Benjamin Tucker Quotes

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Benjamin Tucker

Profession : Activist

Birth : April 17, 1854

Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism.

Benjamin Tucker

But this is not to say that the society which inflicts capital punishment commits murder.

Benjamin Tucker

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.

Benjamin Tucker

Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats.

Benjamin Tucker

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.

Benjamin Tucker

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

To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.

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.

Benjamin Tucker

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.

Benjamin Tucker

Such security is equal liberty. But it is not necessarily equality in the use of the earth.

Benjamin Tucker

The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice.

Benjamin Tucker

Commanded love of all men indiscriminately is an obliteration of distinction between love and hate, and therefore is not love at all.

Benjamin Tucker

Aggression is simply another name for government.

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

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

But which is the State's essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care.

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.

Benjamin Tucker

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

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.

Benjamin Tucker

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.

Benjamin Tucker