Anarchism

Anarchism, political theory that is opposed to all forms of government. Anarchists believe that the highest attainment of humanity is the freedom of individuals to express themselves, unhindered by any form of repression or control from without. They hold that the perfection of humanity will not be attained until all government is abolished and each individual is left absolutely free. One limitation on such freedom, however, is the ban against injuring other human beings. From this limitation arises another: If any human being attempts to injure others, all well-meaning individuals have the right to organize against him or her, and the orderly class may repress the criminal class, although only by voluntary cooperation and not under any governmental organization.

The 19th-century French writer Pierre Joseph Proudhon is regarded as one of the founders of the system of so-called philosophic anarchism. According to Proudhon and his followers, anarchism would exclude authority from society, setting up extreme individualism. Philosophic anarchists, however, repudiate violent methods and hope for a gradual evolution of society toward anarchic organization. Those anarchists who reject Proudhon’s theories maintain that the entire trend of human development is toward achievement by cooperation and that social cooperation can never be wholly voluntary.

Another school of anarchism, relying on organized action and even deeds of terror to achieve its purposes, grew out of the socialist movement and appeared toward the end of the 19th century. At the congress of the International Workingmen's Association, or the First International, held at Basel, Switzerland, in 1869, the anarchists, led by the Russian revolutionist Mikhail Bakunin, were outvoted by the socialists; in 1872 the anarchists were expelled from the International. Since that time socialism and anarchism have diverged sharply, although both are basically anticapitalist (Capitalism). Philosophic anarchists continue to differ from socialists in their emphasis on freedom from control, especially from state control. Many anarchists participated in the trade union movement, usually as members of unions with a syndicalist program (see Syndicalism). Others accepted the terrorist policy and practiced assassination.

Although most anarchists have not advocated terrorism, the popular view has unjustly identified all anarchism with violence. Assassinations such as those of Humbert I, king of Italy; William McKinley, president of the United States; George I, king of Greece; and the president of France, Marie François Sadi Carnot—all committed by anarchists—have given support to the popular opinion of anarchy. Some crimes that were blamed on anarchists, including a bomb thrown during the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago (1886) and the payroll murder at South Braintree, Massachusetts (see Sacco-Vanzetti Case), were almost certainly not committed by anarchists. Persons who profess or advocate anarchism are denied admission to the United States by a federal law enacted in 1902.

Modern anarchists include the Russian follower of Bakunin, Prince Pyotr Alekseyevich Kropotkin, who called himself an anarchistic Communist, and the Americans Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. Anarchism declined steadily as a political philosophy and as an organized movement during the second quarter of the 20th century.