Talk:Outline of anarchism

Mohandas Gandhi
I feel that Gandhi doesn't belong on the list of notable anarchists on the basis that he never did anything to propagate, develop, or advance anarchist philosophy in any sense. The most he did was take some inspiration for his ideals of communism from Kropotkin and get his ideas on non-violence from Tolstoy (also not an anarchist.) It can even be suggested he did more to harm the advance of anarchy by assisting in the founding of the nation-state of India. I won't argue that he wasn't an anarchist, though I am biased against the joke of an idea. I believe I read a quote from him in which he stated "I am an anarchist, but of a different sort..." (I paraphrase.) I do not have a citation on that either, so maybe until we have one we should even throw that idea out the window. I don't care if "swaraj" is in favor of self governance. That just makes it anti-authoritarian, a parallel philosophy to anarchy. He was contemporary to it. He knew of it. He was inspired by Kropotkin, a man no one can deny was an actual notable anarchist. If Gandhi was an anarchist himself; advanced it; developed it; propagated it; then we should have a citation for it. Get one. Then add him to the list.--Cast (talk) 08:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You're totally right. I won't re-add him. Zazaban (talk) 08:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

After this initial posting, I carried my concerns to the Gandhi article talk page. There, after a bit of further discussion, I came to the conclusion that Gandhi did declare himself an anarchist. He is reported to have done so near the end of his life, as a philosophical anarchist. I accept this, but though I now recognize him as an anarchist, I still do not wish to add him to the list of notable anarchists, because as the subsection is described, it is for individuals who promoted anarchism specifically. Gandhi is notable for promoting non-violence, and though he was an anti-statist, he is not known for this. To a degree we may blame authoritarians who have co-opted his legacy to encourage the masses to idealize his legend over his ideas, but the point remains that he never propagated anarchist philosophy. I raise the issue again, however, in the event that someone wishes to promote adding him to the list. I leave it for future wikipedians to decide.--Cast (talk) 18:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Why was anarchosyndicalism listed under anti-market?
That doesn't make sense to me. Certainly there are pro-market and neutral forms of anarchosyndicalism, and have been since the 19th century. 72.83.176.154 (talk) 22:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I've been trying to come up with a name for that column since I wrote it. "Anti-market" isn't clear.  I originally wanted to write, "socialist" or "anti-capitalist", to differentiate from the pro-free market Agorism, Anarcho-Capitalism, etc.  But Anti-capitalist didn't work because Mutualist is both anti-capitalist, and pro-free market.  Socialist didn't work because segments of the Anarcho-primitivist project wouldn't say they are socialist in the way Anarcho-communists or syndicalists are.  This isn't a major problem.  We just need a better term that describes that group.  How about you suggest one?--Cast (talk) 23:00, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Beats me. I tend to avoid the Marxist distinction between proletariat and petty-bourgeoisie, but anarchosyndicalism, anarchocommunism, and collectivist anarchism are most associated with proletarian and (for the latter two) peasant workers' struggles, while mutualism is most associated with artisan, shopkeeper, and (unlike agorism) peasant workers' struggles. 72.83.176.154 (talk) 02:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe it would be best to drop the attempt at categorization all together and place them in alphabetical order? I'll implement that and see how it is recieved.--Cast (talk) 05:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Evaluation against the featured list criteria
This is an excellent list in its current state, [sic] which, with a few alterations, could very well qualify as a featured list. Some issues that may need to be addressed: Skomorokh 05:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The organization section is incomplete, and I wonder what this section would ideally contain - an overview of the most important organisations? The various structures anarchist organizations take?
 * The lamentably absent list of anarchists. Perhaps that needs to be completed before this list is nominated.
 * The lede does not summarize the sections of the article, per criterion 2 (a).
 * It requires relevant free images with appropriate captions. This should not be too difficult.
 * References. The featured list criteria demand that the list be "factually accurate" and contain no contested material that is not supported by reliable sources. Outside of the lede, this list contains almost no references, although as a basic list, it might get some leniancy. The referenced-to-death anarchism and anarchist schools of thought articles might be useful here.


 * Regarding the organization section, I say we should include a subsections on both; Notable Organizations (CNT, The Black Cross, etc) and Structures (federations, collectives, affinity groups, etc). Given that the images should be easily incorporated, we don't have to wait to insert them, but what would you have in mind?  The most obvious would be portraits, but we could also include symbols and location images (do we have any photos of buildings notable for being anarchist related?)  We can include references from those used in the main anarchism page, as I mostly took my cues in writing the brief section summaries from that main page.  Assuming there will be future conflicts over the descriptions given for sections, we can direct any complaints to the main anarchism article, as it is Wikipeida policy not to contradict itself.--Cast (talk) 01:04, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, about the organizations: should the IWW be included? It's never been an "anarchist" organization, per se, but it is notable in anarchist history.  Perhaps it should carry a note.  If there are more organizations that are non-anarchist, but which anarchists have a mutual history with, they could be put in a secondary section.  That may be overly complicating though, so for now I suggest just putting a notice.--Cast (talk) 01:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Major rename proposal of certain "lists" to "outlines"
See Village pump (proposals).

The Transhumanist 00:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

History of anarchism
The history of anarchism section has a dated timeline of events which are notable in anarchist history, but when I was putting it together, I didn't really pay it much attention. It was an afterthought. So perhaps we ought to give some thought to what should be on that list, because I think it's a bit over grown and I want it to be about key events. Things that are very important to understanding anarchism's place in history. I figure notable events, the dates notable books were published. I don't think birth or death dates are of much note to anarchism as a socio-political movement. Any thoughts?--Cast (talk) 03:47, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If we are looking to cut down, I think we can safely lose Freedom, Cuba, and the Bonnot Gang. I question whether Kronstadt was primarily anarchist or that notable; I think the list over-emphasises the Bolshevik era (Revolution, Ukraine, Kronstadt). The Anarchist Manifesto gets points for being the first, but I am not sure it was that influential on the history of anarchism, and we already have it in the manifesto section (which is suffering a little bloat itself). I don't know too much about China, but it seems brief and without much legacy. Possible additions include May '68, Stirner's The Ego and its Own, something about early anarchism in the U.S. (Boston/individualists) and something about green anarchism (1960–). I agree that births/deaths are unworthy of inclusion. The timeline only covers modern anarchism, which does not exhaust "anarchism's place in history", but I'm not sure we want to touch the Laozi/Ancient Greece/Anabaptists etc. Skomorokh 05:11, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I specifically wrote up the intro to preclude additions from ancient or middle age eras. Anarchism as a specific political philosophy started in 1840, and it would be a disservice to this list to start tossing in movements that did not – could not – identify as anarchist. We must stick to what is modern and contemporary -- and unfortunately, what is contemporary may not yet deserve to be included.  We'll have to pick and choose such events carefully, and years after they have already happened.  The only event I felt worthy of note was Seattle '99, and I think it may be easily contested.  Now I'll start making the alterations you've suggested.  They seem fine to me.--Cast (talk) 05:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Pardon, I forgot to mention that the reason I included so many lines on the crushing of anarchist movements was to illustrate why anarchism fell into relative obscurity. The reason why China seems "brief and without legacy" is specifically for the reason noted -- it was crushed.  As it was in Japan, Cuba, and in the United States.  After the Palmer Raids (which perhaps should be noted), Anarchism in the US didn't recover for decades.  It ties in with the intro that notes anarchism is only now making a comeback.  I think these lines are useful in that context.
 * Sounds good, I agree with limiting the scope to modern anarchism (although I think Godwin should stay). Seattle is useful, if only to assure the reader we did not simply forget to continue the list after 1960! I understand your inclusion of Cuba, Japan and China now, all the more reason why the Russian Revolution should be re-added I think - it was the rise of institutionalised communism and the reactionary capitalism of the West that caused the end of classical anarchism, which could not have happened had the revolution not occurred. Skomorokh  07:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, this is precisely why I had that little emphasis on the Bolshevik era, and had deleted it before I got around to defending the decision I had made early on. I'll add just the line about the revolution taking place.  Kronstadt doesn't have to get a mention.--Cast (talk) 10:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking over other completed basic topic lists, I've seen that "history" sections tend to be lists of articles on the history of the topic -- not timelines, as in this list. The timeline model used here is based on the one in the humanism basic topic list, which is incomplete and bare. I think a better model to use would be the one used in the List of basic United States topics. It would be a basic list without prose and contain articles currently located under the "history" tab of the anarchist navigational template. It could be organized into columns according to era, include a section for anarchist historical libraries (Kate Sharpley Library, Labadie Collectiony,) would not require citation, and in the future a timeline of anarchism can be created. What say everyone else? Is the current list structure preferred?--Cast (talk) 07:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Manifestos and statements
As Skomorokh pointed out above, this section looks to be suffering bloat. I think it might be a good idea to cap it, and originally I wanted to include only three columns with no more than 5 to each section, loosely representing different eras. Perhaps the idea of "eras" wasn't well thought out, but I stand by maintaining a cap at 15. I think preference should be given to those manifestos which both notable and best set out view points for general schools of thought, over those that are just notable. The reason being that given the passage of time and the weight of history, some schools of thought are more notable and so their manifestos would easily monopolize columns. Interestingly, the opposite is taking place. The more recent column is being packed. I speculate this is due to the fact that contemporary anarchists are more aware of more recent writings. I encourage everyone to carefully consider what manifestos should belong in this section and discuss the matter here.--Cast (talk) 05:47, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I concur that the two factors we need to balance are having a diversity of perspectives while maintaining some historical/notability/influence weighting. Ideally we would have five or less from each era. The choice of dividing the list at 1914 and 1985 was very apt. One problem for me is, as Wikipedia tells it, there seem to be far more anarchist perspectives around today than there was in the classical period:


 * Thinking of what to put in the 1985- column, we have post-left (Black, CrimethInc.), lifestylism/anti-organization (Bonnano) Bookchin's anti-lifestylism, crypto (May), mutualist (Carson), insurrectionary (Landstreicher?), post, green/primitivist (Kacyzinski). Bylund and Jarach are non-entities, although Bylund does explain the distinction between capitalism as anarchists hate it and free markets as ancaps intend concisely. I think the Bookchin and Kacyzinski (and to a lesser extent Bonnano and Black) are the only ones that decisively represent a given perspective and are historically quite notable. CrimethInc.'s Your Politics Are Boring As Fuck might also qualify. If we are only going to pick 5, I think Jarach's is neither notable or emphatically representative, and May is too fringe. Carson is interesting, but his neo-mutualism is still a minor current not worth mentioning here. Landstreicher probably likewise.


 * In the middle column, the absence that stood out (before I added Dielo Truda) was Konkin's New Libertarian Manifesto, which, although it decisively represents the agorist/left-libertarian perspective, is probably too fringe to mention. We certainly want an anarcho-capitalist text from that period, and certainly by Rothbard; "Society Without A State" might not be the best example, but it will do. The Makhno is short and intellectually lightweight to a 21st century reader, but I'm not familiar with the context at that time. The Havel gives a useful positioning of anarchism contra Communism, and anarchism in the context of the early 20th century in general. Herbert Read hits all the right notes; Bookchin touches on environmentalism and feminism but I'm not sure he adds much. I wonder can we find something from Rocker from this period?


 * The first column measures up well, but I wonder if we should not include something from Spooner's "natural law" school of individualism as well as Tucker's egoist (e.g. Why I am an Anarchist); including Tucker's anarchistic variety of socialism ("State Socialism") leaves out the individualist school entirely. Warren's Manifsto is another possibility, though underwhelming. I don't think Parsons or Goldman/Most could be omitted, Malatesta is brief and to the point, and Bellegarrigue is interesting from the point of view of novelty. The one thing that is most lacking from the collection of manifestos is a treatment of the syndicalism versus anti-organization question. That's all I can come up with for the moment, but food for thought I hope. Skomorokh  07:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the list needs a Proudhon, Bakunin, Rocker and Ward in there. It might be easier to designate numbers to a trend - collectivist, individualist, platformist, a-syndicalist and cap them at 6 entries for the time periods you have given. --Sentryward (talk) 23:20, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Essence of anarchism rejects racism?
I was a little taken aback that my removal of racism from the essence of anarchism section with the perfunctory remark "It doe NOT matter if some anarchists have been racists. They were fools and are regarded as such on these matters. No one accepts their racism as part of anarchism". I don't think we need dispute that Proudhon and Bakunin were fools, but it is clear that a very cogent argument for regarding their racism as consequential (see for example Anarchist Integralism]). THis clearly puts the whole NPOV of the page open to question, so I have tagged the page. I am not quite sure how to take this issue forward, but hope other editors can give a lead here?Harrypotter (talk) 18:30, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you honestly doubt that most anarchists oppose racism? Skomorokh  19:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why is it that you feel that the racist underpinnings of a few - a very few - anarchists some how sets a standard, but have neglected the sexist underpinnings of Proudhon? Why didn't you try to remove sexism?  His sexism is also rejected as the detritus of his era, and has had no impact on anarchist theory beyond him.  Sexism has influenced anarchist behavior, but not theory.  As such, anarcha-feminism arose to address the behavior of sexism among anarchists, but not anarchism itself.  Like wise for racism.  Anarchists can be racists.  Anarchism does not endorse that racism.  That's what is at heart here.--Cast (talk) 21:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Addendum: I forgot to mention Kropotkin. By the end of his life, he harbored an intense hatred of Germany.  Perhaps we should add that Anarchism rejects Deutschland?--Cast (talk) 21:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

It is not a matter of whether most anarchists oppose racism, but whether the rejection of racism is essential to anarchism, which all the comments here have indicated that it is not. Cast raises the issue of sexism, and I think they have a very cogent point and I would agree to the removing of sexism from the list as well. The point about Kropotkin's role as a recruiting sergeant for the first world war would support the removal of nationalism from the list - except that nationalism is not on the list! So yes, lets remove racism and sexism from the list.Harrypotter (talk) 08:08, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * For having a "cogent point", I'm surprised you seem to have missed it. I do not understand what you mean when you write that "all comments indicate" racism is not rejected by anarchism.  There is only one comment – my own, which I am rather certain did not indicate your interpretation.  The only other remark was not a comment, but a question.  One you completely ignored.
 * Moving along, Kropotkin wasn't an anti-nationalist when he promoted an anti-German agenda. He was being a pro-nationalist, anti-German.  He used nationalist jingoism in his texts promoting the war, and as such if we were to take a minority position as representing the whole of anarchism, as you are doing with racism, and now sexism, we should be adding nationalism.  However, it was a personal bias which did not reflect on anarchist theory, hence why Anti-German sentiment and Nationalism are not on the list.  Like wise, the sexist and racist leanings of a minority of anarchists have had no impact on anarchist theory.  However, perhaps a compromise is already possible.  As this section is intended to deal in lowest common denominators, and one representing both sexism and racism (social hierarchy) is already present, I'll go ahead and remove racism and sexism.  Glad I could satisfy you.--Cast (talk) 08:27, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Rename proposal for this page and all the pages of the set this page belongs to
See the proposal at the Village pump

The Transhumanist 09:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

History section
The history timeline only shows social anarchist events, almost nothing about Individualist anarchism is shown. At the very least, the Cincinnati Time Store deserves a spot. Perhaps a view bullets dedicated to prehistory as well. Zazaban (talk) 02:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Guidelines pertaining to this article
This page follows WP:LISTS and WP:SS beautifully.

The Transhumanist 01:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Guidelines for outlines
Guidelines for the development of outlines are being drafted at Outlines.

Your input and feedback is welcomed and encouraged.

The Transhumanist 00:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The "History of" section needs links!
Please add some relevant links to the history section.

Links can be found in the "History of" article for this subject, in the "History of" category for this subject, or in the corresponding navigation templates. Or you could search for topics on Google - most topics turn blue when added to Wikipedia as internal links.

The Transhumanist 00:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Leo Tolstoy is playing two parts at once
Leo Tolstoy is in the "Notable anarchists" list, Leo Tolstoy is also in the "Notable non-anarchists" list. So, which is he? :) 88.104.142.150 (talk) 12:27, 14 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Maybe he was so opposed to authority that he refused to be categorized and pigeonholed into a single list. Or maybe someone screwed up. Probably that second one. According to the description above the "non-anarchist" list, it is for people who didn't self-identify as anarchist. To the best of my knowledge, Tolstoy never self-identified as an anarchist so he probably belongs in the second list and not the first. I will fix that. Anarcham (talk) 13:36, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Element of possessianism for Outline of anarchism
That was a pretty quick revert. This is an encyclopaedia. I did not suggest that article for deletion, and I did not remove the components, so flawed quote. The format on the article pretty well stinks, is not easy to read, and in the current form it is more like something that belongs at Wikiversity, or at Wikibooks, the components that SUPPORT or not are opinion, not necessarily factual nor supported by citation. Take the move as a polite criticism, and please do not be so quick to revert to your preferred form. SHARED SPACE! Not your article. — billinghurst  sDrewth  03:55, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * What's up? Assume good faith please.  I was merely addressing the reasons you gave here.  There's no need to be aggravated or accusatory.  I didn't see the items way down there in the see also section. But I did notice they were removed from the content of the article.  I felt WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC applied, because it is the very non-specific reason you presented.  It pertains to how WP should or should not be, basically synonymous with I just don't like it.


 * I just happened to click on watchlist, and saw the article there. Sometimes I go days between checking the watchlist, though I try to check it once a day, and I rarely get through more than a few entries on it when I do.  There are over 2600 items on my watchlist.  It was lucky I spotted your edit at all.


 * By the way, I don't have much interest in anarchism, but I have all the outlines watchlisted, because they have a perpetual problem with section blanking, and non-outline reformatting. After all, outlines are not prose articles, they're lists, made primarily of bullet items.  I get concerned when someone starts dismantling them.


 * Outlines (which is short for "hierarchical outlines") are a type of list article. Bulleted entries are their main format feature. Otherwise, they'd just be plain articles. Sometimes the word "outline" gets misinterpreted in its other context, meaning as an introduction or overview treatise (which is what regular articles are). Lists and their subtype outlines, are format-specific, and are important components of Wikipedia's topic navigation system.


 * I hope the above clarification helps. The Transhumanist 21:02, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Quick explanation of Wikipedia outlines
"Outline" is short for "hierarchical outline". There are two types of outlines: sentence outlines (like those you made in school to plan a paper), and topic outlines (like the topical synopses that professors hand out at the beginning of a college course). Outlines on Wikipedia are primarily topic outlines that serve 2 main purposes: they provide taxonomical classification of subjects showing what topics belong to a subject and how they are related to each other (via their placement in the tree structure), and as subject-based tables of contents linked to topics in the encyclopedia. The hierarchy is maintained through the use of heading levels and indented bullets. See Outlines for a more in-depth explanation. The Transhumanist 00:02, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Outline of anarchism
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Outline of anarchism's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ideology": From Individualist anarchism: "Spectres of Stirner: A Contemporary Critique of Ideology" From Individualist anarchism in Europe: "Spectres of Stirner: a Contemporary Critique of Ideology" From Anarchist schools of thought:  From Post-left anarchy: "Post-Left Anarchy: Leaving the Left Behind Prologue to Post-Left Anarchy" by Jason McQuinn From Egoist anarchism:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 20:17, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Removal of Anarcho-transfeminism Flag
Looking at the list of flags, every flag has a corresponding page to that topic except for Anarcho-transfeminism. Looking online the topic doesn't appear until after the image was made, least when you look up exactly "Anarcho-transfeminism." it seems odd to include it on the list, it might be best to remove till a page on Anarcho-transfeminism is written. Strawdrinker (talk) 05:35, 9 March 2023 (UTC)