Liberty and Property Excerpted from the book; Individual Liberty Selections From the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker Vanguard Press, New York, 1926 Kraus Reprint Co., Millwood, NY, 1973. Mr. Hugo Bilgram of Philadelphia, author of "Involuntary Idleness" and "The Cause of Business Depressions," contributed an article to Liberty on "The Right of Ownership," in which he defined that right as "that relation between a thing and a person created by the social promise to guarantee possession"; and then propounded to the editor of Liberty the following question: "Has Anarchism a different conception of the right of ownership, or is this right altogether repudiated, or is it assumed that out of the ruins of government another social organization, wielding a supreme power, will arise?" Mr. Tucker replied: In discussing...
On Picket Duty. Bullion thinks that civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves and then letting them do it. A very slight change suffices to make this stupid statement an entirely accurate one, after which it would read: Civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves by letting them do it.—Liberty, August 20, 1881.(52 ¶ 1) People in general, and the governmental Socialists in particular, think they see a new argument in favor of their beloved State in the assistance which it is rendering to the suffering and starving victims of the Mississippi inundation. Well, such work is better than forging new chains to keep the people in subjection, we allow; but it is not worth the price that is paid for it. The people cannot afford to be enslav...
Fellow Laborers, Brothers, Sisters, of the Great Human Family: 'I APPEAR before you not as a silver tongued speaker to tickle your fancies, please your conceits, or to call forth your applause by lofty flights of oratory; but as a cool and deliberate sympathizer in your labors, sufferings, hopes and fears; as one who for years has studied to find out what the matter is in this favored land, that possesses all the elements of prosperity of all other countries in the world; that there can be at the same time creaking warehouses, burdened by the surplus products, and also millions starving. Mothers agonizing for their children who cry for bread they have not to give; fathers desperate and ready for almost anything that promises redress. I come... (From : RevoltLib.com.)