Anarchy Essay, Research Paper

Anarchy

The word anarchy comes from the Greek term meaning without a government. Anarchy is a form of government in which there is no government. The people under an anarchy have no rules or anyone to tell them what they can or can t do. An anarchist is someone how believes in an anarchy form of government and does acts to bring about this form of government.

The anarchist movement came about under the leadership of Mikhail Bakunin in the 1800 s. He wrote many books about anarchism such as Appeal to the Slavs, Revolutionary Catechism, and What is Authority. One of his most famous quotes is: “The urge to destroy is a also a creative urge.” Mikhail is believed to be one of the strongest believers in anarchism. He spent most of his life trying to gather people to revolt against the Russian Government. Mikhail believed that organized religion and centralized government were false and rejected their values. He believed in each community to rule itself. He stated that “labor must be the sole base of human right and the economic organization of the state.” He often used violence and terrorism to bring about revolution, which is still very common with anarchist today. He believed that amidst the ruins of the old government would form a new society in which anarchy would reign peacefully. He renounced the upper wealthy class of people and urged the peasants to unite together and over throw the higher class. Most of his philosophies are the bases of many anarchists beliefs still today.

Another famous anarchist is Pierre Joseph Proudhon a Frenchman known as the father of anarchy. He started the first massive anarchist movement. He led Frenchmen to over throw the Spanish government. He urged the voluntary cooperation of people without any regulations or government. The French Army defeated him and his followers but his philosophies still live on.

The most recent anarchist movement is going on in Albania. In which people are using extremely violent acts against the government to overthrow it.

Most people who are not anarchist believe that anarchy would be horrible and criminals and terrorists would cause chaos and havoc. But I believe that, that is not true, since usually terrorists act so in the name of anarchy. They may not state this but it is so. Terrorists only attack because they don t like the government. But if their were an anarchist form of government they would have no reason to attack people. There are many different forms of anarchism. One form is that towns rule themselves and decide everything. One of the most popular believes is that everyone rules their own life and no one else can tell them what or what they can t do. A true democracy form of society is some what close to anarchy. Since the people decide every little detail that rules their life. Some people say this is not true. They say look at the United States. They don t rule their own life. This is true but the United States in my believes is far from a true democracy. The United States by definition is a republican democracy. But the United States leans considerably towards a Republic ,in which people elect representatives to state their believes, since the people hardly ever vote actually on the laws that govern their lives.

Although religion is not a major concern in anarchy since you could follow what ever religion you wanted too religion can still have major factors in an anarchy form of society. If a community is filled with religious people where the religion believes in good intentions and peace, the community would work well. But if a community is mostly made up of people from a religion that tells people to hurt others and commit violent acts then it can turn out two ways. Everyone one would bond together because they follow the same religion or they could act violent towards each other because they are following their religious believes.

The symbol that represents anarchy is a circled capitol A. No one knows where this originated from but there are reports that an anarchist militia member in Spain had the symbol on the back of his helmet.