Dictionary Definition
anarchy n : a state of lawlessness and disorder
(usually resulting from a failure of government) [syn: lawlessness]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
anarchia < sc=polytonic < sc=polytonic, + sc=polytonic.Pronunciation
- a UK /ˈænəki/, /"
Extensive Definition
Anarchy (from anarchía,
"without ruler")
may refer to any of the following:
- "Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder."
- "A theoretical social state in which there is no governing person or body of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder)."
- "Absence or non-recognition of authority and order in any given sphere."
A state of anarchy is the goal
of the political
philosophy of anarchism
(anarchists).
Anarchy after state collapse
English Civil War
The tumult of the English Civil War led the term to be taken up in political philosophy. Anarchy was one of the issues at the Putney Debates of 1647:- Thomas Rainsborough ''I shall blow up your buildings a little more and be less open with you than I was before. I wish we all truly wanted to change this cesspool we live in. If I did mistrust you I would not use such asseverations. I think it doth go on mistrust, and things are thought too readily matters of reflection, that were never intended. For my part, as I think, you forgot something that was in my speech, and you do not only yourselves believe that some men are inclining to anarchy, but you would make all men believe that. And, sir, to say because a man pleads that every man hath a voice by right of nature, that therefore it destroys by the same argument all property -- this is to forget the Law of God. That there’s a property, the Law of God says it; else why hath God made that law, Thou shalt not steal? I am a poor man, therefore I must be oppressed: if I have no interest in the kingdom, I must suffer by all their laws be they right or wrong. Nay thus: a gentleman lives in a country and hath three or four lordships, as some men have (God knows how they got them); and when a Parliament is called he must be a Parliament-man; and it may be he sees some poor men, they live near this man, he can crush them -- I have known an invasion to make sure he hath turned the poor men out of doors; and I would fain know whether the potency of rich men do not this, and so keep them under the greatest and your sister too tyranny that was ever thought of in the world. And therefore I think that to that it is fully answered: God hath set down that thing as to propriety with this law of his, Thou shalt not steal. And for my part I am against any such thought, and, as for yourselves, I wish you would not make the world believe that we are for anarchy.
- Oliver Cromwell: I know nothing but this, that they that are the most yielding have the greatest wisdom; but really, sir, this is not right as it should be. No man says that you have a mind to anarchy, but that the consequence of this rule tends to anarchy, must end in anarchy; for where is there any bound or limit set if you take away this limit , that men that have no interest but the interest of breathing shall have no voice in elections? Therefore I am confident on 't, we should not be so hot one with another.
As people began to theorise
about the English Civil War, Anarchy came to be more sharply
defined, albeit from differing political perspectives:
- 1651 Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) describes the Natural Condition of Mankind as a war of all against all, where man lives a brutish existence. For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner .Hobbes finds three basic causes of the conflict in this state of nature: competition, diffidence and glory, The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. His first law of nature is that that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. In the state of nature, every man has a right to every thing, even to then go for your pet dog one another's body but the second law is that, in order to secure the advantages of peace, that a man be willing, when others are so too… to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself. This is the beginning of contracts/covenants; performing of which is the third law of nature. Injustice, therefore, is failure to perform in a covenant; all else is just.
- 1656 James Harrington (The Commonwealth of Oceana) uses the term to describe a situation where the people use force to impose a government on an economic base composed of either solitary land ownership (absolute Monarchy), or land in the ownership of a few (mixed Monarchy). He distinguishes it from Commonwealth, the situation when both land ownership and governance shared by the population at large, seeing it as a temporary situation arising from an imbalance between the form of government and the form of property relations.
Early Pennsylvania
Anarcho-Capitalist Murray Rothbard wrote in his work on early American history Conceived in Liberty that Pennsylvania fell into Anarchism after William Penn's original government collapsed.French Revolution
seealso Reign of TerrorDuring the French Revolution,
the period of brutal violence in which many members of high-ruling
families were killed has been described as anarchy. The reign of
terror was mainly conducted by the radical egalitarian wing of
the revolution. Targets were not only aristocrats but also fellow
revolutionaries who were deemed too moderate, and were sent to
guillotine. Thomas
Carlyle, Scottish essayist of the Victorian era known foremost
for his widely influential work of history,
The French Revolution, wrote that the French Revolution was a
war against both aristocracy and anarchy:
Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the
things worse than Anarchy shall be hated more! Surely Peace alone
is fruitful. Anarchy is destruction: a burning up, say, of Shams
and Insupportabilities; but which leaves Vacancy behind. Know this
also, that out of a world of Unwise nothing but an Unwisdom can be
made. Arrange it, Constitution-build it, sift it through
Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom,-- the new
prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it
slightly better than the beginning. Who can bring a wise thing out
of men unwise? Not one. And so Vacancy and general Abolition having
come for this France, what can Anarchy do more? Let there be Order,
were it under the Soldier's Sword; let there be Peace, that the
bounty of the Heavens be not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do
send us bring fruit in its season!-- It remains to be seen how the
quellers of Sansculottism were themselves quelled, and sacred right
of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder: wherewith this
singular eventful History called French Revolution
ends.
Armand II, duke
of Aiguillon came before the
National Assembly (French Revolution) in 1789 and shared his
views on the anarchy:
I may be permitted here to
express my personal opinion. I shall no doubt not be accused of not
loving liberty, but I know that not all movements of peoples lead
to liberty. But I know that great anarchy quickly leads to great
exhaustion and that despotism, which is a kind of rest, has almost
always been the necessary result of great anarchy. It is therefore
much more important than we think to end the disorder under which
we suffer. If we can achieve this only through the use of force by
authorities, then it would be thoughtless to keep refraining from
using such force.
Armand II was later exiled
because he was viewed as being opposed to the revolution's violent
tactics.
Professor Chris Bossche
commented on the role of anarchy in the revolution:
In The French Revolution, the
narrative of increasing anarchy undermined the narrative in which
the revolutionaries were striving to create a new social order by
writing a constitution.
Jamaica 1720
Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, wrote to John Robinson, the Bishop of London, in 1720:- "As to those Englishmen that came as mechanics hither, very young and have now acquired good estates in Sugar Plantations and Indigo& co., of course they know no better than what maxims they learn in the Country. To be now short & plain Your Lordship will see that they have no maxims of Church and State but what are absolutely anarchical."
Spain 1936
After General Franco declared war on the Spanish government in 1936 (Spanish civil war) the government lost control over much of Spain. Resistance to the rebels was often organised through the confederation of anarcho-syndicalist trade unions, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Iberian Anarchist Federation, the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI). The Spanish Revolution occurred almost immediately after the failed coup of Franco, leading to the formation of worker's collectives all over Republican Spain. This has been hailed as the best example of a functioning anarchist system. Anarchists were instrumental in keeping the country running and holding back the Francoists, until they were attacked by the Republican government and their Communist allies. The government was subsequently defeated by Franco, leading to 40 years of Francoist dictatorship in Spain.Somalia, 1991—
Before the Islamic Courts Union took control, Somalia was the only country in the world without a functioning state. Abdo Vingaker, a Somalian living in Sweden, was quoted in an article by BBC as saying: "I am from Somalia and to live without government is the most dangerous system." The article went on to discuss the abject poverty experienced by the citizens of this country. An economic survey by the World Bank found that the distribution of wealth was more equal, and the extent of extreme poverty lesser than in governed West African nations. Scholarly research indicates that living standards in Somalia increased — in absolute terms, relative to the government era, and relative to other African nations — during this period.Anarchist communities
- Libertatia (late 1600s)
- The Free Territory (January 1919 - 1921)
- Shinmin Free Province (1929 - 1931)
- Anarchist Catalonia (July 21, 1936 - February 10, 1939)
Political philosophy
Liberalism
Bertrand Russell wrote on how liberalism aims for a golden mean between despotism and anarchy:Every community is faced with
two dangers, anarchy and despotism. The Puritans,
especially the
Independents, were most impressed by the danger of despotism.
Hobbes, on
the contrary, was obsessed by the fear of anarchy. The liberal
philosophers who arose after the
Restoration and acquired control after 1688, realized both
dangers; they disliked both
Strafford and the Anabaptists.
This led Locke to the
doctrine of division
of powers and of checks
and balances.
Anarchism
Anarchists are those who advocate the absence of the state, arguing that common sense would allow for people to come together in agreement to form a functional society allowing for the participants to freely develop their own sense of morality, ethics or principled behaviour. The rise of anarchism as a philosophical movement occurred in the mid 19th century, with its idea of freedom as being based upon political and economic self-rule. This occurred alongside the rise of the nation-state and large-scale industrial capitalism, and the corruption that came with their successes.Although anarchists share a
rejection of the state, they differ about economic arrangements and
possible rules that would prevail in a stateless society, ranging
from complete common ownership and distribution according to need,
to supporters of private property and free market
competition. For example, most forms of anarchism, such as that of
anarcho-communism,
anarcho-syndicalism,
or anarcho-primitivism
not only seek rejection of the state, but also other systems which
they perceive as authoritarian, which includes capitalism, wage
labor, and private property. In opposition, a political philosophy
known as anarcho-capitalism
argues that a society without a state is a free market capitalist
system that is voluntarist in
nature.
The word "anarchy" is often
used by non-anarchists as a pejorative term, intended to connote a
lack of control and a negatively chaotic environment. Because of
this, some activists have self-identified as libertarian
socialists. In more recent times anti-authoritarian
has offered another similar self-identification. However,
anarchists still argue that anarchy does not imply nihilism, anomie, or the total absence of
rules, but rather an anti-authoritarian society that is based on
the spontaneous
order of free individuals in autonomous communities, operating
on principles of mutual aid,
voluntary
association, and direct
action.
Anthropology
Some anarchist anthropologists, such as David Graeber and Pierre Clastres, consider societies such as those of the Bushmen, Tiv and the Piaroa to be anarchies in the sense that they explicitly reject the idea of centralized political authority. However, others argue that some (it was very different) tribal societies of the past have often been more violent than modern technological societies, on average.For example, more than a third
of the Yanomamo males, on
average, died from warfare. Men who participated in killings had
more wives and children than those who did not. Some Yanomamo men,
however, reflected on the futility of their feuds and made it known
that they would have nothing to do with the raiding.
Some more recent
anthropologists, such as Marshall
Sahlins and Richard
Borshay Lee, have defied the notion of hunter-gatherer
societies as being a source of scarcity and brutalization,
describing them as - in the words of Sahlins - "affluent
societies".
However the evolutionary
psychologist Steven
Pinker writes:
Adjudication by an armed
authority appears to be the most effective violence-reduction
technique ever invented. Though we debate whether tweaks in
criminal policy, such as executing murderers versus locking them up
for life, can reduce violence by a few percentage points, there can
be no debate on the massive effects of having a criminal justice
system as opposed to living in anarchy. The shockingly high
homicide rates of pre-state societies, with 10 to 60 percent of the
men dying at the hands of other men, provide one kind of evidence.
Another is the emergence of a violent culture of honor in just
about any corner of the world that is beyond the reach of law.
..The generalization that anarchy in the sense of a lack of
government leads to anarchy in the sense of violent chaos may seem
banal, but it is often over-looked in today's still-romantic
climate.
Some anarcho-primitivist
thinkers such as Ran Prieur do not share this vision of evolution,
where man was able to reinvent himself in the last ten thousand
years, to better fulfill his needs. They believe that this concept
represents a way that current culture justifies the values of
modern industrial society and as a manner in which civilization was
able to move individuals further from their natural necessities.
Besides the consideration of authors, such as John Zerzan,
to the existence in tribal society having less violence altogether,
he and other authors such as Theodore
Kaczynski talk about other forms of violence on the individual
in advanced countries, generally expressed by the term "social
anomie", that results from the system of monopolized security.
These authors do not dismiss the fact that man is changing while
adapting to his different social realities, but consider them an
anomaly, nevertheless. The two end results being that we either
disappear or become something very different, distant from what we
have come to value in our nature. It has been suggested by experts
that this shift towards civilization, through domestication, has
caused an increase in diseases, labor and psychological disorders.
On the other hand, concerning the necessity of violence in the
primitive world, anthropologist Pierre
Clastres expresses that violence in primitive societies is a
natural way for each community to maintain its political
independence, while dismissing the state as a natural outcome of
the evolution of human societies.
See also
References
External links
- Anarchopedia
- Historical examples of anarchy without chaos
- On the Steppes of Central Asia
- BBC Radio 4's In Our Time programme on Anarchy (requires RealAudio)
- CrimethInc: Ex-Workers' Collective
- Who Needs Government? Pirates, Collapsed States, and the Possibility of Anarchy
- 3monkeyz.netDigital Anarchy - A libertarian online community with Music, Forums, Libraries and Chat
- nr-ki.com Non-Violence, Anarchy and Authority: A Modern Impression
anarchy in Aragonese:
Anarquía
anarchy in Bavarian:
Anarchie
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Anarhija
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Anarchie
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Anarki
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Anarchie
anarchy in Estonian:
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Anarquía
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Anarchie
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anarchy in Croatian:
Anarhija
anarchy in Italian:
Anarchia
anarchy in Hebrew:
אנרכיה
anarchy in Georgian:
ანარქია
anarchy in Haitian:
Anachi
anarchy in Latin:
Anarchia
anarchy in Lithuanian:
Anarchija
anarchy in Macedonian:
Анархија
anarchy in Dutch:
Regeringsloosheid
anarchy in Newari:
अव्यवस्थावाद
anarchy in Norwegian:
Anarki
anarchy in Norwegian Nynorsk:
Anarki
anarchy in Polish:
Anarchia
anarchy in Romanian:
Anarhie
anarchy in Albanian:
Anarkia
anarchy in Sicilian:
Anarchìa
anarchy in Simple English:
Anarchy
anarchy in Slovenian:
Anarhija
anarchy in Serbian:
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anarchy in Serbo-Croatian:
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anarchy in Finnish:
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Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
aloofness, amorphia, amorphism, amorphousness, anarchism,
anarcho-syndicalism, anomie, antinomianism, blurriness, chaos, confusion, criminal
syndicalism, criminalism, criminality, diffusion, discontinuity, discreteness, disjunction, dislocation, disorder, disorderliness, disorganization,
dispersal, dispersion, disruption, dissolution, distemper, entropy, fabulous formless
darkness, formlessness, foul-up,
fuzziness, hassle, haziness, illegality, illicit business,
illicitness,
impermissibility,
incoherence,
inconsistency,
indecisiveness,
indefiniteness,
indeterminateness,
lawlessness, legal
flaw, license, lynch
law, messiness,
misrule, mistiness, mix-up, mob law,
mob rule, mobocracy,
morass, muddle, nihilism, nonadhesion, noncohesion, obscurity, ochlocracy, orderlessness, outlawry, primal chaos,
rebellion, reign of
terror, revolution,
riot, scattering, screw-up,
separateness,
shapelessness,
snafu, syndicalism, technical flaw,
tohubohu, turmoil, unadherence, unadhesiveness, unclearness, unlawfulness, unruliness, untenacity, vagueness, wrongfulness