ANARCHISM, a theory of social organi zation, numbering, it is said, about 1,000,000 adherents. Its doctrines represent the extreme of individualism. It looks upon all law and government as invasive, the twin sources whence flow nearly all the evils existent in so ciety. It therefore advocates the abolition of all government as we to-day understand the term, save that originating in voluntary co-op eration. Anarchists do not conceive of a so ciety without order, but of an order arising out of the law of association, preferably through self-governing groups, for it may be said that, with here and there an exception, anarchists regard mankind as gregarious. 'Our object is to live without government and with out law,D said Elisee Reclus, the eminent geog rapher, and in his day the leading anarchist of France. Anarchists do not ignore the enor mous economies resulting from the law of as sociation, but insist that the law will be better served in a state of freedom and in the absence of all compulsion. They believe that everything now done by the state can be better done by voluntary or associative effort, and that no re straint upon conduct is necessary, because of the natural tendency of mankind in a state of freedom to respect the rights of the individual. The repression of crime, where crime might arise, could safely be left to spontaneously cre ated organizations, such as the Vigilance Com mittees in early California, where no State gov ernment existed. In the view of Prince Kro potkin, the leading Russian anarchist, no cause for litigation would arise after we had abol ished °the present system of class privilege and unjust distribution of the wealth produced by labor, that creates and fosters crime.° To quote further from Kropotkin: *We are nurtured from our birth to believe that we must have government. Yet the history of man proves the contrary. When small bodies or parts of humanity broke down the powers of their rulers and resumed some part of their foreordained freedom, these were always ep ochs of the greatest progress, economically and intellectually. In the direct ratio to the free dom of the individual he advances.° Early attempts at mutualism were those of W. Thompson in England and J. Warren in the United States. In 1827, Warren opened a *Time store° in Cincinnati, where labor was exchanged hour for hour in different kinds of goods.
It is not easy to sum up in a few paragraphs the leading doctrines of any economic sect and at the same time retain absolute accuracy of statement. It should therefore be said that anarchists, while agreeing that the doctrine of laissez faire should be extended to all depart ments of human activity, are by no means in agreement on all points. There are evolution ary and revolutionary anarchists, and com munist- and individualist-anarchists. The point on which all are agreed is in their opposi tion to compulsory forms of government, and in regarding the necessary despotism of major ities in a democracy as only a little less hateful than the despotism of a monarchy. ((Govern ments are the scourage of God," says Proudhon, with whom the philosophy of modern anarchism may be said to have begun.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon was born in Be sancon, France, in 1809, and died in 1865. Germs of the doctrine of which he is the founder may be traced to much earlier, even ancient periods. Among his modern precursors
is William Godwin (b. in Wisbech, England, 1756; d. in London, 1834), who is better known as the author of the novel, (Caleb Williams,' but who in his Concerning Political Justice,' which appeared in 1793, advocated the abolition of every form of government, and formulated the theory of anarchistic com munism. But modern anarchism as a force in sociologic thought began with the publication of Proudhon's famous essay, is Prop erty) (1840). In it he rejects all law and au thority, but in a work which appeared in 1852 entitled, The Federative Principle,' he seems to have modified in a measure his former the ory of government and favors the formation of self-governing communities. In the former work occurs the phrase which is destined to be forever associated with the name of Proudhon, but which was uttered by the Girondist Brissc• a half century earlier, 'Property is robbery.' It was upon the notion that he had fur nished a demonstration of this thesis Ur_ Proudhon especially prided himself. But th, phrase as used by the father of anarchism mom: be held to apply rather to modern methods c: acquisition than to property itself, for Proud hon was an individualist, not a communist-m archist, and strove, however unsuccessful he was in making himself understood, rather refine than to destroy the idea of property. h all his reasoning on this point there is mud dialectic subtlety, of which, with perverted M genuity, Proudhon was overfond; but it ar be said that what he really sought was the ascthrow of all prevailing theories of property with a view to rendering it unassailable frcm the standpoint of exact equality and social tice. His chief American follower was &t jamin R. Tucker, who started a journal erty, in 1881, and combined Spencerianism the views of his master. In Germany Prone hon found adherents in Hess and Griin, wh showed a strong Hegelian influence. The doe trines of anarchism in the hands of Michaz: Bakunin underwent a change from the cacy of a purely peaceful revolution to one cf force. Bakunin was born in 1814, died lg'6 He was prominent in the Paris Revolution ci 1848, was surrendered to Russia and sent lc Siberia, but succeeded in making his escape. H:s principal work, in addition to innumerable pam phlets and addresses, is et *The propaganda by action,* as it is termed by which it was hoped to inspire such dread and horror as to compel the adoption of meas ures of social amelioration, or perhaps the overthrow of the state itself, has borne abun dant fruit in the attempted assassination of Em peror William in 1878, in the attempt upon the life of the German princes in 1883, in the as sassination of President Carnot, of France, in 1894, of the Empress Elizabeth, of Austria, in 1898, of King Humbert, of Italy, in 1900, and of President McKinley, by Czolgosz, in the autumn of 1901. Other anarchist crimes were the throwing of a bomb in the French Chamber of Deputies, in 1893, by Vaillant, the bomb ex plosion in Paris, caused by Emile Henry, in 1894, the attempt by Lipsich on the (then) Prince of Wales at Brussels in 1900, the at tempt on the lives of the King and Queen of Spain on their wedding day in 1906, and the murder of King George of Greece on 18 March 1913. See also SABCYIAGE ; SYNDIC_ALISM FERRER, FRANCISCO.