Whats Anarchy?

Question

Anyone know what Anarchy means.You kknow that thing that has a meaning and a sign like a circle with an A in it.lol.I must seem so stupid acan anyone tell me what it is is it a religion or a gang whats it stand for what do people that believe in it actually believe?

Answer 1

Yay, I was hoping someone would ask this! I've been an anarchist for about four years now and can answer this quite well I believe. I might be longwinded though ;)

Ok, two main answers to your question. The common meaning is a lack of government and/or chaos. People will talk about "anarchy" whenever there is a major social disturbance (like after Hurricane Katrina, or during a war). This is also the type of anarchy a lot of people with the circle-A are into. You know, like the song "Anarchy in the UK" by the Sex Pistols. Talking about going out and destroying stuff. The "anarchists" that use this definition are generally ignorant punks (the key word being "ignorant," not "punks," as many legitimate anarchists are into punk too, including myself).

Then there is "anarchy" as defined by serious anarchists who are part of a social and political movement that developed in the 1800s in Europe (there are however precursors to modern anarchism throughout most if not all cultures and times).

Basically, we define anarchy as a place with no coercive authority or social hierarchy. People would have the freedom to do whatever they want, as long as they don't hurt anyone. The only legitimate form of government for an anarchist is direct self-government in which all people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their life. Most anarchists support modified direct democracy in which a consensus is necessary for a decision to be made (ie: everyone has to agree, as opposed to just majority/mob rule). We do not support representative forms of "democracy" because we feel no one can truly represent the interests of all individuals except for all those individuals themselves. We also do not believe there should be no rules, as many people falsly believe, but merely no rulers (which is in fact the direct translation of the Greek "anarchos"). As mentioned, all rules should be determined by the community as a whole. If anyone disagrees with a rule, they have the right to leave the community at anytime to find another or live on their own (this is the idea of "free association," which is a central anarchist principal).

In addition to governmental authority, we are opposed to economic authority. Virtually all anarchists are also socialists, if not communists, which surprises many people. Basically, socialism, and even communism, does not necessarily mean government ownership of resources and property, but community ownership. Marxists and other "traditional" socialists believe the government should control the economy, while libertarian socialists, such as anarchists, believe the community should control the economy directly. This split within the socialist movement is usually overlooked in the US, where few people even realize that libertarian forms of socialism even exist. We oppose unequal distribution of wealth because, as they say, money is power, and the main idea of anarchism is getting rid of unequal power relations within society. Most anarchists support the maxim (originally from Marx I believe) of "from each according to ability, to each according to need." Everyone contributes what they can to society, and in return, they get everything they need (like food, clothing, education, etc). Since everyone is different, the types and amounts of both contributions and returns would vary between individuals, but no one should get significantly more wealth than anyone else to the point that they can use it to coerce others with less wealth.

Another major concept within anarchism is "mutual aid," which is basically just the idea that everyone helps others who are in need without any expectation of immediate reciprocation (like pay, or a trade), and in return, they will be helped out whenever they are in need later on down the line. Within cultural anthropology, my major of study, this type of relationship is known as generalized reciprocity. Although it would clearly be a lot of work to get people to live in an anarchy without it degenerating into chaos, we do believe people have the ability to be responsible enough to live this way if raised in a society that values and teaches these principals rather than the type of society we live in now.

There are two types of philosophical anarchists who are likely to disagree with the label of socialist--post-left and anarcho-capitalist. Post-leftists tend to dislike labels and strict ideology (and will often not even call themselves anarchists or even post-leftists), both of which they find hindering and oppressive. They try to distance themselves from authoritarian socialists due to the oppressive regimes often associated with them, like the former USSR or China (this distancing from the socialist movement is the reason they are known as post-leftists). Regardless of such confusing talk, they do still usually have similar economic ideas as "traditional" anarchists, although they tend to be more interested in trying to live an anarchist lifestyle today rather than trying to visualize all the inner-workings of a possible anarchist society in the future. I guess the difference would be between sitting in a chair philosophizing versus experimenting to figure it out. Post-leftism is actually a large current in the modern anarchist movement and has influenced me a bit. Anarcho-capitalists would definitely reject the socialist label as they are free market capitalists who want to see all government abolished so that there will be no restrictions on the market economy. I believe the Libertarian Party of the US was founded by an anarcho-capitalist actually, although most in the party are more into reducing rather than abolishing government. Anarcho-capitalists don't have any problem with social hierarchy or authority, but merely governance, and hence, they are rarely considered a legitimate part of the anarchist movement by other anarchists including myself. Really they belong more in the right-wing libertarian camp than the anarchist one.

We definitely are not a religion, in fact, most anarchists are atheists, agnostics or at least non-religious. A common anarchist slogan is "No Gods, No Masters." We are opposed to organized religion, which often has authoritarian tendencies, like condemning people for blasphemy, heresy, or sins that don't hurt anyone (like homosexuality). Even religious anarchists usually criticize the church (or other religious institutions) because of their perceived negative role in society. There is a small Christian anarchist movement (the famous author or "War and Peace," Leo Tolstoy was the first major one). Non-traditional (at least in a Western sense) religious and spiritual beliefs are gaining popularity in the anarchist movement today (eg: Taoism, Buddhism, Neo-Paganism, animist beliefs).

Major thinkers in the anarchist movement, arranged in a roughly oldest to most recent chronological order include Pierre Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Leo Tolstoy, Peter Kropotkin, Voltairine de Cleyre, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman (my pseudonym is in reference to him), Errico Malatesta, Nestor Makhno, Rudolf Rocker, Daniel Guerin, Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, Abby Hoffman, Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka: Hakim Bey), Bob Black, Ward Churchill, CrimethInc Ex-Workers Collective (group of people, not one person but often publishes under group name), John Zerzan and Derrick Jensen. That list is by no means comprehensive, but it's a lot. Some of these people are jerks (like Proudhon, who was a racist, sexist, anti-semite, but was the first person to call himself an anarchist and was ridiculously influential on the development of the movement, or like Bob Black) but they have all had a lot of influence, if only because they pissed all the other anarchists off (like Zerzan and Black). Among the historic anarchists I recommend Emma Goldman, especially her essay "Anarchism: What it Really Stands For," which is easy to find online. Among the modern anarchists, I'm partial to Derrick Jensen, a ecologically minded anarchist. His book "The Culture of Make Believe" is really good, but kinda long (I wish I could underline book titles!). CrimethInc's "Days of War, Nights of Love" is also a great primer to post-left anarchism and a lot of the text is online in the form of multiple essays at www.crimethinc.net (I think that's the website, it might be .com). And www.infoshop.org has an FAQ on anarchism that is absolutely HUGE! And the last time I checked (a few months ago) the wikipedia article on anarchism was decent. A lot can be learned on the talk pages though. There has been constant debating and edit warring on the site, largely revolving around whether we should include anarcho-capitalism as a major trend or dismiss it.

As far as telling apart the two main type of anarchists (the "chaos" ones and the real ones), the chaotic "I'm an anarchist because I like to destroy things" type will usually not know the name of a single anarchist philosopher nor anything about anarchism's connections to socialism, or anything about anarchism at all. A legitimate anarchist will know such things and will usually be active in social and environmental justice movements. Complicating this though is the fact that even legitimate anarchists do sometimes get involved in destroying things. As revolutionaries, many of us believe that some occasional violence may be necessary to accomplish our ends and so anarchists will sometimes be on TV smashing up windows or fighting cops at a riot for example. There are pacifist anarchists though, and even the violent ones tend to only use targeted violence, not to mention that they usually do far more constructive work than destructive--it's just that we never get shown on TV serving vegan meals to the homeless with groups like Food Not Bombs. Also, when we do use circle-A's, they are often cleaner looking, with an "A" that looks like it was typed centered neatly in a perfect circle, as opposed to a more sloppy, stylized-looking one. This of course is not always the case, but is a good general rule. A common symbol among anarchists, but not commonly known among non-anarchists, is a flag separated with a diagonal line, with one half red and the other half black. Green and black flags of the same design are common as well (green for eco-anarchists). If you look closely at pictures or footage of large protests, you can often find a few of these in the crowd. Plain black flags are also common at protests, but that is also used by others sometimes (like fundamentalist Muslims, but that's confined to the mid-East and South Asia I believe).

Well, hopefully I didn't forget anything, and hopefully you don't hate me for saying so much. This is probably much more than you wanted to know.

Answer 2

It is essentially the belief that society functions better without government. There is right-wing anarchy (free markets are pretty close to this) and left-wing anarchy (in the Spanish Civil War in the thirties the anarchists fought against Franco alongside the communists). There are several species of anarchism.

Answer 3

Anarchy is the belief that there should be no government, social ladder, or state.

In some ways, anarchy could be beneficial but in reality, it would lead to total chaos and disorder.

But whatever your belief is, that's fine with me.

Answer 4

Anarchy is the absence of any form of government.

Answer 5

the people above made it sound too complicated for your little brain... anarchy = chaos.