and technological changes in America, these principles
seem to persist in American political theory.
Further Reading
Dolbeare, Kenneth. American Political Thought. New York:
Chatham House, 1981.
anarchism/anarchy
The political philosophy that holds that all state
AUTHORITYor POWERis oppressive and unjust, that the
abolishing of government will produce the greatest
individual and collective freedom and prosperity and
that it is governmental authority that imposes unfair
rules on people, steals their money, and keeps them in
slavery. Therefore, to eliminate the state will result in
JUSTICEand an end to poverty, violence, bondage, and
war. Ironically, many anarchists have used violence
and terrorism to try to destroy the existing govern-
ment. Underlying the anarchist’s political theory is a
view that human beings are naturally peaceful, loving,
and cooperative and that only the state system makes
them selfish and cruel; so ending the government will
unleash humanity’s positive qualities. This optimistic
view of human beings goes back to French philoso-
pher Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAUand his idea that people
are naturally virtuous but corrupted by society. This is
contrary to most of Western political thought, which
regards humanity as naturally selfish and bigoted who
can only be made cooperative through education,
political participation, religious ethics and spiritual
development, and the threat of legal punishment. So
anarchism is the very opposite of most Western knowl-
edge in that it identifies individual and social problems
with both the state and all other forms of authority (in
business, the military, the church, and the family). So
the ideal in anarchism is a kind of unrestrained, free
child, with no controls or directing, and the belief that
this would produce a perfect social harmony of self-
directed, self-controlled individuals freely relating to
one another in a purely voluntary, happy way.
Other than this basic idealism over natural human
kindness and peace and rejection of all authority, anar-
chists vary tremendously over how to achieve this
utopia of perfection. Some anarchists believe in free-
market, laissez-faire CAPITALISMto achieve all-perfect,
authority-free happiness; others want a COMMUNIST
economy to achieve the same result; still others seek a
religious community to accomplish anarchy. In each
case, it is not believed that an anarchic social system
would produce chaos and disorder (as it is often
accused) because the free individuals will be self-regu-
lating and respectful of others’ RIGHTS. The idea is that
people can control themselves internallyand individu-
ally best, without external control (by law, govern-
ment, parents, teachers, church or God). Most of all,
anarchists hate all authority. The fact that an anarchist
society has never succeeded does not prove to anar-
chists that it is unrealistic, just that the evils of author-
ity and power keep creeping back into life.
The main philosophers of anarchism wrote in the
19th and early 20th centuries in Europe and Russia.
The first was Frenchman Pierre-Joseph PROUDHON
whose maxim “property is theft” attacked power asso-
ciated with wealth and advocated a socialist or commu-
nal anarchism without private property. The Germananarchism/anarchy 11Reproduction of anarchist handbill in article “The Chicago Anar-
chists of 1886.” (LIBRARY OFCONGRESS)