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Quotes from State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ — Benjamin Tucker

1854–1939 United States

← All quotes by Benjamin Tucker

12 quotes

There would be but one article in the constitution of a State Socialistic country: “The right of the majority is absolute.”

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

But he would only be allowed it; he could not claim it as his own.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

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.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

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.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

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.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

Such is the economic programme of State Socialism as adopted from Karl Marx.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

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

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

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.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

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.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

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.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

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.

State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherin They Differ (1888)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Benjamin Tucker (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.