Benjamin Tucker quotes - page 3

Voluntary taxation, far from impairing the "State's" credit, would strengthen it. (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. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control. 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, 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. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
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. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
We are here to let in the light of Liberty upon political superstition. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
This, then, is the Anarchistic definition of government: the subjection of the non-invasive individual to an external will. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
The right of the majority is absolute. View quote
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. Whoso knows what these two schools want and how they propose to get it understands the Socialistic movement. For, just as it has been said that there is no half-way house between Rome and Reason, so it may be said that there is no half-way house between State Socialism and Anarchism. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
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. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
The claim of the State Socialists, however, that this right would not be exercised in matters pertaining to the individual in the more intimate and private relations of his life is not borne out by the history of governments. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
The right of such control is already admitted by the State Socialists, though they maintain that, as a matter of fact, the individual would be allowed a much larger liberty than he now enjoys. (Benjamin Tucker)
Such is the economic programme of State Socialism as adopted from Karl Marx. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
They look upon all obligations, not as moral, but as social, and even then not really as obligations except as these have been consciously and voluntarily assumed. If a man makes an agreement with men, the latter may combine to hold him to his agreement; but, in the absence of such agreement, no man, so far as the Anarchists are aware, has made any agreement with God or with any other power of any order whatsoever. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
What other applications this principle of Authority, once adopted in the economic sphere, will develop is very evident. It means the absolute control by the majority of all individual conduct. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
It is the same with the use of force, whether of the mob or of the State, upon diseased society; and not only those who prescribe its indiscriminate use as a sovereign remedy and a permanent tonic, but all who ever propose it as a cure, and even all who would lightly and unnecessarily resort to it, not as a cure, but as an expedient, are social quacks. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
Education is a slow process, and may not come too quickly. Anarchists who endeavor to hasten it by joining in the propaganda of State Socialism or revolution make a sad mistake indeed. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
LIBERTY enters the field of journalism to speak for herself because she finds no one willing to speak for her. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
Once for all, then, we are not opposed to the punishment of thieves and murderers; we are opposed to their manufacture. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
Where crime exists, force must exist to repress it. Who denies it? Certainly not Liberty; certainly not the Anarchists. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
But he would only be allowed it; he could not claim it as his own. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
On the contrary, we are the sternest enemies of invasion of person and property, and, although chiefly busy in destroying the causes thereof, have no scruples against such heroic treatment of its immediate manifestations as circumstances and wisdom may dictate. (Benjamin Tucker)
Anarchism, in dealing with this subject, has found it necessary, first of all, to define its terms. Popular conceptions of the terminology of politics are incompatible with the rigorous exactness required in scientific investigation. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
Many claim to speak in her name, but few really understand her. Still fewer have the courage and the opportunity to consistently fight for her. Her battle, then, is her own, to wage and win. She - accepts it fearlessly and with a determined spirit. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
The idea that Anarchy can be inaugurated by force is as fallacious as the idea that it can be sustained by force. Force cannot preserve Anarchy; neither can it bring it. View quote
Benjamin Tucker