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Anarchy (from ''anarchía'', "without authority") may refer to any of the following:
ANARCHY AFTER STATE COLLAPSE English Civil War See Also: English Civil War The tumult of the English Civil War led the term to be taken up in Political Philosophy . Anarchy was one of the issues at the Putney Debates of 1647 : : Thomas Rainsborough : ''I shall blow up your buildings a little more and be less open with you than I was before. I wish we all truly wanted to change this cesspool we live in. If I did mistrust you I would not use such asseverations. I think it doth go on mistrust, and things are thought too readily matters of reflection, that were never intended. For my part, as I think, you forgot something that was in my speech, and you do not only yourselves believe that some men are inclining to anarchy, but you would make all men believe that. And, sir, to say because a man pleads that every man hath a voice by right of nature, that therefore it destroys by the same argument all property -- this is to forget the Law of God. That there’s a property, the Law of God says it; else why hath God made that law, Thou shalt not steal? I am a poor man, therefore I must be oppressed: if I have no interest in the kingdom, I must suffer by all their laws be they right or wrong. Nay thus: a gentleman lives in a country and hath three or four lordships, as some men have (God knows how they got them); and when a Parliament is called he must be a Parliament-man; and it may be he sees some poor men, they live near this man, he can crush them -- I have known an invasion to make sure he hath turned the poor men out of doors; and I would fain know whether the potency of rich men do not this, and so keep them under the greatest tyranny that was ever thought of in the world. And therefore I think that to that it is fully answered: God hath set down that thing as to propriety with this law of his, Thou shalt not steal. And for my part I am against any such thought, and, as for yourselves, I wish you would not make the world believe that we are for anarchy.'' : Oliver Cromwell : ''I know nothing but this, that they that are the most yielding have the greatest wisdom; but really, sir, this is not right as it should be. No man says that you have a mind to anarchy, but that the consequence of this rule tends to anarchy, must end in anarchy; for where is there any bound or limit set if you take away this limit , that men that have no interest but the interest of breathing shall have no voice in elections? Therefore I am confident on 't, we should not be so hot one with another.'' The Putney debates As people began to theorise about the English Civil War, Anarchy came to be more sharply defined, albeit from differing political perspectives:
French Revolution See Also: French Revolution See Also: Reign of Terror During the French Revolution, the period of brutal violence in which many members of high-ruling families were killed has been described as anarchy. The Reign Of Terror was mainly conducted by the radical egalitarian wing of the revolution. Targets were not only aristocrats but also fellow revolutionaries who were deemed too moderate, and were sent to guillotine. Thomas Carlyle , Scottish essayist of the Victorian era known foremost for his widely influential work of history, '' The French Revolution '', wrote that the French Revolution was a war against both Aristocracy ''and'' anarchy: Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the things worse than Anarchy shall be hated more! Surely Peace alone is fruitful. Anarchy is destruction: a burning up, say, of Shams and Insupportabilities; but which leaves Vacancy behind. Know this also, that out of a world of Unwise nothing but an Unwisdom can be made. Arrange it, Constitution-build it, sift it through Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom,-- the new prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it slightly better than the beginning. Who can bring a wise thing out of men unwise? Not one. And so Vacancy and general Abolition having come for this France, what can Anarchy do more? Let there be Order, were it under the Soldier's Sword; let there be Peace, that the bounty of the Heavens be not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do send us bring fruit in its season!-- It remains to be seen how the quellers of Sansculottism were themselves quelled, and sacred right of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder: wherewith this singular eventful History called French Revolution ends. Thomas Carlyle , '' The French Revolution '' Armand II , duke of Aiguillon came before the National Assembly (French Revolution) in 1789 and shared his views on the anarchy: I may be permitted here to express my personal opinion. I shall no doubt not be accused of not loving liberty, but I know that not all movements of peoples lead to liberty. But I know that great anarchy quickly leads to great exhaustion and that despotism, which is a kind of rest, has almost always been the necessary result of great anarchy. It is therefore much more important than we think to end the disorder under which we suffer. If we can achieve this only through the use of force by authorities, then it would be thoughtless to keep refraining from using such force. Duke d'Aiguillon Armand II was later exiled because he was viewed as being opposed to the revolution's violent tactics. Professor Chris Bossche commented on the role of anarchy in the revolution: In The French Revolution, the narrative of increasing anarchy undermined the narrative in which the revolutionaries were striving to create a new social order by writing a constitution. Revolution in Search of Authority Jamaica 1720 Sir Nicholas Lawes , Governor of Jamaica , wrote to John Robinson , the Bishop Of London , in 1720 : :"As to those Englishmen that came as mechanics hither, very young and have now acquired good estates in Sugar Plantations and Indigo & co., of course they know no better than what maxims they learn in the Country . To be now short & plain Your Lordship will see that they have no maxims of Church And State but what are absolutely anarchical." In the letter Lawes goes on to complain that these "estated men now are like '' Vol. III (1911), edited by Vere Langford Oliver . Somalia, 2005 Before the Islamic Courts Union took control, Somalia was the only country in the world without a functioning state (See Anarchy In Somalia ). Abdo Vingaker, a Somalian living in Sweden , was quoted in an article by BBC as saying: "I am from Somalia and to live without government is the most dangerous system." The article went on to discuss the abject poverty experienced by the citizens of this country. BBC News: Living in Somalia's anarchy , accessed on December 29th, 2005. ANARCHIST COMMUNITIES See Also: Anarchist communities
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Liberalism Bertrand Russel wrote on how Liberalism aims for a Golden Mean between Despotism and anarchy: Every community is faced with two dangers, anarchy and despotism. The Puritans , especially The Independents , were most impressed by the danger of despotism. Hobbes , on the contrary, was obsessed by the fear of anarchy. The liberal philosophers who arose after The Restoration and acquire control after 1688, realized both dangers; they disliked both Strafford and the Anabaptist s. This led Locke to the doctrine of Division Of Powers and of Checks And Balances .Bertrand Russel's '' The History Of Western Philosophy '', pg. 555. Anarchism See Also: anarchism Anarchists are those who advocate the absence of the state, arguing that common sense would allow for people to come together in agreement to form a functional society allowing for the participants to freely develop their own sense of morality, ethics or principled behaviour. The rise of anarchism as a philosophical movement occurred in the mid 19th Century , with its notion of Freedom as being based upon political and economic self-rule. This occurred alongside the rise of the Nation-state and large-scale industrial Capitalism , and the Corruption that came with their successes. Although anarchists share a rejection of the state, they differ about economic arrangements and possible rules that would prevail in a stateless society, ranging from complete common ownership and distribution according to need, to supporters of private Property and Free Market competition. For example, most forms of anarchism, such as that of Anarcho-communism , Anarcho-syndicalism , or Anarcho-primitivism not only seek rejection of the state, but also other systems which they perceive as authoritarian, which includes capitalism, wage labor, and private property. In opposition, another form known as Anarcho-capitalism argues that a society without a state is a free market capitalist system that is Voluntarist in nature. Most anarchists reject the claim that anarcho-capitalism is a form of anarchism as it is marked by authoritarian structures. The word "anarchy" is often used by non-anarchists as a pejorative term, intended to connote a lack of control and a negatively chaotic environment. Because of this, some activists have self-identified as Libertarian Socialists . In more recent times Anti-authoritarian has offered another similar self-identification. However, anarchists still argue that anarchy does not imply Nihilism , Anomie , or the total absence of rules, but rather an anti-authoritarian society that is based on the Spontaneous Order of free individuals in autonomous communities, operating on principles of Mutual Aid , Voluntary Association , and Direct Action . ANTHROPOLOGY See Also: Anarcho-primitivism Some anarchist anthropologists, such as David Graeber and Pierre Clastres , consider societies such as those of the Bushmen , Tiv and the Piaroa to be anarchies in the sense that they explicitly reject the idea of centralized political authority. 1 However, others point out that tribal societies of the past have often been more violent than modern technological societies, on average.See Steven Pinker 's '' The Blank Slate '', Chapter 4, The Noble Savage for a survey of the mainstream anthropological opinion. For example, more than a third of the , have been empirically replicated several times.(Ember, 1978; Keeley, 1996; Knauft, 1987) Some more recent antropologists, such as Marshall Sahlins and Richard Borshay Lee , have defied the notion of hunter-gatherer societies as being a source of scarcity and brutalization, describing them as - in the words of Sahlins - "affluent societies". 2 However the Evolutionary Psychologist Steven Pinker writes: Adjudication by an armed authority appears to be the most effective violence-reduction technique ever invented. Though we debate whether tweaks in criminal policy, such as executing murderers versus locking them up for life, can reduce violence by a few percentage points, there can be no debate on the massive effects of having a criminal justice system as opposed to living in anarchy. The shockingly high homicide rates of pre-state societies, with 10 to 60 percent of the men dying at the hands of other men, provide one kind of evidence. Another is the emergence of a violent culture of honor in just about any corner of the world that is beyond the reach of law. ..The generalization that anarchy in the sense of a lack of government leads to anarchy in the sense of violent chaos may seem banal, but it is often over-looked in today's still-romantic climate. Steven Pinker 's '' The Blank Slate '', pages 330-331. Some expresses that violence in primitive societies is a natural way for each community to maintain its political independence, while dismissing the state as a natural outcome of the evolution of human societies.7 In 2005 Thomas D. Beaner gathered an army of people who believed in anarchy. He took his army to the mayors’ offices with intentions of starting a revolution in L.A. Ca. soon after arriving to the office, he and his army was stormed by LAPD and sheriffs. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Later in the proceeding he was offered prison or join the army. He took the army in haste and excelled. He still believes in anarchy and is being watched by the FBI. SEE ALSO
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