[9][10] During his lifetime, Tucker opposed capitalism[11] and considered himself a socialist due to his belief in the labor theory of value and disputed many of the dictionary definitions of the term which he believed were inaccurate.

Beside Tucker, contributors also included Lysander Spooner, Gertrude Kelly, Auberon Herbert, Dyer Lum, Joshua K. Ingalls, John Henry Mackay, Victor Yarros, Wordsworth Donisthorpe, James L. Walker, J. William Lloyd, Florence Finch Kelly, Voltairine de Cleyre, Steven T. Byington, John Beverley Robinson, Jo Labadie, Lillian Harman and Henry Appleton.

[14] Towards the end of Tucker's life, anarchist Victor Yarros described him as a "forceful and clear writer, but a poor speaker" who considered writing for bourgeois newspapers to be "the worst form of prostitution".

After the French libertarian communist Joseph Déjacque,[18] According to Frank Brooks, an historian of American individualist anarchism, it is easy to misunderstand Tucker's claim to socialism.

Descriptions of the problem, explanations of its causes and proposed solutions (abolition of private property and support of cooperatives or public ownership) varied among socialist philosophies.

[23] Tucker connected his libertarian socialist economic views which included his opposition to non-labor income in the form of profit, interest and rent with those of Adam Smith, Josiah Warren, Proudhon and Marx while arguing against American anti-socialists who declared socialism as imported.

[24] Tucker disapproved of government ownership because to him state control was the most complete and most obnoxious form of monopoly, "a tyrant living by theft ... wasteful, careless, clumsy, and short-sighted".

Thus, he refused to condone the overthrow of the state by violent means, arguing that abolishing government would likely result in physical conflicts over land and a reaction to restore the old regime.

Hence, Tucker preached widespread education and ultimately a passive resistance that was to take forms such as refusal to pay taxes, the evasion of jury duty and military service and the non-observance of compulsion.

For example, he said that children would shed their status as property when they became old enough to contract "to buy or sell a house", noting that the precocity varies by age and would be determined by a jury in the case of a complaint.

[33][34] Iain McKay et al. criticize specifically Tucker's support, even within an anarchy, for wage labour, which they consider hierarchical, exploitattive, and conducive to private defense agencies' statism.