Anarchism is an anti-authoritarian political philosophy that advocates self-managed, self-governed societies based on voluntary, cooperative institutions and the rejection of hierarchies those societies view as unjust. These institutions are often described as stateless societies, although several authors have defined them more specifically as distinct institutions based on non-hierarchical or free associations. Anarchism's central disagreement with other ideologies is that it holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful.
Anarchism is usually placed on the far-left of the political spectrum, and much of its economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism, mutualism, or participatory economics. As anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular worldview, many anarchist types and traditions exist and varieties of anarchy diverge widely. Anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism. Strains of anarchism have often been divided into the categories of social and individualist anarchism, or similar dual classifications.
The etymological origin of anarchism derives from ancient Greek word "anarkhia". "Anarkhia" meant "without a ruler" as it was composed by the prefix a (i.e. "without") and the word "arkhos" (i.e. leader or ruler). The suffix -ism is used to denote the ideological current that favours anarchism. The first known use of this word was in 1642. Various factions within the French Revolution labelled opponents as anarchists although few shared many views of later anarchists. There would be many revolutionaries of the early 19th century who contributed to the anarchist doctrines of the next generation, such as William Godwin and Wilhelm Weitling, but they did not use the word anarchist or anarchism in describing themselves or their beliefs.
The first political philosopher to call himself an anarchist was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, marking the formal birth of anarchism in the mid-19th century. Since the 1890s and beginning in France, the term libertarianism has often been used as a synonym for anarchism and its use as a synonym is still common outside the United States. On the other hand, some use libertarianism to refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, referring to free-market anarchism as libertarian anarchism.
While opposition to the state is central, defining anarchism is not an easy task as there is a lot of talk among scholars and anarchists on the matter and various currents perceive anarchism slightly differently. Hence, it might be true to say that anarchism is a cluster of political philosophies opposing authority and hierarchical organization (including the state, capitalism, nationalism and all associated institutions) in the conduct of all human relations in favour of a society based on voluntary association, freedom and decentralisation, but this definition has the same shortcomings as the definition based on etymology (which is simply a negation of a ruler), or based on anti-statism (anarchism is much more than that) or even the anti-authoritarian (which is an "a posteriori" conclusion). Major elements of the definition of anarchism include: a) the will for a non-coercive society; b) the rejection of the state apparatus; c) belief that human nature allows humans to exist in or progress toward such a non-coercive society; and d) a suggestion on how to act to pursue the ideal of anarchy.
During the prehistoric era of mankind, an established authority did not exist. It was after the creation of towns and cities that hierarchy was invented and anarchistic ideas espoused as a reaction. Most notable examples of anarchism in the ancient world were in China and Greece. In China, philosophical anarchism, meaning peaceful delegitimizing of the state, was delineated by Taoist philosophers (i.e. Zhuangzi and Lao Tzu). Likewise in Greece, anarchist attitudes were articulated by tragedians and philosophers. Aeschylus and Sophocles used the myth of Antigone to illustrate the conflict between rules set by the state and personal autonomy. Socrates questioned Athenian authorities constantly and insisted to the right of individual freedom of consciousness. Cynics dismissed human law ("Nomos") and associated authorities while trying to live according to nature ("physis"). Stoics were supportive of a society based on unofficial and friendly relations among its citizens without the presence of a state.
During the Middle Ages, there was no anarchistic activity except some ascetic religious movements in the Islamic world or in Christian Europe. This kind of tradition later gave birth to religious anarchism. In Persia, a Zoroastrian Prophet known as Mazdak was calling for an egalitarian society and the abolition of monarchy, but he soon found himself executed by the king. In Basra, religious sects preached against the state. In Europe, various sects developed anti-state and libertarian tendencies. Those currents were the precursor of religious anarchism in the centuries to come. It was in the Renaissance and with the spread of reasoning and humanism through Europe that libertarian ideas emerged. Writers were outlining in their novels ideal societies that were based not on coercion but voluntarism. The Enlightenment further pushed towards anarchism with the optimism for social progress.
The turning point towards anarchism was the French Revolution in which the anti-state and federalist sentiments began to take a form, mostly by Enragés and "sans-culottes". Some prominent figures of anarchism begun developing the first anarchist currents. That is the era of classical anarchism that lasted until the end of the Spanish Civil War of 1936 and was the golden age of anarchism. William Godwin espoused philosophical anarchism in England morally delegitimizing the state, Max Stirner's thinking paved the way to individualism and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's theory of mutualism found fertile soil in France.
Michael Bakunin took mutualism and extended it to collectivist anarchism. Bakunin's current (Jura Federation) entered the class worker union called the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), later known as the First International, formed in 1864 to unite diverse revolutionary currents. Due to its links to active workers' movements, the International became a significant organisation. Karl Marx became a leading figure in the International and a member of its General Council. Proudhon's followers, the mutualists, opposed Marx's state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings. Bakunin's followers entered a bitter dispute with Karl Marx which ended with the split of the workers movement that officially took place in the Fifth Congress of the IWA in the Hague, 1872. The major reason lay in fundamentally different approaches on how the workers would emancipate themselves. Marx was advocating for the creation of a political party to take part in electoral struggles whereas Bakunin thought that the whole set of Marx's thinking was very authoritarian. Bakunin is famous for predicting that if such a party would gain power by Marxist's terms, it would end up to be the new tyrant of workers. After being expelled from the IWA, anarchists formed the St. Imier International. Under the influence of Peter Kropotkin, a Russian philosopher and scientist, anarcho-communism overlapped collectivism. Anarcho-communists, who drew inspiration from the 1871 Paris Commune, advocated for free federation and distribution of goods according to one needs. The major argument of anarcho-communism was that Bakunian perspective would lead to antagonism among collectives.
At the turning of the century, anarchism has spread all over the world. In China, small groups of students imported the humanistic pro-science version of anarcho-communism. Tokyo was a hotspot for rebellious youth from countries of the far east, pouring into Japanese capital to study. In Latin America, São Paulo was a stronghold and anarchosyndicalism was the most prominent left-wing ideology. During that time, a minority of anarchists embarked into utilizing of violence in order to achieve their political ends. This kind of strategy is named as propaganda by the deed. The dismemberment of the French socialist movement into many groups and the execution and exile of many Communards to penal colonies following the suppression of the Paris Commune favoured individualist political expression and acts. Even though many anarchists distanced themselves to those terrorist acts, anarchists were persecuted and were given bad fame. Illegalism, stealing the possessions of the rich because capitalists were not their rightful owners, was another strategy some anarchist adopted during the same years.
Anarchists took part enthusiastically in the Russian Revolution. During the revolution, anarchists had concerns, but they opted for the revolution rather than supporting the Whites. However, they met harsh suppression after the Bolshevik government was stabilized. Anarchists in central Russia were either imprisoned, driven underground or joined the victorious Bolsheviks. Anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow instead fled to Ukraine. The Kronstadt rebellion and Nestor Makhno's struggle in the Free Territory were the most notable examples. With the anarchists being crashed in Russia, two new antithetical currents emerged, namely platformism and synthesis anarchism. Platformists sought to create a coherent group that would push for the revolution while the latter were against anything that would resemble a political party. The victory of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War did serious damage to anarchist movements internationally. Many workers and activists saw the Bolshevik success as setting an example and communist parties grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the United States, members of the major syndicalist movements of the General Confederation of Labour and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) left the organisations and joined the Communist International.
In the Spanish Civil War, anarchists and syndicalists (CNT and FAI) once again allied themselves with various currents of leftists. Spain had a long anarchist tradition and anarchists played an important role in the Civil War. In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain where they collectivised the land. The Soviet Union provided some limited assistance at the beginning of the Civil War, but as Joseph Stalin tried to seize control of the Republicans the result was a bitter fight among communists and anarchists (i.e. at a series of events named May Days).
In the first years after World War II, the anarchist movement was severely damaged. However, the 1960s witnessed a revival of anarchism. The main causes of such a revival may have been the perceived failure of Marxism–Leninism and the tension build by the Cold War. During this era, anarchism was mostly part of other movements critical to both the state and capitalism such as the anti-nuclear, environmental and pacifist movements, the New Left, or the counterculture of the 1960s. Anarchism was also associated with the punk rock movement as exemplified by bands such as Crass and the Sex Pistols. Although feminist tendencies have always been a part of the anarchist movement in the form of anarcha-feminism, they returned with vigour during the second wave of feminism in the 1960s.
Around the turn of the 21st century, anarchism grew in popularity and influence as part of the anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movements. Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against the meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Group of Eight (G8) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Some anarchist factions at these protests engaged in rioting, property destruction and violent confrontations with the police. These actions were precipitated by "ad hoc", leaderless, anonymous cadres known as black blocs—other organisational tactics pioneered in this time include security culture, affinity groups and the use of decentralised technologies such as the internet. A significant event of this period was the confrontations at the WTO conference in Seattle in 1999. Anarchist ideas have been influential in the development of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, more commonly known as Rojava, a "de facto" autonomous region in northern Syria.
Anarchist schools of thought had been generally grouped in two main historical traditions (individualist anarchism and social anarchism) which have some different origins, values and evolution. The individualist wing of anarchism emphasises negative liberty (opposition to state or social control over the individual) while those in the social wing emphasise positive liberty to achieve one's potential and argue that humans have needs that society ought to fulfil, "recognising equality of entitlement". In a chronological and theoretical sense, there are classical—those created throughout the 19th century—and post-classical anarchist schools—those created since the mid-20th century and after.
Beyond the specific factions of anarchist thought is philosophical anarchism which the theoretical stance that the state lacks moral legitimacy without accepting the imperative of revolution to eliminate it. A component especially of individualist anarchism, philosophical anarchism may accept the existence of a minimal state as unfortunate and usually temporary, necessary evil, but argue that citizens do not have a moral obligation to obey the state when its laws conflict with individual autonomy. One reaction against sectarianism within the anarchist milieu was anarchism without adjectives, a call for toleration first adopted by Fernando Tarrida del Mármol in 1889 in response to the bitter debates of anarchist theory at the time. In abandoning the hyphenated anarchisms (i.e. collectivist-, communist-, mutualist- and individualist-anarchism), it sought to emphasise the anti-authoritarian beliefs common to all anarchist schools of thought. The various anarchist schools of thought or currents are not distinct entities, but intermingle with each other.
Collectivist and communist anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism are all considered to be forms of social anarchism. Mutualism and individualism were the other notable anarchist currents through the 19th and early 20th century. Social anarchism rejects private property, seeing it as a source of social inequality (while retaining respect for personal property) and emphasises cooperation and mutual aid.
Mutualism began in 18th-century English and French labour movements before taking an anarchist form associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in France and others in the United States. Proudhon proposed spontaneous order, whereby organisation emerges without central authority, a "positive anarchy" where order arises when everybody does "what he wishes and only what he wishes" and where "business transactions alone produce the social order".
Proudhon distinguished between ideal political possibilities and practical governance. For this reason, much in contrast to some of his theoretical statements concerning ultimate spontaneous self-governance, Proudhon was heavily involved in French parliamentary politics and allied himself with the socialist factions of the workers movement. During his life of public service, he began advocating state-protected charters for worker-owned cooperatives and promoting certain nationalisation schemes.
Mutualist anarchism is concerned with reciprocity, free association, voluntary contract, federation and credit and currency reform. According to the American mutualist William Batchelder Greene, each worker in the mutualist system would receive "just and exact pay for his work; services equivalent in cost being exchangeable for services equivalent in cost, without profit or discount". Mutualism has been retrospectively characterised as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism. Proudhon first characterised his goal as a "third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property [which] we call LIBERTY".
Collectivist anarchism, also referred to as revolutionary socialism or a form of such, is a revolutionary form of anarchism, commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin and Johann Most.
At the epicentre of collectivist anarchism lies the belief in the potential of humankind for goodness and solidarity which will flourish when oppressive governments are abolished. Collectivist anarchists oppose all private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating that ownership be collectivised. This was to be achieved through violent revolution, first starting with a small cohesive group through acts of violence, or propaganda by the deed, to inspire the workers as a whole to revolt and forcibly collectivise the means of production. However, collectivisation was not to be extended to the distribution of income as workers would be paid according to time worked, rather than receiving goods being distributed according to need as in anarcho-communism. This position was criticised by anarcho-communists as effectively "uphold[ing] the wages system". Collectivist anarchism arose contemporaneously with Marxism, but it opposed the Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat despite the stated Marxist goal of a collectivist stateless society.
Anarchist, communist and collectivist ideas are not mutually exclusive—although the collectivist anarchists advocated compensation for labour, some held out the possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to a communist system of distribution according to need.
Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist-communism, communist anarchism and libertarian communism, is a theory of anarchism that advocates abolition of the state, markets, money, private property (while retaining respect for personal property) and capitalism in favour of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
Anarcho-communism developed out of radical socialist currents after the French Revolution, but it was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International. The theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin took importance later as it expanded and developed pro-organisationalist and insurrectionary anti-organisationalist sections.
To date, the best known examples of an anarcho-communist society (i.e. established around the ideas as they exist today and achieving worldwide attention and knowledge in the historical canon), are the anarchist territories during the Spanish Revolution and the Free Territory during the Russian Revolution. Through the efforts and influence of the Spanish anarchists during the Spanish Revolution within the Spanish Civil War starting in 1936, anarcho-communism existed in most of Aragon, parts of the Levante and Andalusia as well as in the stronghold of Catalonia. Along with the Republicans, it was crushed by the combined forces of the Francisco Franco's Nationalists, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini as well as repression by the Communist Party of Spain (backed by the Soviet Union) and economic and armaments blockades from the capitalist countries and the Spanish Republic itself.
Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism that focuses on the labour movement.
Anarcho-syndicalists view labour unions as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society democratically self-managed by workers. The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are workers' solidarity, direct action and workers' self-management. Anarcho-syndicalists believe that only direct action—that is, action concentrated on directly attaining a goal as opposed to indirect action such as electing a representative to a government position—will allow workers to liberate themselves.
Moreover, anarcho-syndicalists believe that workers' organisations (the organisations that struggle against the wage system 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 all the decisions that affect them themselves. Rudolf Rocker was one of the most popular voices in the anarcho-syndicalist movement. He outlined a view of the origins of the movement, what it sought and why it was important to the future of labour in his 1938 pamphlet "Anarcho-Syndicalism". The International Workers Association is an international anarcho-syndicalist federation of various labour unions from different countries. The Spanish CNT played and still plays a major role in the Spanish labour movement. It was also an important force in the Spanish Civil War.
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasise the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy, but it instead refers to a group of individualistic philosophies that sometimes are in conflict.
In 1793, William Godwin, who has often been cited as the first anarchist, wrote "Political Justice", which some consider the first expression of anarchism. Godwin was a philosophical anarchist and from a rationalist and utilitarian basis opposed revolutionary action and saw a minimal state as a present "necessary evil" that would become increasingly irrelevant and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge. Godwin advocated individualism, proposing that all cooperation in labour be eliminated on the premise that this would be most conducive with the general good.
An influential form of individualist anarchism called egoism, or egoist anarchism, was expounded by one of the earliest and best-known proponents of individualist anarchism, the German Max Stirner. Stirner's "The Ego and Its Own", published in 1844, is a founding text of the philosophy. According to Stirner, the only limitation on the rights of individuals is their power to obtain what they desire without regard for God, state, or morality. To Stirner, rights were "spooks" in the mind and he held that society does not exist, but "the individuals are its reality". Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw unions of egoists, non-systematic associations continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will, which Stirner proposed as a form of organisation in place of the state. Egoist anarchists argue that egoism will foster genuine and spontaneous union between individuals. "Egoism" has inspired many interpretations of Stirner's philosophy. It was re-discovered and promoted by German philosophical anarchist and homosexual activist John Henry Mackay.
Josiah Warren was a pioneer American anarcho-individualist, who drew inspiration from Proudhon. Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an important early influence in individualist anarchist thought in the United States and Europe. Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his books "Walden", a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, as well as his essay, "Civil Disobedience", an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Benjamin Tucker later fused Stirner's egoism with the economics of Warren and Proudhon in his eclectic influential publication "Liberty".
From these early influences, individualist anarchism in different countries attracted a small yet diverse following of Bohemian artists and intellectuals, free love and birth control advocates (see anarchism and issues related to love and sex), individualist naturists and nudists (see anarcho-naturism), freethought and anti-clerical activists as well as young anarchist outlaws in what became known as illegalism and individual reclamation (see European individualist anarchism and individualist anarchism in France). These authors and activists included Oscar Wilde, Emile Armand, Han Ryner, Henri Zisly, Renzo Novatore, Miguel Gimenez Igualada, Adolf Brand and Lev Chernyi, among others.
Anarchist principles undergird contemporary radical social movements of the left. Interest in the anarchist movement developed alongside momentum in the anti-globalization movement, whose leading activist networks were anarchist in orientation. As the movement shaped 21st century radicalism, wider embrace of anarchist principles signaled a revival of interest. Contemporary news coverage which emphasizes black bloc demonstrations has reinforced anarchism's historical association with chaos and violence, though its publicity has also led more scholars to engage with the anarchist movement. Anarchism continues to generate many philosophies and movements, at times eclectic, drawing upon various sources and syncretic, combining disparate concepts to create new philosophical approaches.
Anticapitalism stays prominent within contemporary anarchism, continuing the tradition of classical anarchism.
Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice and tendency within the anarchist movement which emphasises insurrection within anarchist practice. Critical of formal organisations such as labour unions and federations that are based on a political programme and periodic congresses, insurrectionary anarchists instead advocate informal organisation and small affinity group based organisation as well as putting value in attack, permanent class conflict and a refusal to negotiate or compromise with class enemies.
Green anarchism, or eco-anarchism, is a school of thought within anarchism that emphasises environmental issues, with an important precedent in anarcho-naturism and whose main contemporary currents are anarcho-primitivism and social ecology. Writing from a green anarchist perspective, John Zerzan attributes the ills of today's social degradation to technology and the birth of agricultural civilization. While Layla AbdelRahim argues that "the shift in human consciousness was also a shift in human subsistence strategies, whereby some human animals reinvented their narrative to center murder and predation and thereby institutionalize violence". According to AbdelRahim, civilization was the result of the human development of technologies and grammar for predatory economics. Language and literacy, she claims, are some of these technologies.
Anarcho-pacifism is a tendency that rejects violence in the struggle for social change (see non-violence). It developed mostly in the Netherlands, Britain and the United States before and during the Second World War. Christian anarchism is a movement in political theology that combines anarchism and Christianity. Its main proponents included Leo Tolstoy, Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy and Jacques Ellul.
Religious anarchism refers to a set of related anarchist ideologies that are inspired by the teachings of religions. While many anarchists have traditionally been sceptical of and opposed to organized religion, many different religions have served as inspiration for religious forms of anarchism, most notably Christianity as Christian anarchists believe that biblical teachings give credence to anarchist philosophy. Other examples include Buddhist anarchism, Jewish anarchism and most recently Neopaganism.
Synthesis anarchism is a form of anarchism that tries to join anarchists of different tendencies under the principles of anarchism without adjectives. In the 1920s, this form found as its main proponents the anarcho-communists Voline and Sébastien Faure. It is the main principle behind the anarchist federations grouped around the contemporary global International of Anarchist Federations.
Platformism is a tendency within the wider anarchist movement based on the organisational theories in the tradition of Dielo Truda's "Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft)". The document was based on the experiences of Russian anarchists in the 1917 October Revolution which led eventually to the victory of the Bolsheviks over the anarchists and other groups. The "Platform" attempted to address and explain the anarchist movement's failures during the Russian Revolution.
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchism's relationship to traditional left-wing politics. Some post-leftists seek to escape the confines of ideology in general also presenting a critique of organisations and morality. Influenced by the work of Max Stirner and by the Marxist Situationist International, post-left anarchy is marked by a focus on social insurrection and a rejection of leftist social organisation.
Post-anarchism is a theoretical move towards a synthesis of classical anarchist theory and poststructuralist thought, drawing from diverse ideas including post-left anarchy, postmodernism, autonomism, postcolonialism and the Situationist International.
Queer anarchism is a form of socialism which suggests anarchism as a solution to the issues faced by the LGBT community, mainly heteronormativity, homophobia, transphobia and biphobia. It arose during the late 20th century based on the work of Michel Foucault's "The History of Sexuality" (1976).
Left-wing market anarchism strongly affirm the classical liberal ideas of self-ownership and free markets while maintaining that taken to their logical conclusions these ideas support strongly anti-capitalist, anti-corporatist, anti-hierarchical and pro-labour positions in economics; anti-imperialism in foreign policy; and thoroughly radical views regarding such cultural issues as gender, sexuality and race.
Anarcho-capitalism advocates the elimination of the state in favour of self-ownership in a free market. Anarcho-capitalism developed from radical American anti-state libertarianism and individualist anarchism, drawing from Austrian School economics, study of law and economics and public choice theory. There is a strong current within anarchism which believes that anarcho-capitalism cannot be considered a part of the anarchist movement due to the fact that anarchism has historically been an anti-capitalist movement and for definitional reasons which see anarchism as incompatible with capitalist forms.
Anarcho-transhumanism is a recently new branch of anarchism that takes traditional and modern anarchism, typically drawing from anarcho-syndicalism, left-libertarianism, or libertarian socialism, and combines it with transhumanism and post-humanism. It can be described as a "liberal democratic revolution, at its core the idea that people are happiest when they have rational control over their lives. Reason, science, and technology provide one kind of control, slowly freeing us from ignorance, toil, pain, disease and limited lifespans (aging)". Some anarcho-transhumanists might also follow technogaianism.
Anarcha-feminism, also called anarchist feminism and anarcho-feminism, combines anarchism with feminism. It generally views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary coercive hierarchy that should be replaced by decentralised free association. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle and the anarchist struggle against the state. In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice versa. Anarcha-feminists espoused to a detailed analysis of patriarchy and claim that oppression has its roots to social norms.
Anarcha-feminism began with the late 19th-century writings of early feminist anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre. Mujeres Libres was an anarchist women's organisation in Spain that aimed to empower working class women, based on the idea of a double struggle for women's liberation and social revolution and argued that the two objectives were equally important and should be pursued in parallel. In order to gain mutual support, they created networks of women anarchists. The second wave of anarcha-feminism arose in the 1960s.
As anarchism is a philosophy that embodies many diverse attitudes, tendencies and schools of thought and as such disagreement over questions of values, ideology and tactics is common, its diversity has led to widely different use of identical terms among different anarchist traditions which has led to many definitional concerns in anarchist theory. For instance, the compatibility of capitalism, nationalism and religion with anarchism is widely disputed. Similarly, anarchism enjoys complex relationships with ideologies such as Marxism, communism, collectivism and trade unionism. Anarchists may be motivated by humanism, divine authority, enlightened self-interest, veganism, or any number of alternative ethical doctrines. Phenomena such as civilisation, technology (e.g. within anarcho-primitivism) and the democratic process may be sharply criticised within some anarchist tendencies and simultaneously lauded in others. On a tactical level, propaganda of the deed was a tactic used by anarchists in the 19th century (e.g. the nihilist movement), with some contemporary anarchists espousing alternative direct action methods such as nonviolence, counter-economics and anti-state cryptography to bring about an anarchist society. About the scope of an anarchist society, some anarchists advocate a global one while others do so by local ones.
Intersecting and overlapping between various schools of thought, certain topics of interest and internal disputes have proven perennial within anarchist theory.
An important current within anarchism is free love. In Europe, the main propagandist of free love within individualist anarchism was Emile Armand. He proposed the concept of "la camaraderie amoureuse" to speak of free love as the possibility of voluntary sexual encounter between consenting adults. He was also a consistent proponent of polyamory. In Germany, the Stirnerists Adolf Brand and John Henry Mackay were pioneering campaigners for the acceptance of male bisexuality and homosexuality. More recently, the British anarcho-pacifist Alex Comfort gained notoriety during the sexual revolution for writing the bestseller sex manual "The Joy of Sex". The issue of free love has a dedicated treatment in the work of French anarcho-hedonist philosopher Michel Onfray in such works as "Théorie du corps amoureux. Pour une érotique solaire" (2000) and "L'invention du plaisir. Fragments cyréaniques" (2002).
English anarchist William Godwin considered education an important aspect. He was against state education as he considered those schools as a way of the state to replicate privileges of the ruling class. Godwin thought that education was the way to change the world. In his "Political Justice", he criticises state sponsored schooling and advocates for child's protection from coercion. Max Stirner wrote in 1842 a long essay on education called "The False Principle of our Education" in which Stirner was advocating for child's autonomy.
In 1901, Catalan anarchist and free thinker Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia established modern or progressive schools in Barcelona in defiance of an educational system controlled by the Catholic Church. Ferrer's approach was secular, rejecting both the state and church involvement in the educational process and gave pupils plenty of autonomy (i.e. on setting the curriculum). Ferrer was aiming to educate the working class. The school closed after constant harassment by the state and Ferrer was later on arrested. Ferrer's ideas generally formed the inspiration for a series of modern schools in the United States,
Russian Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy established a school for peasant children on his estate. Tolstoy's educational experiments were short-lived due to harassment by the Tsarist secret police. Tolstoy established a conceptual difference between education and culture. He thought that "[e]ducation is the tendency of one man to make another just like himself. [...] Education is culture under restraint, culture is free. [Education is] when the teaching is forced upon the pupil, and when then instruction is exclusive, that is when only those subjects are taught which the educator regards as necessary". For him, "without compulsion, education was transformed into culture".
A more recent libertarian tradition on education is that of unschooling and the free school in which child-led activity replaces pedagogic approaches. Experiments in Germany led to A. S. Neill founding what became Summerhill School in 1921. Summerhill is often cited as an example of anarchism in practice. However, although Summerhill and other free schools are radically libertarian, they differ in principle from those of Ferrer by not advocating an overtly political class struggle-approach. In addition to organising schools according to libertarian principles, anarchists have also questioned the concept of schooling per se. The term deschooling was popularised by Ivan Illich, who argued that the school as an institution is dysfunctional for self-determined learning and serves the creation of a consumer society instead.
Objection to the state and its institutions is "sine qua non" of anarchism. Anarchists consider the government as a tool of domination and it is illegitimate regardless of political tendencies. Instead of people being able to control the aspects of their life, major decisions are taken by a small elite. Authority ultimately rests solely on power regardless if it is open or transparent as it still has the ability to coerce people. Another anarchist argument against states is that some people constituting a government, even the most altruistic among officials, will unavoidably seek to gain more power, leading to corruption. Anarchists consider the argument that the state is the collective will of people as a fairy tale since the ruling class is distinct from the rest of the society.
Anarchist perspectives towards violence have always been perplexed and controversial. On one hand, anarcho-pacifists point out the unity of means and ends. On the other hand, other groups of anarchist are for direct action that can include sabotage or even terrorism. Emma Goldman and Errico Malatesta, who were proponents of limited use of violence, were arguing that violence is merely a reaction to state violence as a necessary evil. Peace activist and anarchist April Carter argues that violence is incompatible with anarchism because it is mostly associated with the state and authority as violence is immanent to the state. As the state's capability to exercise violence is colossal nowadays, a rebellion or civil war would probably end in another authoritarian institute.
Anarchist tactics vary considerably. A broad categorization would be the preference of revolutionary tactics to destroy oppressive States and institutions or aiming to change society through evolutionary means. Revolutionary methods can take violent form as they did in past insurgencies (i.e., in Spain, Mexico, Russia) or during violent protests by militant protestors such as the black bloc, who are generally much less violent than revolutionary movements a century ago. Anarchists also commonly employ direct action, which can take the form of disrupting and protesting against unjust hierarchies, or the form of self-managing their lives through the creation of counterinstitutions such as communes and non-hierarchical collectives. Often decision-making is handled in an anti-authoritarian way, with everyone having equal say in each decision, an approach known as horizontalism. Another aspect of anarchist tactics is their aim to strengthen social bonds through common actions.
Reclaiming public space by anarchists is another method of creating social spaces and creating squats in order to organise themselves. During important events such as protests, when spaces are being occupied, they are often called 
"Temporary Autonomous Zones" (TAZ).
Moral and pragmatic criticism of anarchism includes allegations of utopianism, tacit authoritarianism and vandalism towards feats of civilization.
Anarchism is evaluated as unfeasible or utopian by its critics, often in general and formal debate. European history professor Carl Landauer argued that social anarchism is unrealistic and that government is a "lesser evil" than a society without "repressive force". He also argued that "ill intentions will cease if repressive force disappears" is an "absurdity". However, "An Anarchist FAQ" states the following: "Anarchy is not a utopia, [and] anarchists make no such claims about human perfection. [...] Remaining disputes would be solved by reasonable methods, for example, the use of juries, mutual third parties, or community and workplace assemblies". It also states that "some sort of 'court' system would still be necessary to deal with the remaining crimes and to adjudicate disputes between citizens".
The anarchist tendency known as platformism has been criticized by Situationists, insurrectionaries, synthesis anarchists and others of preserving tacitly statist, authoritarian or bureaucratic tendencies.
In his essay "On Authority", Friedrich Engels claimed that radical decentralization promoted by anarchists would destroy modern industrial civilization, citing an example of railways: 
In the end, it is argued that authority in any form is a natural occurrence which should not be abolished.
Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by difficulties with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. Parents usually notice signs during the first three years of their child's life. These signs often develop gradually, though some children with autism reach their developmental milestones at a normal pace before worsening.
Autism is associated with a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Risk factors during pregnancy include certain infections, such as rubella, toxins including valproic acid, alcohol, cocaine, pesticides and air pollution, fetal growth restriction, and autoimmune diseases. Controversies surround other proposed environmental causes; for example, the vaccine hypothesis, which has been disproven. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering connections and organization of nerve cells and their synapses. How this occurs is not well understood. In the DSM-5, autism and less severe forms of the condition, including Asperger syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), have been combined into the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Early speech therapy or behavioral interventions can help children with autism gain self-care, social, and communication skills. Although there is no known cure, there have been cases of children who recovered. Not many children with autism live independently after reaching adulthood, though some are successful. An autistic culture has developed, with some individuals seeking a cure and others believing autism should be accepted as a difference and not treated as a disorder.
Globally, autism is estimated to affect 24.8 million people . In the 2000s, the number of people affected was estimated at 1–2 per 1,000 people worldwide. In the developed countries, about 1.5% of children are diagnosed with ASD , from 0.7% in 2000 in the United States. It occurs four-to-five times more often in males than females. The number of people diagnosed has increased dramatically since the 1960s, partly due to changes in diagnostic practice. The question of whether actual rates have increased is unresolved.
Autism is a highly variable neurodevelopmental disorder that first appears during infancy or childhood, and generally follows a steady course without remission. People with autism may be severely impaired in some respects but normal, or even superior, in others. Overt symptoms gradually begin after the age of six months, become established by age two or three years and tend to continue through adulthood, although often in more muted form. It is distinguished not by a single symptom but by a characteristic triad of symptoms: impairments in social interaction; impairments in communication; and restricted interests and repetitive behavior. Other aspects, such as atypical eating, are also common but are not essential for diagnosis. Individual symptoms of autism occur in the general population and appear not to associate highly, without a sharp line separating pathologically severe from common traits.
Social deficits distinguish autism and the related autism spectrum disorders (ASD; see Classification) from other developmental disorders. People with autism have social impairments and often lack the intuition about others that many people take for granted. Noted autistic Temple Grandin described her inability to understand the social communication of neurotypicals, or people with normal neural development, as leaving her feeling "like an anthropologist on Mars".
Unusual social development becomes apparent early in childhood. Autistic infants show less attention to social stimuli, smile and look at others less often, and respond less to their own name. Autistic toddlers differ more strikingly from social norms; for example, they have less eye contact and turn-taking, and do not have the ability to use simple movements to express themselves, such as pointing at things. Three- to five-year-old children with autism are less likely to exhibit social understanding, approach others spontaneously, imitate and respond to emotions, communicate nonverbally, and take turns with others. However, they do form attachments to their primary caregivers. Most children with autism display moderately less attachment security than neurotypical children, although this difference disappears in children with higher mental development or less severe ASD. Older children and adults with ASD perform worse on tests of face and emotion recognition although this may be partly due to a lower ability to define a person's own emotions.
Children with high-functioning autism suffer from more intense and frequent loneliness compared to non-autistic peers, despite the common belief that children with autism prefer to be alone. Making and maintaining friendships often proves to be difficult for those with autism. For them, the quality of friendships, not the number of friends, predicts how lonely they feel. Functional friendships, such as those resulting in invitations to parties, may affect the quality of life more deeply.
There are many anecdotal reports, but few systematic studies, of aggression and violence in individuals with ASD. The limited data suggest that, in children with intellectual disability, autism is associated with aggression, destruction of property, and meltdowns.
About a third to a half of individuals with autism do not develop enough natural speech to meet their daily communication needs. Differences in communication may be present from the first year of life, and may include delayed onset of babbling, unusual gestures, diminished responsiveness, and vocal patterns that are not synchronized with the caregiver. In the second and third years, children with autism have less frequent and less diverse babbling, consonants, words, and word combinations; their gestures are less often integrated with words. Children with autism are less likely to make requests or share experiences, and are more likely to simply repeat others' words (echolalia) or reverse pronouns. Joint attention seems to be necessary for functional speech, and deficits in joint attention seem to distinguish infants with ASD. For example, they may look at a pointing hand instead of the pointed-at object, and they consistently fail to point at objects in order to comment on or share an experience. Children with autism may have difficulty with imaginative play and with developing symbols into language.
In a pair of studies, high-functioning children with autism aged 8–15 performed equally well as, and as adults better than, individually matched controls at basic language tasks involving vocabulary and spelling. Both autistic groups performed worse than controls at complex language tasks such as figurative language, comprehension and inference. As people are often sized up initially from their basic language skills, these studies suggest that people speaking to autistic individuals are more likely to overestimate what their audience comprehends.
Autistic individuals can display many forms of repetitive or restricted behavior, which the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R) categorizes as follows.
No single repetitive or self-injurious behavior seems to be specific to autism, but autism appears to have an elevated pattern of occurrence and severity of these behaviors.
Autistic individuals may have symptoms that are independent of the diagnosis, but that can affect the individual or the family.
An estimated 0.5% to 10% of individuals with ASD show unusual abilities, ranging from splinter skills such as the memorization of trivia to the extraordinarily rare talents of prodigious autistic savants. Many individuals with ASD show superior skills in perception and attention, relative to the general population. Sensory abnormalities are found in over 90% of those with autism, and are considered core features by some, although there is no good evidence that sensory symptoms differentiate autism from other developmental disorders. Differences are greater for under-responsivity (for example, walking into things) than for over-responsivity (for example, distress from loud noises) or for sensation seeking (for example, rhythmic movements). An estimated 60–80% of autistic people have motor signs that include poor muscle tone, poor motor planning, and toe walking; deficits in motor coordination are pervasive across ASD and are greater in autism proper. Unusual eating behavior occurs in about three-quarters of children with ASD, to the extent that it was formerly a diagnostic indicator. Selectivity is the most common problem, although eating rituals and food refusal also occur.
Parents of children with ASD have higher levels of stress. Siblings of children with ASD report greater admiration of and less conflict with the affected sibling than siblings of unaffected children and were similar to siblings of children with Down syndrome in these aspects of the sibling relationship. However, they reported lower levels of closeness and intimacy than siblings of children with Down syndrome; siblings of individuals with ASD have greater risk of negative well-being and poorer sibling relationships as adults. There is tentative evidence that autism occurs more frequently in people with gender dysphoria.
Gastrointestinal problems are one of the most commonly associated medical disorders in people with autism. These are linked to greater social impairment, irritability, behavior and sleep problems, language impairments and mood changes.
It has long been presumed that there is a common cause at the genetic, cognitive, and neural levels for autism's characteristic triad of symptoms. However, there is increasing suspicion that autism is instead a complex disorder whose core aspects have distinct causes that often co-occur.
Autism has a strong genetic basis, although the genetics of autism are complex and it is unclear whether ASD is explained more by rare mutations with major effects, or by rare multigene interactions of common genetic variants. Complexity arises due to interactions among multiple genes, the environment, and epigenetic factors which do not change DNA sequencing but are heritable and influence gene expression. Many genes have been associated with autism through sequencing the genomes of affected individuals and their parents. Studies of twins suggest that heritability is 0.7 for autism and as high as 0.9 for ASD, and siblings of those with autism are about 25 times more likely to be autistic than the general population. However, most of the mutations that increase autism risk have not been identified. Typically, autism cannot be traced to a Mendelian (single-gene) mutation or to a single chromosome abnormality, and none of the genetic syndromes associated with ASDs have been shown to selectively cause ASD. Numerous candidate genes have been located, with only small effects attributable to any particular gene. Most loci individually explain less than 1% of cases of autism. The large number of autistic individuals with unaffected family members may result from spontaneous structural variation — such as deletions, duplications or inversions in genetic material during meiosis. Hence, a substantial fraction of autism cases may be traceable to genetic causes that are highly heritable but not inherited: that is, the mutation that causes the autism is not present in the parental genome. Autism may be underdiagnosed in women and girls due to an assumption that it is primarily a male condition.
Maternal nutrition and inflammation during preconception and pregnancy influences fetal neurodevelopment. Intrauterine growth restriction is associated with ASD, in both term and preterm infants. Maternal inflammatory and autoimmune diseases may damage fetal tissues, aggravating a genetic problem or damaging the nervous system.
Exposure to air pollution during pregnancy, especially heavy metals and particulates, may increase the risk of autism. Environmental factors that have been claimed without evidence to contribute to or exacerbate autism include certain foods, infectious diseases, solvents, PCBs, phthalates and phenols used in plastic products, pesticides, brominated flame retardants, alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs, vaccines, and prenatal stress. Some, such as the MMR vaccine, have been completely disproven.
Parents may first become aware of autistic symptoms in their child around the time of a routine vaccination. This has led to unsupported theories blaming vaccine "overload", a vaccine preservative, or the MMR vaccine for causing autism. The latter theory was supported by a litigation-funded study that has since been shown to have been "an elaborate fraud". Although these theories lack convincing scientific evidence and are biologically implausible, parental concern about a potential vaccine link with autism has led to lower rates of childhood immunizations, outbreaks of previously controlled childhood diseases in some countries, and the preventable deaths of several children.
Autism's symptoms result from maturation-related changes in various systems of the brain. How autism occurs is not well understood. Its mechanism can be divided into two areas: the pathophysiology of brain structures and processes associated with autism, and the neuropsychological linkages between brain structures and behaviors. The behaviors appear to have multiple pathophysiologies.
There is evidence that gut–brain axis abnormalities may be involved. A 2015 review proposed that immune dysregulation, gastrointestinal inflammation, malfunction of the autonomic nervous system, gut flora alterations, and food metabolites may cause brain neuroinflammation and dysfunction. A 2016 review concludes that enteric nervous system abnormalities might play a role in neurological disorders such as autism. Neural connections and the immune system are a pathway that may allow diseases originated in the intestine to spread to the brain.
Several lines of evidence point to synaptic dysfunction as a cause of autism. Some rare mutations may lead to autism by disrupting some synaptic pathways, such as those involved with cell adhesion. Gene replacement studies in mice suggest that autistic symptoms are closely related to later developmental steps that depend on activity in synapses and on activity-dependent changes. All known teratogens (agents that cause birth defects) related to the risk of autism appear to act during the first eight weeks from conception, and though this does not exclude the possibility that autism can be initiated or affected later, there is strong evidence that autism arises very early in development.
Diagnosis is based on behavior, not cause or mechanism. Under the DSM-5, autism is characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction across multiple contexts, as well as restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. These deficits are present in early childhood, typically before age three, and lead to clinically significant functional impairment. Sample symptoms include lack of social or emotional reciprocity, stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language, and persistent preoccupation with unusual objects. The disturbance must not be better accounted for by Rett syndrome, intellectual disability or global developmental delay. ICD-10 uses essentially the same definition.
Several diagnostic instruments are available. Two are commonly used in autism research: the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) is a semistructured parent interview, and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) uses observation and interaction with the child. The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) is used widely in clinical environments to assess severity of autism based on observation of children. The Diagnostic interview for social and communication disorders (DISCO) may also be used.
A pediatrician commonly performs a preliminary investigation by taking developmental history and physically examining the child. If warranted, diagnosis and evaluations are conducted with help from ASD specialists, observing and assessing cognitive, communication, family, and other factors using standardized tools, and taking into account any associated medical conditions. A pediatric neuropsychologist is often asked to assess behavior and cognitive skills, both to aid diagnosis and to help recommend educational interventions. A differential diagnosis for ASD at this stage might also consider intellectual disability, hearing impairment, and a specific language impairment such as Landau–Kleffner syndrome. The presence of autism can make it harder to diagnose coexisting psychiatric disorders such as depression.
Clinical genetics evaluations are often done once ASD is diagnosed, particularly when other symptoms already suggest a genetic cause. Although genetic technology allows clinical geneticists to link an estimated 40% of cases to genetic causes, consensus guidelines in the US and UK are limited to high-resolution chromosome and fragile X testing. A genotype-first model of diagnosis has been proposed, which would routinely assess the genome's copy number variations. As new genetic tests are developed several ethical, legal, and social issues will emerge. Commercial availability of tests may precede adequate understanding of how to use test results, given the complexity of autism's genetics. Metabolic and neuroimaging tests are sometimes helpful, but are not routine.
ASD can sometimes be diagnosed by age 14 months, although diagnosis becomes increasingly stable over the first three years of life: for example, a one-year-old who meets diagnostic criteria for ASD is less likely than a three-year-old to continue to do so a few years later. In the UK the National Autism Plan for Children recommends at most 30 weeks from first concern to completed diagnosis and assessment, though few cases are handled that quickly in practice. Although the symptoms of autism and ASD begin early in childhood, they are sometimes missed; years later, adults may seek diagnoses to help them or their friends and family understand themselves, to help their employers make adjustments, or in some locations to claim disability living allowances or other benefits. Girls are often diagnosed later than boys.
Underdiagnosis and overdiagnosis are problems in marginal cases, and much of the recent increase in the number of reported ASD cases is likely due to changes in diagnostic practices. The increasing popularity of drug treatment options and the expansion of benefits has given providers incentives to diagnose ASD, resulting in some overdiagnosis of children with uncertain symptoms. Conversely, the cost of screening and diagnosis and the challenge of obtaining payment can inhibit or delay diagnosis. It is particularly hard to diagnose autism among the visually impaired, partly because some of its diagnostic criteria depend on vision, and partly because autistic symptoms overlap with those of common blindness syndromes or blindisms.
Autism is one of the five pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), which are characterized by widespread abnormalities of social interactions and communication, and severely restricted interests and highly repetitive behavior. These symptoms do not imply sickness, fragility, or emotional disturbance.
Of the five PDD forms, Asperger syndrome is closest to autism in signs and likely causes; Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder share several signs with autism, but may have unrelated causes; PDD not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS; also called "atypical autism") is diagnosed when the criteria are not met for a more specific disorder. Unlike with autism, people with Asperger syndrome have no substantial delay in language development. The terminology of autism can be bewildering, with autism, Asperger syndrome and PDD-NOS often called the "autism spectrum disorders" (ASD) or sometimes the "autistic disorders", whereas autism itself is often called "autistic disorder", "childhood autism", or "infantile autism". In this article, "autism" refers to the classic autistic disorder; in clinical practice, though, "autism", "ASD", and "PDD" are often used interchangeably. ASD, in turn, is a subset of the broader autism phenotype, which describes individuals who may not have ASD but do have autistic-like traits, such as avoiding eye contact.
