Anarchism
/ˈænəkɪzəm/noun
The political doctrine that society should be organised by voluntary agreement rather than state authority.
The Greek roots
Literally: “without a ruler”
The story of the word
ἀρχή carries two senses at once, beginning and rule, so ἀναρχία can mean both without a ruler and without a first principle. Athens recorded 404 BC as the year of ἀναρχία, since the archon installed under the Thirty was not recognised as holding office at all, and for the next twenty-two centuries the word stayed a pure insult. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon turned it into a self-description in 1840, declaring himself an anarchist and meaning a society ordered by contract instead of command.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
Spanish anarchism ran unions, schools and clinics long before the war.
His anarchism was mostly a distaste for being told things.