Anarchism is a political ideology which aims to create a society within which individuals

freely co-operate together as equals. As such anarchism opposes all forms of

hierarchical control - be that control by the state or capitalist - as harmful to the
individual and their individuality as well as unnecessary.

Supports

Rejects

Autonomy

Authoritarianism

Civil libertarianism

Censorship

Cooperation

Coercion

Workers' self-management

Imperialism

Decentrally planned economy

Statism

Direct action

Hierarchy

Mutual aid

Paternalism

Common ownership

Centrally planned economy

Voluntary association

"The class struggle created by the enslavement of workers and their aspirations to
liberty gave birth, in the oppression, to the idea of anarchism: the idea of the total
negation of a social system based on the principles of classes and the State, and its
replacement by a free non-statist society of workers under self-management.
"So anarchism does not derive from the abstract reflections of an intellectual or a
philosopher, but from the direct struggle of workers against capitalism, from the needs
and necessities of the workers, from their aspirations to liberty and equality, aspirations
which become particularly alive in the best heroic period of the life and struggle of the
working masses.
"The outstanding anarchist thinkers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and others, did not invent the
idea of anarchism, but, having discovered it in the masses, simply helped by the
strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and spread it."
The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809 1865) was a French philosopher and politician who
was the first person to start calling himself an anarchist. His most famous work is What
Is Property, in which he argues that people should collectively own and run the land
they live on and the places they work. He is also known for having asserted that
Anarchy Is Order, which some today attribute the beginnings of the common circle-A
graffiti.
Actions: Partook in the 1848 Revolution in France that ended an 18-year monarchy,
though he was pessimistic of the liberal, reformist government that took its place.
(Even though Proudhon was the first self-conscious anarchist, anarchists dont go
around claiming that these ideas were first sprouted in the mid-1800s, but rather that
they have been a part of human beliefs for as long as people opposed rule and rulers
and struggled to govern themselves democratically. All that changed at this point in time
is that Proudhon and others started giving those ideas a name.)