"Marx undoubtedly foresaw, in Capital, the importance of the ‘manager’ on the level of maximum concentration of capital. But he did not believe that this concentration of capital could survive the abolition of private property. Division of labor and private property, he said, are identical expressions. History has demonstrated the contrary. The ideal regime based on collective property could be defined, according to Lenin, as justice plus electricity. In the final analysis it is only electricity, without justice."

Albert Camus, The Rebel (1951)

"Camus differs from most other European writers (and especially from those on the Left) in viewing mass reform and revolutionary movements, notably Marxism, as representing at least as great a threat to individual freedom as industrial capitalism."

from the ‘Albert Camus’ entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"

The famous ‘going beyond’ Marxism in an idealistic and humanitarian direction is a joke and an idle dream. It is impossible to ‘go beyond’ Marx, for he himself carried his thought to its extreme logical consequences. The Communists have a solid logical basis for using lies and violence. …

All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice. After that, we can distinguish those who accept the consequences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being.

Since this terrible dividing line does actually exist, it will be a gain if it be clearly marked. Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a thousand times the chances of success than that of the latter. But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on one formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions.

"

Albert Camus, The Self-Deception of the Socialist

"An execution is not simply death. … It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organisation which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion and Death (1956)

(Source: sweetiesjr)

"

Of whom and of what indeed can I say: “I know that!” This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge. For if I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, if I try to define and to summarize it, it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers. I can sketch one by one all the aspects it is able to assume, all those likewise that have been attributed to it, this upbringing, this origin, this ardor or these silences, this nobility or this vileness. But aspects cannot be added up. This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself.

In psychology as in logic, there are truths but no truth… They are sterile exercises on great subjects. They are legitimate only in precisely so far as they are approximate.

And here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes—how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicolored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know. Have I the time to become indignant? You have already changed theories. So that science that was to teach me everything ends up in a hypothesis, that lucidity founders in metaphor, that uncertainty is resolved in a work of art. What need had I of so many efforts? The soft lines of these hills and the hand of evening on this troubled heart teach me much more. I have returned to my beginning. I realize that if through science I can seize phenomena and enumerate them, I cannot, for all that, apprehend the world. Those categories that explain everything are enough to make a decent man laugh.

"

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)

(Source: maudlinsmile)

"More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure. Though you want to try nonetheless, decency demands that you do so with the required amount of scorn."

Albert Camus, Between Hell and Reason (1940)

"On the very day when the Caesarian revolution triumphed over the syndicalist and libertarian spirit, revolutionary thought lost in itself a counterpoise of which it cannot, without decaying, deprive itself… The commune against the State, concrete society against absolutist society, deliberate freedom against rationalized tyranny, finally altruistic individualism against the colonization of the masses, are, then the contradictions that express once again the endless opposition of moderation to excess which has animated the history of the Occident since time of the ancient world."

Albert Camus, The Rebel (1951)

"Little is to be expected from present day governments, since these live and act according to a murderous code. Hope remains only in the most difficult task of all: to reconsider everything from the ground up, so as to shape a living society inside a dying society. Men must therefore, as individuals, draw up among themselves, within frontiers and across them, a new social contract which will unite them according to more reasonable principles.

All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice.

After that, we can distinguish those who accept the consequences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being. Since this terrible dividing line does actually exist, it will be a gain if it be clearly marked. Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion… and henceforth, the only honourable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions."

Albert Camus, Neither Victims Nor Executioners (1960)

I’ve always thought this was one of the best articulations of the libertarian idea.

bricolage: Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus →

bradicalmang:

…

I think most people besides angsty “durrrrr I’m so freethinking I decided not to be Christian” people who read his quotes realize that besides being influential, he’s not much compared to similar 20th century philosophers. Theory-wise and person-wise. I mean Sartre rejected…

Hmm, no. Nietzsche is widely and correctly regarded as one of the most insightful and substantive philosophers of the modern era, in everything from logic to metaphysics. Camus was heavily influenced by Nietzsche, and ended up sharing Nietzsche’s anti-socialist, anti-communist, anti-state, individualist position on humanity. Old Marxists like Sartre and de Beauvoir aren’t even taken seriously on those grounds anymore.

A comparison of Nietzsche’s prophetic anti-socialist sentiment with Camus’ anti-socialist later life reflection:

Socialism can serve to teach—in a truly brutal and impressive fashion—what danger there lies in all accumulations of state power, and to that extent to implant mistrust of the state itself. When its harsh voice takes up the watchword “as much state as possible,” it thereby at first sounds noisier than ever; but soon the opposite cry comes through with all the greater force: “as little state as possible.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878)

Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do ‘for the common good’ ends in failure.

~ Albert Camus, Cahier (1942)

Socialism: The famous ‘going beyond’ Marxism in an idealistic and humanitarian direction is a joke and an idle dream. It is impossible to ‘go beyond’ Marx, for he himself carried his thought to its extreme logical consequences. The Communists have a solid logical basis for using lies and violence.

~ Albert Camus, The Self-Deception of the Socialist (1946)

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience. It would be easy, however, to destroy that good conscience by shouting to them: if you want the happiness of the people, let them decide what happiness they want and what kind they don’t want! But, in truth, the very ones who make use of such alibis know they are lies; they leave to their intellectuals on duty the chore of believing in them and of proving that religion, patriotism, and justice need for their survival the sacrifice of freedom.

~ Albert Camus, Homage to an Exile (1955)