Rocker was born in Mainz, Germany, son of a workingman who died when the boy was five years of age. It was an uncle who introduced him to the German SociaI Democratic movement, but he was soon disappointed by the rigidities of German socialism.

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"In place of the capitalist economic order, Anarchists would have a free association of all productive forces based upon cooperative labor, which would have for its sole purpose the satisfying of the necessary requirements of every member of society."

"In place of the capitalist economic order, Anarchists would have a free association of all productive forces based upon cooperative labor, which would have for its sole purpose the satisfying of the necessary requirements of every member of society."

"...our present economic system, leading to a mighty accumulation of social wealth in the hands of privileged minorities and to a constant repression of the great masses of the people..."

"Where industry is everything, where labor loses its ethical importance and man is nothing, there begins the realm of ruthless economic despotism, whose workings are no less disastrous than those of any political despotism."

"...only by the elimination of economic monopolies and by common ownership of the means of production does a condition of social justice become feasible, a condition in which society shall become a real community, and human labor shall no longer serve the ends of exploitation but assure the well being of everyone."

"...economic exploitation has always gone hand in hand with political and social oppression. The exploitation of man by man and the domination of man over man are inseparable, and each is the condition of the other."

"...Anarchism has to be regarded as a kind of voluntary Socialism."

"Every type of political power presupposes some particular form of human slavery, for the maintenance of which it is called into being."

"The urge for social justice can only develop properly and be effective when it grows out of man's sense of freedom and responsibility, and is based upon it."

"For the Anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all capacities and talents with which nature has endowed him..."

"...power always tries to keep things as they are, safely anchored to stereotypes. That has been the reason for all revolutions in history. Power operates only destructively, bent always on forcing every manifestation of social life into the straitjacket of its rules. Its intellectual expression is dead dogma, its physical form brute force."