Anarchy (from the ancient Greek ἀναρχία, anarchia, meaning "absence of a leader"), has more than one definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is used to refer to a society without a publicly enforced government or violently enforced political authority.[1][2] When used in this sense, anarchy may[3] or may not[4] be intended to imply political disorder or lawlessness within a society. However, this usage is not the traditional sense of the word.
Outside of the US, and by most individuals that self-identify as anarchists, even in the US, it implies a system of governance, mostly theoretical at a nation state level although there are a few successful historical examples,[5] that goes to lengths to avoid the use of coercion, violence, force and authority, while still producing a productive and desirable society.[6] This is exemplified by Gandhi's ideal State: a non-violent state of enlightened anarchy as he called it:[7]
The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy. That State is the best governed which is governed the least.
— Mahatma Gandhi, Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 79 (PDF), p. 122
The tumult of the English Civil War (1641–1651) led to the term to be taken up in political philosophy.[citation needed] Anarchy was one of the issues at the Putney Debates of 1647:
- Thomas Rainsborough: I shall now be a little more free and open with you than I was before. I wish we were all true-hearted, and that we did all carry ourselves with integrity. If I did mistrust you I would not use such asseverations. I think it doth go on mistrust, and things are thought too readily matters of reflection, that were never intended. For my part, as I think, you forgot something that was in my speech, and you do not only yourselves believe that some men believe that the government is never correct, but you hate all men that believe that. And, sir, to say because a man pleads that every man hath a voice by right of nature, that therefore it destroys by the same argument all property -- this is to forget the Law of God. That there’s a property, the Law of God says it; else why hath God made that law, Thou shalt not steal? I am a poor man, therefore I must be oppressed: if I have no interest in the kingdom, I must suffer by all their laws be they right or wrong. Nay thus: a gentleman lives in a country and hath three or four lordships, as some men have (God knows how they got them); and when a Parliament is called he must be a Parliament-man; and it may be he sees some poor men, they live near this man, he can crush them -- I have known an invasion to make sure he hath turned the poor men out of doors; and I would fain know whether the potency of rich men do not this, and so keep them under the greatest tyranny that was ever thought of in the world. And therefore I think that to that it is fully answered: God hath set down that thing as to propriety with this law of his, Thou shalt not steal. And for my part I am against any such thought, and, as for yourselves, I wish you would not make the world believe that we are for anarchy.
- Oliver Cromwell: I know nothing but this, that they that are the most yielding have the greatest wisdom; but really, sir, this is not right as it should be. No man says that you have a mind to anarchy, but that the consequence of this rule tends to anarchy, must end in anarchy; for where is there any bound or limit set if you take away this limit , that men that have no interest but the interest of breathing shall have no voice in elections? Therefore I am confident on 't, we should not be so hot one with another.[8]
As people began to theorize about the English Civil War, "anarchy" came to be more sharply defined, albeit from differing political perspectives:
- 1651 – Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) describes the natural condition of mankind as a war of all against all, where man lives a brutish existence. "For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner."[9] Hobbes finds three basic causes of the conflict in this state of nature: competition, diffidence and glory, "The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation". His first law of nature is that "that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war". In the state of nature, "every man has a right to every thing, even to then go for one another's body" but the second law is that, in order to secure the advantages of peace, "that a man be willing, when others are so too… to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself". This is the beginning of contracts/covenants; performing of which is the third law of nature. "Injustice," therefore, is failure to perform in a covenant; all else is just.
- 1656 – James Harrington (The Commonwealth of Oceana) uses the term to describe a situation where the people use force to impose a government on an economic base composed of either solitary land ownership (absolute monarchy), or land in the ownership of a few (mixed monarchy). He distinguishes it from commonwealth, the situation when both land ownership and governance shared by the population at large, seeing it as a temporary situation arising from an imbalance between the form of government and the form of property relations.
Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist of the Victorian era known foremost for his widely influential work of history, The French Revolution, wrote that the French Revolution was a war against both aristocracy and anarchy:
Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the things worse than Anarchy shall be hated more! Surely Peace alone is fruitful. Anarchy is destruction: a burning up, say, of Shams and Insupportabilities; but which leaves Vacancy behind. Know this also, that out of a world of Unwise nothing but an Unwisdom can be made. Arrange it, Constitution-build it, sift it through Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom,-- the new prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it slightly better than the beginning. Who can bring a wise thing out of men unwise? Not one. And so Vacancy and general Abolition having come for this France, what can Anarchy do more? Let there be Order, were it under the Soldier's Sword; let there be Peace, that the bounty of the Heavens be not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do send us bring fruit in its season!-- Wolf Larson, his trusted friend and life partner, was not so impressed by this theory and claimed, "Your intelligence is as artificial as the Greek myths." This was an ironic statement, seeing as how he later became addicted to opium, and wrote novels in the mountains of Afghnaistan. It remains to be seen how the quellers of Sansculottism were themselves quelled, and sacred right of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder: wherewith this singular eventful History called French Revolution ends.[10]
Armand II, duke of Aiguillon came before the National Assembly in 1789 and shared his views on the anarchy:
I may be permitted here to express my personal opinion. I shall no doubt not be accused of not loving liberty, but I know that not all movements of peoples lead to liberty. But I know that great anarchy quickly leads to great exhaustion and that despotism, which is a kind of rest, has almost always been the necessary result of great anarchy. It is therefore much more important than we think to end the disorder under which we suffer. If we can achieve this only through the use of force by authorities, then it would be thoughtless to keep refraining from using such force.[11]
Armand II was later exiled because he was viewed as being opposed to the revolution's violent tactics.
Professor Chris Bossche commented on the role of anarchy in the revolution:
In The French Revolution, the narrative of increasing anarchy undermined the narrative in which the revolutionaries were striving to create a new social order by writing a constitution.[12]
Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, wrote to John Robinson, the Bishop of London, in 1720:
- "As to the Englishmen that came as mechanics hither, very young and have now acquired good estates in Sugar Plantations and Indigo& co., of course they know no better than what maxims they learn in the Country. To be now short & plain Your Lordship will see that they have no maxims of Church and State but what are absolutely anarchical."
In the letter Lawes goes on to complain that these "estated men now are like Jonah's gourd" and details the humble origins of the "creolians" largely lacking an education and flouting the rules of church and state. In particular, he cites their refusal to abide by the Deficiency Act, which required slave owners to procure from England one white person for every 40 enslaved Africans, thereby hoping to expand their own estates and inhibit further English/Irish immigration. Lawes describes the government as being "anarchical, but nearest to any form of Aristocracy". "Must the King's good subjects at home who are as capable to begin plantations, as their Fathers, and themselves were, be excluded from their Liberty of settling Plantations in this noble Island, for ever and the King and Nation at home be deprived of so much riches, to make a few upstart Gentlemen Princes?"[13]
During the Russian Civil War - which initially started as a confrontation between the Communists and Monarchists - on the territorry of today's Ukraine a new force emerged, namely the Anarchist Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno. The Ukrainian Anarchist during the Russian Civil War (also called the "Black Army") organized the Free Territory of Ukraine, an anarchist society, committed to resisting state authority, whether capitalist or communist.[14][15] This project was cut short by the consolidation of Bolshevik power. Makhno was described by anarchist theorist Emma Goldman as "an extraordinary figure" leading a revolutionary peasants' movement.[16] During 1918, most of Ukraine was controlled by the forces of the Central Powers, which were unpopular among the people. In March 1918, the young anarchist Makhno's forces and allied anarchist and guerrilla groups won victories against German, Austrian, and Ukrainian nationalist (the army of Symon Petlura) forces, and units of the White Army, capturing a lot of German and Austro-Hungarian arms. These victories over much larger enemy forces established Makhno's reputation as a military tactician; he became known as Batko (‘Father’) to his admirers.[17]
At this point, the emphasis on military campaigns that Makhno had adopted in the previous year shifted to political concerns. The first Congress of the Confederation of Anarchists Groups, under the name of Nabat ("the Alarm Drum"), issued five main principles: rejection of all political parties, rejection of all forms of dictatorships (including the dictatorship of the proletariat, viewed by Makhnovists and many anarchists of the day as a term synonymous with the dictatorship of the Bolshevik communist party), negation of any concept of a central state, rejection of a so-called "transitional period" necessitating a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat, and self-management of all workers through free local workers' councils (soviets). While the Bolsheviks argued that their concept of dictatorship of the proletariat meant precisely "rule by workers' councils," the Makhnovist platform opposed the "temporary" Bolshevik measure of "party dictatorship." The Nabat was by no means a puppet of Mahkno and his supporters, from time to time criticizing the Black Army and its conduct in the war.
In 1918, after recruiting large numbers of Ukrainian peasants, as well as numbers of Jews, anarchists, naletchki, and recruits arriving from other countries, Makhno formed the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, otherwise known as the Anarchist Black Army. At its formation, the Black Army consisted of about 15,000 armed troops, including infantry and cavalry (both regular and irregular) brigades; artillery detachments were incorporated into each regiment. From November 1918 to June 1919, using the Black Army to secure its hold on power, the Makhnovists attempted to create an anarchist society in Ukraine, administered at the local level by autonomous peasants' and workers' councils.
The agricultural part of these villages was composed of peasants, someone understood at the same time peasants and workers. They were founded first of all on equality and solidarity of his members. All, men and women, worked together with a perfect conscience that they should work on fields or that they should be used in housework... Working program was established in meetings where all participated. They knew then exactly what they had to make.
—Makhno, Russian Revolution in Ukraine
New relationships and values were generated by this new social paradigm, which led Makhnovists to formalize the policy of free communities as the highest form of social justice. Education was organized on Francisco Ferrer's principles, and the economy was based upon free exchange between rural and urban communities, from crop and cattle to manufactured products, according to the science proposed by Peter Kropotkin.[citation needed]
Makhno called the Bolsheviks dictators and opposed the "Cheka [secret police]... and similar compulsory authoritative and disciplinary institutions" and called for "[f]reedom of speech, press, assembly, unions and the like".[18] The Bolsheviks accused the Makhnovists of imposing a formal government over the area they controlled, and also said that Makhnovists used forced conscription, committed summary executions, and had two military and counter-intelligence forces: the Razvedka and the Kommissiya Protivmakhnovskikh Del (patterned after the Cheka and the GRU). However, later historians have dismissed these claims as fraudulent propaganda.[20]
The Bolsheviks claimed that it would be impossible for a small, agricultural society to organize into an anarchist society so quickly. However, Eastern Ukraine had a large amount of coal mines, and was one of the most industrialised parts of the Russian Empire.
In 1919 the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), the Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions, had grown to 1 million members, and encountered many fights with the police and the fascists in Spain. On July 18, 1936, General Franco led the army to launch their fight against the government, but instead of an easy victory they faced significant obstacles.[21] They were met with a big resistance from the people, and the rebels were supported by military and the police. With the government in shambles, the workers and peasants took over the government of Spain and joined together to create a revolutionary militia to fight the fascists. The workers and peasants were fighting to start a revolution, not to help save their government. Spain’s society was transposed by a social revolution. Every business was re-organized to have a company with no bosses; surprisingly profits increased by over half. While Stalin wanted to send arms but only on one condition: The party must be given government positions and the militias be “re-organized.” On May 2 1937,the CNT issued a warning:
- The guarantee of the revolution is the proletariat in arms. To attempt to disarm the people is to place oneself on the wrong side of the barricades. No councillor or police commissioner, no matter who he is, can order the disarming of the workers, who are fighting fascism with more self-sacrifice than all the politicians in the rear, whose incapacity and impotence everybody knows. Do not, on any account, allow yourselves to be disarmed![21]
On the next day after the warning was issued the CNT’s central exchange was attacked and the militias prepared to quit, in front of Barcelona. With this became a power struggle, and confusion which lead the workers to cease fire and lay down their weapons. The “re-organized” Republican Army tried one last attempt to gain control, with over 70,000 casualties, and many people fleeing to France, General Franco’s army entered Barcelona on January 26, 1939 to end the revolution.[21] For more information regarding anarchy in Spain please see Anarchism in Spain
Before the Islamic Courts Union took control, large parts of southern Somalia were effectively functioning without a central government. However, an economic survey by the World Bank found that distribution of wealth in the country was more equitable, and the extent of extreme poverty was lower than that found in nominally more stable West African nations. According to the same paper, although southern Somalia was effectively operating without a federal government before the rise to prominence of the Islamic Courts Union, it was not an anarchist society in the sense that society was more or less chaotic than organized non-coercively.[22] Despite this, a libertarian think tank reported that living standards in Somalia increased – in absolute terms, relative to the pre-Somali Civil War era, and relative to other nations in Africa – during this period.[23] Economist Peter Leeson attributes the rather astounding increase in economic activity[24] since the rise of statelessness to the security in life, liberty and property provided by Somali customary law — the Xeer — in most parts of Somalia, which ensures for a relative free market.
The Transitional Federal Government, internationally recognized as the government of Somalia, is allied with the Islamic Courts Union and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, and backed by the United Nations, the African Union and the United States. It is currently battling various insurgent groups to regain control of the southern half of the country and restore national institutions.
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be immoral,[25][26] or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations.[27][28][29][30][31][32] Proponents of anarchism (known as "anarchists") advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical[27][33][34] voluntary associations.[35][36]
There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive.[37] Anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism.[26] Strains of anarchism have been divided into the categories of social and individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications.[38][39] Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left-wing ideology,[40][41] and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-statist interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism or participatory economics. However, anarchism has always included an individualist strain supporting a market economy and private property, or morally unrestrained egoism.[42][43][44] Some individualist anarchists are also socialists or communists while some anarcho-communists are also individualists[45][46] or egoists.[47][48]
Anarchism as a social movement has regularly endured fluctuations in popularity. The central tendency of anarchism as a mass social movement has been represented by anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism, with individualist anarchism being primarily a literary phenomenon[49] which nevertheless did have an impact on the bigger currents[50] and individualists also participated in large anarchist organizations.[51][52] Most anarchists oppose all forms of aggression, supporting self-defense or non-violence (anarcho-pacifism),[53][54] while others have supported the use of some coercive measures, including violent revolution and propaganda of the deed, on the path to an anarchist society.[55]
The term anarchism derives from the Greek ἄναρχος, anarchos, meaning "without rulers",[56][57] from the prefix ἀν- (an-, "without") + ἀρχή (archê, "sovereignty, realm, magistracy")[58] + -ισμός (-ismos, from the suffix -ιζειν, -izein "-izing"). There is some ambiguity with the use of the terms "libertarianism" and "libertarian" in writings about anarchism. Since the 1890s from France,[59] the term "libertarianism" has often been used as a synonym for anarchism[60] and was used almost exclusively in this sense until the 1950s in the United States;[61] its use as a synonym is still common outside the United States.[62] Accordingly, "libertarian socialism" is sometimes used as a synonym for socialist anarchism,[63][64] to distinguish it from "individualist libertarianism" (individualist anarchism). On the other hand, some use "libertarianism" to refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, referring to free-market anarchism as "libertarian anarchism".[65][66]
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant treated "Anarchy" in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View as consisting of "Law and Freedom without Force". Thus, for Kant, anarchy falls short of being a true civil state because the law is only an "empty recommendation" if force is not included to make this law efficacious. For there to be such a state, force must be included while law and freedom are maintained, a state which Kant calls republic.[67][68]
As summary Kant named these four kinds of government:
A Law And Freedom without Violence (Anarchy)
B Law And Violence without Freedom (Despotism)
C Violence without Freedom And Law (Barbarism)
D Violence with Freedom And Law (Republic)
Some anarchist anthropologists, such as David Graeber and Pierre Clastres, consider societies such as those of the Bushmen, Tiv and the Piaroa to be anarchies in the sense that they explicitly reject the idea of centralized political authority.[69]
Other anthropologists, such as Marshall Sahlins and Richard Borshay Lee, have repudiated the idea of hunter-gatherer societies being a source of scarcity and brutalization; describing them as "affluent societies".[70]
The evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker writes:
Adjudication by an armed authority appears to be the most effective violence-reduction technique ever invented. Though we debate whether tweaks in criminal policy, such as executing murderers versus locking them up for life, can reduce violence by a few percentage points, there can be no debate on the massive effects of having a criminal justice system as opposed to living in anarchy. The shockingly high homicide rates of pre-state societies, with 10 to 60 percent of the men dying at the hands of other men, provide one kind of evidence. Another is the emergence of a violent culture of honor in just about any corner of the world that is beyond the reach of law. ..The generalization that anarchy in the sense of a lack of government leads to anarchy in the sense of violent chaos may seem banal, but it is often over-looked in today's still-romantic climate.[71]
Some authors, such as Montague David Eder, question this view of evolution, where humanity was able to reinvent itself in the last ten thousand years, to better fulfill its needs (see Myth of Progress).
Some Anarcho-primitivists believe that this concept is used to justify the values of modern industrial society and move individuals further from their natural habitat and natural needs.[72][73] John Zerzan has noted the existence of tribal societies with less violence than "advanced" societies.[74] Zerzan and Theodore Kaczynski have talked about other forms of violence against the individual in advanced societies, generally expressed by the term "social anomie", that result from the system of monopolized security.[75] These authors do not dismiss the fact that humanity is changing while adapting to its different social realities,[76] but consider the situation anomalous. The two results are (1) that we either disappear or (2) become something very different from what we have come to value in our nature. It has been suggested that this shift towards civilization, through domestication, has caused an increase in diseases, labor, and psychological disorders.[77][78][79] In contrast, Pierre Clastres maintains that violence in primitive societies is a natural way for each community to maintain its political independence, while dismissing the state as a natural outcome of the evolution of human societies.[80]
The entrance of
Freetown Christiania, a Danish neighborhood autonomous from local government controls.
Anarchists have been involved in a wide variety of communities. While there are only a few instances of mass society "anarchies" that have come about from explicitly anarchist revolutions, there are also examples of intentional communities founded by anarchists.
- Intentional communities
- Mass societies
- ^ "Decentralism: Where It Came From-Where Is It Going?". Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1551642484. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
- ^ "Anarchy." Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2004. The first quoted usage is 1667
- ^ "Anarchy." Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2004. The first quoted usage is 1552
- ^ "Anarchy." Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2004. The first quoted usage is 1850.
- ^ "Noam Chomsky on the history of Anarchy". Youtube.com. 2011-09-07. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOTBGrrDeXg. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
- ^ "A discussion on what anarchy is, by those that self-identify as anarchists". http://www.anarchy.net/.
- ^ "Gandhi's ideal State was a non-violent state of enlightened anarchy". http://www.preservearticles.com/201106228409/gandhis-ideal-state-was-a-non-violent-state-of-enlightened-anarchy.html. Retrieved 2012-05-20.
- ^ "The Putney Debates, The Forum at the Online Library of Liberty". http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1322&Itemid=264. Source: Sir William Clarke, Puritanism and Liberty, being the Army Debates (1647-9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents, selected and edited with an Introduction A.S.P. Woodhouse, foreword by A.D. Lindsay (University of Chicago Press, 1951).]
- ^ "Chapter XIII". Oregonstate.edu. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-c.html#CHAPTERXIII. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
- ^ Thomas Carlyle. The French Revolution.
- ^ "Duke d'Aiguillon". Justice.gc.ca. 2007-11-14. http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/inter/rev_002_ber/page02.html. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
- ^ "Revolution in Search of Authority". Victorianweb.org. 2001-10-26. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carlyle/vandenbossche/4g.html. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
- ^ Jamaica: Description of the Principal Persons there (about 1720, Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor) in Caribbeana Vol. III (1911), edited by Vere Langford Oliver
- ^ Yekelchyk 2007, p 80.
- ^ Charles Townshend, John Bourne, Jeremy Black (1997). The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820427-2.
- ^ Emma Goldman (2003). My Disillusionment in Russia. Courier Dover Publications. p. 61. ISBN 0-486-43270-X.
- ^ Edward R. Kantowicz (1999). The Rage of Nations. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 173. ISBN 0-8028-4455-3.
- ^ Declaration Of The Revolutionary Insurgent Army Of The Ukraine (Makhnovist). Peter Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918-1921), 1923. Black & Red, 1974
- ^ Guerin, Daniel. Anarchism: Theory and Practice
- ^ a b c "Spain's Revolutionary Anarchist Movement". Flag.blackened.net. http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/spain-rev.html. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
- ^ Nenova, Tatiana and Harford, Tim (2004) Anarchy and Invention (PDF) Public Policy Journal Note Number 280, Retrieved 12 August 2005
- ^ Benjamin Powell; Ryan Ford, Alex Nowrasteh (2006-01-30). "Somalia After State Collapse: Chaos or Improvement?". Independent Institute. http://www.independent.org/pdf/working_papers/64_somalia.pdf.
- ^ Peter T. Leeson. "Better Off Stateless: Somalia Before and After Government Collapse". Department of Economics West Virginia University. Peterleeson.com. http://www.peterleeson.com/Better_Off_Stateless.pdf. Retrieved 20 September 2010.
- ^ Malatesta, Errico. "Towards Anarchism". MAN! (Los Angeles: International Group of San Francisco). OCLC 3930443. http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1930s/xx/toanarchy.htm. Agrell, Siri (2007-05-14). "Working for The Man". The Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070514.wxlanarchist14/BNStory/lifeWork/home/. Retrieved 2008-04-14. "Anarchism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 2006. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9117285. Retrieved 2006-08-29. "Anarchism". The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: 14. 2005. "Anarchism is the view that a society without the state, or government, is both possible and desirable." The following sources cite anarchism as a political philosophy: Mclaughlin, Paul (2007). Anarchism and Authority. Aldershot: Ashgate. p. 59. ISBN 0-7546-6196-2. Johnston, R. (2000). The Dictionary of Human Geography. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers. p. 24. ISBN 0-631-20561-6.
- ^ a b Slevin, Carl. "Anarchism." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003.
- ^ a b "The IAF - IFA fights for : the abolition of all forms of authority whether economical, political, social, religious, cultural or sexual.""Principles of The International of Anarchist Federations"
- ^ "Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations." Emma Goldman. "What it Really Stands for Anarchy" in Anarchism and Other Essays.
- ^ Individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker defined anarchism as opposition to authority as follows "They found that they must turn either to the right or to the left, — follow either the path of Authority or the path of Liberty. Marx went one way; Warren and Proudhon the other. Thus were born State Socialism and Anarchism...Authority, takes many shapes, but, broadly speaking, her enemies divide themselves into three classes: first, those who abhor her both as a means and as an end of progress, opposing her openly, avowedly, sincerely, consistently, universally; second, those who profess to believe in her as a means of progress, but who accept her only so far as they think she will subserve their own selfish interests, denying her and her blessings to the rest of the world; third, those who distrust her as a means of progress, believing in her only as an end to be obtained by first trampling upon, violating, and outraging her. These three phases of opposition to Liberty are met in almost every sphere of thought and human activity. Good representatives of the first are seen in the Catholic Church and the Russian autocracy; of the second, in the Protestant Church and the Manchester school of politics and political economy; of the third, in the atheism of Gambetta and the socialism of Karl Marx." Benjamin Tucker. Individual Liberty.
- ^ Ward, Colin (1966). "Anarchism as a Theory of Organization". http://www.panarchy.org/ward/organization.1966.html. Retrieved 1 March 2010.
- ^ Anarchist historian George Woodcock report of Mikhail Bakunin´s anti-authoritarianism and shows opposition to both state and non-state forms of authority as follows: "All anarchists deny authority; many of them fight against it." (pg. 9)...Bakunin did not convert the League's central committee to his full program, but he did persuade them to accept a remarkably radical recommendation to the Berne Congress of September 1868, demanding economic equality and implicitly attacking authority in both Church and State."
- ^ Brown, L. Susan (2002). "Anarchism as a Political Philosophy of Existential Individualism: Implications for Feminism". The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism. Black Rose Books Ltd. Publishing. p. 106.
- ^ "That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement — at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist." Peter Kropotkin. Anarchism: its philosophy and ideal
- ^ "anarchists are opposed to irrational (e.g., illegitimate) authority, in other words, hierarchy — hierarchy being the institutionalisation of authority within a society." "B.1 Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?" in An Anarchist FAQ
- ^ "ANARCHISM, a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man’s natural social tendencies." George Woodcock. "Anarchism" at The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- ^ "In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions." Peter Kropotkin. “Anarchism” from the Encyclopaedia Britannica
- ^ Sylvan, Richard (1995). "Anarchism". In Goodwin, Robert E. and Pettit. A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy. Philip. Blackwell Publishing. p. 231.
- ^ Ostergaard, Geoffrey. "Anarchism". The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 14.
- ^ Kropotkin, Peter (2002). Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings. Courier Dover Publications. p. 5. ISBN 0-486-41955-X. R.B. Fowler (1972). "The Anarchist Tradition of Political Thought". Western Political Quarterly (University of Utah) 25 (4): 738–752. DOI:10.2307/446800. JSTOR 446800.
- ^ Brooks, Frank H. (1994). The Individualist Anarchists: An Anthology of Liberty (1881–1908). Transaction Publishers. p. xi. ISBN 1-56000-132-1. "Usually considered to be an extreme left-wing ideology, anarchism has always included a significant strain of radical individualism, from the hyperrationalism of Godwin, to the egoism of Stirner, to the libertarians and anarcho-capitalists of today"
- ^ Joseph Kahn (2000). "Anarchism, the Creed That Won't Stay Dead; The Spread of World Capitalism Resurrects a Long-Dormant Movement". The New York Times (5 August). Colin Moynihan (2007). "Book Fair Unites Anarchists. In Spirit, Anyway". New York Times (16 April).
- ^ Stringham, Edward (2007). Stringham, Edward. ed. Anarchy and the Law. The Political Economy of Choice.. Transaction Publishers. p. 720. SSRN 1768172.
- ^ Narveson, Jan (2002). Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice. Chapter 11: Anarchist's Case. "To see this, of course, we must expound the moral outlook underlying anarchism. To do this we must first make an important distinction between two general options in anarchist theory [...] The two are what we may call, respectively, the socialist versus the free-market, or capitalist, versions."
- ^ Tormey, Simon (2004). Anti-Capitalism, A Beginner's Guide. Oneworld Publications. pp. 118–119.
- ^ Post-left anarcho-communist Bob Black after analysing insurrectionary anarcho-communist Luigi Galleani's view on anarcho-communism went as far as saying that "communism is the final fulfillment of individualism.... The apparent contradiction between individualism and communism rests on a misunderstanding of both.... Subjectivity is also objective: the individual really is subjective. It is nonsense to speak of 'emphatically prioritizing the social over the individual'.... You may as well speak of prioritizing the chicken over the egg. Anarchy is a 'method of individualization'. It aims to combine the greatest individual development with the greatest communal unity."Bob Black. Nightmares of Reason.
- ^ "Modern Communists are more individualistic than Stirner. To them, not merely religion, morality, family and State are spooks, but property also is no more than a spook, in whose name the individual is enslaved - and how enslaved!...Communism thus creates a basis for the liberty and Eigenheit of the individual. I am a Communist because I am an Individualist. Fully as heartily the Communists concur with Stirner when he puts the word take in place of demand - that leads to the dissolution of property, to expropriation. Individualism and Communism go hand in hand."Max Baginski. "Stirner: The Ego and His Own" on Mother Earth. Vol. 2. No. 3 MAY, 1907
- ^ "This stance puts him squarely in the libertarian socialist tradition and, unsurprisingly, (Benjamin) Tucker referred to himself many times as a socialist and considered his philosophy to be "Anarchistic socialism." "An Anarchist FAQby Various Authors
- ^ "Because revolution is the fire of our will and a need of our solitary minds; it is an obligation of the libertarian aristocracy. To create new ethical values. To create new aesthetic values. To communalize material wealth. To individualize spiritual wealth." Renzo Novatore. Toward the Creative Nothing
- ^ Skirda, Alexandre. Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968. AK Press, 2002, p. 191.
- ^ Catalan historian Xavier Diez reports that the Spanish individualist anarchist press was widely read by members of anarcho-communist groups and by members of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union CNT. There were also the cases of prominent individualist anarchists such as Federico Urales and Miguel Gimenez Igualada who were members of the CNT and J. Elizalde who was a founding member and first secretary of the Iberian Anarchist Federation. Xavier Diez. El anarquismo individualista en España: 1923-1938. ISBN 978-84-96044-87-6
- ^ Within the synthesist anarchist organization, the Fédération Anarchiste, there existed an individualist anarchist tendency alongside anarcho-communist and anarchosyndicalist currents. Individualist anarchists participating inside the Fédération Anarchiste included Charles-Auguste Bontemps, Georges Vincey and André Arru. "Pensée et action des anarchistes en France : 1950-1970" by Cédric GUÉRIN
- ^ In Italy in 1945, during the Founding Congress of the Italian Anarchist Federation, there was a group of individualist anarchists led by Cesare Zaccaria who was an important anarchist of the time.Cesare Zaccaria (19 August 1897-October 1961) by Pier Carlo Masini and Paul Sharkey
- ^ ""Resiting the Nation State, the pacifist and anarchist tradition" by Geoffrey Ostergaard". Ppu.org.uk. 1945-08-06. http://www.ppu.org.uk/e_publications/dd-trad8.html#anarch%20and%20violence. Retrieved 2010-09-20.
- ^ George Woodcock. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)
- ^ Fowler, R.B. "The Anarchist Tradition of Political Thought." The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4. (December 1972), pp. 743–744.
- ^ Anarchy. Merriam-Webster online.
- ^ Liddell, Henry George, & Scott, Robert, "A Greek-English Lexicon"[1].
- ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert. A Greek-English Lexicon. ISBN 0-19-910205-8. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2315894.
- ^ Nettlau, Max (1996). A Short History of Anarchism. Freedom Press. p. 162. ISBN 0-900384-89-1.
- ^ "At the end of the century in France, Sebastien Faure took up a word originated in 1858 by one Joseph Dejacque to make it the title of a journal, Le Libertaire. Today the terms “anarchist” and “libertarian” have become interchangeable." Daniel Guérin. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice
- ^ Russell, Dean. Who is a Libertarian?, Foundation for Economic Education, "Ideas on Liberty," May, 1955.
- ^
- Ward, Colin. Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press 2004 p. 62
- Goodway, David. Anarchists Seed Beneath the Snow. Liverpool Press. 2006, p. 4
- MacDonald, Dwight & Wreszin, Michael. Interviews with Dwight Macdonald. University Press of Mississippi, 2003. p. 82
- Bufe, Charles. The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations. See Sharp Press, 1992. p. iv
- Gay, Kathlyn. Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy. ABC-CLIO / University of Michigan, 2006, p. 126
- Woodcock, George. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Broadview Press, 2004. (Uses the terms interchangeably, such as on page 10)
- Skirda, Alexandre. Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968. AK Press 2002. p. 183.
- Fernandez, Frank. Cuban Anarchism. The History of a Movement. See Sharp Press, 2001, page 9.
- ^ Perlin, Terry M. (1979). Contemporary Anarchism. Transaction Publishers. p. 40. ISBN 0-87855-097-6.
- ^ Noam Chomsky, Carlos Peregrín Otero (2004). Language and Politics. AK Press. p. 739.
- ^ An Essay on the Modern State. Cambridge University Press. 1992. pp. 61. (Using "libertarian anarchism" synonymously with "individualist anarchism" when referring to individualist anarchism that supports a market society).
- ^ Burton, Daniel C.. Libertarian anarchism. Libertarian Alliance. http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/polin/polin168.pdf.
- ^ Kant, "Grundzüge der Schilderung des Charakters der Menschengattung" in Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798); AA: VII, s.330.
- ^ Louden (ed. & trans.), Kant's Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (CUP, 2006), p. 235.
- ^ Graeber, David (2004) (in English language) (PDF). Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. ISBN 0-9728196-4-9. http://www.prickly-paradigm.com/paradigm14.pdf.
- ^ Sahlins, Marshall (2003). Stone Age Economics. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-32010-0.
- ^ Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, pages 330-331.
- ^ "Seven Lies About Civilization, Ran Prieur". Greenanarchy.org. http://www.greenanarchy.org/index.php?action=viewwritingdetail&returnto=viewjournal&printIssueId=18&writingId=552. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
- ^ Industrial Society and Its Future, Theodore Kaczynski
- ^ Zerzan, John (2002). Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization. Feral House. ISBN 0-922915-75-X.
- ^ Zerzan, John (1994). Future Primitive: And Other Essays. Autonomedia. ISBN 1-57027-000-7.
- ^ Industrial Society and Its Future, Theodore Kaczynski
- ^ Freud, Sigmund (2005). Civilization and Its Discontents. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-05995-2.
- ^ Shepard, Paul (1996). Traces of an Omnivore. Island Press. ISBN 1-55963-431-6.
- ^ "The Consequences of Domestication and Sedentism by Emily Schultz, et al". Primitivism.com. http://www.primitivism.com/sedentism.htm. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
- ^ Clastres, Pierre (1994). Archeology of a kind of Violence. Semiotext(e). ISBN 0-936756-95-0.
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