"Probably it will never disappear entirely."[817] "Now, because liberty
has not the power to bring this about, there are people who say: We will
have no liberty, for we must have absolute equality. I am not of them.
If I can go through life free and rich, I shall not cry because my
neighbor, equally free, is richer. Liberty will ultimately make all men
rich; it will not make all men equally rich. Authority may (and may not)
make all men equally rich in purse; it certainly will make them equally
poor in all that makes life best worth living."[818]
6.--REALIZATION
_According to Tucker, the manner in which the change called for by every
one's self-interest takes place is to be that those who have recognized
the truth shall first convince a sufficient number of people how
necessary the change is to their own interests, and that then they all
of them, by refusing obedience, abolish the State, transform law and
property, and thus bring about the new condition._
I. First a sufficient number of men are to be convinced that their own
interests demand the change.
1. "A system of Anarchy in actual operation implies a previous education
of the people in the principles of Anarchy."[819] "The individual must
be penetrated with the Anarchistic idea and taught to rebel."[820]
"Persistent inculcation of the doctrine of equality of liberty, whereby
finally the majority will be made to see in regard to existing forms of
invasion what they have already been made to see in regard to its
obsolete forms,--namely, that they are not seeking equality of liberty
at all, but simply the subjection of all others to themselves."[821]
"The Irish Land League failed because the peasants were acting, not
intelligently in obedience to their wisdom, but blindly in obedience to
leaders who betrayed them at the critical moment. Had the people
realized the power they were exercising and understood the economic
situation, they would not have resumed the payment of rent at Parnell's
bidding, and to-day they might have been free. The Anarchists do not
propose to repeat their mistake. That is why they are devoting
themselves entirely to the inculcation of principles, especially of
economic principles. In steadfastly pursuing this course regardless of
clamor, they alone are laying a sure foundation for the success of the
revolution."[822]
2. In particular, according to Tucker, appropriate means for the
inculcation of the Anarchistic idea are "speech and the
press."[823]--But what if the freedom of speech and of the press be
suppressed? Then force is justifiable.[824]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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