that the economic and moral changes that would result from this would act as a solvent upon all the remaining forms of interference.
"Is compulsory co-operation ever desirable?" Compulsory co-operation is simply one form of invading the liberty of others, and voluntary co-operators will not be justified in resorting to it—that is; in becoming compulsory co-operators—any more than resorting to any other form of invasion.
"How are we to remove the injustice of allowing one man to enjoy what another has earned?" I do not expect it ever to be removed altogether. But I believe that for every dollar that would be enjoyed by tax-dodgers under Anarchy, a thousand dollars are now enjoyed by men who have got possession of the earnings of others through special industrial, commercial, and financial privileges granted them by authority in violation of a free market.
In regard to the various clubs referred to by Mr. Donisthorpe as based on an intolerance that is full of the spirit of interference, I can only say that probably they will cease to pattern after their great exemplar, the State, when the State shall no longer exist, and that meantime, if intolerant bigots choose to make petty tyranny a condition of association with them, we believers in liberty have the privilege of avoiding their society. Doesn't Mr. Donisthorpe suppose that we can stand it as long as they can?
L'ÉTAT, C'EST L'ENNEMI.
[Liberty, February 26, 1887.]
Dear Tucker:
Since the occasion when you so arbitrarily side-tracked me in the editorial columns of Liberty,[1] certain notions of self-respect in connection
with your attitude towards me have bid me pause whenever I attempted- ↑ The writer of this letter, Mr. Henry Appleton, was one of Liberty's original editorial contributors, and remained such for five years. At the end of that time he publicly took a position not in harmony with that of the paper, on a point of great importance, and it became necessary that his editorial contributions should cease. At the same time he was cordially invited to freely make use of the other departments of the paper for the expression of his views. He never availed himself of this invitation further than to write the above letter, which, with the editor's reply, is included in this volume because, in spite of the personal nature of the contraversy, important questions of principle are also dealt with.
