Like all really good ideas, anarchy is pretty simple when you get down to it: human beings are at their very best when they are living free of authority, deciding things among themselves, rather than being ordered about. That's what the word means - without government.

Most of us know this anyway (though there are a few oddballs who actually enjoy being pushed around). But we also know just how difficult it usually is to do anything important for ourselves; if you try, you're likely to break some law or contravene some regulation.

But throughout human history, people have always tried to do just that: to live freely, sometimes on their own, sometimes in small groups and sometimes in great popular movements.

That's what anarchism is all about, celebrating and reinforcing all those attempts to build a free world for everyone, where everyone lives their full life, free from imposed authority.

Anarchists see this as desirable and necessary. Anarchists also know that this can only happen if everyone is involved in making it happen.

Everyone must be free, not just a few, not even a majority, but everyone.

When everyone becomes involved in making a free world - that's what anarchists call revolution, and that's what we're all about.

Well that's our brief view of anarchism in a few short paragraphs. There are many other descriptions out there on the web as well. If you don't know that much about the ideas and theories, we suggest you take a look at a number of the groups on our “websites” page.

First ever anarchist stall in Barcelona (and the whole of Spain) at an annual bookfair at the beginning of the 1930s