Anarchism means no government, but it does not mean no laws and no coercion. This may seem paradoxical, but the paradox vanishes when the Anarchist definition of government is kept in view. Anarchists oppose government, not because they disbelieve in punishment of crime and resistance to aggression, but because they disbelieve in compulsory protection. Protection and taxation without consent is itself invasion; hence Anarchism favors a system of voluntary taxation and protection. - Benjamin Tucker, "Liberty"In a later essay, State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, And Wherein They Differ, he gave his definition of anarchism: "The doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the State should be abolished." Tucker held Warren's cost the limit of price version of the labor theory of value. That is, he opposed "usury," by which he meant interest on loans, rent on land and houses, and profit from the labor of others. But he was ardently free market, and upheld the right of contract. Thus, while he opposed usury as a vice (in Spoonerian terms), it was not a crime. No one should "invade" voluntary employment, rent-taking, or interest-taking; the individual right to contract should not be violated. This contrasted with the European anarcho-socialist revolutionary types, who generally favored expropriation. Tucker decried and denounced the violence and terrorism of "propaganda by the deed," which permeated the anarcho-socialist mindset of the time. Except in extreme circumstances, such as in Czarist Russia, he considered such violence both immoral and counter-productive. Like Bakunin, Tucker opposed state socialism. Tucker called his own anarchist philosophy "scientific anarchism," and considered it to be a form of socialism. However, he used an outdated definition of socialism; by the modern definition (socialism as collective ownership of the means of production) he was not socialist. On the contrary, he was pro-capitalist - if you take capitalism to mean an economic system permitting private ownership of the means of production. As far as we know, Warren and Spooner never called themselves socialist. Both supported private ownership of the means of production. Warren used "cost is the limit of price" economics, but Spooner did not. Spooner supported interest, land ownership, and employment, so he was basically an anarcho-capitalist. Some web pages are misleading on this, quoting Spooner out of context.* Virtually all anarcho-capitalists prefer individual entrepreneurship to employment - this preferrence does not make someone anti-capitalist or socialist. Nor does someone claiming that "labor shall be put in possession of its own" (Tucker's notion of socialism) make one a socialist in the modern sense - anarcho-capitalists would totally agree. The issue is not whether one has a right to the fruits of their labor, but whether one has the right to sell this "fruit" in advance.
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| Against Authority | page 81 |
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