23 Facts About Benjamin Tucker

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was an American individualist anarchist and self-identified socialist.

Benjamin Tucker described his form of anarchism as "consistent Manchesterism" and "unterrified Jeffersonianism".

Benjamin Tucker looked upon anarchism as a part of the broader socialist movement.

Benjamin Tucker harshly opposed state socialism and was a supporter of free-market socialism and libertarian socialism which he termed anarchist or anarchistic socialism.

Benjamin Tucker connected the classical economics of Adam Smith and the Ricardian socialists as well as that of Josiah Warren, Karl Marx and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon to socialism.

From August 1881 to April 1908, Benjamin Tucker published Liberty, a major individualist-anarchist periodical.

In 1939, Benjamin Tucker died in the company of his family in Monaco and carried his beliefs to his deathbed.

Benjamin Tucker said that he became an anarchist at the age of eighteen.

Benjamin Tucker said socialism was the claim that "labor should be put in possession of its own" while holding that what he respectively termed state socialism and anarchistic socialism had in common was the labor theory of value.

Benjamin Tucker first favored a natural rights philosophy in which an individual had a right to own the fruits of his labor, but then abandoned it in favor of egoist anarchism in which he believed that only the right of might exists until overridden by contract.

Benjamin Tucker connected his libertarian socialist economic views which included his opposition to non-labor income in the form of profit, interest and rent with those of Adam Smith, Josiah Warren, Proudhon and Marx while arguing against American anti-socialists who declared socialism as imported.

Benjamin Tucker maintained that all forms of authoritarian activities imply the resort to force and nothing good or lasting was ever accomplished by compulsion.

Benjamin Tucker rejected the legislative programs of labor unions, laws imposing a short day, minimum wage laws, forcing businesses to provide insurance to employees and compulsory pension systems.

Benjamin Tucker was opposed to compulsion and vehemently opposed reform movements with paternalistic goals such as state aid.

Benjamin Tucker did not have a utopian vision of anarchy in which individuals would refrain from coercing others.

Benjamin Tucker argued that the poor condition of American workers resulted from four legal monopolies based in the authoritarianism of the state:.

Benjamin Tucker believed that his contemporary millionaires received their wealth through the exploitation of monopolies.

Benjamin Tucker saw interest and profit as a form of exploitation, made possible by the banking monopoly, in turn maintained through coercion and invasion.

Benjamin Tucker called any such interest and profit usury and saw it as the basis of the oppression of the workers.

Benjamin Tucker opposed protectionism, believing that tariffs caused high prices by preventing national producers from having to compete with foreign competitors.

Benjamin Tucker believed that free trade would help keep prices low and therefore would assist laborers in receiving what he called their "natural wage".

Benjamin Tucker came to hold the position that no rights exist until they are created by contract.

Benjamin Tucker said that a person, who physically tries to stop a mother from throwing her "baby into the fire", should be punished for violating her property rights.