Anarchism

Anarchism is a word which can be used in several senses:

• Anarchism (anti-capitalist) - refers to a political movement that opposes all forms of coercive authority, hierarchy, or social domination, including those found in governments and various economic systems like capitalism. This form of anarchism is a socialist movement which has included thinkers such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Emma Goldman, Benjamin Tucker and Max Stirner. This is the anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-statist movement seen in the Spanish Revolution, May 1968 in France, or the Ukrainian uprising against the Bolsheviks under Nestor Makhno, and a wide variety of other social uprisings and revolutions.

• Anarchism is also used to refer to any political philosophy which advocates a society that exists merely in the absence of the state, rather than in the absence of forms of both social hierarchy and government. Anarchism in this sense includes both socialist anarchism as well as more recent movements such as anarcho-capitalism and nationalist anarchism.