Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. These philosophies use anarchy to mean a society based on voluntary cooperation of free individuals. Philosophical anarchist thought does not advocate chaos or anomie — it intends "anarchy" to refer to a manner of human relations that is intentionally established and maintained.

While individual freedom and opposition to the state are primary tenets of anarchism, most anarchists insist that anarchism is much more than that. There is also considerable variation among the anarchist political philosophies, to the point that groups with radically different views may consider themselves anarchist. Opinions vary in areas ranging from the role of violence in fostering anarchism, to the preferred type of economic system, the relationship between technology and hierarchy, the interpretation of egalitarian ideals, and desirability of various forms of organization.

Anarchy

Anarchy, literally, means a lack of hierarchy. A common use of the English word anarchy is "a state of lawlessness or political disorder", more properly known as anomie. This use of the word anarchy implies a broad definition: usually, any situation where there is no internationally recognized government is considered anarchic. The current political situation in Somalia, for example, is referred to as a state of anarchy using this definition, since it is in a state of chaos [1] (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/so.html#Govt).

However, in anarchist philosophies, anarchy means either an "anarchist society" - that is, a society where individuals are free from coercion - or, more broadly, any relationship or set of relationships exhibiting a lack of hierarchy. Few anarchists would point to Somalia as an example of "anarchy". They would argue that Somalia's warlord system is merely another face of despotism, characterized by brutal use of force by self-appointed rulers. Anarchists do not believe, as Jean-Francois Revel wrote in Democracy against Itself, that "... anarchy leads to despotism ... despotism leads to anarchy ..." [2] (http://www.modulaware.com/a/?m=select&id=0029263875).

Anarchist theories have a fundamental critique of government as coercion, a vision of a society without government, and a proposed method of reaching such a society. The details of the political, economic, and social organization of an anarchist society vary among different branches of anarchist political thought, as do the proposed means to achieve a society organized along those lines. All anarchists, however, share certain principles, most notably non-hierarchy (in an anarchist society there cannot be any kind of social hierarchy) and its derivatives, such as the principle of equal decision-making power (all people must have equal decision-making power in an anarchist society; if some have more power than others, then a hierarchy is formed). It should be noted that, contrary to popular conception, anarchists are not inherently opposed to social organization, but simply to organization by coercion. Anarchists have favored workers councils, general assemblies, collectives, and federations and networks of various organizations for the purposes of carrying out action, settling and ending problems, and also for the sake of production and consumption.

Historically, the word "anarchist" has been applied to political opponents as a derogatory term with the meaning of "advocating chaos". For instance, the Levellers of the English Civil War and the Enragés of the French Revolution were referred to as anarchists by their opponents. These leftist parties advocated social equality and universal suffrage. Still today, social movements may be dismissed as "anarchist" without further comment, and the term still inspires in many an image of a black clad "mad bomber", terrorist, or other aimless troublemaker. Although such anarchists do exist, many more have various philosophical critiques of violence, ranging from supporting violence in individual or communal self_defense, to abhorring violence as an attempt to institute hierarchy, however short-lived, of aggressor over victim.

History of anarchism

Precursors of anarchism

Anarcho-primitivists assert that, for the longest period before recorded history, human society was organized on anarchist principles. There is debate over the anthropological evidence to support this.

Some anarchists have embraced Taoism, which developed in Ancient China, as a source of anarchistic attitudes [3] (http://www.toxicpop.co.uk/library/taoism.htm). Similarly, anarchistic tendencies can be traced to the philosophers of Ancient Greece, such as Zeno, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, and Aristippus, who said that the wise should not give up their liberty to the state [4] (http://www.blackcrayon.com/page.jsp/library/britt1910.html). Later movements – such as Stregheria in the 1300's, the Free Spirit in the Middle Ages, the Anabaptists, and The Diggers – have also expounded ideas that have been interpreted as anarchist.

The first known usage of the word anarchy appears in the play Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus, dated 467 BC. There, Antigone openly refuses to abide by the rulers' decree to leave her brother Polyneices' body unburied, as punishment for his participation in the attack on Thebes, saying that "even if no one else is willing to share in burying him I will bury him alone and risk the peril of burying my own brother. Nor am I ashamed to act in defiant opposition to the rulers of the city (ekhous apiston tênd anarkhian polei)".

Ancient Greece also saw the first western instance of anarchism as a philosophical ideal, in the form of the stoic philosopher Zeno of Citium, who was, according to Kropotkin, "[t]he best exponent of Anarchist philosophy in ancient Greece". As summarized by Kropotkin, Zeno "repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual". Within Greek philosophy, Zeno's vision of a free community without government is opposed to the state_Utopia of Plato's Republic. Zeno argued that although the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads humans to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct — sociability. Like many modern anarchists, he believed that if people follow their instincts, they will have no need of law courts or police, no temples and no public worship, and use no money (a gift economy taking the place of the exchanges). Zeno's beliefs have only reached us as fragmentary quotations. [5] (http://www.blackcrayon.com/page.jsp/library/britt1910.html)

In Athens, the year 404 BC was commonly referred to as "the year of anarchy". According to the historian Xenophon, this happened even though Athens was at the time under the rule of the oligarchy of "The Thirty", installed by the Spartans following their victory in the second Peloponnesian war, and despite the presence of an Archon, nominated by the oligarchs, in the person of Pythodorus. However, Athenians refused to apply here their custom of calling the year by that archon's name, since he was elected during the oligarchy, and "preferred to speak of it as the 'year of anarchy'".

The Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle used the term anarchy negatively, in association with democracy which they mistrusted as inherently vulnerable and prone to deteriorate into tyranny. Plato believed that the corruption created by democracy loosens the "natural" hierarchy between social classes, genders and age groups, to the extent that "anarchy finds a way into the private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them". ('Republic', book 8). Aristotle spoke of it in book 6 of the 'Politics' when discussing revolutions, saying that the upper classes may be motivated to stage a coup by their contempt for the prevailing "disorder and anarchy (ataxias kai anarkhias)" in the affairs of the state. He also claimed it would give, "license among slaves (anarkhia te doulôn)" as well as among women and children. "A constitution of this sort", he concludes, "will have a large number of supporters, as disorderly living (zên ataktôs) is pleasanter to the masses than sober living".

The Anabaptists of 16th century Europe are sometimes considered to be religious forerunners of modern anarchism. Bertrand Russell, in his History of Western Philosophy, writes that the Anabaptists "repudiated all law, since they held that the good man will be guided at every moment by the Holy Spirit...[f]rom this premiss they arrive at communism...."

Gerrard Winstanley, who published a pamphlet calling for communal ownership and social and economic organization in small agrarian communities in the 17th century, is considered another of the forerunners of modern anarchism. The first modern author to have published a treatise explicitly advocating the absence of government was William Godwin in An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793); though he did not use the word anarchism, some today regard him as the "founder of philosophical anarchism"[6] (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/godwin/). The term "anarchist" was used during the French Revolution as an insult against the left, but Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, adopted the term to describe his political philosophy in the 1840s.

Liberals were often labeled "anarchists" by monarchists, even though they did not call for the abolition of hierarchy. Still, they did promote the idea of human equality, individual rights, and the responsibility of the people to judge their governments, which provided a groundwork for the development of anarchist thought. As American political society developed along the liberal model, anarchist thoughts were expressed in the writings of Henry David Thoreau (Civil Disobedience). Anarcho_capitalism arose later as some liberals attempted to reform the ideology of anarchism to make it compatible with capitalism. All other anarchists, however, argue that the hierarchical foundations of capitalism and its many entailments contradict anarchist values.

Modern anarchism

In 1793 William Godwin published An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, in which he presents his vision of a free society alongside a critique of government. Some consider this the first anarchist treatise, crediting Godwin with founding modern philosophical anarchism. He is also considered a forebear of utilitarianism. It wasn't until Pierre-Joseph Proudhon published What is Property? in 1840 that the term "anarchist" was adopted as a self_description. It is for this reason that some claim Proudhon as the founder of modern anarchist theory.

Individualists, taking much from the writings of Max Stirner, among others, demanded the utmost respect for the liberty of the individual.

Later in the 19th century, Anarchist communist theorists like Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin built on the Marxist critique of capitalism and synthesized it with their own critique of the state, emphasizing the importance of a communal perspective to maintain individual liberty in a social context, and the critical role of workers self-managed organs of production and creation.

The International Workingmen's Association, at its founding, was an alliance of socialist groups, including both anarchists and Marxists. Both sides had a common aim (stateless communism) and common political opponents (conservatives and other right-wing elements). But each was critical of the other, and the inherent conflict between the two groups soon embodied itself in an ongoing argument between Mikhail Bakunin, representative of anarchist ideas, and Karl Marx himself. Generally Marx wanted to work within the system, use hierarchal organizational structures, and run people in elections. Bakunin hated these ideas, and predicted that if a revolution was won under a Marxist revolutionary party, they would end up being as bad as the ruling class that they fought against, (a claim that seems to have come true). In 1872, the conflict in the First International climaxed with the expulsion of Bakunin and those who had become known as the "Bakuninists" when they were outvoted by the Marx party at the Hague Congress. This is often cited as the origins of the conflict between anarchists and Marxists.

Mikhail Bakunin saw a need to defend the working class against oppression and overthrow the ruling class as a means to dissolve the state. Peter Kropotkin's anarchist communism developed from his scientific theory based on evolution in which co-operation equaled or surpassed competition in importance, as illustrated in Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution (1897).

Some revolutionaries of this time encouraged acts of political violence such as bombings and the assassinations of heads of state to further anarchism. However, these actions were regarded by many anarchists as counter-productive or ineffective (see "Violence and non-violence", below).

In the late 19th century anarcho-syndicalism developed as the industrialized form of libertarian communism, emphasizing industrial actions, especially the general strike, as the primary strategy to achieve anarchist revolution, and "build the new society in the shell of the old".

Anarchists played a role in many of the labour movements, uprisings, and revolutions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the Russian Revolution (1917). In the United States, many new immigrants were anarchists; an especially notable group was the large number of Jewish immigrants who had left Russia and Eastern Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These groups were disrupted by the Red Scare of 1919.

Emma Goldman was a very influential anarchist and feminist during this period. She traveled the country and the world spreading anarchist ideas and attempting to live an anarchist life.

The anarcho-syndicalist orientation of many early American labor unions played a large part in the formation of the American political spectrum. The United States is the only industrialized former British colony to not have a labor-based political party. In Mexico, anarcho-syndicalists like Richard Flores-Magon led various revolts and uprisings, that would help overthrow the dictator Diaz, and lead the way for the growth of anarchism in Latin America, (and also go on to influence the modern day Zapatista rebellion).

In Europe, in the first quarter of the 20th century, anarchist movements achieved relative, if short-lived, successes and were violently repressed by states. However, in the 1920s and 1930s the conflict between anarchism and the state was eclipsed by the one among liberal democracy, fascism and communism, which ended with the defeat of fascism in World War II. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-9), a widely popular anarchist movement supported by militias loyal to the republic took control of rural areas of north-east Spain in 1936_1937 and collectivized the land, being crushed in short order by the Communist_controlled republican army.

At the end of World War II Europe was mostly divided into a liberal region under United States influence and a communist region under control of the Soviet Union, and the major political dichotomy became that between capitalism and communism. The philosophical influence of anarchism remained latent until it resurfaced in the 1960s.

A surge of popular interest in anarchism occurred during the 1960s and 1970s. In the UK this was associated with the punk rock movement; the band Crass is celebrated for its anarchist and pacifist ideas. In Denmark, the Freetown Christiania was created in downtown Copenhagen. The housing and employment crisis in most of Western Europe led to the formation of communes and squatter movements like the one still thriving in Barcelona, [[Catalunya]. Militant resistance to neo-Nazi groups in places like Germany, and the uprisings of autonomous Marxism, situationist, and Autonomist groups in France and Italy also helped to give popularity to anti_authoritarian, non_capitalist ideas.

Beginning in the later part of the 20th century anarchist primitivists like John Zerzan began to proclaim that civilization — not just the state — would need to fall for anarchy to be achieved. A rejection of industrial technology is also prominent in the views of many primitivists, such as Theodore Kaczynski. This primitivist worldview was also associated with the growth of the anti_roads movement in the UK, and also the Earth First! movement in the US.

Through the 20th century anarchists were actively involved in the labour, animal-rights, radical ecological, feminist movements, and later in the fight against fascism. The influence of this on anarchist thought is apparent, as most of the traditional anarchist philosophies emphasize the economic implications of anarchism, or arrive at anarchism from economic arguments. Since the mid-1960s, anarchists have been involved in student protest movements, peace movements, squatter movements, and the anti-globalization movement, among others.

There has long been an association between anarchism and the arts. Like socialism, communism and even fascism, anarchism has a plethora of imagery and has developed an anarchist symbolism which has become associated with a variety of groups and movements, and co-opted (or "recuperated") by capitalist industry. The influence of anarchism is not always directly a matter of specific imagery or public figures, but may be seen in a certain stance towards the liberation of the total human being and the imagination. In visual art, strains of anarchism have been noted in French Symbolism, Dadaism, the Ashcan School of American realism, and the mail art movement. Surrealism in particular was actually equated with anarchism by its founder André Breton. In music, anarchism has been associated with punk rock, the more explicitly political anarcho-punk, and the techno music scene.

In the latter part of the 20th century, and the start of the 21st century, anarchism, (or anti-authoritarianism), has been seen to have the same influence as Marxism did during the protest movements of the 1960's. With the uprising of anti-authoritarian movements in the Zapatista communities in Mexico, and the people's uprising starting in 2001 in Argentina, and the global growth and interest in non-statist, anti-capitalist beliefs and organizing have given anarchism a new life within various movements. Anarchists, (although generally against violence against people except in self-defense), have also been at the forefront of militant resistance against capital and the state, engaging in property destruction against various corporations, militant street battles with police, confronting neo-Nazi and far-right groups, and also having a strong militant presence at anti-globalization protests.

Anarchism today

Today, traditional anarchist organizations continue to exist across the globe.

Feminism arose early in the history of anarchism in the form of anarcha-feminism. North American anarchism also takes strong influences from the American Civil Rights Movement and the movement against the Vietnam War. European anarchism has developed out of the labour movement, and both have incorporated animal rights and environmental activism from a direct action approach which gave growth the the anti_roads movement, and Reclaim the Streets. Globally, anarchism has also grown in popularity and influence as part of the anti-war, anti_capitalist, and anti-globalisation movements. Recently, anarchists have been known for their involvement in protests against World Trade Organization and Group of Eight meetings, and the World Economic Forum; protests which are generally portrayed in mainstream media coverage as violent riots. Many anarchists are part of the black blocs, (a tactic in which all people within the bloc wear black and cover their faces to avoid police identification, and to create one large solid mass), at these protests, and engage in protecting various non-violent protesters, setting up barricades, vandalism and sometimes corporate property destruction, and confronting and defending people from the police. Many anarchists are critical of the black bloc because some blocs have engaged in property destruction against multi-national corporations and have thus gotten a label as "violent", and "adventurists" from media and large scale liberal organizations. Although black bloc anarchists are often the only visible anarchists at large protests, large scale protests are often constructed and organized through anarchist structures. Affinity groupings, spokescouncils, and networking all have lead to the success of various large scale anti-war and anti-globalization mobilizations, (such as the protests against the WTO Meeting of 1999 in Seattle, and the Bay Area shut-down during the start of the second Iraq war). Anarchists have also been involved heavily with underground direct action movements such as the Animal Liberation Front, and the Earth Liberation Front, which are considered "eco_terrorist" by federal authorities and some liberal organizations.

Anarchism is not constrained to political protest, however. Anarchists also engage in building parallel structures and organizations, such as Food Not Bombs, radical labor unions, infoshop and radical social centers, new sets of schooling systems, media in various forms, organizing around housing and land issues, and work toward accountability with police and other institutions through such tools as consensus decision_making. This is in line with the general anarchist concept of creating "dual-power", which is the idea of creating the structures for a new anti-authoritarian society in the shell of the old, hierarchal one.

Some have said that recent technological developments have made the anarchist cause both easier to advance and more conceivable to people. Many people use cell phones or the Internet to form loose communities which could be said to be organized along anarchist lines. Some of these communities have as their purpose the production of information in a non-commodified or use-value format, a goal made attainable by the availability of personal computing, desktop publishing and digital media. These things have made it possible for individuals to share music files over the Internet, without economic incentive, and even with a certain amount of risk. There are also open source programming communities, who donate their time, and offer their product freely as well. Examples include Usenet, the free software movement (including the GNU/Linux community and the wiki paradigm), and Indymedia. A book analyzing how this new "anarchic" mode of production is possible is Eric S. Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Traditional historical materialist analysis, used by many libertarian socialists, is one means of interpreting the above, and would describe it as a "political economy of non-commodity information production". There also exists, however, recognition that such technologies, as society currently exists, are dependent on a centralized and hierarchical industrial system, with laborers and non-human life at the bottom.

Anarchists today are active in almost all countries, Greece, Turkey, Australia, America, Canada, Britain, South Africa, Mexico, just to name a few, and engage in a wide range of social activism.

Historical examples

See Past and present anarchist communities

Schools of anarchist thought

From William Godwin's utilitarian anarchism to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's mutualism, to Max Stirner's egoism, to Benjamin Tucker's radical individualism, to Peter Kropotkin's anarchist communism, the roots of anarchist thought in modern political philosophy are varied, with many different views of what a society without government should be like. Anarcho_capitalism has roots in classical laissez_faire liberalism but also draws inspiration from the individualist anarchists, despite the latter's rejection of capitalist economics. Primitivism, advocating the dissolution of civilization, is reminiscent of, if not inspired by, the early 19th century Luddite movement. Some would argue that ecoterrorism is an expression of anarchism. There are also a number of feminist anarchist theories, including anarcha-feminism, eco_feminism, and individualist feminism. National-anarchism (http://www.nationalanarchist.com) seeks to create isolated, intentional, autonomous communities. Another tradition in anarchism follows from individuals like Errico Malatesta and Voltairine de Cleyre in claiming no adjective. These "anarchists without adjectives" seek to unify all anarchists around the basic shared principles of being anti_state and anti_capitalism, arguing that the diverse forms of anarchism can work together in relative harmony.

Anarcho_syndicalism

Main article: Anarcho-syndicalism

The red-and-black flag, coming from the experience of anarchists in the labour movement, is particularly associated with anarcho-syndicalism.

Anarcho-syndicalism is the anarchist wing of the labor union movement. Its primary aim is the end of the wage system. It functions on principles of workers solidarity, direct action, and self_management.

Workers' solidarity means that anarcho_syndicalists believe all workers, no matter what their race, gender, or ethnic group are in a similar situation vis-a-vis their bosses. Furthermore, it means that, within capitalism, any gains or losses made by some workers in their relation to bosses will eventually impact all workers. Therefore, it says that in order to gain liberation, all workers must support one another in their struggle against bosses.

Anarcho-syndicalists only believe in direct action — that is, action directly designed to confront a problem. Direct action can range from traditional strike action to active sabotage.

Furthermore, anarcho-syndicalists believe that workers' organizations — the organizations which struggle against the wage system and which, in anarcho-syndicalist theory, will eventually form the basis of a new society – should be self-managing. They should not have bosses or "business agents"; rather, the workers should be able to make decisions that affect them amongst themselves.

The International Workers Association is an international anarcho-syndicalist federation of various labor unions from different countries. The Industrial Workers of the World, a once-powerful, still active, and again growing labor union, is considered a leading organ of the anarcho-syndicalist philosophy in the United States. The Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo played a major role in the Spanish Civil War. Other major anarcho-syndicalist organizations include the Workers Solidarity Alliance, and the Solidarity Federation in the UK.

Some critics of anarcho-syndicalism contend that its focus on proletarian class struggle overlooks the needs of segments of society such as parents or others occupied with child_rearing or domestic labor, although some anarcho_syndicalist thought attempts to address other sectors of economic life. Some primitivist authors, notably Bob Black, contend that an anarcho-syndicalist revolution would leave in place social systems they find oppressive (work and workplaces, for example), although anarcho-syndicalists contend that worker self-management would render those systems fundamentally more humane.

Anarcho-communism

Main article: Anarcho-Communism

Anarcho-communism shares many things in common with anarcho-syndicalism but generally strives for a society without any kind of money system and proposes instead societies based on direct workers control, and gift economies. Anarcho_communists also propose large and small scale connections of communities, groups, and workplaces through federations and networks created by free association and popular affinity.

Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, and most recently, groups like NEFAC (North Eastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists), have advocated various forms of anarcho-communism. Historically, anarcho-communism has been said to have been put into practice by millions of people in the anarchist collectives and communes of the anarchist controlled region of the Ukraine during the Russian Revolution, and during the Spanish Civil War in the Aragon and Catalonia regions of Spain.

Anarcho-communists are split generally on the "Platform", or the "Organizational Platform of Libertarian Communists", written by Russian anarchist militant, Nestor Makhno. The platform calls for various forms of structures within the anarchist movement, and has been accepted by some anarchists and scorned by others.

Anarcho-communists today are involved in various community issues; generally revolving around housing, labor struggles, anti-racism, and building the anarchist movement. Anarcho-communists have generally called for more cohesive groups and structures of anarchist groups and thereby garnered criticism from other anarchist sects. Various large scale groups of anarcho-communists exist today with the larger groups existing mostly in the United States and Europe.

Anarcho-capitalism

Main article: Anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism is an ideology which rejects the state and, unlike traditional anarchism, embraces capitalism (in the sense of a system of trade based on the principle of a free market). Anarcho-capitalists see human freedom as paramount, both as a means to a just and prosperous society and as an end in itself, and think capitalism is both the most free and the most efficient method of organizing society. They reject the labelling of capitalism as an unjustified hierarchy. Prominent anarcho-capitalists include Murray Rothbard and David Friedman.

Most anarchists, (including mostly all of those that are involved with social activism), fervently deny that anarcho_capitalists are anarchists at all, citing the fundamental anarchist critiques of capitalism that view it as inherently authoritarian and exploitative. They feel that anarcho_capitalism is not part of the "broad back" of anarchism, and cite the fact that the nature of bosses and private property are authoritarian and based on the use of force, and are non_anarchist qualities.

Ecological anarchism

There is a significant anarchist element to the environmental movement, including those that are known as eco-anarchists and green_anarchists. These two, though similar, are not quite the same because the political label 'Green' has implications beyond ecology (see Green Party). Green anarchists accept some restrictions on individual freedom as a means of preserving natural capital (for example, farmland and water) and often promote limited forms of social ecology. Eco-anarchists, by contrast, are more extreme and advocate a sort of fusion with nature (see also: ecovillage and primitivism). Green anarchism, in North America at least, is also linked with anarcho_primitivism, and is generally seen as associated with Deep Ecology, and the Earth First! movement. Eco-feminism is also sometimes considered a form of anarchism.

Anarcho-primitivism

Main article: Primitivism

Anarcho-primitivism is a philosophy advocating a return to a pre-industrial and usually pre-agricultural society. Primitivism believes that industrial society inevitably produces oppressive structures through specialization of tasks or division of labor, and that technology has similar negative implications. Most forms of primitivism question civilization itself. The primitivist movement has connections to radical environmentalism. Primitivism has been notably advocated by John Zerzan, and to some extent by Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and Derrick Jensen.

Insurrectionary Anarchism

Insurrectionary Anarchism generally is critical of larger anarchist organizations like radical unions or federations. It instead is in favor of small affinity groups, carrying out acts of resistance in various struggles. Insurrectionary Anarchists look in part to the actions of such groups as the Earth Liberation Front as various tactical successes. Here, Wolfi Landstreicher writes some of the basis points on it's praxis.

Insurrectionary anarchism is not an ideological solution to all social problems, a commodity on the capitalist market of ideologies and opinions, but an on-going praxis aimed at putting an end to the domination of the state and the continuance of capitalism, which requires analysis and discussion to advance. We don’t look to some ideal society or offer an image of utopia for public consumption. Throughout history, most anarchists, except those who believed that society would evolve to the point that it would leave the state behind, have been insurrectionary anarchists. Most simply, this means that the state will not merely wither away, thus anarchists must attack, for waiting is defeat; what is needed is open mutiny and the spreading of subversion among the exploited and excluded. Here we spell out some implications that we and some other insurrectionary anarchists draw from this general problem: if the state will not disappear on its own, how then do we end its existence? It is, therefore, primarily a practice, and focuses on the organization of attack...The State of capital will not “wither away,” attack is the refusal of mediation, pacification, sacrifice, accommodation, and compromise. [Landstreicher, Wolfi]

Alfredo M. Bonanno, a European insurrectionary anarchist also had a great impact on this specific tendency, writing such works as "Armed Joy," "The Anarchist Tension," and others. In the US, Willful Disobedience, Killing King Abacus, and other magazines caused interest in insurrectionary politics to grow. Although insurrectionary anarchists are generally interested in class struggle anarchism, in the US, many insurrectionary anarchists consider themselves to be anarcho-primitivists, or green anarchists as well.

Technological anarchism

Some anarchists see information technology as the way to replace hierarchy, defeat monopoly, and prevent war, and support culture jamming in particular as a way to do so. Some writers — particularly Iain M. Banks, who has written quite extensively in the science fiction genre about The Culture, a futuristic society which has disposed of government — have theorised that anarchism would be inevitable with the technological advances that would make travelling and living in space plausible [7] (http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~stefan/culture.html).

It has also been argued that the free software movement is an example of anarchist organization, this being an example not of hierarchical business, but of voluntary association for the production of a good.

See also Crypto-anarchism and Cypherpunk.

CrimethInc.

CrimethInc. is the name of a broad and varied section of the anarchist movement that is largely styled after the situationists and generally concerns itself with personal liberation and support of various resistance movements. Crimethinc has no central core group or hub, although many of the posters, position statements, and other propaganda are produced by one core group. Associated collectives, websites, and groups can at will take up the crimethInc. name and thus add their works to the network.

CrimethInc. has been criticized by many anarchists as promoting lifestylism, and thus pushing many people away from anarchism. Dumpster diving, squatting,