Anarchisman·ar·chism

  [an-er-kiz-uhm]  Noun1.A doctrine urging the abolition of government or governmental restraint as the indispensable condition for full social and political liberty.

Introduction

Anarchy can be seen from two main points of view:

• To refer to a social disorder. In this way, anarchy may sometimes imply political disorder or lawlessness within a society.

• To refer only to a way of a non-attendance of a hierarchy. It means a society where there is no chief or supreme leader and also in which everyone’s voice has importance .

Understanding Anarchy

Anarchy is a largely used word in common language, taking different roles in the collective opinion. The general perception of anarchy may vary between: • A pejorative word, used as a synonym of social disorder • The concept of Anarchism, a political system in itself,

marked by precise beliefs in the role of individuals and state in a community, negating authority upon others

Understanding AnarchyAnarchy is a large political movement built up with a lot of sub-movements. Although there is a lot of different opinions in the anarchist community, there are common values shared by everyone. These values are the pillars of the theory of anarchy as a political system:

• Rejection of authority in all of its forms• Belief in self-management as a foundation of social life and

starting point of democracy• Rejection of hierarchy • Belief in volunteerism• Freedom and Individual rights

Understanding Anarchy

Anarchism is generally seen as a left wing movement, majority of anarchists being strong believers of the left ideology. However, there are other movements in anarchism that can take place in all of the X axis. That is explainable by the fact that the roots of anarchy are strongly libertarian, and do not necessarily specify any preference between right or left ideology.

Anarchism history

• The word Anarchy comes from the Greek "a " (without) and "arkhê" (Power, control, governance). The word anarchist entered the English language during the English Civil War in 1642, with the Royalists calling their Republican enemies by this name. By the beginning of the 19th century, the term had already won his negative connotation.

• For many people, the first anarchist societies date from the beginning of societies in itself, considering societies as the aborigine one anarchist. This belief comes from the neither non-hierarchic nor authoritarian life style they lived. The best example of anarchism in a developed society is the First International and the Paris Commune.

Anarchism history

• The first anarchist thoughts were written by Taoist monks in the 6th century B.C. and can also be found in the work of Diogenes, a Greek philosopher. However, the first libertarian use of it has been made by the French author Étienne de la Boétie during the enlightenment.

Diogenes Étienne de la Boétie

Anarchism history

• During the beginning of the 21st century, the anarchist movement won a lot of members through the different anti-war, anti-globalization, anti-capitalist movements. We see many of their actions in manifestations such as those for the G8, the WTO or, like we saw in Québec in 2001, free-trade groups meeting.

Summit of the Americas, 2001

Worker’s Self-Management

• The system of an anarchist government is based on self-management, meaning that the community is totally independent. It has to work by his own way. There is no head leader or chief and there is no hierarchy. Unlike the other systems of government, it is a full and direct democracy.

Worker’s Self-Management

The anarchist model based on self-management has already been tried in a few French associations, leading to the writing of some postulates depicting it in a more political point of view:

• The elimination of any distinction between rulers and ruled• Transparency and legitimacy of decisions• The non-appropriation by some of the wealth produced by

the collectivity• The affirmation of the ability of humans to organize

themselves without a leader

Worker’s Self-Management

• In Anarchy, choices are made in a fully democratic way. In other words, when the time comes to make a choice, it is not only one person or one group of persons that makes choices for all the others. Every single individual, in the anarchist political system, has the right to participate and vote for what he prefers.

Anarchism and Democracy

Anarchists are not supposed to organise elections and vote, because by doing so, they support a form of government, which is against the ideology of the political system itself.

Anarchism and Democracy

• Democracy in the literary sense can only be a stateless society:

” Power belongs to the people to the extent that it is the people who really exercises it " – Giovanni Sartori, Democrazia Cos’é. • According to the democratic system in which we live, it is

not considered that the people have the whole power, because they vote for someone/something else that will have this power = representative democracy.

 • In an anarchist system, there are micro-communities in

which every person vote and comment each decision that the whole community has to make = direct democracy.

 

Anarchism and Democracy

• When talking about a larger territory, we apply what is called the participatory democracy. This kind of democracy tends to advocate more involved citizen participation rather than in the representative democracy, which is made to create opportunities for all members of a population to contribute in the decision-making.

• Anarchy is the most complete form of democracy because it is easier for a member of the community to contribute in the decision-making than in any other system.

Anarcho-Syndicalism1- Anarcho-syndicalism is one of the major forms of social anarchism 2- The main idea behind it is to combine the economic methods of unions with the politic of anarchism 3- Anarcho-syndicalism can now be considered as a synonym of anarchism because mostly all anarchists approve the way to make a revolution as suggested by it

4- Contrary to the goal behind communism, the ideal is not one big union but many of them (concept of free association) 5- The symbol of anarcho-syndicalism is a red and black flag

Anarcho-communism and Marxist communism

 • In the Marxist communist theory, there is two phases: The

inferior phase (socialism) and the superior phase (self-management, communism)

 • Anarchist and communist systems lead to the same goal,

except that they don't have the same methods to achieve that goal

 • Anarchists are reproaching communists to tolerate socialism,

which is, according to them, the biggest oppression of the majority

 • Communists are reproaching anarchists to go toward self

management too fast, at a pace that could lead to chaos

• There is mostly no difference between anarchism and anarcho-communism

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon • French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist.

He was a member of the French Parliament and the first person to call himself an "anarchist".

• A little while after he published his first politic work, Qu’est-ce que la propriété, he got kicked out of his pension because of it

• Pierre-Joseph Proudhon tried to create a national bank that can lend money without behoof (benefits, advantages)

• Proudhon is against the socialist and the communist systems of government, considering that anarchism is more efficient

• It is his publication Qu’Est-ce que la propriété that convinced Karl Marx that private proprieties should be abolished

(1809 –1865)

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon(1809 –1865)

“Property is theft ”

“Anarchy is order without power ”