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Anarchy

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The word "anarchy" is from the Greek, prefix an (or a), meaning "not," "the want of," "the absence of," or "the lack of", plus archos, meaning "a ruler," "director", "chief," "person in charge," or "authority".

Or, as Peter Kropotkin put it, anarchy comes from the Greek words meaning "contrary to authority". [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 284]

While the Greek words anarchos and anarchia are often taken to mean "having no government" or "being without a government", as can be seen, the strict, original meaning of anarchism was not simply "no government". "An-archy" means "without a ruler," or more generally, "without authority", and it is in this sense that anarchists have continually used the word. For example, we find Kropotkin arguing that anarchism "attacks not only capital, but also the main sources of the power of capitalism: law, authority, and the State". [Op. Cit., p. 150] For anarchists, anarchy means "not necessarily absence of order, as is generally supposed, but an absence of rule". [[[Benjamin Tucker]], Instead of a Book, p. 13] Hence David Weick's excellent summary:

"Anarchism can be understood as the generic social and political idea that expresses negation of all power, sovereignty, domination, and hierarchical division, and a will to their dissolution. . . Anarchism is therefore more than anti-statism . . . [even if] government (the state) . . . is, appropriately, the central focus of anarchist critique." [Reinventing Anarchy, p. 139]

For this reason, rather than being purely anti-government or anti-state, anarchism is primarily a movement against hierarchy. Why? Because hierarchy is the organizational structure that embodies authority. Since the state is the "highest" form of hierarchy, anarchists are, by definition, anti-state; but this is not a sufficient definition of anarchism. This means that real anarchists are opposed to all forms of hierarchical organization, not only the state. In the words of Brian Morris:

"The term anarchy comes from the Greek, and essentially means 'no ruler.' Anarchists are people who reject all forms of government or coercive authority, all forms of hierarchy and domination. They are therefore opposed to what the Mexican anarchist Flores Magon called the 'sombre trinity' -- state, capital and the church. Anarchists are thus opposed to both capitalism and to the state, as well as to all forms of religious authority. But anarchists also seek to establish or bring about by varying means, a condition of anarchy, that is, a decentralized society without coercive institutions, a society organized through a federation of voluntary associations." ["Anthropology and Anarchism", Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, no. 45, p. 38]

Reference to "hierarchy" in this context is a fairly recent development -- the "classical" anarchists such as Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin did use the word, but rarely (they usually preferred "authority", which was used as short-hand for "authoritarian"). However, it's clear from their writings that theirs was a philosophy against hierarchy, against any inequality of power or privileges between individuals. Bakunin spoke of this when he attacked "official" authority but defended "natural influence", and also when he said:

"Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man? Then make sure that no one shall possess power." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 271]

As Jeff Draughn notes, "while it has always been a latent part of the 'revolutionary project,' only recently has this broader concept of anti-hierarchy arisen for more specific scrutiny. Nonetheless, the root of this is plainly visible in the Greek roots of the word 'anarchy'". ['Between Anarchism and Libertarianism: Defining a New Movement]

We stress that this opposition to hierarchy is, for anarchists, not limited to just the state or government. It includes all authoritarian economic and social relationships as well as political ones, particularly those associated with capitalist property and wage labour. This can be seen from Proudhon's argument that "Capital . . . in the political field is analogous to government . . . The economic idea of capitalism . . . [and] the politics of government or of authority . . . [are] identical . . . [and] linked in various ways. . . What capital does to labour . . . the State [does] to liberty . . ." [quoted by Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, pp. 43-44] Thus we find Emma Goldman opposing capitalism as it involved people selling their labour and so ensuring that "the worker's inclination and judgment are subordinated to the will of a master". [Red Emma Speaks, p. 36] Forty years earlier Bakunin made the same point when he argued that under the current system "the worker sells his person and his liberty for a given time" to the capitalist in exchange for a wage [Op. Cit., p. 187].

Thus "anarchy" means more than just "no government", it means opposition to all forms of authoritarian organization and hierarchy. In Kropotkin's words, "the origin of the anarchist inception of society . . . [lies in] the criticism . . . of the hierarchical organizations and the authoritarian conceptions of society; and . . . the analysis of the tendencies that are seen in the progressive movements of mankind." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 158] Thus any attempt to assert that anarchy is purely anti-state is a misrepresentation of the word and the way it has been used by the anarchist movement. As Brian Morris argues, "when one examines the writings of classical anarchists. . . as well as the character of anarchist movements. . . it is clearly evident that it has never had this limited vision [of just being against the state]. It has always challenged all forms of authority and exploitation, and has been equally critical of capitalism and religion as it has been of the state". [Op. Cit., p. 40]

And, just to state the obvious, anarchy does not mean chaos nor do anarchists seek to create chaos or disorder. Instead, we wish to create a society based upon individual freedom and voluntary co-operation. In other words, order from the bottom up, not disorder imposed from the top down by authorities.

However, in anarchist philosophies, anarchy means an "anarchist society", that is, a society where individuals are free from coercion. Anarchists do not believe, as Jean-Francois Revel wrote in Democracy against Itself, that "... anarchy leads to despotism ... despotism leads to anarchy ..." [1] – that may or may not be true of "anarchy" in the sense of disorder, but anarchists do not believe that it is true of "anarchy" in the sense of anarchism.

Anarchist theories have a fundamental critique of government, a vision of a society without government, and a proposed method of reaching such a society. The details of the political, economic, and social organization of an anarchist society vary among different branches of anarchist political thought, as do the proposed means to achieve a society organized along those lines. However, there are certain principles shared by all anarchists, most notably the basic principle of non-hierarchy (in an anarchist society there cannot be any kind of social hierarchy) and its derivatives, such as the principle of equal decision-making power (all people must have equal decision-making power in an anarchist society; if some have more power than others, then a hierarchy is formed).

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