英語中「anarchy」一詞源於中世紀拉丁語的「anarchia」一詞和希臘語的「anarchos」（意為「沒有統治者」）一詞，後者由否定性前綴「a-（英語：alpha privative）」和「archos」（意為「統治者」）兩部分組合而成，字面意義即為「沒有統治者」[4]。無政府主義的象徵之一的圓圈A由大寫字母「A」和大寫字母「O」組成，其中「A」代表眾多歐洲語言的「無政府主義」或「無政府狀態」的首個字母，西里爾字母和拉丁字母的相關用詞也有以A開頭的傾向。「O」則指秩序（order），合起來即表示皮埃爾-約瑟夫·普魯東曾在《什麼是所有權？》一書所寫的「社會在無政府狀態中尋求秩序[7]（法語：la société cherche l'ordre dans l'anarchie[5][6]）」。
在《無政府主義人類學碎片（英語：Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology）》一書中，無政府人類學家大衛·格雷伯試圖勾勒出知識分子在研究無政府主義的社會理論的凝聚力方面可以嘗試的研究領域，同時認為「這正是人類學特別能幫上忙的地方」[22]，因為人類學這一學科的主要內容即為觀察人類組織社會和社會活動的方方面面，研究、分析和編排世界各地的不同形式的社會和經濟結構，以及最重要的，向全世界展示其中最適合人類的社會組織形式[23]。
1656年，詹姆士·哈林頓在《大洋國（英語：The Commonwealth of Oceana）》一書中使用「無政府狀態」一詞描述人民用武力將政府強加在由單個人（君主專制）或由少數人（混合君主制）擁有一切土地所構成的經濟基礎上的情況。哈靈頓稱該詞與共和國一詞並不相同，後者是指土地所有權和治理權都由廣大民眾共享的狀態，哈林頓認為無政府狀態是一種暫時的狀態，是由政府形式和財產關係形式之間的均勢被破壞引起的[129]。
Benjamin Franks; Nathan Jun; Leonard Williams. Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach. Taylor & Francis. 2018: 104–. ISBN 978-1-317-40681-5. Anarchism can be defined in terms of a rejection of hierarchies, such as capitalism, racism or sexism, a social view of freedom in which access to material resources and liberty of others as prerequisites to personal freedom [...].
Erdal, D. and A. Whiten 1996. Egalitarianism and Machiavellian intelligence in human evolution. In P. Mellars and K. Gibson (eds), Modelling the early human mind. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs.
Clastres, Pierre. Society Against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology. Robert Hurley; Abe Stein (translators). New York: Zone Books. 1989. ISBN 0-942299-01-9.
Lechner, Silviya (2017-11). "Anarchy in International Relations". International Studies Association. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–26. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.79
"as many anarchists have stressed, it is not government as such that they find objectionable, but the hierarchical forms of government associated with the nation state". Judith Suissa. Anarchism and Education: a Philosophical Perspective. Routledge. New York. 2006. p. 7
"That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organisation and preaches free agreement – at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist." Peter Kropotkin. Anarchism: its philosophy and ideal互聯網檔案館的存檔，存檔日期2012-03-18.
"anarchists are opposed to irrational (e.g., illegitimate) authority, in other words, hierarchy – hierarchy being the institutionalisation of authority within a society." "B.1 Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?"互聯網檔案館的存檔，存檔日期2012-06-15. in An Anarchist FAQ
"[Anarchism], a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man's natural social tendencies." George Woodcock. "Anarchism" in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions." Peter Kropotkin. "Anarchism" from the Encyclopædia Britannica互聯網檔案館的存檔，存檔日期2012-01-06.
Malatesta, Errico. Towards Anarchism. MAN! (Los Angeles: International Group of San Francisco). OCLC 3930443. （原始內容存檔於2012-11-07）. Agrell, Siri. Working for The Man. The Globe and Mail. 2007-05-14 [2008-04-14]. （原始內容存檔於2007-05-16）.
Anarchism. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 2006 [2006-08-29]. （原始內容存檔於2006-12-14）.
Anarchism. The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2005: 14. Anarchism is the view that a society without the state, or government, is both possible and desirable. 下列來源認為無政府主義是一種政治哲學：Mclaughlin, Paul. Anarchism and Authority. Aldershot: Ashgate. 2007: 59. ISBN 978-0754661962. Johnston, R. The Dictionary of Human Geography. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers. 2000: 24. ISBN 0-631-20561-6.
McLaughlin, Paul (2007). Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism. Ashgate. pp. 28 （頁面存檔備份，存於互聯網檔案館）–166. ISBN9780754661962. "Anarchists do reject the state, as we will see. But to claim that this central aspect of anarchism is definitive is to sell anarchism short. [...] [Opposition to the state] is (contrary to what many scholars believe) not definitive of anarchism."
Jun, Nathan (September 2009). "Anarchist Philosophy and Working Class Struggle: A Brief History and Commentary". WorkingUSA. 12 (3): 505–519. doi:10.1111/j.1743-4580.2009.00251.x. ISSN1089-7011. "One common misconception, which has been rehearsed repeatedly by the few Anglo-American philosophers who have bothered to broach the topic [...] is that anarchism can be defined solely in terms of opposition to states and governments" (p. 507).
Franks, Benjamin (August 2013). Freeden, Michael; Stears, Marc (eds.). "Anarchism". The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press: 385–404. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585977.013.0001. "[M]any, questionably, regard anti-statism as the irremovable, universal principle at the core of anarchism. [...] The fact that [anarchists and anarcho-capitalists] share a core concept of 'anti-statism', which is often advanced as [...] a commonality between them [...], is insufficient to produce a shared identity [...] because [they interpret] the concept of state-rejection [...] differently despite the initial similarity in nomenclature" (pp. 386–388).
Jennings, Jeremy (1993). "Anarchism". In Eatwell, Roger; Wright, Anthony (eds.). Contemporary Political Ideologies. London: Pinter. pp. 127–146. ISBN978-0-86187-096-7. "[...] anarchism does not stand for the untrammelled freedom of the individual (as the 'anarcho-capitalists' appear to believe) but, as we have already seen, for the extension of individuality and community" (p. 143).
Gay, Kathlyn; Gay, Martin (1999). Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy. ABC-CLIO. p. 15. ISBN978-0-87436-982-3. "For many anarchists (of whatever persuasion), anarcho-capitalism is a contradictory term, since 'traditional' anarchists oppose capitalism".
Morriss, Andrew (2008). "Anarcho-capitalism". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 13–14. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n8. ISBN978-1-4129-6580-4. OCLC191924853. "Social anarchists, those anarchists with communitarian leanings, are critical of anarcho-capitalism because it permits individuals to accumulate substantial power through markets and private property."
Franks, Benjamin (August 2013). Freeden, Michael; Stears, Marc (eds.). "Anarchism". The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press: 385–404. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585977.013.0001. "Individualisms that defend or reinforce hierarchical forms such as the economic-power relations of anarcho-capitalism [...] are incompatible with practices of social anarchism. [...] Increasingly, academic analysis has followed activist currents in rejecting the view that anarcho-capitalism has anything to do with social anarchism" (pp. 393–394).
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York: New York University Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-8147-3155-0.
Griffin, Roger. From slime mould to rhizome: an introduction to the groupuscular right. Patterns of Prejudice. March 2003, 37 (1): 27–63. S2CID 143709925. doi:10.1080/0031322022000054321.
Robinson, Christine M. (2009). "The Continuing Significance of Class: Confronting Capitalism in an Anarchist Community". Working USA. 12 (3): 355–370. doi:10.1111/j.1743-4580.2009.00243.x.
El-Ojeili, Chamsy (2012). "Anarchism as the Contemporary Spirit of Anti-Capitalism? A Critical Survey of Recent Debates". Critical Sociology. 40 (3): 451–468. doi:10.1177/0896920512452023.
Williams, Dana (2012). "From Top to Bottom, a Thoroughly Stratified World: An Anarchist View of Inequality and Domination". Race, Gender & Class. 19 (3/4): 9–34.
Murray Bookchin (1982). The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy. Palo Alto, California: Cheshire Books. p. 3. "My use of the word hierarchy in the subtitle of this work is meant to be provocative. There is a strong theoretical need to contrast hierarchy with the more widespread use of the words class and State; careless use of these terms can produce a dangerous simplification of social reality. To use the words hierarchy, class, and State interchangeably, as many social theorists do, is insidious and obscurantist. This practice, in the name of a "classless" or "libertarian" society, could easily conceal the existence of hierarchical relationships and a hierarchical sensibility, both of which-even in the absence of economic exploitation or political coercion-would serve to perpetuate unfreedom."
Paul McLaughlin (2007). Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism （頁面存檔備份，存於互聯網檔案館）. AshGate. p. 1. "Authority is defined in terms of the right to exercise social control (as explored in the "sociology of power") and the correlative duty to obey (as explored in the "philosophy of practical reason"). Anarchism is distinguished, philosophically, by its scepticism towards such moral relations – by its questioning of the claims made for such normative power – and, practically, by its challenge to those "authoritative" powers which cannot justify their claims and which are therefore deemed illegitimate or without moral foundation."
Emma Goldman. "What it Really Stands for Anarchy" in Anarchism and Other Essays. "Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations."
Benjamin Tucker. Individual Liberty （頁面存檔備份，存於互聯網檔案館）. Individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker defined anarchism as opposition to authority, as follows: "They found that they must turn either to the right or to the left, – follow either the path of Authority or the path of Liberty. Marx went one way; Warren and Proudhon the other. Thus were born State Socialism and Anarchism ... Authority, takes many shapes, but, broadly speaking, her enemies divide themselves into three classes: first, those who abhor her both as a means and as an end of progress, opposing her openly, avowedly, sincerely, consistently, universally; second, those who profess to believe in her as a means of progress, but who accept her only so far as they think she will subserve their own selfish interests, denying her and her blessings to the rest of the world; third, those who distrust her as a means of progress, believing in her only as an end to be obtained by first trampling upon, violating, and outraging her. These three phases of opposition to Liberty are met in almost every sphere of thought and human activity. representatives of the first are seen in the Catholic Church and the Russian autocracy; of the second, in the Protestant Church and the Manchester school of politics and political economy; of the third, in the atheism of Gambetta and the socialism of Karl Marx."
Anarchist historian George Woodcock report of Mikhail Bakunin's anti-authoritarianism and shows opposition to both state and non-state forms of authority as follows: "All anarchists deny authority; many of them fight against it." (p. 9) ... Bakunin did not convert the League's central committee to his full program, but he did persuade them to accept a remarkably radical recommendation to the Berne Congress of September 1868, demanding economic equality and implicitly attacking authority in both Church and State."
Brown, L. Susan. Anarchism as a Political Philosophy of Existential Individualism: Implications for Feminism. The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism. Black Rose Books Ltd. Publishing. 2002: 106.
R.B. Fowler. The Anarchist Tradition of Political Thought. Western Political Quarterly (University of Utah). 1972, 25 (4): 738–52. JSTOR 446800. doi:10.2307/446800.
Joseph Kahn. Anarchism, the Creed That Won't Stay Dead; The Spread of World Capitalism Resurrects a Long-Dormant Movement. The New York Times. 2000, (5 August).
Osgood, Herbert L. (March 1889). "Scientific Anarchism". Political Science Quarterly. The Academy of Political Science. 4 (1): 1–36. doi:10.2307/2139424. JSTOR 2139424. "In anarchism we have the extreme antithesis of [state] socialism and [authoritarian] communism" (p. 1).
Guérin, Daniel (1970). Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. Monthly Review Press. p. 12. ISBN9780853451280. "[A]narchism is really a synonym for socialism. The anarchist is primarily a socialist whose aim is to abolish the exploitation of man by man. Anarchism is only one of the streams of socialist thought, that stream whose main components are concern for liberty and haste to abolish the State."55-6. "In general anarchism is closer to socialism than liberalism. [...] Anarchism finds itself largely in the socialist camp, but it also has outriders in liberalism. It cannot be reduced to socialism, and is best seen as a separate and distinctive doctrine."
Jennings, Jeremy (1999). "Anarchism". In Eatwell, Roger; Wright, Anthony (eds.). Contemporary Political Ideologies (reprinted, 2nd ed.). London: A & C Black. ISBN9780826451736. p. 147.
Walter, Nicholas (2002). About Anarchism. London: Freedom Press. p. 44. ISBN9780900384905. "[A]narchism does derive from liberalism and socialism both historically and ideologically. [...] In a sense, anarchists always remain liberals and socialists, and whenever they reject what is good in either they betray anarchism itself. [...] We are liberals but more so, and socialists but more so."
Morriss, Brian (2015). Anthropology, Ecology, and Anarchism: A Brian Morris Reader. Marshall, Peter (illustrated ed.). Oakland: PM Press. p. 64. ISBN9781604860931. "The tendency of writers like David Pepper (1996) to create a dichotomy between socialism and anarchism is both conceptually and historically misleading."
Guérin, Daniel (1970). Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. Monthly Review Press. p. 70. ISBN9780853451280. "The anarchists were unanimous in subjecting authoritarian socialism to a barrage of severe criticism. At the time when they made violent and satirical attacks there were not entirely well founded, for those to whom they were addressed were either primitive or 'vulgar' communists, whose thought had not yet been fertilized by Marxist humanism, or else, in the case of Marx and Engels themselves, were not as set on authority and state control as the anarchists made out."
Post-left anarcho-communist Bob Black after analysing insurrectionary anarcho-communist Luigi Galleani's view on anarcho-communism went as far as saying that "communism is the final fulfillment of individualism.... The apparent contradiction between individualism and communism rests on a misunderstanding of both.... Subjectivity is also objective: the individual really is subjective. It is nonsense to speak of 'emphatically prioritizing the social over the individual'.... You may as well speak of prioritizing the chicken over the egg. Anarchy is a 'method of individualization'. It aims to combine the greatest individual development with the greatest communal unity."Bob Black. Nightmares of Reason. （頁面存檔備份，存於互聯網檔案館）
Max Baginski. "Stirner: The Ego and His Own" （頁面存檔備份，存於互聯網檔案館）. Mother Earth. Vol. 2. No. 3 May 1907. "Modern Communists are more individualistic than Stirner. To them, not merely religion, morality, family and State are spooks, but property also is no more than a spook, in whose name the individual is enslaved – and how enslaved!...Communism thus creates a basis for the liberty and Eigenheit of the individual. I am a Communist because I am an Individualist. Fully as heartily the Communists concur with Stirner when he puts the word take in place of demand – that leads to the dissolution of property, to expropriation. Individualism and Communism go hand in hand."
"This stance puts him squarely in the libertarian socialist tradition and, unsurprisingly, (Benjamin) Tucker referred to himself many times as a socialist and considered his philosophy to be "Anarchistic socialism." "An Anarchist FAQby Various Authors
"Because revolution is the fire of our will and a need of our solitary minds; it is an obligation of the libertarian aristocracy. To create new ethical values. To create new aesthetic values. To communalize material wealth. To individualize spiritual wealth." [1] （頁面存檔備份，存於互聯網檔案館）Renzo Novatore. Toward the Creative Nothing
Suissa, Judith (2001). "Anarchism, Utopias and Philosophy of Education". Journal of Philosophy of Education. 35 (4): 627–646. doi:10.1111/1467-9752.00249
McKay, Iain (編). An Anarchist FAQ I/II. Stirling: AK Press. 2012. ISBN 9781849351225. No, far from it. Most anarchists in the late nineteenth century recognised communist-anarchism as a genuine form of anarchism and it quickly replaced collectivist anarchism as the dominant tendency. So few anarchists found the individualist solution to the social question or the attempts of some of them to excommunicate social anarchism from the movement convincing.
Catalan historian Xavier Diez reports that the Spanish individualist anarchist press was widely read by members of anarcho-communist groups and by members of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union CNT. There were also the cases of prominent individualist anarchists such as Federico Urales and Miguel Giménez Igualada who were members of the CNT and J. Elizalde who was a founding member and first secretary of the Iberian Anarchist Federation. Xavier Diez. El anarquismo individualista en España: 1923–1938.ISBN978-84-96044-87-6
Within the synthesist anarchist organization, the Fédération Anarchiste, there existed an individualist anarchist tendency alongside anarcho-communist and anarchosyndicalist currents. Individualist anarchists participating inside the Fédération Anarchiste included Charles-Auguste Bontemps, Georges Vincey and André Arru. "Pensée et action des anarchistes en France : 1950–1970" by Cédric GUÉRIN
Daniel Guérin. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice （頁面存檔備份，存於互聯網檔案館）. "At the end of the century in France, Sebastien Faure took up a word originated in 1858 by one Joseph Déjacque to make it the title of a journal, Le Libertaire. Today the terms 'anarchist' and 'libertarian' have become interchangeable."
Marshall, Peter (1992). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. London: HarperCollins. pp. 564–565. ISBN978-0-00-217855-6. "Anarcho-capitalists are against the State simply because they are capitalists first and foremost. [...] They are not concerned with the social consequences of capitalism for the weak, powerless and ignorant. [...] As such, anarcho-capitalism overlooks the egalitarian implications of traditional individualist anarchists like Spooner and Tucker. In fact, few anarchists would accept the 'anarcho-capitalists' into the anarchist camp since they do not share a concern for economic equality and social justice. Their self-interested, calculating market men would be incapable of practising voluntary co-operation and mutual aid. Anarcho-capitalists, even if they do reject the state, might therefore best be called right-wing libertarians rather than anarchists."
Goodway, David (2006). Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 4. "'Libertarian' and 'libertarianism' are frequently employed by anarchists as synonyms for 'anarchist' and 'anarchism', largely as an attempt to distance themselves from the negative connotations of 'anarchy' and its derivatives. The situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of anarcho-capitalism, 'minimal statism' and an extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy advocated by such theorists as Rothbard and Nozick and their adoption of the words 'libertarian' and 'libertarianism'. It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the anarchist tradition."
Newman, Saul (2010). The Politics of Postanarchism. Edinburgh University Press. p. 43. "It is important to distinguish between anarchism and certain strands of right-wing libertarianism which at times go by the same name (for example, Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism)." ISBN0748634959.
Carlson, Jennifer D. (2012). "Libertarianism". In Miller, Wilburn R., ed. The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America. London: SAGE Publications. p. 1006 （頁面存檔備份，存於互聯網檔案館）. ISBN1412988764.
Marshall, Peter (1992). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. London: HarperCollins. p. 641. " "For a long time, libertarian was interchangeable in France with anarchist but in recent years, its meaning has become more ambivalent. [...] In general, anarchism is closer to socialism than liberalism. [...] Anarchism finds itself largely in the socialist camp, but it also has outriders in liberalism. It cannot be reduced to socialism, and is best seen as a separate and distinctive doctrine."
Cohn, Jesse (20 April 2009). "Anarchism". In Ness, Immanuel (ed.). The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 4–6. "[F]rom the 1890s on, the term 'libertarian socialism' has entered common use as a synonym for anarchism. [...] 'libertarianism' [...] a term that, until the mid-twentieth century, was synonymous with 'anarchism' per se."
Levy, Carl; Adams, Matthew S., eds. (2018). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 104. "As such, many people use the term 'anarchism' to describe the anti-authoritarian wing of the socialist movement."
The Putney Debates, The Forum at the Online Library of Liberty. [2021-08-10]. （原始內容存檔於2021-03-22）. Source: Sir William Clarke, Puritanism and Liberty, being the Army Debates (1647–9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents, selected and edited with an Introduction A.S.P. Woodhouse, foreword by A.D. Lindsay (University of Chicago Press, 1951).
Pike, John. Albanian Civil War (1997). Global Security. [2021-08-11]. （原始內容存檔於2020-03-02）. These riots, and the state of anarchy which they caused, are known as the Albanian civil war of 1997
D. Rai*c. Statehood and the Law of Self-Determination. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. 2002-09-25: 69 [2021-08-11]. ISBN 90-411-1890-X. （原始內容存檔於2021-08-10）. An example of a situation which features aspects of anarchy rather than civil war is the case of Albania after the outbreak of chaos in 1997.
Block, Walter. Review Essay(PDF). The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. Fall 1999, 2 (3) [2010-01-28]. （原始內容存檔(PDF)於2014-06-30）. But if we define anarchy as places without governments, and we define governments as the agencies with a legal right to impose violence on their subjects, then whatever else occurred in Haiti, Sudan, and Somalia, it wasn't anarchy. For there were well-organized gangs (e.g., governments) in each of these places, demanding tribute, and fighting others who made similar impositions. Absence of government means absence of government, whether well established ones, or fly-by-nights.
Dolgoff, Sam. The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936-1939. Black Rose Books Ltd. 1974. ISBN 9780919618206（英語）.
Milani, Giuseppe; Selvi, Giovanna. Tra Rio e Riascolo: piccola storia del territorio libero di Cospaia. Lama di San Giustino: Associazione genitori oggi. 1996: 18. OCLC 848645655.
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