Instead Of A Book, By A Man Too Busy To Write One (1893/1897)

Instead Of A Book, By A Man Too Busy To Write One
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Benjamin R. Tucker

Benjamin R. Tucker

Portrait from WikiPedia: Benjamin Tucker

This is a complete electronic transcription of the second edition (1897) of Instead Of A Book, By A Man Too Busy To Write One by Benjamin Tucker, a self-published collection of Tucker’s writings from the individualist anarchist periodical Liberty. The electronic text is based on Elibron Classics’ 2005 facsimile edition of the public domain text (ISBN 1-4021-9845-0).

Dedication

For always in thine eyes, O Liberty!
Shines that high light whereby the world is saved;
And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.

--John Hay.

In abolishing rent and interest, the last vestiges of old-time slavery, the Revolution abolishes at one stroke the sword of the executioner, the seal of the magistrate, the club of the policeman, the gauge of the exciseman, the erasing-knife of the department clerk, all those insignia of Politics, which young Liberty grinds beneath her heel.

--Proudhon.

To the Memory

of

My Old Friend and Master

Josiah Warren

Whose Teachings were My First Source of Light

I Gratefully Dedicate this Volume

Table of Contents

  1. Preface
  2. State Socialism and Anarchism

  3. Part I. The Individual, Society, and the State

    1. Relation of the State to the Individual.
    2. Our Purpose.
    3. Contract Or Organism, What’s That To Us?
    4. The Nature of the State
    5. A Misinterpretation of Anarchism
    6. Mr. Levy’s Maximum
    7. Resistance to Taxation
    8. A Puppet For a God
    9. Mr. Perrine’s Difficulties
    10. Where We Stand
    11. Tu-Whit! Tu-Whoo!
    12. Rights and Duties Under Anarchy.
    13. More Questions.
    14. Mr. Blodgett’s Final Question.
    15. Trying to Be and Not to Be.
    16. Mr. Blodgett’s Explanation
    17. A Plea for Non-Resistance
    18. Liberty and Aggression
    19. Rule or Resistance—Which?
    20. The Advisability of Violence.
    21. Mr. Pentecost an Abettor of Government.
    22. The Philosopher of the Disembodied.
    23. The Woes of an Anarchist.
    24. The Moral of Mr. Donisthorpe’s Woes
    25. L’État Est Mort; Vive L’État!
    26. Voluntary Co-Operation.
    27. L’État, C’Est L’Ennemi.
    28. A Libertarian’s Pet Despotisms.
    29. Defensive Despotism.
    30. Still in the Procrustean Bed.
    31. Pinney Struggling with Procrustes.
    32. A Back Town Heard From.
    33. In Form a Reply, in Reality a Surrender.
    34. Fool Voters and Fool Editors.
    35. Ergo and Presto!
    36. The Right of Ownership.
    37. Individual Sovereignty Our Goal.
    38. New Abolition and its Nine Demands.
    39. Compulsory Education Not Anarchistic.
    40. Relations Between Parents and Children.
    41. Compulsory Education and Anarchism.
    42. Children Under Anarchy.
    43. Not a Decree, but a Prophecy.
    44. Anarchy and Rape.
    45. An Unfortunate Analogy.
    46. The Boycott and its Limit.
    47. A Case Where Discussion Convinced.
    48. A Spirit More Evil Than Alcohol.
    49. A Word About Capital Punishment.
    50. No Place for a Promise.
    51. On Picket Duty.

  4. Part II. Money and Interest.

    1. Who is the Somebody?
    2. Reform Made Ridiculous.
    3. A Defence of Capital.
    4. The Position of William.
    5. Capital’s Claim to Increase.
    6. A Baseless Charge.
    7. Another Answer to Mr. Babcock
    8. Attention, Apex!
    9. Usury.
    10. Apex or Basis.
    11. The Position of William.
    12. Economic Hodge-Podge.
    13. An Unwarranted Question.
    14. An Alleged Flaw in Anarchy.
    15. Shall the Transfer Papers Be Taxed?
    16. Money and Capital.
    17. To-day’s View of Interest.
    18. To-day’s Excellent Fooling.
    19. Government and Value.
    20. The Power of Government Over Values.
    21. Free Trade in Banking.
    22. Currency and Government.
    23. The Equalization of Wage and Product.
    24. A False Idea of Freedom.
    25. Monopoly, Communism, and Liberty.
    26. Pinney His Own Procrustes.
    27. Ten Questions Briefly Answered.
    28. A Standard of Value a Necessity.
    29. A Necessity or a Delusion,—Which?
    30. Anarchy’s New Ally.
    31. Economic Superstition.
    32. A Book that is Not Milk for Babes.
    33. State Banking versus Mutual Banking.
    34. Mr. Bilgram’s Rejoinder.
    35. Free Money.
    36. Free Money First.
    37. Stop the Main Leak First.
    38. An Indispensable Accident.
    39. Leland Stanford’s Land Bank.
    40. Mutualism in the Service of Capital.
    41. Edward Atkinson’s Evolution.
    42. A Greenbacker in a Corner.
    43. Free Money and the Cost Principle
    44. Proudhon’s Bank.
    45. Why Wages Should Absorb Profits.
    46. A Great Idea Perverted.
    47. On Picket Duty.

  5. Part III. Land and Rent.

    1. The Land for the People.
    2. Basic Principles of Economics: Rent.
    3. Rent: Parting Words.
    4. Property Under Anarchism.
    5. Mere Land No Saviour for Labor.
    6. Henry George’s Secondary Factors.
    7. The State Socialists and Henry George.
    8. Liberty and the George Theory.
    9. A Criticism That Does Not Apply.
    10. Land Occupancy and its Conditions
    11. Competitive Protection.
    12. Protection, and its Relation to Rent.
    13. Liberty and Land.
    14. Rent, and its Collection by Force.
    15. The Distribution of Rent.
    16. Economic Rent.
    17. Liberty and Property
    18. Going to Pieces on the Rocks.
    19. Simplifying Government.
    20. On Picket Duty.

  6. Part IV. Socialism

    1. Socialism: What It Is
    2. Armies that Overlap.
    3. Socialism and the Lexicographers.
    4. The Sin of Herbert Spencer.
    5. Will Professor Sumner Choose?
    6. After Freiheit, Der Sozialist.
    7. State Socialism and Liberty.
    8. On Picket Duty.

  7. Part V. Communism.

    1. General Walker and the Anarchists.
    2. Herr Most on Libertas.
    3. Still Avoiding the Issue
    4. Herr Most Distilled and Consumed.
    5. Should Labor be Paid or Not?
    6. Does Competition Mean War?
    7. Competition and Monopoly Confounded.
    8. On Picket Duty.

  8. Part VI. Methods.

    1. The Power of Passive Resistance.
    2. The Irish Situation in 1881.
    3. The Method of Anarchy.
    4. Theoretical Methods.
    5. A Seed Planted.
    6. The Home Guard Heard From.
    7. Colonization.
    8. Labor’s New Fetich.
    9. Mr. Pentecost’s Belief in the Ballot.
    10. A Principle of Social Therapeutics.
    11. The Morality of Terrorism.
    12. The Beast of Communism.
    13. Time Will Tell.
    14. The Facts Coming to Light.
    15. Liberty and Violence.
    16. Convicted by a Packed Jury.
    17. Why Expect Justice from the State?
    18. The Lesson of the Hour
    19. Convicted for their Opinions.
    20. To the Breach, Comrades!
    21. On Picket Duty.

  9. Part VII. Miscellaneous.

    1. The Lesson of Homestead.
    2. Save Labor from its Friends
    3. Is Frick a Soldier of Liberty?
    4. Shall Strikers be Court-Martialled?
    5. Census-Taking Fatal to Monopoly.
    6. Anarchy Necessarily Atheistic.
    7. A Fable for Malthusians
    8. Auberon Herbert and his Work.
    9. Solutions of the Labor Problem.
    10. Karl Marx as Friend and Foe.
    11. Do the Knights of Labor Love Liberty?
    12. Play-House Philanthropy.
    13. Beware of Batterson!
    14. A Gratifying Discovery.
    15. Cases of Lamentable Longevity.
    16. Spooner Memorial Resolutions.
    17. On Picket Duty.
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