CHAPTER 5 ANARCHISM
PREVIEW The word ‘anarchy’ comes from the Greek anarkhos and literally means ‘without rule’. The term ‘anarchism’ has been in use since the French Revolution, and was initially employed in a critical or negative sense to imply a breakdown of civilized or predictable order. In everyday language, anarchy implies chaos and disorder. Needless to say, anarchists themselves fiercely reject such associations. It
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Historical overview
Core themes
Types of anarchism
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The future of anarchism 121 Questions for discussion 122 Further reading 123
was not until Pierre-Joseph Proudhon proudly declared in What Is Property? ([1840] 1970), ‘I am an anarchist’, that the word was clearly associated with a positive and systematic set of political ideas. Anarchist ideology is defined by the central belief that political authority in all its forms, and especially in the form of the state, is both evil and unnecessary. Anarchists therefore look to the creation of a stateless society through the abolition of law and government. In their view, the state is evil because, as a repository of sovereign, compulsory and coercive authority, it is an offence against the principles of freedom and equality. Anarchism is thus characterized by principled opposition to certain forms of social hierarchy. Anarchists believe that the state is unnecessary because order and social harmony do not have to be imposed ‘from above’ through government. Central to anarchism is the belief that people can manage their affairs through voluntary agreement, without the need for top-down hierarchies or a system of rewards and punishments. However, anarchism draws from two quite different ideological traditions: liberalism and socialism. This has resulted in rival individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism. While both accept the goal of statelessness, they advance very different models of the future anarchist society.
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