Today's terrorism is not the product of a traditional history of anarchism, nihilism, or fanaticism. It is instead the contemporary partner of globalization.
jean baudrillardThe religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil , that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy.
nikolai berdyaevUnquestionably socialism and anarchism attract distinctly different types, who are in many ways alien to each other. Their mental processes differ.
There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism . … The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy.
nikolai berdyaevJesus was an anarchist. In order to justify this claim we need to define anarchism . Quite simply and clearly: anarchism is rules without rulers.
Workers are propertyless and forced to wage labor because they cannot finance their self-employment: the state monopoly over money is the problem. Let the people issue their own private, fiduciary moneys and the choice between working for an employer or for oneself will become entirely voluntary. This is the individual anarchism (or anarco-capitalism) championed by Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker in America and Gustave de Molinari in France.
Violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism.
I think the question is not about "communists" and "individualists", but rather about anarchists and non-anarchists. And we, or at least many of us, were quite wrong in discussing a certain kind of alleged "anarchist individualism" as if it really was one of the various tendencies of anarchism, instead of fighting it as one of the many disguises of authoritarianism.
"Whoever denies authority and fights against it is an anarchist," said Sebastien Faure. The definition is tempting in its simplicity, but simplicity is the first thing to guard against in writing a history of anarchism. Few doctrines or movements have been so confusedly understood in the public mind, and few have presented in their own variety of approach and action so much excuse for confusion.
I shall treat anarchism, despite its many variations: as a system of social thought, aiming at fundamental changes in the structure of society and particularly for this is the common element uniting all its forms at the replacement of the authoritarian state by some form of non-governmental cooperation between free individuals.
There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism. ... The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil , that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy.
If you say that you reject violence when it exceeds the limits imposed by the needs of defense, they accuse you of pacifism , without understanding that violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism , just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism.
anarchism does not mean bloodshed; it does not mean robbery, arson, etc. These monstrosities are, on the contrary, the characteristic features of capitalism. anarchism, or Socialism, means the re-organization of society upon scientific principles and the abolition of causes which produce vice and crime.
The killing of another, except in defense of human life, is archistic, authoritarian, and therefore, no Anarchist can commit such deeds. It is the very opposite of what anarchism stands for.
anarchism is a manifestation of natural human urges … it is the tendency to create authoritarian institutions which is the transient aberration.
Most fundamentally, I would see anarchism as a synonym for anti-authoritarianism.
anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.
Since the late Chicago outrages I have been patronizingly told how unfortunate it is that the Boston Anarchists, standing as they do for peace , and being the first to denounce violence , should suffer themselves to be confounded with those bloody mobbists who desecrate the true principles of anarchism through deeds which Liberty emphatically repudiates. On the whole, the term Anarchy is the proper one. It simply means opposed to the arbitrary rule of self-elected usurpers outside of the Individual .
anarchism is "stateless socialism ."
anarchism means voluntary co-operation instead of forced participation. It means harmony and order in place of interference and disorder.
anarchism is voluntary cooperation for good , with the right of secession. A Christian anarchist is therefore one who turns the other cheek, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and does not need a cop to tell him how to behave. A Christian anarchist does not depend upon bullets or ballots to achieve his ideal; he achieves that ideal daily by the One-Man Revolution with which he faces a decadent, confused, and dying world .
From my point of view the killing of another, except in defense of human life , is archistic, authoritarian , and therefore, no Anarchist can commit such deeds. It is the very opposite of what anarchism stands for.
The nearer we come to the full military suppression of the bourgeoisie, the more dangerous becomes to us the high flood of petty-bourgeois anarchism. And the struggle against these elements cannot be waged with propaganda and agitation alone. … The struggle must also be waged by applying force and compulsion.
anarchism is the view that a society without the state, or government, is both possible and desirable.
anarchism … may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the State should be abolished.
anarchism is for liberty, and neither for nor against anything else. Anarchy is the mother of co-operation, yes, just as liberty is the mother of order; but, as a matter of definition, liberty is not order nor is anarchism co-operation. I define anarchism as the belief in the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of liberty; or, in other words, as the belief in every liberty except the liberty to invade.