ANARCHISM, a tendency founded upon anarchy in human society. By anarchy is not to be understood the word in its exaggerated sense of chaos and dis order, but literally a state of society in which authority does not exist; that is, a society with the greatest imaginable independence of the individual, without law and without any relations whatever of superior and inferior. There were tendencies to anarchy in the thought of antiquity and of the Middle Ages as well as in modern times. Anarchistic tenden cies first became notably influential as a phase of thought toward the middle of the 19th century, when they were de veloped under an increasing sense of the misery of the oppressed masses of hu manity. The founder of modern anarch ism was Peter Joseph Proudhon (1809 (1865) who wrote "What is Property?" He held that under the compulsion of the laws of property there existed be tween employers and workingmen a con dition of exchange in commodities most unfavorable to the latter, in consequence of which the capitalist, without working himself, appropriated to himself, most un justly, a portion of the earnings of the worker. Hence Proudhon's famous con clusion: "Property is robbery." As a remedy for these unjust conditions, Proudhon held that there should be a free activity of industrial forces under which there would be a just exchange of commodities corresponding to the actual relations of value. In order to achieve such conditions Proudhon rejected law and authority of every kind and demanded a social condition in which there should be absolutely no authority. As a char acterization of this condition he was the first to employ the word "anarchy." In his essay, "A General Idea of the Revo lution" (1851), he set forth his theory.
It found much approval in Germany at first. The doctrine was elaborated by Max Stirner in a book called "The Individual and His Property," published in 1845. Stirner acknowledges nothing but the will of the individual. He re jects every combination among men to ward a higher unity, every compulsion of civilized principles—all of these sig nifying for him nothing but the enthral ment of the individual will. Stirner ad vocated the path of revolution. The triumph of the reaction in 1848 crowded anarchistic teachings into the background. In 1852 Proudhon himself in his essay on "The Federative Principle," declared anarchy to be impracticable, and held the correct form of government to be a fed eration of autonomist communities. The labor agitations that began in the '60's were accompanied by a development of the anarchistic party, chiefly under the influence of Russian agitators. The
founder of this party was Michael Bakunin (1814-1876). Since 1864 Baku nin was active in Switzerland as an an archistic agitator. Unlike Proudhon, he advocated revolution as the means to the end, but he drew the line at murder. Bakunin sent his disciple, Sergei Net shaye, to Russia and there, in 1869, the latter developed the so-called "propa ganda of action"; that is, an agitation by means of deeds of violence, murder and disorder, not for the purpose of overcoming the existing order of society, but simply to arouse sentiment by the effect of horrible deeds.
One of the most eminent representa tives of anarchistic doctrines is in Rus sian Prince Krapotkin (born n 1842). Krapotkin advocates a system of com munistic anarchy based upon the idea of free production and consumption, with a free development of industrial powers in groups and societies. Ac cording to his theory, everybody should share as he pleased in production and also in the enjoyment of the fruits of collective effort. This is the programme of the greater number of the anarchists of to-day, especially of those who are called the Latin anarchists, being those believers in the doctrine who live in western Switzerland, the S. of France, in Italy and in Spain. With the grow ing development of the Social Demo cratic organization, anarchy fell more and more into disfavor. These two tendencies, anarchy and socialism, have a common source in a sense of the misery of the oppressed masses, but their ends are directly opposed, the aim of anarchy being to achieve the extreme of indi vidualism, while that of socialism aims to realize the extreme of collectivism. At the Congress of International So cieties of Workingmen, held at The Hague, in 1872, at the instance of Carl Marx, the International Alliance of the Social Democracy, which followed the doctrines of Bakunin, was excluded, and ever since the hostility between the ten dencies has been increasing. The German law against socialism, passed in 1878, caused, for the time, a tendency toward anarchism in consequence of the for mation of revolutionary groups under the leadership of Most (1846), a former member of the German Reichstag. In consequence of this Most was expelled from the Social Democratic Party and went to London, but, in 1882, he came to New York and advocated the "propa ganda of action." Most sought to im prove upon the teaching of Proudhon by advocating the regulation of production and price through common action among groups of workers.