Portal:Anarchism

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Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is against all forms of authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations. As a historically left-wing movement, this reading of anarchism is placed on the farthest left of the political spectrum, usually described as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement (libertarian socialism).

Although traces of anarchist ideas are found all throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, whose end marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more, growing in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalisation movements. (Full article...)

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Society is rotten. It will only be changed when the people see the greed, arrogance and brutality of those who rule them!

Anarky dialogue by Alan Grant, "Anarky", The Batman Adventures #31, April 1995.

Anarky (Lonnie Machin) is a fictional character in the DC Comics Universe. Co-created by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, he first appeared in Detective Comics #608 (November 1989) as an adversary of Batman. Stories revolving around Anarky often focus on political and philosophical themes. Named after the philosophy of anarchism, the primary philosophical element that has underscored the character's appearances has been anti-statism. With Grant's transition to the philosophy of Neo-Tech, Anarky was transformed from a vehicle for socialist and populist philosophy, to rationalist, atheist, and free market based thought. Highly thematic and philosophical in tone, Alan Grant avoided using the character often, but addressed multiple social issues whenever the character appeared, including environmentalism, antimilitarism, economic exploitation, and political corruption. Inspired by multiple sources, early stories to feature the character often included homages to political and philosophical books, including notable anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, among others. The creation of the character was also partially influenced by Alan Moore's character "V" from V for Vendetta.

Originally intended to only be used in the debut story in which he appeared, positive reception by readers and his editor convinced Grant to continue using Anarky as a recurring character throughout the early 90s. The character experienced a brief surge in media exposure during the late '90s, beginning when Norm Breyfogle convinced Grant to produce a limited series based on the character. The 1997 spin-off series, Anarky, was received with positive reviews and sales, and later declared by Grant to be among his "career highlights". Batman: Anarky, a trade paperback collection of stories featuring the character, soon followed. This popular acclaim culminated, however, in a financially and critically unsuccessful ongoing solo series. The 1999 Anarky series, in which even Alan Grant has expressed his distaste, was quickly canceled after eight issues. (read more...)

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Credit: Vards Uzvards

An upmarket Audi automobile with the license plate "ANRCHST". Anti-capitalist anarchists consider anarchism and anarcho-capitalism to be mutually exclusive, rejecting anarcho-capitalism's acceptance of consumerism and hierarchical labor as fundamentally unanarchistic.

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Did you know?

...that the anarchy symbol (pictured) can be seen as an embodiment of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's well-known maxim, "anarchy is order"?
...that the anarcho-syndicalist Argentine Workers' Federation was the country's first national labor confederation?
...that German-born anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker's book Pioneers of American Freedom traces the origins of American anarchism back to Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln?
...that scholarly journal Anarchist Studies was attacked by Stewart Home as a "sad and reactionary 'academic' journal" incapable of engaging in critical debate?
...that the Cuban labor movement was predominantly anarchist until it was crushed first by President Machado, and then Fidel Castro?

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“

Its external forms have altered in the course of its historical development, but its functions have always remained the same. They have even been constantly broadened in just the measure in which its supporters have succeeded in making further fields of social activity subservient to their needs. Whether the state be monarchy or republic, whether historically it is anchored to autocracy or in a national constitution, its function remains always the same. And just as the functions of the bodily organs of plants and animals cannot be arbitrarily altered, so that, for example, one cannot at will hear with his eyes and see with his ears, so also one cannot at pleasure transform an organ of social oppression into an instrument for the liberation of the oppressed. The state can only be what it is: the defender of mass exploitation and social privileges, the creator of privileged classes and castes and of new monopolies. Who fails to recognise this function of the state does not understand the real nature of the present social order at all, and is incapable of pointing out to humanity new outlooks for its social evolution.

Anarchism is no patent solution for all human problems, no Utopia of a perfect social order, as it has so often been called, since on principle it rejects all absolute schemes and concepts. It does not believe in any absolute truth, or in definite final goals for human development, but in an unlimited perfectibility of social arrangements and human living conditions, which are always straining after higher forms of expression, and to which for this reason one can assign no definite terminus nor set any fixed goal. The worst crime of any type of state is just that it always tries to force the rich diversity of social life into definite forms and adjust it to one particular form, which allows for no wider outlook and regards the previously exciting status as finished. The stronger its supporters feel themselves, the more completely they succeed in bringing every field of social life into their service, the more crippling is their influence on the operation of all creative cultural forces, the more unwholesomely does it affect the intellectual and social development of any particular epoch.

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—Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism, 1938.

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Anniversaries for May 10

1905 - Oscar Wilde's play Salome opened.
1968 - Léo Ferré composed his song The Anarchists during the events of May 1968 in France.

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