Victor Yarros
| Victor Yarros | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1865 Russia |
| Died | 1956 |
| Nationality | American |
Victor S. Yarros (1865–1956) was an American anarchist, lawyer, and author. He was law partner to Clarence Darrow for 11 years in Chicago, husband to the feminist gynecologist Rachelle Yarros, née Slobodinsky, and resident of Hull-House Settlement. He was a prolific contributor to the individualist anarchist periodical in the United States called Liberty.
Yarros was early on associated with the anarcho-communists but soon converted to individualist anarchism, and was very critical of everything collectivist. Yarros did not see anarchism as a utopian system, but like the other individualists in his league, he envisioned a society in which coercion was used only in defense:
"The anarchists, as anarchists, work, directly, not for a perfect social state, but for a perfect political system. A perfect social state is a state totally free from sin or crime or folly; a perfect political system is merely a system in which justice is observed, in which nothing is punished but crime and nobody coerced but invaders."
This was to be accomplished by private forces, rather than by a tax-funded state.
Unlike some individualist anarchists, he supported Individual reclamation.
"We, on the other hand... do not think it either unjust or unwise to dispossess the landlords who have monopolized natural wealth by force and fraud. We hold that the poor and disinherited toilers would be justified in expropriating, not alone the landlords, who notoriously have no equitable titles to their lands, but all the financial lords and rulers, all the millionaires and very wealthy individuals."
He did not believe an anarchist society could be achieved until individuals learned to value liberty:
The abolition of the external State must be preceded by the decay of the notions which breathe life and vigour into that clumsy monster: in other words, it is only when the people learn to value liberty, and to understand the truths of the anarchistic philosophy, that the question of practically abolishing the State looms up and acquires significance.
...
Wikipedia