With the destruction of the feudal system, and the birth of commercialism and manufactories in the sixteenth century, a contest long and bitter and bloody, lasting over a hundred years, was waged for mental and religious liberty. All over the world the fact stands undisputed that the political is based upon, and is but the reflex of the economic system, and hence we find that whatever the political form of the government, whether monarchical or republican, the average social status of the wage-workers is in every country identical. Though liberty is a growth, it is also a birth, and while it is yet to be, it is also about to be born. Its birth will come through travail and pain, through bloodshed and violence. An anarchist is a believer in liberty, and as I would control no man against his will, neither shall anyone rule over me with my consent.
Anarchy is perfect liberty, is absolute freedom of the individual.
Anarchy has no schemes, no programmes, no systems to offer or to substitute for the existing order of things. Reprinted in Dave Roediger and Franklin Rosemont, eds.