THE RIGHT
TO IGNORE
THE STATE
Herbert Spencer
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BENJ. R. TUCKER, Editor
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THE RIGHT TO IGNORE
THE STATE
BY
HERBERT SPENCER
Being a reprint of
A Chapter from “Social Statics”
Suppressed by the Author
NEw York
BENJ. R. TUCKER, PUBLISHER
1907




PUBLISHER'S PREFACE
It is only fair to the memory of Mr. Her-
bert Spencer that I should warn the reader of
the following chapter from the original edi-
tion of Mr. Spencer’s “Social Statics,” writ-
ten in 1850, that it was omitted by the author
from the revised edition, published in 1892.
One may legitimately infer that this omission
indicates a change of view. But to repudiate
is not to answer, and Mr. Spencer never
answered his arguments for the right to ig-
nore the State. It is the belief of the Anar-
chists that these arguments are unanswerable.
To test that belief this book is published.
B. R. T.


THE RIGHT TO IGNORE THE STATE
§ 1. As a corollary to the proposition
that all institutions must be subordinated to
the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose
but admit the right of the citizen to adopt
a condition of voluntary outlawry. If
every man has freedom to do all that he
wills, provided he infringes not the equal
freedom of any other man, then he is free
to drop connection with the State, –to re-
linquish its protection and to refuse paying
toward its support. It is self-evident that
in so behaving he in no way trenches upon
the liberty of others; for his position is a
passive one, and, whilst passive, he cannot
become an agressor. It is equally self-evi-
dent that he cannot be compelled to con-
5

tinue one of a political corporation without
a breach of the moral law, seeing that
citizenship involves payment of taxes; and
the taking away of a man’s property
against his will is an infringement of his
rights. Government being simply an agent
employed in common by a number of indi-
viduals to secure to them certain advan-
tages, the very nature of the connection
implies that it is for each to say whether
he will employ such an agent or not. If
any one of them determines to ignore this
mutual-safety confederation, nothing can be
said, except that he loses all claim to its
good offices, and exposes himself to the
danger of maltreatment, a thing he is
quite at liberty to do if he likes. He
cannot be coerced into political combina-
tion without a breach of the law of equal
freedom; he can withdraw from it without

7
committing any such breach; and he has
therefore a right so to withdraw.
§ 2. “No human laws are of any valid-
ity if contrary to the law of nature; and
such of them as are valid derive a11 their
force and all their authority mediately or
immediately from this original.” Thus
writes Blackstone, to whom let all honor be
given for having so far outseen the ideas
of his time, -and, indeed, we may say of
our time. A good antidote, this, for those
political superstitions which so widely pre-
vail. A good check upon that sentiment of
power-worship which still misleads us by
magnifying the prerogatives of constitu-
tional governments as it once did those of
monarchs. Let men learn that a legislature
is not our God upon earth,’’ though, by
the authority they ascribe to it and the
things they expect from it, they would

8
seem to think it is. Let them learn rather
that it is an institution serving a purely
temporary purpose, whose power, when not
stolen, is, at the best, borrowed.
Nay, indeed, have we not seen that gov-
ernment is essentially immoral?" Is it not
the offspring of evil, bearing about it all
the marks of its parentage? Does it not
exist because crime exists? Is it not
strong, or, as we say, despotic, when crime
is great? Is there not more liberty—that
is, less government—as crime diminishes?
And must not government cease when crime
ceases, for very lack of objects on which
to perform its function? Not only does
magisterial power exist because of evil, but
it exists by evil. Violence is employed to
maintain it; and all violence involves crim-
* See note at end of volume.-Publisher.

inality.” Soldiers, policemen, and gaolers;
swords, batons, and fetters, -are instru-
ments for inflicting pain; and all infliction
of pain is, in the abstract, wrong. The
State employs evil weapons to subjugate
evil, and is alike contaminated by the ob-
jects with which it deals and the means by
which it works. Morality cannot recognize
it; for morality, being simply a statement
of the perfect law, can give no countenance
to anything growing out of, and living by,
breaches of that law. Wherefore legis-
lative authority can never be ethical—must
always be conventional merely.
Hence there is a certain inconsistency in
* As this volume is published in the interest of Anarchism,
and is, for the most part, clearly Anarchistic; and, as the
doctrine that “all violence involves criminality’’ is not in
harmony with Anarchism, it is important to point out here
that Anarchism distinguishes sharply between offensive and
defensive violence, condemning the one and sanctioning the
other.—Publisher.

10
the attempt to determine the right position,
structure, and conduct of a government by
appeal to the first principles of rectitude.
For, as just pointed out, the acts of an in-
stitution which is, in both nature and
origin, imperfect cannot be made to square
with the perfect law. All that we can do
is to ascertain, firstly, in what attitude a
legislature must stand to the community to
avoid being by its mere existence an em-
bodied wrong; secondly, in what manner it
must be constituted so as to exhibit the
least incongruity with the moral law; and,
thirdly, to what sphere its actions must be
limited to prevent it from multiplying those
breaches of equity it is set up to prevent.
The first condition to be conformed to
before a legislature can be established
without violating the law of equal freedom
is the acknowledgment of the right now

11
under discussion—the right to ignore the
State. * -
§ 3. Upholders of pure despotism may
fitly believe State-control to be unlimited
and unconditional. They who assert that
men are made for governments and not
governments for men may consistently hold
that no one can remove himself beyond the
pale of political organization. But they
who maintain that the people are the only
legitimate source of power—that legislative
authority is not original, but deputed—can-
not deny the right to ignore the State
without entangling themselves in an
absurdity.
For, if legislative authority is deputed,
it follows that those from whom it proceeds
are the masters of those on whom it is
* Hence may be drawn an argument for direct taxation;
seeing that only when taxation is direct does repudiation of
State burdens become possible.

12
conferred: it follows further that as masters
they confer the said authority voluntarily:
and this implies that they may give or
withhold it as they please. To call that
deputed which is wrenched from men
whether they will or not is nonsense. But
what is here true of all collectively is
equally true of each separately. As a gov-
ernment can rightly act for the people only
when empowered by them, so also can it
rightly act for the individual only when
empowered by him. If A, B, and C de-
bate whether they shall employ an agent to
perform for them a certain service, and if,
whilst A and B agree to do so, C dissents,
C cannot equitably be made a party to the
agreement in spite of himself. And this
must be equally true of thirty as of three:
and, if of thirty, why not of three hundred,
or three thousand, or three millions?

13
§ 4. Of the political superstitions lately
alluded to, none is so universally diffused
as the notion that majorities are omnipo-
tent. Under the impression that the preser-
vation of order will ever require power to
be wielded by some party, the moral sense
of our time feels that such power cannot
rightly be conferred on any but the largest
moiety of society. It interprets literally
the saying that “ the voice of the people
is the voice of God,” and, transferring to
the one the sacredness attached to the
other, it concludes that from the will of
the people—that is, of the majority—there
can be no appeal. Yet is this belief
entirely erroneous.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that,
struck by some Malthusian panic, a legis-
lature duly representing public opinion were
to enact that all children born during the

14
next ten years should be drowned. Does
any one think such an enactment would be
warrantable? If not, there is evidently a
limit to the power of a majority. Suppose,
again, that of two races living together—
Celts and Saxons, for example—the most
numerous determined to make the others
their slaves. Would the authority of the
greatest number be in such case valid? If
not, there is something to which its author-
ity must be subordinate. Suppose, once
more, that all men having incomes under
950 a year were to resolve upon reducing
every income above that amount to their
own standard, and appropriating the excess
for public purposes. Could their resolution
be justified? If not, it must be a third
time confessed that there is a law to
which the popular voice must defer.
What, then, is that law, if not the law of

15
pure equity—the law of equal freedom?
These restraints, which all would put to
the will of the majority, are exactly the
restraints set up by that law. We deny
the right of a majority to murder, to en-
slave, or to rob, simply because murder,
enslaving, and robbery are violations of
that law—violations too gross to be over-
looked. But, if great violations of it are
wrong, so also are smaller ones. If the
will of the many cannot supersede the first
principle of morality in these cases,
neither can it in any. So that, however
insignificant the minority, and however
trifling the proposed trespass against their
rights, no such trespass is permissible.
When we have made our constitution
purely democratic, thinks to himself the
earnest reformer, we shall have brought
government into harmony with absolute just-

16
ice. Such a faith, though perhaps needful
for the age, is a very erroneous one. By
no process can coercion be made equitable.
The freest form of government is only the
least objectionable form. The rule of the
many by the few we call tyranny: the rule
of the few by the many is tyranny also,
only of a less intense kind. “You shall
do as we will, and not as you will,” is in
either case the declaration; and, if the
hundred make it to ninety-nine, instead of
the ninety-nine to the hundred, it is only a
fraction less immoral. Of two such par-
ties, whichever fulfills this declaration, nec-
essarily breaks the law of equal freedom:
the only difference being that by the one it
is broken in the persons of ninety-nine,
whilst by the other it is broken in the per-
sons of a hundred. And the merit of the
democratic form of government consists

17
solely in this, -that it trespasses against
the smallest number.
The very existence of majorities and
minorities is indicative of an immoral
state. The man whose character harmon-
izes with the moral law, we found to be
one who can obtain complete happiness
without diminishing the happiness of his
fellows. But the enactment of public ar-
rangements by vote implies a society con-
sisting of men otherwise constituted—im-
plies that the desires of some cannot be
satisfied without sacrificing the desires of
others—implies that in the pursuit of their
happiness the majority inflict a certain
amount of unhappiness on the minority—
implies, therefore, organic immorality.
Thus, from another point of view, we
again perceive that even in its most equit-
able form it is impossible for government

18
to dissociate itself from evil; and further,
that, unless the right to ignore the State is
recognized, its acts must be essentially
criminal.
§ 5. That a man is free to abandon the
benefits and throw off the burdens of citi-
zenship, may indeed be inferred from the
admissions of existing authorities and of
current opinion. Unprepared as they prob-
ably are for so extreme a doctrine as the
one here maintained, the radicals of our
day yet unwittingly profess their belief in
a maxim which obviously embodies this
doctrine. Do we not continually hear them
quote Blackstone’s assertion that “ no sub-
ject of England can be constrained to pay
any aids or taxes even for the defence of
the realm or the support of government, but
such as are imposed by his own consent, or
that of his representative in parliament?”

19.
And what does this mean? It means, say
they, that every man should have a vote.
True: but it means much more. If there
is any sense in words, it is a distinct
enunciation of the very right now contended
for. In affirming that a man may not be
taxed unless he has directly or indirectly
given his consent, it affirms that he may
refuse to be so taxed: and to refuse to be
taxed is to cut all connection with the
State. Perhaps it will be said that this
consent is not a specific, but a general,
one, and that the citizen is understood to
have assented to every thing his representa-
tive may do, when he voted for him. But
suppose he did not vote for him; and on
the contrary did all in his power to get
elected some one holding opposite views—
what then? The reply will probably be
that, by taking part in such an election,

20
he tacitly agreed to abide by the decision
of the majority. And how if he did not
vote at all? Why then he cannot justly
complain of any tax, seeing that he made
no protest against its imposition. So, curi-
ously enough, it seems that he gave his
consent in whatever way he acted—whether
he said yes, whether he said no, or
whether he remained neuter | A rather
awkward doctrine, this. Here stands an
unfortunate citizen who is asked if he will
pay money for a certain proffered advan-
tage; and, whether he employs the only
means of expressing his refusal or does not
employ it, we are told that he practically
agrees, if only the number of others who
agree is greater than the number of those
who dissent. And thus we are introduced
to the novel principle that A’s consent to a
thing is not determined by what A says,

21
but by what B may happen to say!
It is for those who quote Blackstone to
choose between this absurdity and the doc-
trine above set forth. Either his maxim
implies the right to ignore the State, or it
is sheer nonsense. - -
§ 6. There is a strange heterogeneity in
our political faiths. Systems that have had
their day, and are beginning here and
there to let the daylight through, are
patched with modern notions utterly unlike
in quality and color; and men gravely dis-
play these systems, wear them, and walk
about in them, quite unconscious of their
grotesqueness. This transition state of
ours, partaking as it does equally of the
past and the future, breeds hybrid theories
exhibiting the oddest union of bygone des-
potism and coming freedom. Here are
types of the old organization curiously dis-

22
guised by germs of the new—peculiarities
showing adaptation to a preceding state
modified by rudiments that prophesy of
something to come—making altogether so
chaotic a mixture of relationships that
there is no saying to what class these
births of the age should be referred.
As ideas must of necessity bear the
stamp of the time, it is useless to lament
the contentment with which these incon-
gruous beliefs are held. Otherwise it
would seem unfortunate that men do not
pursue to the end the trains of reasoning
which have led to these partial modifica-
tions. In the present case, for example,
consistency would force them to admit that,
on other points besides the one just
noticed, they hold opinions and use argu-
ments in which the right to ignore the
State is involved.

23
For what is the meaning of Dissent?
The time was when a man’s faith and his
mode of worship were as much determinable
by law as his secular acts; and, according
to provisions extant in our statute-book, are
so still. Thanks to the growth of a Pro-
testant spirit, however, we have ignored
the State in this matter—wholly in theory,
and partly in practice. But how have we
done so? By assuming an attitude which,
if consistently maintained, implies a right
to ignore the State entirely. Observe the
positions of the two parties. “ This is
your creed,” says the legislator; “ you
must believe and openly profess what is
here set down for you.’’ ‘‘ I shall not do
anything of the kind,” answers the noncon-
formist; “I will go to prison rather.’’
“Your religious ordinances,’’ pursues the
ſegislator, “shall be such as we have pre-

24
scribed. You shall attend the churches we
have endowed, and adopt the ceremonies
used in them.” “ Nothing shall induce me
2
to do so,” is the reply; “I altogether
deny your power to dictate to me in such
matters, and mean to resist to the utter-
>
most.” “Lastly,” adds the legislator,
“we shall require you to pay such sums of
money toward the support of these religious
institutions as we may see fit to ask.”
“ Not a farthing will you have from me,”
exclaims our sturdy Independent: ‘‘ even
did I believe in the doctrines of your
church (which I do not), I should still re-
bel against your interference; and, if you
take my property, it shall be by force and
under protest.”
What now does this proceeding amount
to when regarded in the abstract? It
amounts to an assertion by the individual

25
of the right to exercise one of his faculties
—the religious sentiment—without let or
hindrance, and with no limit save that set
up by the equal claims of others. And
what is meant by ignoring the State?
Simply an assertion of the right similarly
to exercise all the faculties. The one is
just an expansion of the other—rests on the
same footing with the other—must stand or
fall with the other. Men do indeed speak
of civil and religious liberty as different
things: but the distinction is quite arbi-
trary. They are parts of the same whole,
and cannot philosophically be separated.
× 2
“Yes they can,” interposes an objector;
“ assertion of the one is imperative as be-
ing a religious duty. The liberty to wor-
ship God in the way that seems to him
right, is a liberty without which a man
cannot fulfil what he believes to be divine

26
commands, and therefore conscience requires
him to maintain it.” True enough; but
how if the same can be asserted of all
other liberty? How if maintenance of this
also turns out to be a matter of conscience?
Have we not seen that human happiness is
the divine will—that only by exercising
our faculties is this happiness obtainable—
and that it is impossible to exercise them
without freedom? And, if this freedom for
the exercise of faculties is a condition with-
out which the divine will cannot be ful-
filled, the preservation of it is, by our ob-
jector’s own showing, a duty. Or, in other
words, it appears not only that the mainte-
nance of liberty of action may be a point
of conscience, but that it ought to be one.
And thus we are clearly shown that the
claims to ignore the State in religious and
in secular matters are in essence identical.

27
The other reason commonly assigned for
nonconformity admits of similar treatment.
Besides resisting State dictation in the ab-
stract, the dissenter resists it from disap-
probation of the doctrines taught. No
legislative injunction will make him adopt
what he considers an erroneous belief; and,
bearing in mind his duty toward his fellow-
men, he refuses to help through the me-
dium of his purse in disseminating this er-
roneous belief. The position is perfectly
intelligible. But it is one which either
commits its adherents to civil nonconform-
ity also, or leaves them in a dilemma.
For why do they refuse to be instrumental
in spreading error? Because error is ad-
verse to human happiness. And on what
ground is any piece of secular legislation
disapproved? For the same reason—be-
cause thought adverse to human happiness.

28
How then can it be shown that the State
ought to be resisted in the one case and
not in the other? Will any one deliber-
ately assert that, if a government demands
money from us to aid in teaching what we
think will produce evil, we ought to refuse
it, but that, if the money is for the pur-
pose of doing what we think will produce
evil, we ought not to refuse it? Yet such
is the hopeful proposition which those have
to maintain who recognize the right to ig-
nore the State in religious matters, but
deny it in civil matters.
§ 7. The substance of this chapter once
more reminds us of the incongruity be-
tween a perfect law and an imperfect state.
The practicability of the principle here
laid down varies directly as social moral-
ity. In a thoroughly vicious community
its admission would be productive of an-

29
archy.” In a completely virtuous one its
admission will be both innocuous and inev-
itable. Progress toward a condition of so-
cial health—a condition, that is, in which
the remedial measures of legislation will no
longer be needed—is progress toward a
condition in which those remedial measures
will be cast aside, and the authority pre-
scribing them disregarded. The two
changes are of necessity co-ordinate. That
moral sense whose supremacy will make
society harmonious and government unneces-
sary is the same moral sense which will
then make each man assert his freedom
even to the extent of ignoring the State—is
the same moral sense which, by deterring
the majority from coercing the minority,
will eventually render government impossi-
* Of course Mr. Spencer here uses the word “anarchy" in
the sense of disorder.—Aublisher.

30
ble. And, as what are merely different
manifestations of the same sentiment must
bear a constant ratio to each other, the
tendency to repudiate governments will in-
crease only at the same rate that govern-
ments become needless.
Let not any be alarmed, therefore, at the
promulgation of the foregoing doctrine.
There are many changes yet to be passed
through before it can begin to exercise
much influence. Probably a long time will
elapse before the right to ignore the State
will be generally admitted, even in theory.
It will be still longer before it receives
legislative recognition. And even then
there will be plenty of checks upon the
premature exercise of it. A sharp experi-
ence will sufficiently instruct those who may
too soon abandon legal protection. Whilst,
in the majority of men, there is such a

31
love of tried arrangements, and so great a
dread of experiments, that they will prob-
ably not act upon this right until long
after it is safe to do so.

32
NOTE
From “Social Statics,” first edition, pp. 24-27:
“It is a mistake to assume that government must neces-
sarily last forever. The institution marks a certain stage of
civilization—is natural to a particular phase of human devel-
opment. It is not essential, but incidental. As amongst the
Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government, so may
there be one in which it shall have become extinct. Already
has it lost something of its importance. The time was when
the history of a people was but the history of its government.
It is otherwise now. The once universal despotism was but a
manifestation of the extreme necessity of restraint. Feudal-
ism, serfdom, slavery, all tyrannical institutions, are merely
the most vigorous kinds of rule, springing out of, and neces-
sary to, a bad state of man. The progress from these is in a11
cases the same—less government. Constitutional forms
mean this. Political freedom means this. Democracy means
this. In societies, associations, joint-stock companies, we
Inave new agencies occupying fields filled in 1ess advanced
times and countries by the State. With us the 1egislature is
dwarfed by newer and greater powers—is no longer master,
tout slave. ‘Pressure from without’ has come to be ac-
knowledged as ultimate ruler. The triumph of the Anti-
Corn-law League is simply the most marked instance yet of
the new style of government, that of opinion, overcoming the
old style, that of force. It bids fair to become a trite remark
that the law-maker is but the servant of the thinker. Daily
is Statecraft held in 1ess repute. Even the ‘Times’ can see
that ‘the social changes thickening around us establish a
truth sufficiently humiliating to 1egislative bodies,’ and that
‘the great stages of our progress are determined rather by
the spontaneous workings of society, connected as they are
with the progress of art and science, the operations of na-
ture, and other such unpolitical causes, than by the proposi-
tion of a bill, the passing of an act, or any other event of poli-
tics or of State.” Thus, as civilization advances, does govern-

33
ment decay. To the bad it is essential; to the good, not. It is
the check which national wickedness makes to itself, and
exists only to the same degree. Its continuance is proof of
still-existing barbarism. What a cage is to the wild beast,
1aw is to the selfish man. Restraint is for the savage, the
rapacious, the violent; not for the just, the gentle, the bene-
volent. A11 necessity for external force implies a morbid
state. Dungeons for the felon; a straitjacket for the maniac;
crutches for the lame; stays for the weak-backed; for the in-
firm of purpose a master; for the foolish a guide; but for the
sound mind in a sound body none of these. Were there no
thieves and murderers, prisons would be unnecessary. It is
only because tyranny is yet rife in the world that we have
armies. Barristers, judges, juries, all the instruments of
law, exist simply because knavery exists. Magisterial force
is the sequence of social vice, and the policeman is but the
complement of the criminal. Therefore it is that we ca11
government “a necessary evil.”
“What then must be thought of a morality which chooses
this probationary institution for its basis, builds a vast fab-
ric of conclusions upon its assumed permanence, selects acts
of parliament for its materials, and employs the statesman
for its architect? The expediency-philosophy does this. It
takes government into partnership, assigns to it entire con-
trol of its affairs, enjoins a11 to defer to its judgment, makes
it, in short, the vital principle, the very soul, of its system.
When Paley teaches that ‘the interest of the whole society is
binding upon every part of it,” he implies the existence of
some supreme power by which that ‘interest of the whole
society' is to be determined. And elsewhere he more ex-
plicitly tells us that for the attainment of a national advan-
tage the private will of the subject is to give way, and that
‘the proof of this advantage lies with the legislature.' Still
more decisive is Bentham when he says that ‘the happiness
of the individuals of whom a community is composed—that
is, their pleasures and their security—is the sole end which
the 1egislator ought to have in view, the sole standard in
conformity with which each individual ought, as far as de-

34
pends upon the legislature, to be made to fashion his be-
havior.” These positions, be it remembered, are not volun-
tarily assumed; they are necessitated by the premises. If, as
its propounder tells us, ‘expediency’ means the benefit of
the mass, not of the individual,—of the future as much as of
the present, it presupposes some one to judge of what will
most conduce to that benefit. Upon the ‘utility’ of this or
that measure the views are so various as to render an umpire
essential. Whether protective duties, or established reli-
gions or capital punishments, or poor laws, do or do not
minister to the ‘general good’ are questions concerning
which there is such difference of opinion that, were nothing
to be done till all agreed upon them, we might stand still to
the end of time. If each man carried out, independently of a
State power, his own notions of what would best secure the
greatest happiness of the greatest number,’ society would
quickly lapse into confusion. Clearly, therefore, a morality
established upon a maxim of which the practical interpreta-
tion is questionable involves the existence of some authority
whose decision respecting it shall be final,—that is, a 1egisla-
ture. And without that authority such a morality must ever
remain inoperative.
“See here, then, the predicament. A system of moral phi-
1osophy professes to be a code of correct rules for the control
of human beings—fitted for the regulation of the best as well
as the worst members of the race—applicable, if true, to the
guidance of humanity in its highest conceivable perfection.
Government, however, is an institution originating in man's
imperfection; an institution confessedly begotten by neces-
sity out of evil; one which might be dispensed with were the
world peopled with the unselfish, the conscientious, the phil-
anthropic; one, in short, inconsistent with this same ‘high-
est conceivable perfection.” How, then, can that be a true
system of morality which adopts government as one of its
premises?”

Instead of a Book
BY A MAN TOO BUSY TO WIRITE ONE
A FRAGMENTARY EXPOSITION OF
PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM
Culled from the writings of
B E N J. R. T. U C K E R
EDITOR OF LIBERTY
With a Full-Page Half-Tone Portrait of the Author
A large, well-printed, and excessively cheap volume of 524
pages, consisting of articles selected from Liberty and classi-
fied under the following headings: (1) State Socialism and
Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherein They Differ;
(2) The Individual, Society, and the State; (3) Money and
Interest; (4) Land and Rent; (5) Socialism; (6) Communism;
(7) Methods; (8) Miscellaneous. The whole elaborately in-
dexed.
Cloth, One Dollar; Paper, Fifty cents
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York CITY

“If you devour the sacred, you have made it your own. Digest
the sacramental wafer, and you are rid of it.”— Stirner.
The Ego and His Own
By MAX STIRNER
Translated from the German by
STEVEN T. BYINGTON
In collaboration with other students of German and of Stirner.
OPINIONS
“Without question the most startling book of the year.”— Chicago
Tribune. -
“This work of genius is not inferior in style to that of Nietzsche, and in
philosophical value surpasses Nietzsche's by a thousand cubits.”—Eduard
vom Hartmann.
“Such a drubbing as Stirner gives Altruism, Socialism, Collectivism,
and Utopianism of various kinds has never before been in print.”—
Now York; Sun. -
"The most extreme, most radical, most uncompromising enunciation
of philosophical individualism that has appeared in any age or any
country.”—St. Louis Mirror.
“A veritable Breviary of Destruction.”—New York Times.
“It might well become the billionaire's Bible.”—Springfield Republican.
“A dangerous book.-dangerous to Socialism. to politicians, to
hypocrisy.”—James Huneker.
“Stirner is the most ingenious and the freest writer within my
knowledge.”–Feuerbach.
“A book from which one rises a monarch.”—A Famous French Critic.
“That there was a pen to write such things is incomprehensible. One
must have read the book to believe that it exists.”—Revue des Dewa: Mondes.
525 pages. The only edition of the book,
in any language, that has an index.
Ordinary Cloth, $1.50; Superior Cloth, Full Gilt Edges, $1.75
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, New York City

MUTUAL BANKING
BY
WILLIAM B. GREENE
Showing the radical deficiency of the existing
circulating medium, and the advantages of a free
currency; a plan whereby to abolish interest, not by
State intervention, but by first abolishing State inter-
vention itself.
A new edition, from new plates, of one of the
most important works on finance in the English lan-
guage, and presenting, for the first time, a portrait
of the author.
Price, 10 cents
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York Ciry

Free Political Institutions
Their Nature, Essence, and Maintenance
AN ABRIDGMENT AND REARRANGEMENT OF
LY SANDER SPOONER'S “TRIAL BY JURY”
EDITED BY
VICTOR YARROS
One of the most important works in the propaganda
of Anarchism
CHAPTERS
I.—Legitimate Government and Majority Rule. II.-Trial by
Jury as a Palladium of Liberty. III.-Trial by Jury as Defined by
Magna Carta. IV.-Objections Answered. V.-The Criminal In-
tent. VI.-Moral Considerations for Jurors. VII.-Free Ad-
ministration of Justice. VIII.-Juries of the Present Day Illegal.
Price, 15 cents
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York CITY
A Blow at Trial by Jury
BENJ. R. TUCKER
An examination of the special jury law passed by the New York
legislature in 1896. A speech delivered by the editor of Liberty at
a mass meeting held in Cooper Union, New York, June 25, 1897,
under the auspices of the Central Labor Union, Typographical
Union No. 6, and other labor organizations. Distribution of this
pamphlet among lawyers and legislators will tend indirectly to
interest them in Anarchism.
Price, 5 cents
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York CITY

MODERN MARRIAGE
BY
Emile Zola
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCEI BY
BEN.J. R. TUCKER
In this story Zola takes four typical marriages, one from the
nobility, one from the bourgeoisie, one from the petite bourgeoisie,
and one from the working people, and describes, with all the
power of his wondrous art, how each originates, by what motive
each is inspired, how each is consummated, and how each results.
A new edition from new plates, and at a reduced price.
Price, 10 cents
CARLOTTA. CORTINA
BY
FRANCIS DU BOSQUE
A very remarkable story of New York’s Italian quarter, in
fact, one of the best short stories ever written in America.
. Price, 10 cents
MAILED, POSTPAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York CITY.

ANARCHIST STICKERS
Aggressive, concise Anarchistic assertions and arguments, in sheets, gum-
med and perforated, to be planted everywhere as broadcast seed for
thought, Printed in clear, heavy type. Size, 2% by 1% inches.
Excellent for use on first, third, and fourth class mail matter. There is
no better method of propagandism for the money.
There are 48 different Stickers. Each sheet contains 4 copies of one
Sticker.
SAMPLE STICKERS
No. 2.-It can never be unpatriotic to take your country's side against your Govern-
ment. It must always be unpatriotic to take your Government's side against your
country.
No. 7. —What I must not do, the Government must not do.
No. 8 —Whatever really useful thing Government does for men they would do for
themselves if there was no Government.
No. 9.—The institution known as “government” cannot continue to exist unless
many a man is willing to be Government's agent in committing what he himself
regards as an abominable crime.
No. 12. –Considering what a nuisance the Government is, the man who says we can-
not get rid of it must be called a conſirmed pessimist.
No. 18.-Anarchism is the denial of force against any peaceable individual.
No. 24.—“All Governments, the worst on earth and the most tyrannical on earth,
are free Governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them.”
—Lysander Spooner.
No. 32.—“I care not who makes th’ laws iv a nation, if I can get out an injunction.”
—Mr. Dooley.
No. 33.−" It will never make any difference to a hero what the laws are.”—Emer-
SOn.
No. 34.—The population of the world is gradually dividing into two classes—Anarch-
ists and criminals.
No. 38.-‘‘Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”—Ber-
nard Shaw. -
No. 44.—“There is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command,
and that is the will to obey.”—W. Kingdon Clifford.
No. 46–The only protection which honest people need is protection against that
vast Society for the Creation of Theft which is euphemistically designated as the
State.
No. 47.-With the monstrous laws that are accumulating on the statute-books, one
may safely say that the man who is not a confirmed criminal is scarcely fit to live
among decent people.
Send for circular giving entire list of 48 Stickers, with their numbers.
Order by number.
Price: 100 Stickers, assorted to suit purchaser, 5 cents; 200, or more, Stickers,
assorted to suit purchaser, 3 cents per hundred. Mailed, post paid, by
BENJ. R. IUCKER, P, 0. Box 1312, New York City.

The Philosophy of Egoism
JAMES L. WALKER
(Tak Kak)
My nose I've used for smelling, and I’ve blown it;
But how to prove the RIGHT by which I own it?
SCHILLER, freely translated
“No more concise exposition of the philosophy of Egoism
has ever been given to the world. In this book Duty, Con-
science, Moralism, Right, and all the fetiches and superstitions
which have infested the human intellect since man ceased to
walk on four feet, are annihilated, swept away, relegated to
the rubbish heap of the waste of human intelligence that has
gone on through the progress of the race from its infancy.”—
Liberty.
Cloth, 75 cents; Paper, 35 cents
Slaves to Duty
JOHN BADCOCK, JR.
Assailing the morality superstition as the foundation of the
various schemes for the exploitation of mankind. Max Stirner
himself does not expound the doctrine of Egoism in bolder
fashion.
Price, 5 cents
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York CITY
-

Here's Luck to Lora
AND
OTHER POEMS
BY
WILLIAM WALSTEIN GORDAK
Mr. Gordak comes entirely unannounced, but his
verse speaks well for him. He is a natural poet who
writes evenly and melodiously of the beauties of nature
and the daintier side of love. Nothing in his little book
is cheap. His muse has a lofty flight, and his teachings
uplift.—Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
PRICE, ONE DOLLAR
MAILED, POSTPAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York CITY

CHARLES A. DANA’S
PLEA FOR ANARC HY
Proudhon
all
His ‘‘Bank of the People”
BY
CHARIES A. DANA
A defence of the great French Anarchist; showing the evils
of a specie currency, and that interest on capital can and
ought to be abolished by a system of free and mutual banking.
The series of newspaper articles composing this pamphlet
appeared originally in the New York “Tribune,” of which Mr.
Dana was then managing editor, and a little later in “The
Spirit of the Age,” a weekly paper published in New York in
1849 by Fowlers & Wells and edited by Rev. William Henry
Channing. Editor Channing accompanied the publication of the
series by a foot-note, in which he stated that the articles had
already appeared in the “Tribune,” but that “Mr. Dana, judg-
ing them worthy of being preserved in a form convenient for
binding, has consented to revise them for our paper.”
Price, 5 cents; in leatherette, 10 cents
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, New York CITY

The Ballad of Reading Gaol
By C. 3. 3
[OSCAR WILDE]
A poem of more than 600 lines, dedicated to the memory of a
trooper of the Horse Guards who was hanged in Reading Gaol
during the poet's confinement there. An English classic.
Cloth, 50 cents
The cloth edition has covers of blue and vellum, and is beaut-
ifully printed from large type on hand-made antique deckle-edge
paper. It is a sumptuous book of 96 pages, and should be in every
library.
PRESS COMMENTS
Albany Press.-‘‘Strong writing, almost too strong; it is hor-
rible, gruesome, uncanny, and yet most fascinating and highly
ethical. . . . One of the greatest poems of the century, a per-
manent addition to English literature. . . . It is the best
Lenten and Easter sermon of the year.”
Brooklyn Citizen.—“Many of the stanzas are cries out of the
lowest hell. The poem, indeed, takes rank with the most extra-
ordinary psychological phenomena of this or any time.”
Indianapolis Journal.—“The work is one of singular power,
holding the reader fascinated to the last line. Nothing approaching
it in strength has been produced in recent years.”
Philadelphia Conservator.—“ People who imagine themselves
superior to the prisoners in jails should read this poem. People
who love invasive laws should read this poem. People who think
existing governmental methods of meeting social invasion civilized
should read this poem. People who do not know that laws may
make as well as punish crime should read this poem. In fact,
everybody should read this poem. For somewhere it touches every-
body, accuses everybody, appeals to everybody.”
-
1MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York CITY

State Socialism
AND
An archism
- Płow Far They Agree and Wherein They Differ
BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER
The opening chapter of “Instead of a Book,” re-
printed separately. The best pamphlet with which
to meet the demand for a compact exposition of
Anarchism.
Price, 5 cents
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R., TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York CIT,

The Anarchists
A Picture of Civilization at the Close
of the Nineteenth Century
BY
J O H N H E N R Y M A C K A. Y.
Translated from the German by
GEORGE schumM
PRESS COMMENTS
New York Morning Journal.—“‘The Anarchists’ is one of
the very few books that have a right to live. For insight into
life and manners, for dramatic strength, for incisiveness of
phrase, and for cold, pitiless logic, no book of this generation
equals it.”
St. Louis Republic.—“The book is a prose poem.”
Cloth, One Dollar; Paper, Fifty cents
MAILED, troST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York City

JOSIAH WARREN
The First American Anarchist
A Biography, with portrait
BY
WILLIAM BAILIE
The biography is preceded by an essay on “The
Anarchist Spirit,” in which Mr. Bailie defines Anar-
chist belief in relation to other social forces.
Price, One Dollar
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312. NEw York CITY

The Attitude of Anarchism
TOWARD
Industrial Combinations
BEN.J. R. TUCKER
An address delivered in Central Music Hall, Chicago, on
September 14, 1899, before the Conference on Trusts held under
the auspices of the Civic Federation.
Chicago Chronicle.—“The speech which roused the most intense
degree of enthusiasm and called forth the greatest applause at
yesterday's sessions of the trust conference fell in rounded oeriods
and with polished utterance from the lips of a professed Anarchist,”
Prof. Edward W. Bemis in the New York Journal.—“ Benj. R.
Tucker, the famous Anarchist writer, gave the most brilliant literary
effort of the conference thus far.”
Prof. John R. Commons in the Chicago Tribune.—“The most
brilliant piece of pure logic that has yet been heard. It probably
cannot be equaled. It was a marvel of audacity and cogency. The
prolonged applause which followed was a magnificent tribute to pure
intellect. That the undiluted doctrines of Anarchism should so
transport a great gathering of all classes here in Chicago would not
have been predicted.”
Price, 5 cents
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York City
-

God and the State
BY
MICHAEL BAKOUNINE
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCE By"
BENJ. R. TUCEGER
“One of the most eloquent pleas for liberty ever
written. Paine’s “Age of Reason” and “Rights of Man?
consolidated and improved. It stirs the pulse like a
trumpet-call.”—The Truth Seeker.
Price, 15 Cents
MAILED, POST-PAID, BY
BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEw York City
--
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