Anarchy!
Punk Rock, Mohawks and Teenage Rebellion,
"Anarchy" has been the buzzword for any and every rabble rouser looking to rebel against "the establishment".
But what is Anarchy? Where does it come from and is true Anarchy even possible?
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Anarchism is a political philosophy that argues that the state is lacking in moral legitimacy.
Because of this, individuals are under no obligation to obey the State and the State has no authority to command individuals.
Anarchism is, generally about the rejection of compulsory government and rule.
It suggests that society can and should be organized without a coercive state.
Anarchists ultimately reject hierarchy and focus on the power of the individual.
They believe that all individuals can do what they choose, up to the point of interfering with what others choose.
They can have numerous world views and ideologies, but share the idea that power should be with the individual and a leaderless society is worth striving for.
The term "Anarchy" comes from the Greek word "anarchos", which means "Without Ruler"
and "Anarchia" which means without government.
But, "Anarchy" is a term that most of us today associate with chaos and disorder.
Well, that's because, to many people the concept of anarchy is, itself, chaotic.
People who are used to the concept of a morally just government, naturally see a society without one as doomed to fail.
This might also be because there have never been any large Anarchist countries, but many smaller Anarchist movements that don't often last.
One of the first well known Anarchist moments were The Diggers, a group of Protestants that rallied together in England after the English Civil Wars in 1649.
The impoverished began to seize crops and threaten land owners and members The Army were underpaid and many of them had refused to continue their service in Ireland. .
Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard lead a group of 20 poor Protestant men in establishing a commune at St. George's Hill in Surrey England.
They began to farm on common land, under the belief that because of the execution of King Charles the First, common land should be made available for the very poor to cultivate.
The price of food had increased so much in the late 1640s, that it was virtually impossible for the poor to feed themselves.
Winstanley laid out, what would become, core Anarchist principles in several of his writings during this time.
He regarded the earth as "common treasury" and believed that common land should belong to the common people.
He argued that anyone getting “authority into his hands tyrannizes over others,” whether husband, parent, master or magistrate."
He believed that private property, exploitation, and all inequalities were the natural result of rule and dominion of one portion of mankind over another.
After mob violence and a constant threat of legal action by The Commonwealth Government, their settlement was broken up in 1650
A lot of Anarchists attribute the Political an Economic aspects of Anarchy to an 18th Century Political Philosopher named William Godwin.
Godwin believed that people should pursue whichever crafts they were the best at and had the most interest in.
Once they serve themselves, they'd distribute their products freely while receiving whatever they may need. Sometimes in exchange for their goods, but not always as a requirement.
Godwin was optimistic and quite taken by the Enlightenment Era.
He believed, like many at the time, that as humans gained more knowledge through science and education, that they became more virtuous
He believed that as long as society relied on the State that violence, crime, war and poverty would always persist.
As long as parents and teachers in general shall fall under the established rule
it is clear that politics and modes of government will educate and infect us all.
They poison our minds, before we can resist, or so much as suspect their malignity.
Like the barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios, they deprive us of our vitality, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle."
For Godwin, “society is nothing more than an aggregation of individuals”, whereas “government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind”.
Despite this, he was not a Revolutionary.
After seeing the violence in the French Revolution, he regarded political as irrational and hateful.
Instead, he believed that social progress could come from intellectual progress.
Believing that as humans widened their understandings, that they'll find that they have no need for the state.
He saw a minimal state as a necessary evil that would become less and less necessary as society reached enlightenment.
Godwin didn't describe his ideas as "Anarchism". At this point "anarchy" had become a term to describe chaos.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon would be the first person to describe themselves as an Anarchist.
He, along with Godwin are credited as the fathers of Modern Anarchist Theory. Prodhourn defined Anarchy as the following:
Prodhourn defined Anarchy as the following:
" Anarchy is... a form of government or constitution in which public and private consciousness, formed through the development of science and law, is alone sufficient to maintain order and guarantee all liberties."
He believed in, what he called "spontaneous order"
where business transactions alone would result in social order.
He believed that taxation, policing, and Monarchies needed to either disappear all together or be decreased drastically.
He augured that order could be created without those things and without a central authority.
This all might be a little confusing if you're used to hearing Anarchy discussed in the context of literature such as the "Anarchist Cookbook"
- a book teaches you how to make your own explosives and illicit drugs from home.
The book was published in 1971 by William Powell and it's largely associated with terrorism.
Anarchists condemned the book for its conflation of anarchy with terrorism and how it was void of any real association with Anarchist principles.
CrimethInc., an Anarchist collective, published a response to the book in 2004 entitled "An Anarchist Cookbook: Recipes for Disaster".
It detailed methods of direct action that were closer to the core principles of Anarchy. It even touched on mental health and abuse.
Anarchy's conflation with terrorism is mostly inconsistent with the vast majority of Anarchist thought.
While there have been instances of Anarchists who have committed acts of terror. such as the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley,
Anarchists largely reject violence in the name of political gain. Anarchists who have committed acts of terrorism, generally direct those acts towards leaders and political figures, not civilians.
Anarchists generally understand that social relationships are not changed through terrorism, and they favor slow and steady changes that works towards a more Anarchist society.
While some acts of terrorism committed by Anarchists were done to inspire revolutions,
many Anarchists regard these types of revolutions as pointless and ineffective.
Many Anarchists will argue that those who use violence in the pursuit of Anarchism are actually not Anarchists at all.
Guy Fawkes is commonly associated with Anarchism because of his failed attempt to assassinate King James the first.
His ultimate goal, however, was to replace one monarchy with another.
This is an obvious conflict with a philosophy that aims to be leaderless.
Violence is regarded, by many Anarchists, as an expression of weakness and not strength.
There's also an obvious conflict of using violence as a way of getting society to adhere to their particular ideology.
Anarchism is about the individual deciding for themselves, not being coerced through violence.
Freedom from coercion is a large part of Anarchy.
In an Anarchist society, a scientist is free to fully devote himself to his craft.
He doesn't have to worry about doing unnecessary work he isn't passionate about in order to pay his bills.
In an Anarchist society, the worker isnt forced to work over the constant threat of poverty.
Sounds nice, right? But what about crime?
The Anarchist asserts that crime is a natural reaction to an oppressive government. They argue that a government can only punish the criminal, but not prevent the crime.
They believe that the only way to abolish crime is to abolish the conditions that create it.
If private property doesn't exist, then does theft?
But what about punishment?
Anarchists largely see our current system of incarceration as counterproductive.
Believing that it often makes the "criminal" less remorseful for what they've done and more resentful of what the system has done to them.
They believe that a part of anarchism is ultimately surrounding yourself with friends and thus a positive environment.
That, combined with the removal of things that encourage crime, the Anarchist believes that remorse alone would make crime virtually non existent in an ideal anarchist society.
Today, Anarchists exist in small groups of individuals who often advocate for the pursuit of goals that are closer- than a wide spread Anarchist government.
Most Anarchists concede that Anarchy isn't going to happen over night. So you'll see Anarchists protesting things.... like elections, often to no avail.
However, the presence of an Anarchist's objection to the system is important.
The idea is that over time, they'll chip away at these aspects of society and slowly but surely these conventions will collapse.
narchy is ultimately about freedom- and not necessarily freedom in a legal sense.
Freedom outside of the constraints currently placed on human nature by a central authority.
Its about returning to the natural state of humanity where man can do what he pleases and lives communally.
For most people, this sounds outside of the realm of possibility because we regard the natural state of humanity as selfish and in need of guidance because of it.
But ask yourself, what would life be like if we no longer had the restraints of a central authority.
If we worked because we wanted to and for each other.
What would happen to class, race, gender and the other things that divide us?
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