Frases de Benjamin Tucker

página 2

“La máxima reclamación del socialismo [es] que el trabajo debería estar en posesión de su dueño.”

“[…] las huelgas, cuandoquiera y dondequiera que surjan, merecen el respaldo de todos los compañeros de trabajo […] Ellas muestran que la gente está empezando a conocer sus derechos y, conociéndolos, se atreven a mantenerlos.”

“La solución al poder concentrado es otorgarle menos poder al gobierno, no más.”

“Los anarquistas son, simplemente, demócratas jeffersonianos hasta las últimas consecuencias y sin miedo de éstas. Ellos creen que 'el mejor gobierno es el que menos gobierna', y el que gobierna mejor es el que no gobierna en absoluto.”

“El anarquismo es una palabra sin sentido, si no incluye la libertad de la persona para controlar su producto o lo que sea que su producto le ha brindado a través del intercambio en un mercado libre, es decir, la propiedad privada. Quien niega la propiedad privada es necesariamente un anarquista.”

“Agresión, invasión, gobierno, son términos intercambiables. La esencia del gobierno es el control, o el esfuerzo por controlar. Quien intenta controlar a otro es un gobernante, un agresor, un invasor; y la naturaleza de tal invasión no cambia si ésta es realizada por un hombre contra otro hombre, a la manera de un delincuente ordinario; por un hombre contra todos los otros hombres, a la manera de un monarca absoluto; o por todos los otros hombres contra un hombre, a la manera de una democracia moderna.”

“El hecho de que una clase de hombres dependen para vivir de la venta de su trabajo, mientras otra clase de hombre están aliviados de la necesidad de trabajar por estar legalmente privilegiados para vender algo que no es trabajo, y eso, sino fuese por el privilegio, sería disfrutado por todos gratuitamente. Y a tal estado de cosas estoy tan opuesto como cualquiera. Pero el minuto que tú remuevas el privilegio, la clase que ahora lo disfruta será forzada a vender su trabajo, y entonces, cuando haya nada sino trabajo con el cual comprar trabajo, la distinción entre los que pagan salario y los que reciben salarios será aniquilada, y cada hombre será un trabajador intercambiando con compañeros trabajadores.”

“El socialismo es la creencia de que el siguiente paso importante del progreso consiste en un cambio en el entorno del hombre que incluye la abolición de todo privilegio por el cual los poseedores de la riqueza adquieren un poder anti-social de exigir tributos.”

“Cuando Warren y Proudhon prosiguieron su búsqueda de justicia para el trabajo y se enfrentaron cara a cara con el obstáculo de los monopolios de clase, se dieron cuenta de que esos monopolios se basaban en el principio de Autoridad, y concluyeron que lo que había que hacer no era fortalecer la Autoridad y, por lo tanto, crear un monopolio universal, sino desenraizar por completo la Autoridad y dar rienda suelta al principio opuesto, el de la Libertad, haciendo a la competencia, antítesis del monopolio, universal. Vieron en la competencia el gran nivelador de los precios hasta alcanzar el costo de producción del trabajo, en lo que coincidían con los economistas clásicos.”

“Donde predomina la libertad, competencia y cooperación son idénticos.”

“[…] como un agente de toma de conciencia, como una fuerza de agitación, la benéfica influencia de una huelga es inconmensurable […] con nuestro actual sistema económico casi cada huelga es justa. ¿Qué es la justicia en la producción y la distribución? Que la mano de obra, que crea todo, tenga todo.”

“El monopolio de las patentes consiste en proteger a los inventores contra la competencia por un periodo lo bastante largo para extraer de la gente un premio enormemente excesivo en relación a la medida del trabajo de sus servicios.”

“Suponed que un individuo me ataque y quiera dominarme. Trataré de defenderme y de disuadirle de su intención; pero si continúa redoblando sus golpes y yo tengo prisa para tomar el tren que ha de conducirme al lado de mi hijo que agoniza, procuraré sujetarlo. Si no se conforma y se vuelve contra mí, distrayéndome un tiempo precioso, cuestión de vida o muerte, entonces, sin reparar, me libraré de él como mejor pueda.”

“Los anarquistas creen en la familia; ellos sólo insisten en que la libre competencia y el experimento siempre serán permitidos a fin de que se pueda determinar qué tipo de familia asegura mejor este objetivo.”

“Lo que el socialismo anarquista pretende abolir es la usura. No se requiere privar al trabajo de su recompensa; se requiere privar al capital de su recompensa.”

“Tan pronto como la demanda de trabajo empieza a exceder la oferta, hace un asunto fácil para cada uno obtener trabajo con salarios igual a su producto.”

“Taking this view of the matter, the Anarchists contend that defence is not an essential of the State, but that aggression is.”

“The Anarchists believe in the State; only they insist that the greater part, if not all, of the necessity for its existence is the result of an artificial limitation of the freedom of civil society, and that the completion of industrial freedom may one day so harmonize individuals that it will no longer be necessary to provide a guarantee of political freedom.”

“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.”

“"But," it will be asked of the Anarchists at this point in the argument, "what shall be done with those individuals who undoubtedly will persist in violating the social law by invading their neighbors?" The Anarchists answer that the abolition of the State will leave in existence a defensive association, resting no longer on a compulsory but on a voluntary basis, which will restrain invaders by any means that may prove necessary.”

“If the defenders of privilege desire to exclude from this country the opponents of privilege, they should see to it that Congress omits the taking of the eleventh census. For the eleventh census, if taken, will undoubtedly emphasize these two lessons of the tenth: first, that foreign immigration does not increase dishonesty and violence among us, but does increase the love of liberty; second, that the population of the world is gradually dividing into two classes, Anarchists and criminals.”

“As a general rule, the better people are, the more Anarchists and Socialists will be found among them.”

“The claim of the State Socialists, however, that this right would not be exercised in matters pertaining to the individual in the more intimate and private relations of his life is not borne out by the history of governments. It has ever been the tendency of power to add to itself, to enlarge its sphere, to encroach beyond the limits set for it; and where the habit of resisting such encroachment is not fostered, and the individual is not taught to be jealous of his rights, individuality gradually disappears and the government or State becomes the all-in-all. Control naturally accompanies responsibility. Under the system of State Socialism, therefore, which holds the community responsible for the health, wealth, and wisdom of the individual, it is evident that the community, through its majority expression, will insist more and more in prescribing the conditions of health, wealth, and wisdom, thus impairing and finally destroying individual independence and with it all sense of individual responsibility.”

“Why, the very first act of the State, the compulsory assessment and collection of taxes, is itself an aggression, a violation of equal liberty, and, as such, initiates every subsequent act, even those acts which would be purely defensive if paid out of a treasury filled by voluntary contributions. How is it possible to sanction, under the law of equal liberty, the confiscation of a man's earnings to pay for protection which he has not sought and does not desire? And, if this is an outrage, what name shall we give to such confiscation when the victim is given, instead of bread, a stone, instead of protection, oppression? To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. But that is exactly what the State is doing.”

“But this is not to say that the society which inflicts capital punishment commits murder. Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act. 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.”

“Defence was an afterthought, prompted by necessity; and its introduction as a State function, though effected doubtless with a view to the strengthening of the State, was really and in principle the initiation of the State's destruction. Its growth in importance is but an evidence of the tendency of progress toward the abolition of the State.”

“I insist that there is nothing sacred in the life of an invader, and there is no valid principle of human society that forbids the invaded to protect themselves in whatever way they can.”

“I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified.”

“The Anarchists believe in the family; they only insist that free competition and experiment shall always be allowed in order that it may be determined what form of family best secures this object.”

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

“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.”

“The Anarchists believe in civil society; only they insist that the freedom of civil society shall be complete instead of partial.”

“In the matter of the maintenance and rearing of children the Anarchists would neither institute the communistic nursery which the State Socialists favor nor keep the communistic school system which now prevails. The nurse and the teacher, like the doctor and the preacher, must be selected voluntarily, and their services must be paid for by those who patronize them. Parental rights must not be taken away, and parental responsibilities must not be foisted upon others.”

“The exercise of authority over the same area by two States is a contradiction.”

“It was at this point — the necessity of striking down monopoly — that came the parting of their ways. Here the road forked. They found that they must turn either to the right or to the left, — follow either the path of Authority or the path of Liberty. Marx went one way; Warren and Proudhon the other. Thus were born State Socialism and Anarchism.”