What is the difference between anarchy and anarchism

In this narrative, anarchists are lawless hooligans and anarchy is about chaos and pointless violence. This event was indeed organised by a number of anarchist groups — and there were limited outbreaks of violence — but the equation of chaos and violence with anarchism is about as productive as the equation of circles with squares.

It is a crude and bizarre misrepresentation. What is anarchism anyway? It is a radical and revolutionary political philosophy and political economy.

While there are many definitions and many anarchisms, most would agree to the definition formulated by Peter Kropotkin. It stands for the absence of domination, hierarchy and power over others. Anarchism is a process whereby authority and domination is being replaced with non-hierarchical, horizontal structures, with voluntary associations between human beings. It is a form of social organisation with a set of key principles, such as self-organisation, voluntary association, freedom, autonomy, solidarity, direct democracy, egalitarianism and mutual aid.

Based on these principles and values, anarchism rejects both a capitalist economy and a nation state that is governed by means of a representative democracy.

It is a utopian project that aspires to combine the best parts of liberalism with the best parts of communism. At its heart is a mix of the liberal emphasis on individual freedom and the communist emphasis on an equal society.

The political philosophy of anarchisms emerged in the midth century — as part of the thought of Enlightenment. Proudhon is credited as the first self-proclaimed anarchist and is often seen as the founder of classic anarchist thinking.

In particular, he developed the concept of spontaneous order in society, where organisations can emerge without central or top-down coordination. Uniting this variety is the general critique of centralized, hierarchical power and authority. Given that authority, centralization, and hierarchy show up in various ways and in different discourses, institutions, and practices, it is not surprising that the anarchist critique has been applied in diverse ways.

Anarchism is primarily understood as a skeptical theory of political legitimation. Anarchy is thus rule by no one or non-rule. Political anarchists focus their critique on state power, viewing centralized, monopolistic coercive power as illegitimate. Bakunin provides a paradigm historical example, saying:. If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable—and this is why we are the enemies of the State.

Bakunin [ ]. Such sweeping generalizations are difficult to support. Thus anarchism as political philosophy faces the challenge of specificity. States have been organized in various ways. Political power is not monolithic. Sovereignty is a complicated matter that includes divisions and distributions of power see Fiala Bakunin was responding primarily to a Marxist and Hegelian view of the state, offering his critique from within the global socialist movement; Casey is writing in the Twenty-First Century in the era of liberalism and globalization, offering his critique from within the movement of contemporary libertarianism.

Some anarchists engage in broad generalizations, aiming for a total critique of political power. Others will present a localized critique of a given political entity.

An ongoing challenge for those who would seek to understand anarchism is to realize how historically and ideologically diverse approaches fit under the general anarchist umbrella. We look at political anarchism in detail below. The anarchist critique has been extended toward the rejection of non-political centralization and authority. Bakunin extended his critique to include religion, arguing against both God and the State. There are, however, religious versions of anarchism, which critique political authority from a standpoint that takes religion seriously.

Rapp has shown how anarchism can be found in Taoism. We consider anarchism in connection with Gandhi below. But we focus here on Christian anarchism. Christian anarchist theology views the kingdom of God as lying beyond any human principle of structure or order.

Christian anarchists offer an anti-clerical critique of ecclesiastical and political power. Tolstoy provides an influential example. Tolstoy claims that Christians have a duty not to obey political power and to refuse to swear allegiance to political authority see Tolstoy Tolstoy was also a pacifist.

Christian anarcho-pacifism views the state as immoral and unsupportable because of its connection with military power see Christoyannopoulos But there are also non-pacifist Christian anarchists.

Berdyaev, for example, builds upon Tolstoy and in his own interpretation of Christian theology. Christian anarchists have gone so far as to found separatist communities where they live apart from the structures of the state. These transcendentalists had an influence on Tolstoy see Perry []. In more recent years, Christian anarchism has been defended by Jacques Ellul who links Christian anarchism to a broad social critique. When asked whether a Christian anarchist should vote, Ellul says no.

Anarchist rejection of authority has application in epistemology and in philosophical and literary theory. One significant usage of the term shows up in American pragmatism. James had anarchist sympathies, connected to a general critique of systematic philosophy see Fiala b. Anarchism thus shows up as a general critique of prevailing methods.

Feyerabend explains:. Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.

Feyerabend [ 9]. His point is that science ought not be constrained by hierarchically imposed principles and strict rule following. Post-structuralism and trends in post-modernism and Continental philosophy can also be anarchistic see May Traditional anarchists were primarily interested in sustained and focused political activism that led toward the abolition of the state. The difference between free-flowing post-anarchism and traditional anarchism can be seen in the realm of morality.

Anarchism has traditionally been critical of centralized moral authority—but this critique was often based upon fundamental principles and traditional values, such as autonomy or liberty. But post-structuralism—along with critiques articulated by some feminists, critical race theorists, and critics of Eurocentrism—calls these values and principles into question.

The broad critical framework provided by the anarchist critique of authority provides a useful theory or methodology for social critique. In more recent iterations, anarchism has been used to critique gender hierarchies, racial hierarchies, and the like—also including a critique of human domination over nature.

Thus anarchism also includes, to name a few varieties: anarcha-feminism or feminist anarchism see Kornegger , queer anarchism or anarchist queer theory see Daring et al. In the anarcho-vegan literature we find the following description of a broad and inclusive anarchism:. Anarchism is a socio-political theory which opposes all systems of domination and oppression such as racism, ableism, sexism, anti-LGBTTQIA, ageism, sizeism, government, competition, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and punitive justice, and promotes direct democracy, collaboration, interdependence, mutual aid, diversity, peace, transformative justice and equity.

Nocella et al. A thorough-going anarchism would thus offer a critique of anything and everything that smacks of hierarchy, domination, centralization, and unjustified authority. In extreme forms this becomes anarcho-primitivism or anti-civilizational anarchism see Zerzan , ; Jensen Alternative anarchist societies have existed in religious communes in post-Reformation Europe and in the early United States, in Nineteenth Century American utopian communities, the hippy communes of the Twentieth Century, anarchist squats, temporary autonomous zones see Bey , and occasional gatherings of like-minded people.

Given this sort of antinomianism and non-conformism it is easy to see that anarchism also often includes a radical critique of traditional ethical norms and principles. Thus radical ethical anarchism can be contrasted with what we might call bourgeois anarchism with radical anarchism seeking to disrupt traditional social norms and bourgeois anarchism seeking freedom from the state that does not seek such disruption.

In more recent explorations and applications of anarchist thought, the anarchist critique has been related and connected to a variety of emerging theoretical issues and applied concerns. Hilary Lazar for example, explores how anarchism connects to intersectionality and issues related to multiculturalism.

And Sky Croeser explores how anarchism is connected to the emerging technologies including the Internet. And there are anarchist elements in the development of shared technological and information, as for example in the development of cryptocurrencies, which create economies that outside of traditional state-based economic systems.

As mentioned above, among the varieties of applied anarchism we find anarchism associated with various liberation movements and critiques of white supremacy, Eurocentrism, and colonialism. One focal point here is a claim about anarchist characteristics thought to be found in the social structures of indigenous peoples.

The Inca and the Aztec empires were obviously not utopian anarchist collectives. Nonetheless, scholars of indigeneity affirm the anarchist critique of dominant hegemonies as part of the effort of liberation that would allow indigenous people a degree of self-determination see Johnson and Ferguson Black and indigenous anarchisms provide a radical critique, which holds that the global history of genocide, slavery, colonization, and exploitation rest upon the assumption of white supremacy.

White supremacy is thus understood, from this point of view, as a presupposition of statism, centralization, hierarchy, and authority. Anderson and Samudzi write,. While bound to the laws of the land, Black America can be understood as an extra-state entity because of Black exclusion from the liberal social contract.

Due to this extra-state location, Blackness is, in so many ways, anarchistic. Anderson and Samudzi no page numbers. This implies that the experience of Black people unfolds in a social and political world that its defined by its exclusion from power.

A similar implication holds for indigenous people, who have been subjugated and dominated by colonial power. Liberation movements thus spring from a social experience that is in a sense anarchic i. It is not surprising, then, that some liberatory activists espouse and affirm anarchism. He explains that Black anarchism is different from what he describes as the more authoritarian hierarchy of the Black Panther party.

He also argues against the authoritarian structure of religiously oriented Black liberation movements, such as that led by Martin Luther King, Jr. A significant issue in Black and indigenous anarchisms is the effort to decolonize anarchism itself. Many of the key figures in the anarchist tradition are white, male, and European. The concerns of anarchists such as Kropotkin or Bakunin may be different from the concerns of African Americans or from the concerns of indigenous people in Latin America or elsewhere around the globe.

One solution to this problem is to retrieve forgotten voices from within the tradition. In this regard, we might consider Lucy Parsons also known as Lucy Gonzalez , a former slave who espoused anarchism. Parsons explained that she affirmed anarchism because the political status quo produced nothing but misery and starvation for the masses of humanity.

To resolve this an anarchist revolution was needed. Parsons said,. Most anarchists believe the coming change can only come through a revolution, because the possessing class will not allow a peaceful change to take place; still we are willing to work for peace at any price, except at the price of liberty.

Parsons []. Anarchism in political philosophy maintains that there is no legitimate political or governmental authority.

In political philosophy anarchy is an important topic for consideration—even for those who are not anarchists—as the a-political background condition against which various forms of political organization are arrayed, compared, and justified. Anarchy is often viewed by non-anarchists as the unhappy or unstable condition in which there is no legitimate authority. Anarchism as a philosophical idea is not necessarily connected to practical activism.

There are political anarchists who take action in order to destroy what they see as illegitimate states. The popular imagination often views anarchists as bomb-throwing nihilists.

But philosophical anarchism is a theoretical standpoint. In order to decide who and whether one should act upon anarchist insight, we require a further theory of political action, obligation, and obedience grounded in further ethical reflection. Some anarchists remain obedient to ruling authorities; others revolt or resist in various ways. The question of action depends upon a theory of what sort of political obligation follows from our philosophical, moral, political, religious, and aesthetic commitments.

There is a long history of political anarchism. In the ancient world, anarchism of a sort can be found in the ideas of the Epicureans and Cynics. Kropotkin makes this point in his encyclopedia article. Although they did not employ the term anarchism, the Epicureans and Cynics avoided political activity, advising retreat from political life in pursuit of tranquility ataraxia and self-control autarkeai. The Cynics are also known for advocating cosmopolitanism: living without allegiance to any particular state or legal system, while associating with human beings based upon moral principle outside of traditional state structures.

Diogenes the Cynic had little respect for political or religious authority. This meant not only devaluing or destroying monetary currency but also a general rejection of the norms of civilized society see Marshall Diogenes often mocked political authorities and failed to offer signs of respect. While Diogenes actively disrespected established norms, Epicurus counseled retreat. He advised living unnoticed and avoiding political life under the phrase me politeuesthai —which can be understood as an anti-political admonition.

The assumption that anarchy would be unhappy or unstable leads to justifications of political power. Anarchists respond by claiming that the state tends to produce its own sort of unhappiness: as oppressive, violent, corrupt, and inimical to liberty.

Discussions about the social contract thus revolve around the question of whether the state is better than anarchy—or whether states and state-like entities naturally and inevitably emerge from out of the original condition of anarchy. While Nozick and other political philosophers take anarchy seriously as a starting point, anarchists will argue that invisible hand arguments of this sort ignore the historical actuality of states, which develop out of a long history of domination, inequality, and oppression.

But anarchists will argue that the idea of the original position does not necessarily lead to the justification of the state—especially given background knowledge about the tendency of states to be oppressive. Crispin Sartwell concludes:. Even accepting more or less all of the assumptions Rawls packs into the original position, it is not clear that the contractors would not choose anarchy. Sartwell An important historical touchstone is William Godwin.

Unlike Locke and Hobbes who turned to the social contract to lead us out of the anarchic state of nature, Godwin argued that the resulting governmental power was not necessarily better than anarchy.

Locke, of course, allows for revolution when the state becomes despotic. Godwin builds upon that insight. He claimed,. It is earnestly to be desired that each man should be wise enough to govern himself, without the intervention of any compulsory restraint; and, since government, even in its best state, is an evil, the object principally to be aimed at is that we should have as little of it as the general peace of human society will permit.

Godwin bk III, chap. VII, p. Like Rousseau, who praised the noble savage, who was free from social chains until forced into society, Godwin imagined original anarchy developing into the political state, which tended on his view to become despotic.

Anarchism is often taken to mean that individuals ought to be left alone without any unifying principle or governing power.

But non-rule may also occur when there is unanimity or consensus—and hence no need for external authority or a governing structure of command and obedience.

The ideas of unanimity and consensus are associated with the positive conception of anarchism as a voluntary association of autonomous human beings, which promotes communal values. One version of the anarchist ideal imagines the devolution of centralized political authority, leaving us with communes whose organizational structure is open-ended and consensual.

Given this emphasis on communal organization it is not surprising that political anarchism has a close historical association with communism, despite the connection mentioned above with free market capitalism. Authors such as Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Goldman developed their anarchism as a response to Marx and Marxism. Proudhon thought that private property created despotism. He argued that liberty required anarchy, concluding,. The government of man by man under whatever name it be disguised is oppression.

Society finds its highest perfection in the union of order with anarchy. Proudhon [ ]. Anarchists often make categorical claims to the effect that no state is legitimate or that there can no such thing as a justifiable political state.

As an absolute or a priori claim, anarchism holds that all states always and everywhere are illegitimate and unjust. This sort of claim rests upon an account of the justification of authority that is usually grounded in some form of deontological moral claim about the importance of individual liberty and a logical claim about the nature of state authority. One typical and well-known example of this argument is found in the work of Robert Paul Wolff.

Wolff indicates that legitimate authority rests upon a claim about the right to command obedience Wolff Correlative to this is a duty to obey: one has a duty to obey legitimate authority. As Wolff explains, by appealing to ideas found in Kant and Rousseau, the duty to obey is linked to notions about autonomy, responsibility, and rationality. But for Wolff and other anarchists, the problem is that the state does not have legitimate authority. The categorical nature of this claim indicates a version of absolute anarchism.

Wolff concludes:. If all men have a continuing obligation to achieve the highest degree of autonomy possible, then there would appear to be no state whose subjects have a moral obligation to obey its commands. Hence, the concept of a de jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous, and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political belief for an enlightened man.

Wolff This claim is stated in absolute and a priori fashion, a point made by Reiman in his critique of Wolff Reiman Wolff does not deny, by the way, that there are de facto legitimate states: governments often do have the approval and support of the people they govern. But this approval and support is merely conventional and not grounded in a moral duty; and approval and support are manufactured and manipulated by the coercive power and propaganda and ideology of the state.

But Kant is no anarchist: he defended the idea of enlightened republican government in which autonomy would be preserved. Rousseau may be closer to espousing anarchism in some of his remarks—although these are far from systematic see McLaughlin But despite his strong defense of individual rights, the stringent way he describes voluntary consent, and his advocacy of revolution, Locke believes that states can be defended based upon the social contract theory. Leaving the canonical authors of Western political philosophy aside, the most likely place to find deontological and a priori anarchism is among the Christian anarchists.

Of course, most Christians are not anarchists. But those Christians who espouse anarchism usually do so with the absolute, deontological, and a priori claims of the sort made by Tolstoy, Berdyaev, and Ellul—as noted above. A less stringent form of anarchism will argue that states could be justified in theory—even though, in practice, no state or very few states are actually legitimate.

It developed fully in the 20th century, but its roots as an epithet for extremism go back further, at least to the French Revolution. Self-described anarchists have formed fringe groups in tumultuous political times, such as the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War. As a political belief system, anarchy breaks roughly into two separate schools of thought. One rejects all government authority in favor of a belief in the individual's liberty and the right to self-govern.

The other rejects government authority in favor of a belief in collectivism or the primacy of the group over the individual. Anarchy is also used colloquially as a term denoting societal breakdown and collapse. While the common critique of anarchy is that it results in lawlessness and chaos, anarchist philosophy's adherents suggest that societies can remain intact and even thrive under alternatives to traditional hierarchies.

As noted, there are two major schools of thought in anarchism, the individualist anarchists and the social anarchists. Anarcho-capitalism, meanwhile, represents a surprising variant of anarchism. Among the individualists was Isaiah Berlin, a 20th-century British political philosopher, who described a concept of negative liberty, which focuses on the right of the individual to be free from constraints, in this case by the state or the larger society. Individual anarchism has influenced many bohemian movements, including the "Yippies" of the s and the punk rockers of the s.

Social anarchists, by contrast, focus on the concept of positive liberty, which identifies freedom as not merely liberty from outside interference but the fulfillment of the individual's full potential when power and resources are shared equally among all members of a community. They favor direct democracy along with common ownership of the means of production. This school of thought has a number of branches, including collectivist anarchism, also referred to as revolutionary socialism; anarcho-communism, also known as libertarian communism; and anarcho-syndicalism, which promotes collectivist labor unions with no union bosses to speak of.

Anarcho-capitalists, or laissez-faire capitalists, see free-market capitalism as the basis for a free society.

Unlike many anarchists, they believe in some version of private property. If unhampered by the government, they maintain that private enterprise would provide all of the services that people need.

That includes things like road construction and police protection. In this case, the group is similar in ideology to libertarians, although at the extreme edge, as they reject all state involvement in economic and personal matters. Throughout the years, people have applied anarchism in a wide variety of ways. They include:. There are several criticisms of anarchy, including:. Anarchist philosophy was embraced by some of those who joined anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti- globalization movements in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Crypto-anarchists support decentralized currency such as bitcoin. Some advocates of Bitcoin claim that cryptocurrency was created as a reaction against corrupt governments and financial institutions, and to undermine the authority of both.

Having anarchist beliefs is not a crime. According to the FBI, the majority of anarchists in the U. However, change through violence and criminal acts are against the law.