I have always maintained that if you ask 100 people what the meaning of anarchy is, you'll get 100 different answers. Most will be wrong and will be answers like chaos and disorder, and will be based on ignorance of all things anarchistic. The establishment, state, mainstream media are all involved in perpetuating that line of thought, probably because they see anarchism as their greatest threat.
In common parlance “anarchy” refers to a state of chaos or
violent disorder and “anarchism” to the rebellious or merely perverse pursuit of
this state. Indeed, the word “anarchist” was first used in the seventeenth
century as an epithet against the defeated Levellers
in the English Civil War. While the ideas and practices that would become known
as anarchism were distinctly foreshadowed by movements such as the Diggers and
the Ranters in the seventeenth century as well as by
eighteenth-century thinkers such as William Godwin (and arguably by far more
ancient schools of thought, from the Cynics of the fifth century bce to the Taoists of a century later), it was not until
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon turned this epithet into a positive self-description that
we can speak of anarchism per se, as a historical entity. Historically speaking,
however, anarchism is the name for a movement, originating in
mid-nineteenth-century Europe, characterized by its vision of a society of
generalized self-management, its opposition to all forms of hierarchy and
domination, and its particular emphasis on means of transformative action that
prefigure the desired ends. The word also serves to name the goal of the
movement – substantive and universal freedom, sometimes called “anarchy” –
elements of which may be found in every society that has ever existed,
particularly among peoples living without private property and the state.
Principles and
Practices
Popular misunderstandings concerning anarchism, fed by more than
a century and a half of sensationalistic media representations, are widespread –
and, unfortunately, many scholarly accounts of anarchism do little to correct
these distortions. The association of anarchy with chaos and senseless violence,
while owing something to a certain phase in anarchist history (that of
“propaganda by the deed”), is readily dispelled by even a cursory reading of
works by actual self-described anarchists: “Anarchism … is not bombs, disorder,
or chaos,” writes Alexander Berkman (1870–1936). “It
is not a war of each against all. It is not a return to barbarism … Anarchism is
the very opposite of all that” (Berkman 2003: xv).
Similarly, Emma Goldman (1869–1940) defines anarchism as “the philosophy of a
new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that
all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful,
as well as unnecessary” (1910: 56). The entry on anarchism that Peter Kropotkin
(1842–1921) wrote for the 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica defined it as “a
principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without
government” (2002: 284). These three explanations of anarchism – it would be
difficult to find any more widely accepted by anarchists – show that anarchism
is a form of social order rather than mere disorder or absence of organization;
the form of social order anarchism represents is intended to maximize freedom,
and to do so without recourse to the kinds of coercive institutions that are
typically assumed to be necessary, variously called “government,” “law,” or
“authority”; and in place of these institutions, anarchists propose to produce
social order through a system of “free agreements” to meet individuals' “needs.”
