Of especial importance among the obligations of the members of a voluntary association is the duty of paying taxes; but the tax is voluntary by virtue of the fact that it is based on contract.[738] "Voluntary taxation, far from impairing the association's credit, would strengthen it";[739] for, in the first place, because of the simplicity of its functions, the association seldom or never has to borrow; in the second place, it cannot, like the present State upon its basis of compulsory taxation, repudiate its debts and still continue business; and, in the third place, it will necessarily be more intent on maintaining its credit by paying its debts than is the State which enforces taxation.[740] And furthermore, the voluntariness of the tax has this advantage, that "the defensive institution will be steadily deterred from becoming an invasive institution through fear that the voluntary contributions will fall off; it will have this constant motive to keep itself trimmed down to the popular demand."[741]
"Ireland's true order: the wonderful Land League, the nearest approach, on a large scale, to perfect Anarchistic organization that the world has yet seen. An immense number of local groups, scattered over large sections of two continents separated by three thousand miles of ocean; each group autonomous, each free; each composed of varying numbers of individuals of all ages, sexes, races, equally autonomous and free; each inspired by a common, central purpose; each supported entirely by voluntary contributions; each obeying its own judgment; each guided in the formation of its judgment and the choice of its conduct by the advice of a central council of picked men, having no power to enforce its orders except that inherent in the convincing logic of the reasons on which the orders are based; all co-ordinated and federated, with a minimum of machinery and without sacrifice of spontaneity, into a vast working unit, whose unparalleled power makes tyrants tremble and armies of no avail."[742]
3. Among the prominent associations of the new society are mutual insurance societies and mutual banks,[743] and, especially, defensive associations.
"The abolition of the State will leave in existence a defensive association"[744] which will give protection against those "who violate the social law by invading their neighbors."[745] To be sure, this need will be only transitory. "We look forward to the ultimate disappearance of the necessity of force even for the purpose of repressing crime."[746] "The necessity for defence against individual invaders is largely and perhaps, in the end, wholly due to the oppressions of the invasive State. When the State falls, criminals will begin to disappear."[747]
A number of defensive associations may exist side by side. "There are many more than five or six insurance companies in England, and it is by no means uncommon for members of the same family to insure their lives and goods against accident or fire in different companies. Why should there not be a considerable number of defensive associations in England, in which people, even members of the same family, might insure their lives and goods against murderers or thieves? Defence is a service, like any other service."[748] "Under the influence of competition the best and cheapest protector, like the best and cheapest tailor, would doubtless get the greater part of the business. It is conceivable even that he might get the whole of it. But, if he should, it would be by his virtue as a protector, not by his power as a tyrant. He would be kept at his best by the possibility of competition and the fear of it; and the source of power would always remain, not with him, but with his patrons, who would exercise it, not by voting him down or by forcibly putting another in his place, but by withdrawing their patronage."[749] But, if invader and invaded belong to different defensive associations, will not a conflict of associations result? "Anticipations of such conflicts would probably result in treaties, and even in the establishment of federal tribunals, as courts of last resort, by the co-operation of the various associations, on the same voluntary principle in accordance with which the associations themselves were organized."[750]
"Voluntary defensive associations acting on the Anarchistic principle would not only demand redress for, but would prohibit, all clearly invasive acts."[751] To fulfil this function they may choose any appropriate means, without thereby exercising a government. "Government is the subjection of the non-invasive individual to a will not his own. The subjection of the invasive individual is not government, but resistance to and protection from government."[752]—"Anarchism recognizes the right to arrest, try, convict, and punish for wrong doing."[753] "Anarchism will take enough of the invader's property from him to repair the damage done by his invasion."[754] "If it can find no better instrument of resistance to invasion, Anarchism will use prisons."[755] It admits even capital punishment. "The society which inflicts capital punishment does not commit murder. Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act. There is nothing sacred in the life of an invader, and there is no valid principle of human society that forbids the invaded to protect themselves in whatever way they can."[756] "It is allowable to punish invaders by torture. But, if the 'good' people are not fiends, they are not likely to defend themselves by torture until the penalties of death and tolerable confinement have shown themselves destitute of efficacy."[757]—"All disputes will be submitted to juries."[758] "Speaking for myself, I think the jury should be selected by drawing twelve names by lot from a wheel containing the names of all the citizens in the community."[759] "The juries will judge not only the facts, but the law, the justice of the law, its applicability to the given circumstances, and the penalty or damage to be inflicted because of its infraction."[760]
5.—PROPERTY
I. According to Tucker, from the standpoint of every one's self-interest and the equal liberty of all there is no objection to property. Tucker rejects only the distribution of property on the basis of monopoly, as it everywhere and always exists in the State. That the State is essentially invasion appears in the laws which "not only prescribe personal habits, but, worse still, create and sustain monopolies"[761] and thereby make usury possible.[762]
1. Usury is the taking of surplus value.[763] "A laborer's product is such portion of the value of that which he delivers to the consumer as his own labor has contributed."[764] The laborer does not get this product, "at least not as laborer; he gains a bare subsistence by his work."[765] But, "somebody gets the surplus wealth. Who is the somebody?"[766] "The usurer."[767]
"There are three forms of usury: interest on money, rent of land and houses, and profit in exchange. Whoever is in receipt of any of these is a usurer. And who is not? Scarcely any one. The banker is a usurer; the manufacturer is a usurer; the merchant is a usurer; the landlord is a usurer; and the workingman who puts his savings, if he has any, out at interest, or takes rent for his house or lot, if he owns one, or exchanges his labor for more than an equivalent,—he too is a usurer. The sin of usury is one under which all are concluded, and for which all are responsible. But all do not benefit by it. The vast majority suffer. Only the chief usurers accumulate: in agricultural and thickly settled countries, the landlords; in industrial and commercial countries, the bankers. Those are the Somebodies who swallow up the surplus wealth."[768]
