Introduction
From September 13 to 16, 1899 the Civic Federation held a Conference on trusts, in Chicago, before which it invited about one hundred individuals from every walk of life and of various political and economic beliefs to discuss the question of trusts from every angle. Mr. Tucker was one of those invited to address the assembly, and his paper, which is here reproduced in full, excited more interest and comment, according to newspaper accounts at the time than the remarks of any other speaker at the conference.
Mr. Tucker is unquestionably the most able exponent of Individualist Anarchism. He is an educated and cultured man. His literary style is both fluent and elegant, his statements creative and accurate, his arguments logical and convincing, and his replies terse, yet courteous. It is with the expectation of stimulating interest in this remarkable libertarian's principle work, Instead of a Book or the abridged eimprint Individual Liberty, that this modest pamphlet is printed.
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The Attitude of Anarchism
Toward
Industrial Combinations
Having to deal very briefly with the problem with which the so-called trusts confront us, I go at once to the heart of the subject, taking my stand on these propositions: That the right to cooperate is as unquestionable as the right to compete; that the right to compete involves the right to refrain from competition; that co-operation is often a method of competition, and that competition is always, in the larger view, a method of co-operation; that each is a legitimate, orderly, non-invasive exercise of the individual will under the social law of equal liberty; and that any man or institution attempting to prohibit or restrict either, by legislative enactment or by any form of invasive force, is, in so far as such man or institution may fairly be judged by such attempt, an enemy of liberty, an enemy of progress, an enemy of society, and an enemy of the human race.
Viewed in the light of these irrefutable propositions, the trust, then, like every other industrial combination endeavoring to do collectively nothing but what each member of the combination rightfully may endeavor to do individually, is per se, an unimpeachable institution. To assail or control or deny this form of co-operation on the ground that it is itself a denial of competition is an absurdity. It is an ab
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