. Its growth in importance is but an evidence of the tendency of progress toward the abolition of the State.
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Monopoly and privilege must be destroyed, opportunity afforded, and competition encouraged. This is Liberty's work, and 'Down with Authority' her war-cry.
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But this is not to say that the society which inflicts capital punishment commits murder. Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act. 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.
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The Anarchists believe in civil society; only they insist that the freedom of civil society shall be complete instead of partial.
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The Anarchists most certainly believe in the Church; only they insist that all its work shall be purely voluntary, and that its discoveries and achievements, however beneficial, shall not be imposed upon the individual by authority.
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I insist that there is nothing sacred in the life of an invader, and there is no valid principle of human society that forbids the invaded to protect themselves in whatever way they can.
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I will simply call attention to the fact that it is an ideal utterly inconsistent with that of those Communists who falsely call themselves Anarchists while at the same time advocating a regime of Archism fully as despotic as that of the State Socialists themselves.
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The Anarchists never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow authority.
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Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital.
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It was at this point - the necessity of striking down monopoly - that came the parting of their ways. Here the road forked. They found that they must turn either to the right or to the left, - follow either the path of Authority or the path of Liberty. Marx went one way; Warren and Proudhon the other. Thus were born State Socialism and Anarchism.
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The exercise of authority over the same area by two States is a contradiction.
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If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the State.
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I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified.
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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.
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This brings us to Anarchism, which 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.
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Passive resistance and boycotting are now prominent features of every great national movement.
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As a general rule, the better people are, the more Anarchists and Socialists will be found among them.
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Taking this view of the matter, the Anarchists contend that defence is not an essential of the State, but that aggression is.