Individual Liberty - Evernote

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can only say that the world is not destined to see the time when some things will not go by favor. Egoist's argument that free competition will tend to distribute rent by a readjustment of wages is exactly to my purpose. Have I not told him from the start that Anarchists will gladly welcome any tendency to equality through liberty? But Egoist seems to object to reaching equality by this road. It must be reached by law or not at all. If reached by competition, "competition would be harassed." In other words, competition would harass competition. This wears the aspect of another absurdity. It is very likely that competitors would harass competitors, but competition without harassed competitors is scarcely thinkable. It is even not improbable that "class distinctions" would be developed, as Egoist says. Workers would find the places which their capacities, conditions, and inclinations qualify them to fill, and would thus be classified, or divided into distinct classes. Does Egoist think that in such an event life would not be worth living? Of course the words "harass" and "class distinction" have an ugly sound, and competition is decidedly more attractive when associated instead with "excel" and "organization." But Anarchists never recoil from disagreeable terms. Only their opponents are to be frightened by words and phrases. Property Under Anarchism A discussion in The Free Life (London) between its editor, Mr. Auberon Herbert, and an Anarchistic correspondent, Mr. Albert Tarn, involved an objection to Anarchism that it would throw property titles (especially land titles) into hopeless confusion, which led Mr. Tucker to enter the controversy in <strong>Liberty</strong> in the following manner: This criticism of Anarchism, reduced to its essence, is seen to be twofold. First, the complaint is that it has no fixed standard of acquiring or owning. Second, the complaint is that it necessarily results in a fixed standard of acquiring or owning. Evidently Mr. Herbert is a very hard man to please. Before he criticises Anarchism further, I must insist that he make up his mind whether he himself wants or does not want a fixed standard. And whatever his decision, his criticism falls. For if he wants a fixed standard, that which he may adopt is as liable to become a "rigid crystalline custom" as any that Anarchism may lead to. And if he does not want a fixed standard, then how can he complain of Anarchism for having none? If it were my main object to emerge from this dispute victorious, I might well leave Mr. Herbert in the queer predicament in which his logic has placed him. But as I am really anxious to win him to the Anarchistic view, I shall try to show him that the fear of scramble and rigidity with which Anarchism inspires him has little or no foundation. Mr. Herbert, as I understand him, believes in voluntary association, voluntarily supported, for the defence of person and property. Very well; let us suppose that he has won his battle, and that such a state of things exists. Suppose that all municipalities have adopted the voluntary principle, and that compulsory taxation has been abolished. Now, after this, let us suppose further that the Anarchistic view that occupancy and use should condition and limit landholding becomes the prevailing
view. Evidently then these municipalities will proceed to formulate and enforce this view. What the formula will be no one can foresee. But continuing with our suppositions, we will say that they decide to protect no one in the possession of more than ten acres. In execution of this decision, they, on October 1, notify all holders of more than ten acres within their limits that, on and after the following January 1, they will cease to protect them in the possession of more than ten acres, and that, as a condition of receiving even that protection, each must make formal declaration on or before December 1 of the specific ten-acre plot within his present holding which he proposes to personally occupy and use after January 31. These declarations having been made, the municipalities publish them and at the same time notify landless persons that out of the lands thus set free each may secure protection in the possession of any amount up to ten acres after January 1 by appearing on December 15, at a certain hour, and making declaration of his choice and intention of occupancy. Now, says Mr. Herbert, the scramble will begin. Well, perhaps it will. But what of it? When a theatre advertises to sell seats for a star performance at a certain hour, there is a scramble to secure tickets. When a prosperous city announces that on a given day it will accept loans from individuals up to a certain aggregate on attractive terms, there is a scramble to secure the bonds. As far as I know, nobody complains of these scrambles as unfair. The scramble begins and the scramble ends, and the matter is settled. Some inequality still remains, but it has been reduced to a minimum, and everybody has had an equal chance with the rest. So it will be with this land scramble. It may be conducted as peacefully as any other scramble, and those who are f Brightened by the word are simply the victims of a huge bugbear. And the terror of rigidity is equally groundless. This rule of ten-acre possession, or any similar one that may be adopted, is no more rigid crystalline custom than is Mr. Herbert's own rule of protecting title transferred by purchase and sale. Any rule is rigid less by the rigidity of its terms than by the rigidity of its enforcement. Now it is precisely in the tempering of the rigidity of enforcement that one of the chief excellences of Anarchism consists. Mr. Herbert must rememberthat under Anarchism all rules and laws will be little more than suggestions for the guidance of juries, and that all disputes, whether about land or anything else, will be submitted to juries which will judge not only the facts, but the law, the justice of the law, its applicability to the given circumstances, and the penalty or damage to be inflicted because of its infraction. What better safeguard against rigidity could there be than this? "Machinery for altering" the law, indeed! Why, under Anarchism the law will be so flexible that it will shape itself to every emergency and need no alteration. And it will then be regarded as just in proportion to its flexibility, instead of as now in proportion to its rigidity. Occupancy and Use Versus the Single Tax In December, 1894, Mr. Steven T. Byington, still a Single Taxer, started a discussion with the editor of <strong>Liberty</strong> (Mr. John Beverley Robinson and Miss Katharine J. Musson participating) on certain factors in the land tenure and rent problems. Mr. Byington, an expert mathematician, carried the discussion into quite an intricate maze of figures, which are rather hard for the reader to understand without complete reproduction, here impossible. But, since Mr. Tucker's replies embodied some very pertinent and
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Individual Liberty by Benjamin Rick
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In 1877 he edited The Word in Princ
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of the upholders of the existing so
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machine which makes his shirts or t
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and employed for the benefit of all
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employed in the protected industrie
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that it is an ideal utterly inconsi
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social order. It was not yet too la
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its borders; and it seems plain tha
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manifestation; the policeman on the
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"All legislations have adopted this
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Her foe, Authority, takes many shap
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dominion, to authority, and are so
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But it is not the most effective me
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of sociology has made such a preten
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Liberty and Organization Thirty-fiv
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coerce the peaceful non-co-operator
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organism will speedily disorganize.
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This tendency is simply the progres
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masterly document will tell him wha
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unlettered blacks out of mischief,
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Connected with the Massachusetts br
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Defining the object of the Church a
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worse than despotism," should oppos
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form. I should like to know upon wh
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etween the popular conception of li
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ignorant, though enthusiastic and e
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The Futility of the Ballot No super
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The Anarchists never have claimed t
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Is the Somebody the beggar, the inv
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"If James did not lend the plane to
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land unfitting it for a basis, it h
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In 1889, Mr. Hugo Bilgram first pub
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not in this, but in limiting by law
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no winter, water-pipes would never
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the question whether, in the transa
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upon as a decidedly indeterminate e
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anking will make it possible to pro
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show that I have denied his positio
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heresy as an engineer would be to d
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original borrower of the notes shou
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In the existing unideal world the c
Page 85 and 86: science by his overpowering demonst
Page 87 and 88: unintelligible except on the hypoth
Page 89 and 90: for their customers' business paper
Page 91 and 92: very small. Thus gold would be need
Page 93 and 94: made in bank notes, unless we also
Page 95 and 96: passing through their hands, as a r
Page 97 and 98: would decrease notably, - would fal
Page 99 and 100: therefore its issue can have no eff
Page 101 and 102: chooses; it is none the less establ
Page 103 and 104: monopoly complained of is this - th
Page 105 and 106: "Suppose a natural spring free to a
Page 107 and 108: advantages of land by the landlord,
Page 109 and 110: not infrequently its commendation.
Page 111 and 112: y the virus of political corruption
Page 113 and 114: of B's notes, returns them to B, wh
Page 115 and 116: labor." Exactly. But the principle
Page 117 and 118: protecting power to lend its aid to
Page 119 and 120: of his income, exclaimed, on learni
Page 121 and 122: y occupancy and use. This would des
Page 123 and 124: equal liberty is to secure this fun
Page 125 and 126: The city laborer may live in a crow
Page 127 and 128: they can be and will be, though not
Page 129 and 130: But perhaps Egoist means the exchan
Page 131 and 132: say to the householder: "Here, I ca
Page 133 and 134: it will lead to serious results, fo
Page 135: eturn." Anarchism holds, on the con
Page 139 and 140: mining, it would not follow that th
Page 141 and 142: difference that I pointed out to Mr
Page 143 and 144: illustration? Moreover, the illustr
Page 145 and 146: hypothetical individual, Smith. But
Page 147 and 148: getting to an occupancy-and-use ten
Page 149 and 150: All that Mr. Horr has to say about
Page 151 and 152: in the name of sense is there about
Page 153 and 154: The Single Taxer starts with the pr
Page 155 and 156: dog, instead of giving bark for bar
Page 157 and 158: In steadfastly pursuing this course
Page 159 and 160: trusts, instead of growing out of c
Page 161 and 162: from the efforts of a single indivi
Page 163 and 164: is because they are symptoms of a s
Page 165 and 166: their superior officers; in other w
Page 167 and 168: Anarchistic Socialism. What Anarchi
Page 169 and 170: Here the ghost appears, all form an
Page 171 and 172: Yes, as The Anti-Monopolist says, U
Page 173 and 174: injury to no other? Why don't you t
Page 175 and 176: A very acute criticism of Mr. Spenc
Page 177 and 178: achieved for any length of time wit
Page 179 and 180: If a man were to declare that, when
Page 181 and 182: clear logic of the principle which
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