The keynote of government is injustice.

In this aphoristic indictment, Goldman compresses a central anarchist claim: that the state’s defining function is not neutral administration but the maintenance of unequal power through coercion. Calling injustice the “keynote” suggests it is not an accidental byproduct of bad rulers or flawed policies; it is the organizing principle that gives government its characteristic “tone.” The line also implies that reforms which leave the coercive structure intact cannot eliminate injustice, because law and enforcement are portrayed as instruments that protect property, hierarchy, and authority. As a result, the quote serves less as a policy critique than as a foundational moral argument against the legitimacy of government itself.