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"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed,
law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached
at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded,
by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the
virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every
transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured,
numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented,
forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of
public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed
under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted
from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then at the slightest resistance, the
first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harrassed,
hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned,
judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and to
crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is
government; that is its justice; that is its morality."
P. J. Proudhon, _General Idea of the Revolution in the
Nineteenth Century_
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If I had to answer the following question: _What is slavery?_
and if in a single word I were to reply: it is murder, my
thought would have been understood right from the start. I
would not need to speak for long, to demonstrate that the
power to deprive a man of thought, will, and personality, is
a power of life and death, and that to enslave a man is to
murder him. Why then to that other question: _What is
property?_ could I not answer likewise: _it is theft_,
without the certainty of being misunderstood, though this
second proposition be but the first, transformed?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, _What Is Property?_ (my translation)
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"All men are equal and free: society by nature, and destination, is therefore
autonomous and ungovernable. If the sphere of activity of each citizen is
determined by the natural division of work and by the choice he makes of a
profession, if the social functions are combined in such a way as to produce
a harmonious effect, order results from the free activity of all men; there
is no government. Whoever puts a hand on me to govern me is an usurper and
a tyrant; I declare him my enemy."
From 'Les Confessions d'un Revolutionnaire", 1849