Anarchism is a political theory which aims to create a society in which individuals freely co-operate together as equals without political, economic or social hierarchies. Anarchism essentially seeks to create a classless, stateless society, free of oppression and exploitation, that is organized and held together by the four principles; individual freedom, social and economic equality, free association, and mutual aid (i.e. cooperation and solidarity).

What isn't anarchism?

Anarchy does not mean chaos, crime, destruction or havoc. To the contrary, these have been the characteristics of political and economic hierarchies throughout history. One of the most common critiques of anarchism is that people "naturally" require hierarchal structures to govern society. However, every single hierarchal structure throughout history has burned to rubble. Not a single government nor empire has lasted more than a few hundred years. People have always rebelled against governments and hierarchal structures. Perhaps this is an obvious indication that people cannot sustain a natural equilibrium within society as long as hierarchy exists because as history has shown us, people will ALWAYS naturally rebel against them.

What type of society does Anarchism advocate?

Anarchism sees to create a society in which individuals can live independently from government and all top-down structures. We believe in mutual aid and cooperation. Anarchists believe in anti-authoritarian decision making, such as direct democracy. Direct democracy works off of consensus and more involves people expressing their ideas, opinions, concerns, criticism and suggestions about certain issues that effect that group of people. This is what makes direct democracy different than representative democracy. It eliminates all top-down hierarchical means of decision making. Many believe using consensus is naturally how humans work. For example, when you go out to see a movie with your friends you work on consensus.. You make a proposal by asking everyone, "what do you want to see?", and everyone decides. If there's a conflicting decision people usually talk about it. That's direct democracy. We do the same thing when we want to go out and eat for example. All these decisions effect us directly thus we engage in a format of a consensus decision making process so the decision can best fit our needs without excluding anyone's opinion or concerns from the group. This insures that everybody's voice is heard. Direct democracy also eliminates the top-down hierarchical in decision making format. People usually don't like it when another has the authority to make all decisions and boss everyone else around, therefore we naturally engage in consensus. Many anarchists believe that such behavior indicates that deep down inside we are all anarchists. Our behavior is so naturally anarchistic, that we don't even realize it.

So what do you want? Utopia? That's a dream. Nothing can be perfect!

Anarchism doesn't see to create the 'perfect society', but rather to achieve liberation by creating equality, education, and mutual cooperation. A community can achieve anarchism by declaring independence from statist capitalist forces by collectively organizing to form co-op networks to provide food, clothes and housing to the community. The Black Panthers and american Indian Movement demonstrated this in the late 60's and 70's. The only reason why they failed is because the FBI/CIA' cointelpro (counterintelligence program) neutralized revolutionary communities by means of chemical warfare.. and that today is one of the biggest problems we still face in our communities because of cointelpro.

To learn more on Anarchism, please visit the ANARCHIST FAQ