DEFINITIONS. The word "anarchy," first used in its French form by Proudhon in an essay en titled What 'is Property? (1840), has served to designate a group of theories, some of them very old, and the best of them formulated in definite language by Proudhon and his personal followers. There are several definitions of an archy representing different groups of anar chists: (1) Anarchy is the result of absolute individualism in thought as well as in social activity. This might be called idealistic anarchy. (2) Anarchy is an economic and social system whereby the individual is free to produce what he pleases, gets the full product of his labor, and is under no compulsion of social regulation or law in any of his economic relations to his fel lows. This is Proudhon's theory, and while less idealistic than the first definition, was regarded by Proudhon himself as impossible of realization. He regarded a federation of small autonomous groups as the best attainable result in govern ment. (3) Anarchy represents a communistic organization of individuals in society having perfect freedom and equality as between them selves in the production and consumption of goods, and offering a combined resistance to all existing forms of social order, law, and govern ment. This definition covers anarchists of the
Bakunin type, who have much in sympathy with some Socialists, though theoretically Socialism and Anarchism, in their main tenets and under lying philosophy, stand at opposite poles of thought. (4) Anarchy comprises all attempts to destroy the existing social order, without ref erence to any theory of reconstruction, and by the use of any means, fair or foul, by which in dividuals or institutions representing constitut ed authority may be destroyed. This represents the popular concept of all Anarchists. It describes the ultra-radicals, who are the uncom promising enemies of public order and decency, who plan murders and reckless public calamities. They are the fanatics who have been most in evi dence in recent years.