# Anarchism

Anarchism (from Greek *an*, no and *archos*, ruler) is a [socialist](socialism.md) political philosophy rejecting any social hierarchy and oppression, most notably that of [capitalism](capitalism.md) and [state](state.md) but also any other form, e.g. [nationalism](nationalism.md), [identity fascism](identity_politics.md), [hero culture](hero_culture.md) etc. **Anarchism doesn't mean without rules, but without rulers**; despite popular misconceptions **anarchism is not [chaos](chaos.md)** -- on the contrary, it strives for a stable, ideal society of equal people who live in peace. It means **order without power**. Let's also stress that **anarchism is ALWAYS incompatible with and strongly opposes [capitalism](capitalism.md)**, as it's sadly heard too many times from the mouth of common people they think anarchism to be something akin to "true capitalism" or "[free market](free_market.md)" (people get very confused by abuse of the word "free") -- NO, capitalism and formal government are an anarchist's two most opposed ideas (and please do not be mislead by attempts at deception e.g. by so called "[anarcho capitalists](ancap.md)"; such a term just tries to merge two fundamentally incompatible ideas, like for example "militant pacifist" or "communist capitalist"). The symbols of anarchism include the letter A in a circle and a black flag that for different branches of anarchism is diagonally split from bottom left to top right and the top part is filled with a color specific for that branch.

Great many things about anarchism are explained in the text *An Anarchist FAQ*, which is [free licensed](free_culture.md) and can be accessed e.g. at https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full.

Anarchism is a broad term spanning over many flavors such as [anarcho communism](ancom.md), [anarcho pacifism](anpac.md), [anarcho syndicalism](ansyn.md), [anarcho primitivism](anprim.md) or [anarcho mutualism](anmut.md). Some of the branches get in conflict on specific questions, e.g. about whether [violence](violence.md) is ever justifiable, or propose different solutions to issues such as organization of society, however **all branches of anarchism are socialist** and all aim for **elimination of social hierarchy** such as social classes created by wealth, [money](money.md), [jobs](work.md) and [weapons](military.md), i.e. anarchism opposes [state](state.md) (e.g. police having power over citizens) and [capitalism](capitalism.md) (employers exploiting employees, [corporations](corporation.md) exploiting [consumers](consumerism.md) etc.). At the beginning stands the simple observation that **power ALWAYS comes with corruption** ("Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.") and therefore power inevitably comes with abuse of power -- it is impossible to ever have a position of power that won't be abused and so to eliminate abuse of power the only effective solution is to remove any positions (NOT the people) with power: be it kings, presidents, CEOs or managers, we simply have to let go of the concept of someone having a power over other people. Literally every single government, corporation, church and any other kind of hierarchical organization in history got corrupted over time, there is not a single counterexample, it's almost as certain as a fundamental law of nature and it keeps repeating over and over that something small, more or less nice appears (be it any "democratic" state, religious idea, political party, any company, any "people's project", [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md), [Linux](linux.md), name any single thing), then grows bigger and ends up corrupted, abused, blatantly denying its original principles; then a revolt (often called a [revolution](revolution.md)) follows, with violence, wars, bloodshed and destruction to replace the corrupted thing with a newly created thing that's just as surely destined to repeat the same cycle. Anarchism means simply learning from repeating the mistake and stopping repeating it. To common folk it seems impossible to achieve removal of social hierarchy, i.e. positions of power, however it stops being so once we realize power can only exist as long as it has support of majority of the people -- it is based on [fear](fear_culture.md) and so to remove power we may only have to do as much as [educate](education.md) and make the majority of people agree to not collaborate on sustaining the harmful societal system. Further extrapolation then predicts that removing power will achieve a truly good society in which no one is abused, everyone has abundance of all necessary resources and therefore most issues that stem from [competition](competition.md) and conflict such as [wars](war.md), criminality, [fascism](fascism.md) and declining mental health will simply disappear naturally on their own, as there will simply be no more reason for them to exist.

Anarchist usually imagine a society comprised of smaller cooperating **loosely associated** groups, i.e. groups that are small enough to work naturally without a formal government (consider that for example a family doesn't need any laws to function), however these groups must NEVER become anything akin to a tribe, state or nation, i.e. part of one's [identity](identity_politics.md) that fuels [fascism](fascism.md) (competition between the groups). There is great danger of misinterpretation here as people often confuse this with a tribalist or "wild west" society, which is NOT the case. The groups are just pragmatic units serving organization of society, collaborating and helping each other, but again, NOT on a basis of trade, business, [fascism](fascism.md) or any other kind of self interest and [competition](competition.md) (which eventually creates pacts, trade unions, then bigger entities such as [corporations](corporation.md), states, armies, hierarchies of power, leading to capitalism and basically our [current society](21st_century.md)). There must be no borders so that people can (and probably should) travel freely, joining other communities from time to time, if only to prevent nationalist tendencies or envy of the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Individuals within the groups must likewise stay as self sufficient and independent as possible of the group and other people -- (TRUE) [freedom](freedom.md) and independence must become ingrained in [culture](culture.md) so that no individual or group will ever choose for example the comfort of delegating an essential service to a middle man to whom power would be given this way. Both individuals and the groups must be like neighbors and perceive everyone else a member of his worldwide family so that mutual help is always voluntary, [selfless](selflessness.md) and does NOT create hard [dependencies](dependency.md) (if group *A* becomes absolutely dependent on group *B*, e.g. by delegating some crucial service to it, group *B* will now gain power over group *A* by the possibility to refuse to perform the service, allowing blackmailing and creating hierarchy where *B* stands above *A*). This is what *loose association* means: voluntary selfless cooperation but with sustained self sufficiency, i.e. without any hard ties that would essentially present chains. All this creates a **[decentralized](decentralization.md)** society in which no one holds power (that could be abused) over anyone else -- small groups of people not needing governments, being self sufficient but enjoying further advantages and comfort of cooperating with other groups as long as it doesn't compromise their freedom; independent individuals capable of moving anywhere, preventing formation of states with borders which could start hoarding and denying resources etc. This stress on freedom further leads anarchists to adopt ideas that naturally increase freedom such as [minimalism](minimalism.md), [primitive technology](primitivism.md) etc.

Following from the necessity of decentralization and lack of power comes another key principle of anarchism: so called **direct action** which states that in order to achieve change one must act himself and immediately (and if this means an action AGAINST something harmful, nonviolent ways are typically preferred, but some advocate even violent action), one should NOT rely on others or wait for someone else to do things on his behalf. One reason for this comes from what's been stated above: that people and groups must remain self sufficient -- relying on a middle man for one's actions gives power to the middle man, a businessman, a provider of service who then hold the power to bully people by refusal to provide the service etc. This is a deeper concept that to a newcomer isn't immediately obvious, but it's something inherent to anarchism because the only way to make it happen is people seizing to be passive entities delegating their power onto others, they must become self sufficient generalists holding power to truly bring change without sustaining a layer of "representatives" (a kind of hierarchy) above themselves. It's a mindset that's very difficult to adopt for the 21st century consumer who just lies in bed and waits to be fed by the system, thinking he's making a change by signing online petitions on Facebook, but it's exactly what has to be changed in order for the society to truly change for the better.

[LRS](lrs.md) is a truly anarchist movement, specifically [anarcho pacifist](anpac.md) and [anarcho communist](ancom.md) one. Without any question, the **true, purest anarchism is [pacifist](pacifism.md), [communist](communism.md) and [altruistic](altruism.md)** as that's the perfect ideal of society without hierarchy. Other forms of anarchism that try to sneak in acceptance of concepts such as "justified violence" or some form of "market economy" are mostly just poses of teenage boys who really believe in capitalism but want to adopt a cool label of "anarchist", a badge to wear like a superhero cape. Indeed, that's very retarded.

Anarchism comes with a **complete change of mindset**, it's not enough to say "state and corporations = bad" and then continue to live the comfortable life of a consumerist [NPC](npc.md); truly embracing anarchism means exploring and realizing in depth various societal forces, their extent, and as a result absolutely changing how one lives and thinks -- becoming active instead of passive, letting go of luxury, starting to rely as much as one can only on self, obtaining more [freedom](freedom.md) in every way, stopping [consumption](consumerism.md), becoming self sufficient as much as possible, becoming a generalist and so on. To have society without people being subdued to other people it's not possible to have passive zombies who rely on others: for example you are not an anarchist if you support a non-profit that is supposed to create "ethical" [free software](free_software.md) for you; you are an anarchist if you write that software yourself. You are not an anarchist if you wear a badge that says you support children in Africa or retweet inspirational messages about how we should support charities that do so, you are an anarchist if you go to Africa and help them yourself. Good society SHOULD provide people with what they need, with free food, free healthcare, free education, it should NOT be required to grow own food in order to be fed, but such society is only possible if people VOLUNTARILY try to do so, if they become wise enough to no longer require the capitalist's whip in order to do something. I.e. anarchism is NOT an excuse for being lazy, lying in bed and masturbating all day -- it is fine to be lazy and masturbate all day, but if that is your goal, you are better off dropping your morals and becoming a rich capitalist. The goal of anarchism is good society, and that indeed does take something, allowing people to be free in their decision of whether or not to work will require an effort. So before calling yourself an anarchist ask yourself: are you someone who is truly concerned with the greater values of anarchism, or just someone who selfishly likes what benefits it would bring him personally, on the detriment of others? The latter is nothing more than being a [capitalist](capitalism.md).

There exist many **fake, pseudoanarchist ideologies** such as ["anarcho" capitalism](ancap.md) that deceive by their name despite by their very definition NOT fitting the definition of anarchism (just like [Nazis](nazi.md) called themselves [socialists](socialism.md) despite being the opposite). Also the "new", western [pseudoleftist](pseudoleft.md) "anarchism" is NOT true anarchism, e.g. ["anarcha" feminism](anfem.md) is just fascist bullshit. Anything individualist, connected to [feminism](feminism.md), [LGBT](lgbt.md) etc. is not true anarchism. The propaganda also tries to deceive the public by calling various violent criminals anarchists, even though they very often can't fit the definition of a true anarchist.

## See Also

- [communism](communism.md)
- [libertarianism](libertarianism.md)