Comments Elsewhere

Name the libertarian author. Who wrote this? “The real being is man, the indiv­idu­al. Society or the collectivity—and the State or govern­ment which claims to represent it—if it is not a hollow abstraction, must be made up of individuals. And it is in the organism of every individual that all thoughts and human actions inevitably have their origin, and from being indiv­idu­al they become collective thoughts and acts when they are or become accepted by many individuals. Social action, therefore, is neither the negation nor the com­plement of individual initiative, but is the resultant of initiatives, thoughts and actions of all individuals who make up society. . . . “. . . Even if we pursue our hypothesis of the ideal govern­ment of the authoritarian socialists, it follows from what we have said that far from resulting in an increase in the productive, organizing and protective forces in society, it would greatly reduce them, limiting initiative to a few, and giving them the right to do everything without, of course, being able to provide them with the gift of being all-know­ing. . . .”*