To Be Anarchist

Following a meeting in which the speaker reproached the anarchist individualists for promoting the crushing of the weak by the strong, for giving free rein to brutal instincts, I was led to clarify what I meant by “being anarchist.”

For me, to be anarchist is to reject all external authority. But that does not imply the absence of all ethics. While its sense differs from that of the masters and shepherds, we do, however, have our own ethics, since we desire that individuals mutually insure the greatest possible sum of pleasures and happiness without encroaching on the liberty of other; since, to constraint, we oppose liberty.

— JEAN Marius.