anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement holding that people can live together without the state, government or any imposed authority, organising society through free agreement and cooperation.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- In political theory: the view that the state and every form of coercive authority are unnecessary or harmful, and that society should rest on voluntary association and mutual aid.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In politics: the movement, groups and activists that hold this view and try to bring it about, whether through education, cooperatives, strikes or protest.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Informally: an attitude of rejecting rules, discipline or authority in some field of life, as in artistic anarchism.
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Examples
- Her thesis compares the anarchism of nineteenth century watchmakers with the trade unions of the same region.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Critics accused the band of anarchism, but its members said they only disliked the music industry.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In the library catalogue, books on anarchism sit between those on socialism and those on liberalism.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - He described his own anarchism as a habit of asking why any rule exists before agreeing to follow it.
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Usage
Anarchism and anarchy are often confused, yet they name different things. Anarchy is a condition: the absence of government, or simply disorder and confusion. Anarchism is a body of ideas and a movement whose supporters argue that people can manage their common affairs without compulsion from a state. Many writers in this tradition insisted that their aim was order, only order that grows from agreement rather than from command. In careful writing the two words should not be swapped.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Webster (1913) gives anarchism only a short entry, the doctrine or practice of anarchists, and compares it with French anarchisme. It spends more space on anarchy, which it defines as absence of government, the state of society where there is no law or supreme power, a state of lawlessness and political confusion, and in a second sense as confusion or disorder in general. An anarchist, in the same source, is one who advocates anarchy or aims at the overthrow of civil government.
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceThe same dictionary records several older relatives that are rare today. Anarch is the author of anarchy, one who excites revolt, and Webster quotes Milton and Byron for it. Anarchal, marked as rare, means lawless. Anarchize is a verb meaning to reduce to anarchy. The adjectives anarchic and anarchical are described as pertaining to anarchy, without rule or government, or tending to produce it, so they belong to anarchy rather than to the political doctrine.
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceThe noun often appears with adjectives such as individualist, social, philosophical and Christian, and with compounds like anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism. People may advocate, embrace, reject or study anarchism. A supporter is an anarchist, and the matching adjective is anarchist or anarchistic. Anarchism is not a synonym of nihilism: anarchism rejects the state but usually defends cooperation and moral principles, while nihilism, in its common sense, denies that values have any firm ground.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Word forms
Regular English noun, usually uncountable; the plural anarchisms is rare and refers to different kinds or schools of the doctrine.
word forms
| przypadek | forma |
|---|---|
| singular | anarchism |
| plural | anarchisms |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- individualist anarchism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - social anarchism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - philosophical anarchism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - history of anarchism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - embrace anarchism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Synonyms · Antonyms
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Etymology
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourcealso
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceRelated words
- anarchy , base noun
- anarchist , noun for a supporter
- anarch , older noun: the author of anarchy
- anarchic , adjective related to anarchy
- anarchize , verb: to reduce to anarchy
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does anarchism mean?
It is the belief that people can live together without a state, government or imposed authority, organising themselves through voluntary cooperation. The same word names the movement built on that belief and, informally, a general dislike of rules.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Where does the word anarchism come from?
It is built on anarchy, which Skeat traces through French and Latin to Greek ἀναρχία, being without a chief, from a negative prefix and ἀρχός, a ruler. Webster (1913) compares anarchism with French anarchisme.
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourceWhat is the difference between anarchism and anarchy?
Anarchy is a state of lawlessness or disorder, often unplanned. Anarchism is a deliberate doctrine that wants a society without the state, held together by agreements and cooperation rather than by chaos.