The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control.
Category Archive: Benjamin Tucker
Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats.
Such security is equal liberty. But it is not necessarily equality in the use of the earth.
To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The cost of justice can be justly paid only by the invader.
The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice.