Liberty and Property

72. I N D I V I D U ALL I B E R T Y If society has a right to protect itself against such men as Kemmler, as is admitted, why may it not do so in whatever way proves most effective? If it is urged that capital punish ment is not the most effective way, such an argument, well sustained by facts, is pertinent and valid. This position also I can understand, and with it, if not laid down as too absolute a rule, I sympathize. But this is not to say that the society which inflicts capital punishment commits murder. Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act. And capital punishment, however in effective it may be and through whatever ignorance it may be resorted to, is a strictly defensive act,-at least in theory. Of course compulsory institutions often make it a weapon of offence, but that does not affect the question of capital pun ishment per se as distinguished, from other forms of govern ment.

For one, I object to this disti1).ction unless it is based on ra tional grounds. In doing so, I am not moved by any desire to defend the horrors of the gallows, the guillotine, or the electric chair. They are as repulsive to me as to anyone. And the conduct of the physicians, the ministers, the news papers, and the officials disgusts me. .These horrors all tell most powerfully against the expediency and efficiency of cap ital punishment. But nevertheless they do not make it mur der. I insist that 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. LIBERTY AND PROPERTY Mr. Hugo BiIgram of Philadelphia, author of uInvol untary Idleness" and ((The Cause of Business Depres sions," contributed an article to Liberty on <cThe Right of Ownership," in which he defined that right as uthat reIation between a thing and a person created by the social promise to guarantee possession"; and then pro pounded to the editor of Liberty the following question: INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY 73 «(Has Anarchism a, diffetentconception. of the right of ownership, or,isthis right altogether 'repudiated, or is itassul11ed that out of ~he ruins of government another social organization, wielding a supreme power,.will arise?"

',Mr. Tuc,ker replied: IN DISCUSSING •such a question as. this, it is necessary at. the start'to put •. aside,,/ilsMr.·.Bilgram douhtless, does put aside, .the intuitive i4ea of right, the' conception of right as a standar~ which we are expected to observe from motives supposed'to be st,lperior.to the .consideration.of .•our.interests .• When,•. I 'speak of theUright of ownership," I do not use the word, «right" in that sense at all. In the thought that I take to be fund a..;, mental in Mr.··.·nilgram'sargument-namely, that there is. no right, from thestandpoint of society, other than social expedi ency-I fully concur .. ~u~. I a111equally .certain that the standard of social expediency-thai is to say, the. facts a,s to \,what really is ~ocially expedient, and the generalizations from those facts which we may call the laws of social expedien.cy --exists apart from thedecreeofa9ysocialpower wpatever.

In accordance with this view.,the Anarchistic def1nitiob of the right o£ ownership, while. closely related· to Mr. Bilgram's,is such a. modification of his t~,at it does not carry the implica tionwhich his carries.and which he points out. From an An archistic standpoint, the right ofownership.is that control of ;l thing by a person whichwHI receive either social sanctioll, or else unanimQ~s, individuals~nction,. when the laws of social expediency shall havebeen~nallydiscovered.. (Of' course I might go farther. ,and •. explainthat Anarchism considers •the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of •liberty the tundamental:law ot. social expediency, and that nearly all Anarchists consider labor. to be the only>basis of the right of ownership in harmony with thatJa:w;butthis is not essential to the definition, or to the refutation: of Mr. Bilgram's point against Anarchism. ) It will be seen that the .•Anarchistic definition just given does not imply necessarily' the existence of ,an'organized. or. in stitutedsocial power to •enforce the right of •ownership. , It cqntemplatesa .time when' social sanction shall be superseded J,yunanimous individual sanction, thus rendering enforcement 74 I N D I V I D U ALL I B E R T Y needless. But in such an event, by Mr. Bilgram's definition, the right of ownership would cease to exist. In other words, he seems to think that, if all men were to agree upon a prop erty standard and should voluntarily observe it, property would then have no existence simply because of the absence of any institution to protect it. Now, in the view of the Anarchists, property would then exist in its perfection.