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Anarchy is a society without a government. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy. ''Anarchy'' was first used in English in 1539, meaning "an absence of government". Pierre-Joseph Proudhon adopted ''anarchy'' and ''anarchist'' in his 1840 treatise ''What Is Property?'' to refer to anarchism, a new political philosophy and social movement that advocates stateless societies based on free and voluntary associations. Anarchists seek a system based on the abolition of all coercive hierarchy, in particular the state, and many advocate for the creation of a system of direct democracy, worker cooperatives or privatization.

In practical terms, ''anarchy'' can refer to the curtailment or abolition of traditional forms of government and institutions. It can also designate a nation or any inhabited place that has no system of government or central rule. Anarchy is primarily advocated by individual anarchists who propose replacing government with voluntary institutions. These institutions or free associations are generally modeled on nature since they can represent concepts such as community and economic self-reliance, interdependence, or individualism. Although ''anarchy'' is often negatively used as a synonym of chaos or societal collapse or anomie, this is not the meaning that anarchists attribute to ''anarchy'', a society without hierarchies. Proudhon wrote that anarchy is "Not the Daughter But the Mother of Order."

Etymology

''Anarchy'' comes from the Latin word ''anarchia'', which came from the Greek word ''anarchos'' ("having no ruler"), with ''an-'' (“not” or “without”) + ''archos'' ("ruler") literally meaning "without ruler". The circle-A anarchist symbol is a monogram that consists of the capital letter '' A'' surrounded by the capital letter '' O''. The letter ''A'' is derived from the first letter of ''anarchy'' or ''anarchism'' in most European languages and is the same in both Latin and Cyrillic scripts. The ''O'' stands for order and together they stand for "society seeks order in anarchy" (french: la société cherche l'ordre dans l'anarchie), a phrase written by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his 1840 book ''What Is Property?''

Overview

Anthropology

Although most known societies are characterized by the presence of hierarchy or the state, anthropologists have studied many egalitarian stateless societies, including most nomadic hunter-gatherer societies and horticultural societies such as the Semai and the Piaroa. Many of these societies can be considered to be anarchic in the sense that they explicitly reject the idea of centralized political authority.

The egalitarianism typical of human hunter-gatherers is interesting when viewed in an evolutionary context. One of humanity's two closest primate relatives, the chimpanzee, is anything but egalitarian, forming hierarchies that are dominated by alpha males. So great is the contrast with human hunter-gatherers that it is widely argued by palaeoanthropologists that resistance to being dominated was a key factor driving the development of human consciousness, language, kinship and social organization.

In ''Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology'', anarchist anthropologist David Graeber attempted to outline areas of research that intellectuals might explore in creating a cohesive body of anarchist social theory. Graeber posited that anthropology is "particularly well positioned" as an academic discipline that can look at the gamut of human societies and organizations to study, analyze and catalog alternative social and economic structures around the world, and most importantly, present these alternatives to the world.

In ''Society Against the State'', Pierre Clastres examined stateless societies where certain cultural practices and attitudes avert the development of hierarchy and the state. Clastres dismissed the notion that the state is the natural outcome of the evolution of human societies.

In ''The Art of Not Being Governed'', James C. Scott studied Zomia, a vast stateless upland region on Southeast Asia. The hills of Zomia isolate it from the lowland states and create a refuge for people to escape to. Scott argues that the particular social and cultural characteristics of the hill people were adapted to escape capture by the lowland states and should not be viewed as relics of barbarism abandoned by civilization.

Peter Leeson examined a variety of institutions of private law enforcement developed in anarchic situations by eighteenth century pirates, preliterate tribesmen, and Californian prison gangs. These groups all adapted different methods of private law enforcement to meet their specific needs and the particulars of their anarchic situation.

Anarcho-primitivists base their critique of civilization partly on anthropological studies of nomadic hunter-gatherers, noting that the shift towards domestication has likely caused increases in disease, labor, inequality, warfare and psychological disorders. Authors such as John Zerzan have argued that negative stereotypes of primitive societies (e.g. that they are typically extremely violent or impoverished) are used to justify the values of modern industrial society and to move individuals further away from more natural and equitable conditions.

International relations

In international relations, anarchy is "the absence of any authority superior to nation-states and capable of arbitrating their disputes and enforcing international law".

Political philosophy

Anarchism

As a political philosophy, anarchism advocates self-governed societies based on voluntary institutions. These are often described as stateless societies, although several authors have defined them more specifically as institutions based on non- hierarchical free associations. Anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful.

The following sources cite anarchism as a political philosophy: Slevin, Carl. "Anarchism." ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics''. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. While opposition to the state is central, it is a necessary but not sufficient condition, hence why, in spite of their names, anarcho-capitalismJennings, Jeremy (1993). "Anarchism". In Eatwell, Roger; Wright, Anthony (eds.). ''Contemporary Political Ideologies''. London: Pinter. pp. 127–146. . "... anarchism does not stand for the untrammelled freedom of the individual (as the 'anarcho-capitalists' appear to believe) but, as we have already seen, for the extension of individuality ''and'' community" (p. 143).Morriss, Andrew (2008). "Anarcho-capitalism". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). ''The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism''. SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 13–14. . . . "Social anarchists, those anarchists with communitarian leanings, are critical of anarcho-capitalism because it permits individuals to accumulate substantial power through markets and private property."Franks, Benjamin (August 2013). Freeden, Michael; Stears, Marc (eds.). "Anarchism". ''The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies''. Oxford University Press: 385–404. . "Individualisms that defend or reinforce hierarchical forms such as the economic-power relations of anarcho-capitalism ... are incompatible with practices of social anarchism. ... Increasingly, academic analysis has followed activist currents in rejecting the view that anarcho-capitalism has anything to do with social anarchism" (pp. 393–394). and national-anarchism are either not recognized as anarchist schools of thought and as part of the anarchist movement, or are seen by anarchists and scholars as fraudulent and an oxymoron. Anarchism entails opposing authority or hierarchical organisation in the conduct of all human relations, including yet not limited to the state system.

There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive. Anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism. Strains of anarchism have been divided into the categories of individualist and social anarchism, or similar dual classifications. Ostergaard, Geoffrey. "Anarchism". ''The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought''. Blackwell Publishing. p. 14. Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left-wing or far-left movement and much of anarchist economics and anarchist law reflect anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarian interpretations of left-wing and socialist politics such communism, mutualism and syndicalism, among other libertarian socialist and socialist economics such as collectivist anarchism, free-market anarchism, green anarchism and participatory economics. Within anarchism, some individualist anarchists are communists while some anarcho-communists are egoists or individualists. 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''.
/ref> Max Baginski
"Stirner: The Ego and His Own"
'' Mother Earth''. Vol. 2. No. 3 May 1907. "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." Where individualist forms of anarchism emphasize personal autonomy and the rational nature of human beings, social anarchism sees "individual freedom as conceptually connected with social equality and emphasize community and mutual aid". In ''European Socialism: A History of Ideas and Movements'', Carl Landauer summarized the difference between communist and individualist anarchists by stating that "the communist anarchists also do not acknowledge any right to society to force the individual. They differ from the anarchistic individualists in their belief that men, if freed from coercion, will enter into voluntary associations of a communistic type, while the other wing believes that the free person will prefer a high degree of isolation".

As a social movement, anarchism 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 while social anarchism has been the dominant form of anarchism, emerging in the late 19th century as a distinction from ''individualist anarchism'' after anarcho-communism replaced collectivist anarchism as the dominant tendency. Nonetheless, individualist anarchism did influence the bigger currents and individualists also participated in large anarchist organizations. Some anarchists are pacifists who support self-defense or non-violence (anarcho-pacifism)George Woodcock. ''Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements'' (1962) while others have supported the use of militant measures, including revolution and propaganda of the deed, on the path to an anarchist society.

Since the 1890s, ''libertarianism'' has been used as a synonym for ''anarchism'' and was used almost exclusively in this sense until the mid-20th century development of right-libertarianism in the United States, where classical liberals began to describe themselves as ''libertarians''. It has since become necessary to distinguish their classical liberal individualist and free-market capitalist philosophy from anarchism.Goodway, David (2006). '' Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward''. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 4. "'Libertarian' and 'libertarianism' are frequently employed by anarchists as synonyms for 'anarchist' and 'anarchism', largely as an attempt to distance themselves from the negative connotations of 'anarchy' and its derivatives. The situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of anarcho-capitalism, 'minimal statism' and an extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy advocated by such theorists as Rothbard and Nozick and their adoption of the words 'libertarian' and 'libertarianism'. It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the anarchist tradition."Newman, Saul (2010). ''The Politics of Postanarchism''. Edinburgh University Press. p. 43. "It is important to distinguish between anarchism and certain strands of right-wing libertarianism which at times go by the same name (for example, Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism)." . The former is often referred to as ''right-libertarianism''Carlson, Jennifer D. (2012). "Libertarianism". In Miller, Wilburn R., ed. ''The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America''. London: SAGE Publications
p. 1006
. whereas the latter is described by as ''left-libertarianism'', ''libertarian socialism'' and ''socialist libertarianism''. Examples of Right-libertarian ideologies include anarcho-capitalism, minarchism and voluntaryism

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