anarchy
Pluralanarchies
- 1A chaotic and confusing condition in which no political authority or government of any kind exists.
In the months after the war, anarchy reigned in the border towns, where no sheriff or court remained and every quarrel ended in gunfire.
When the regime collapsed overnight, the capital slid into a violent anarchy of looting and street fighting.
Similarlawlessness, chaos, disorder, mayhem
Oppositeorder
Note
Shelley's The Masque of Anarchy, written in 1819, gives this sense its face: a capitalized Anarchy whose triumph turns every heart sick with terror. Prose keeps the irony. The absence of any ruler is described as if it were a ruler, and anarchy reigns. Because the sense is countable, a single episode can be singled out: an anarchy, a violent anarchy.
- 2Disorder and confusion in any situation or area of activity, not just in matters of government.
Once the referee walked off, the pickup game was total anarchy, with players arguing over every call.
Her desk was a cheerful anarchy of notebooks, coffee cups, and unopened mail.
Similarchaos, disorder, mayhem, confusion, pandemonium
Oppositeorder, orderliness
Note
Economics gave this broad sense its sharpest use. Friedrich Engels set the organization of production inside each factory against the anarchy of production across society as a whole. Albert Einstein's “Why Socialism?” (1949) called the economic anarchy of capitalist society the real source of the evil. Hans-Hermann Hoppe later turned the phrase around, praising an “anarchy of production” in which no one rules anybody: a society without rulers, not disorder.
- 3A condition in which a society has no authorities and no governing body with power over it.
The commune's founders insisted that anarchy could be as orderly as any kingdom, because neighbors would settle their own disputes.
In the novel, the Mars colonists live in anarchy: no one issues orders, and every decision is reached together.
Note
The sense the word's parts spell out: an- 'without' plus -archy 'rule', via New Latin from Greek anarkhía. It means no rulers, not no rules, and anarchists claim it. Proudhon called it the absence of a master or sovereign and said society seeks order in it. Anselme Bellegarrigue's Anarchist Manifesto (1850) went further: anarchy is order, because government is civil war. Disorder belongs to the chaotic meaning.
Less common meaning
- 4A political theory that sees government as inherently coercive and holds that individuals cooperating voluntarily provide the best way to organize a community.
As a student he embraced anarchy, convinced that every government, however it comes to power, rests on coercion.
The seminar treated anarchy as a serious philosophy, weighing its claim that voluntary cooperation could run a city of a million people.
Similaranarchism
Note
As the name of a doctrine, the word is rare, and anarchism names the same theory more clearly. Bakunin, in 1873, equated anarchy with freedom: the free organization of the working masses from below upward, the final goal of social development. Use anarchy for the theory only where belief is plain, as something embraced or argued for. Otherwise readers will hear a society without rulers instead.
Practice
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Origin
From New Latin anarchia, which comes from Ancient Greek ἀναρχία (anarkhía). By surface analysis, it can be seen as an- + -archy.