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Quote by Rudolf Rocker

“Anarchism is no patent solution for all human problems, no Utopia of a perfect social order, as it has often been called, since on principle it rejects all absolute schemes and concepts. It does not believe in any absolute truth, or in definite final goals for human development, but in an unlimited perfectibility of social arrangements and human conditions which are always straining after higher forms of expression, and to which for this reason one can assign no definite terminus nor set any fixed goal.”

Book:Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice

Work

Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice

Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice delves into the origins, principles, and historical applications of anarcho-syndicalism. It examines the theory's emphasis on direct action, worker self-management, and the abolition of the wage system, providing insights into its impact on labor movements and social change. more

Author

Rudolf Rocker

Rudolf Rocker (March 25, 1873 - September 19, 1958) was a German socialist, anarchist, writer, and translator, known for his contributions to anarchist theory and social philosophy. He is considered one of the most important anarchists of the 20th century. more

“Power always acts destructively, for its possessors are ever striving to lace all phenomena of social life into a corset of their laws to give them a definite shape. Its mental expression is dead dogma; its physical manifestation of life, brute force. This lack of intelligence in its endeavours leaves its imprint likewise on the persons of its representatives, gradually making them mentally inferior and brutal, even though they were originally excellently endowed. Nothing dulls the mind and soul of man as does the eternal monotony of routine, and power is essentially routine.”

“Asceticism in most cases is either the result of a sordid imagination or of passion diverted from its natural course, and experience has shown that when the protection of public morals is entrusted to its votaries, the consequences are usually appalling.”

Passion Courses Imagination Natural Results Moral Cases Consequence Protection Asceticism

Author:Rudolf Rocker

“Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace... One compels respect from others when he knows how to defend his dignity as a human being... The people owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength.”

“People forgot that industry is not an end in itself, but should be only a means to insure to man his material subsistence and to make accessible to him the blessings of a higher intellectual culture. Where industry is everything and man is nothing begins the realm of a ruthless economic despotism whose workings are no less disastrous than those of any political despotism.”

People Men Should Mean Ends Political Culture Economic Materials Industry Higher Blessing Intellectual Realms Ruthless Despotism Subsistence

Book:Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice

Source: Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice

“The constitution of the United States declares that "no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts."”

States Law Natural Obligation Contracts

Author:Lysander Spooner

“All the great establishments, of every kind, now in the hands of a few proprietors, but employing a great number of wage laborers, would be broken up; for few or no persons, who could hire capital and do business for themselves would consent to labour for wages for another.”

Kind Persons Hands Would Be Numbers Broken Labour Establishment Consent Wages Laborers Broken Up Employing

Book:A Letter to Grover Cleveland on His False Inaugural Address, the Usurpation and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People

Source: A Letter to Grover Cleveland on His False Inaugural Address, the Usurpation and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People

“It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals. And whenever any number of men, calling themselves a government, do anything to another man, or to his property, which they had no right to do as individuals, they thereby declare themselves trespassers, robbers, or murderers, according to the nature of their acts.”

Men Self Government Individual Numbers Rights Calling Property Acquire Evident Murderer Another Man Robbers Conspiring

Author:Lysander Spooner

“Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.”

Men Persons Crime Property Vices Harm One Man

Book:Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty

Source: Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty

“And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.”