Tucker considers that the law which has supreme validity for every one of us is self-interest; and from this he derives the law of equal liberty.
1. For every man self-interest is the supreme law. "The Anarchists are not only utilitarians, but egoists in the farthest and fullest sense."[660]
What does self-interest mean? My interest is everything that serves my purposes.[661] It takes in not only the lowest but also "the higher forms of selfishness."[662] Thus, in particular, the interest of society is at the same time that of every individual: "its life is inseparable from the lives of individuals; it is impossible to destroy one without destroying the other."[663]
Self-interest is the supreme law for man. "The Anarchists totally discard the idea of moral obligation, of inherent rights and duties."[664] "So far as inherent right is concerned, might is its only measure. Any man, be his name Bill Sykes or Alexander Romanoff, and any set of men, whether the Chinese highbinders or the Congress of the United States, have the right, if they have the power, to kill or coerce other men and to make the entire world subservient to their ends."[665] "The Anarchism of to-day affirms the right of society to coerce the individual and of the individual to coerce society so far as either has the requisite power."[666]
2. From this supreme law Tucker derives "the law of equal liberty."[667] The law of equal liberty is based on every individual's self-interest. For "liberty is the chief essential to man's happiness, and therefore the most important thing in the world, and I want as much of it as I can get."[668] On the other hand, "human equality is a necessity of stable society,"[669] and the life of society "is inseparable from the lives of individuals."[670] Consequently every individual's self-interest demands the equal liberty of all.
"Equal liberty means the largest amount of liberty compatible with equality and mutuality of respect, on the part of individuals living in society, for their respective spheres of action."[671] "'Mind your own business' is the only moral law of the Anarchistic scheme."[672] "It is our duty to respect others' rights, assuming the word 'right' to be used in the sense of the limit which the principle of equal liberty logically places upon might."[673]—On the law of equal liberty is founded "the distinction between invasion and resistance, between government and defence. This distinction is vital: without it there can be no valid philosophy of politics."[674]
"By 'invasion' I mean the invasion of the individual sphere, which is bounded by the line inside of which liberty of action does not conflict with others' liberty of action."[675] This boundary-line is in part unmistakable; for instance, a threat is not an invasion if the threatened act is not an invasion, "a man has a right to threaten what he has a right to execute."[676] But the boundary-line may also be dubious; for instance, "we cannot clearly identify the maltreatment of child by parent as either invasive or non-invasive of the liberty of third parties."[677] "Additional experience is continually sharpening our sense of what constitutes invasion. Though we still draw the line by rule of thumb, we are drawing it more clearly every day."[678] "The nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man, after the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy."[679]
"On the other hand, he who resists another's attempt to control is not an aggressor, an invader, a governor, but simply a defender, a protector."[680] "The individual has the right to repel invasion of his sphere of action."[681] "Anarchism justifies the application of force to invasive men,"[682] "violence is advisable when it will accomplish the desired end and inadvisable when it will not."[683] And "defensive associations acting on the Anarchistic principle would not only demand redress for, but would prohibit, all clearly invasive acts. They would not, however, prohibit non-invasive acts, even though these acts create additional opportunity for invasive persons to act invasively: for instance, the selling of liquor."[684] "And the nature of such resistance is not changed whether it be offered by one man to another man, as when one repels a criminal's onslaught, or by one man to all other men, as when one declines to obey an oppressive law, or by all other men to one man, as when a subject people rises against a despot, or as when the members of a community voluntarily unite to restrain a criminal."[685]
