Quote

When the highwayman holds his gun to your head, you turn your valuables over to him. You 'consent' alright, but you do so because you cannot help yourself, because you are compelled by his gun. Are you not compelled to work for an employer? Your need compels you, just as the highwayman's gun.

Alexander Berkman

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Alexander Berkman
Age: 65 †
Born: 1870
Born: November 21
Died: 1936
Died: June 28
Autobiographer
Journalist
Peace Activist
Typographer
Writer
Vilna
Owsei Ossipowitsch Berkman
Alexandre Berkman
Need
Holds
Valuables
Needs
Gun
Highwaymen
Work
Turn
Compels
Head
Employer
Turns
Alright
Help
Employers
Helping
Consent
Cannot
Compelled
Highwayman

More quotes by Alexander Berkman

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War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder.
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Certainly the worker has nothing to lose by a change from government and capitalism to a condition of no government, of anarchy.
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The cure for evil and disorder is more liberty, not suppression.
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...existence has become an unreasoning, wild dance around the golden calf, a mad worship of God Mammon. In that dance and in that worship man has sacrificed all his finer qualities of the heart and soul — kindness and justice, honor and manhood, compassion and sympathy with his fellowman.
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War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood.
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Socialism, like Christianity destroyed itself to gain power
Alexander Berkman
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Anarchism means voluntary co-operation instead of forced participation. It means harmony and order in place of interference and disorder.
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Man's inhumanity to man is not the last word. The truth lies deeper. It is economic slavery, the savage struggle for a crumb, that has converted mankind into wolves and sheep.
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It is the system, rather than individuals, that is the source of pollution and degradation. My prison-house environment is but another manifestation of the Midas-hand, whose cursed touch turns everything to the brutal service of Mammon.
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What is this thing we call government? Is it anything but organized violence? The law orders you to obey, and if you don't obey, it will compel you by force - all governments, all law and authority finally rest on force and violence, on punishment or fear of punishment.
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In short, Anarchism means a condition or society where all men and women are free, and where all enjoy equally the benefits of an ordered and sensible life.
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Inhumanity is the keynote of stupidity in power.
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Anarchy: It is NOT bombs, disorder or chaos. It is NOT robbery and murder. It is NOT a war of each against all. It is NOT a return to barbarism or to the wild state of man. Anarchism is the very opposite of all that.
Alexander Berkman