“Proudhon stabilisce una rigorosa distinzione tra la «proprietà» e il «possesso», o meglio tra il diritto di proprietà e il diritto di possesso. Il diritto di proprietà è il monopolio, «il diritto di usare e di abusare di una cosa»; il diritto di possesso non è che il diritto d’usufruire d’una cosa, di disporne per un fine determinato. Se prendo in affitto una casa, ne sono il possessore cioè godo delle sue comodità, ecc. Il mio diritto di possesso è sotto ogni aspetto un diritto naturale. Ma dietro il possessore c’è il proprietario, il monopolista[...] il diritto di proprietà è la morte del diritto di possesso, è la morte del diritto di soddisfare le nostre necessità naturali”
—Rudolf Rocker - «L’adunata dei refrattari», 1926
“Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are, rather, forced upon parliaments from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. Just as the employers always try to nullify every concession they had made to labor as soon as opportunity offered, as soon as any signs of weakness were observable in the workers' organizations, so governments also are always inclined to restrict or to abrogate completely rights and freedoms that have been achieved if they imagine that the people will put up no resistance. Even in those countries where such things as freedom of the press, right of assembly, right of combination, and the like have long existed, governments are constantly trying to restrict those rights or to reinterpret them by juridical hair-splitting. Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace . Where this is not the case, there is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to the constitution. ”
— Rudolf Rocker“Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are, rather, forced upon parliaments from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. Just as the employers always try to nullify every concession they had made to labor as soon as opportunity offered, as soon as any signs of weakness were observable in the workers' organizations, so governments also are always inclined to restrict or to abrogate completely rights and freedoms that have been achieved if they imagine that the people will put up no resistance. Even in those countries where such things as freedom of the press, right of assembly, right of combination, and the like have long existed, governments are constantly trying to restrict those rights or to reinterpret them by juridical hair-splitting. Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace . Where this is not the case, there is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to the constitution.”
—— Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory & Practice, 1947
