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1849 [1840], Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, “Chapitre V. Second Partie. § 2.”, in Qu’est ce que la propriété?, page 242; English translation from “Chapter V. Part Second. § 2.”, in Benjamin Tucker, transl., What Is Property?, translation of original in French, 1876, page 277:
Property and royalty have been crumbling to pieces ever since the world began. As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy. Anarchy, — the absence of a master, of a sovereign, — such is the form of government to which we are every day approximating, and which our accustomed habit of taking man for our rule, and his will for law, leads us to regard as the height of disorder and the expression of chaos.
2002 [1850], Anselme Bellegarrigue, “Manifeste de l’Anarchie [Anarchist Manifesto]”, in Paul Sharkey, transl., L'anarchie, Journal de l'Ordre [Anarchy, a Journal of Order], number 1, translation of original in French:
Yes, anarchy is order, whereas government is civil war.
1919 [1873], Михаил Бакунин [Mikhail Bakunin], Государственность и aнархия (Избранные сочинения М. А. Бакунина в 5-ти томах; 1), page 296; English translation from chapter VII, in Marshall S. Shatz, transl., Statism and Anarchy, 2005:
Our polemics against them have forced them to recognize that freedom, or anarchy – that is, the voluntary organization of the workers from below upward – is the ultimate goal of social development, and that any state, including their people’s state, is a yoke which gives rise to despotism on the one hand and slavery on the other. They say that this state yoke, this dictatorship, is a necessary transitional device for achieving the total liberation of the people: anarchy, or freedom, is the goal, and the state, or dictatorship, the means. Thus, for the masses to be liberated they must first be enslaved.
Svojeju polemikoju protiv nix my doveli ix do soznanija, što svoboda ili anarxija, t. je. volʹnaja organizacija rabočix mass snizu vverx, jestʹ okončatelʹnaja celʹ obščestvennovo razvitija, i što vsjakoje gosudarstvo, ne isključaja i ix narodnovo, jestʹ jarmo, značit s odnoj storony poroždajet despotizm, a s drugoj rabstvo. Oni govorjat, što takoje gosudarstvennoje jarmo-diktatura jestʹ neobxodimoje perexodnoje sredstvo dlja dostiženija polnejševo narodnovo osvoboždenija: anarxija ili svoboda — celʹ, gosudarstvo ili diktatura — sredstvo. Itak dlja osvoboždenija narodnyx mass nado ix sperva porabotitʹ.
Libertarianism is the view that each man is the absolute owner of his life, to use and dispose of as he sees fit: that all man's social actions should be voluntary: and that respect for every other man's similar and equal ownership of life and, by extension, the property and fruits of that life, is the ethical basis of a humane and open society. In this view, the only — repeat, only — function of law or government is to provide the sort of self-defense against violence that an individual, if he were powerful enough, would provide for himself. If it were not for the fact that libertarianism freely concedes the right of men voluntarily to form communities or governments on the same ethical basis, libertarianism could be called anarchy.
Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have to give a reason for it, a justification. And if they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just. And, as I understand it, anarchy is just that tendency. It takes different forms at different times.
And each dweller, panic-stricken, Felt his heart with terror sicken Hearing the tempestuous cry Of the triumph of Anarchy.
1853, Leon Faucher, “IV.”, in Thomson Hankey, transl., Remarks on the Production of the Precious Metals, and on the Demonetization of Gold in Several Countries in Europe, 2nd revised edition, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., →OCLC, page 50:
Anarchy still reigns in this new country;—not only have the miners to defend their persons and their acquisitions against the incursions from Indian tribes; not only are crimes and offences common (lynch law maintaining a permitted existence instead of laws and police); but every one appears to hold his property by right of first comer: a miner choses the spot he likes best; a strong arm and a carbine, with a steady eye, are his title deeds. To seize upon a rich "placer" from a miner too weak to resist, is called in the slang of the district, to "jump a claim." The President of the United States himself, stated in his last message, that "The mineral lands should remain free to every citizen;" and the Secretary of State has added, "that the right of occupancy should be submitted only to such laws as the miners themselves thought fit to make."
The contradiction between socialized production and capitalistic appropriation now presents itself as an antagonism between the organization of production in the individual workshop and the anarchy of production in society generally.
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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1849) [1840] “Chapitre V. Second Partie. § 2.”, in Qu’est ce que la propriété? (in French), page 242; English translation from “Chapter V. Part Second. § 2.”, in Benjamin Tucker, transl., What Is Property?, 1876, page 277: “The meaning ordinarily attached to the word “anarchy” is absence of principle, absence of rule; consequently, it has been regarded as synonymous with “disorder.” ()”
