Benjamin Tucker

About the author

Benjamin Tucker: Advocate for Individualist Anarchism

Benjamin Tucker was born on April 17, 1854, in the United States. He was a proponent of American individualist anarchism in the 19th Century. Tucker was the first to translate into English the works of Proudhon and Stirner, which marked a significant contribution to the anarchist movement. He also edited and published the anarchist periodical 'Liberty.'

Tucker argued for a society where individuals are free to do as they wish, as long as they do not infringe on the same freedom of others. He was a massive contributor to the development of anarcho-capitalism and was one of the principal advocates of 'free banking.' His thoughts had a considerable influence on the libertarian movement in the United States. Tucker died on June 22, 1939, but his diverse corpus of political commentaries, articles, and essays continue to be revered in anarchist circles.

Date of Birth: April 17, 1854

Date of Death: June 22, 1939

Country of Birth: United States

Political Ideas: Individualist Anarchism, Free-market Anarchism

Quotes Available: 20

Quotes by Benjamin Tucker

Anarchism is for liberty, and neither for nor against anything else … I define Anarchism as the belief in the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of liberty; or, in other words, as the belief in every liberty except the liberty to invade.

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.

The State is said by some to be a "necessary evil"; it must be made unnecessary.

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.

Many claim to speak in liberty's name, but few really understand her.

If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the state.

Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be.

Aggression is simply another name for government.

Education is a slow process, and may not come too quickly.

The population of the world is gradually dividing into two classes, anarchists and criminals.

Once for all, then, we are not opposed to the punishment of thieves and murderers; we are opposed to their manufacture.

Monopoly and privilege must be destroyed, opportunity afforded, and competition encouraged. This is liberty's work, and "Down with Authority" her war-cry.

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.

Where crime exists, force must exist to repress it. Who denies it? Certainly not liberty; certainly not the anarchists.

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.

Anarchists who endeavor to hasten it by joining in the propaganda of state socialism or revolution make a sad mistake indeed.

The state is the most gigantic criminal extant. It manufactures criminals much faster than it punishes them.

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 anarchists never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow authority.

Liberty enters the field of journalism to speak for herself because she finds no one willing to speak for her.

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