Anarchy

The word anarchy comes from the Greek word αναρχία (anarchia), which means "without a leader". It refers to a made-up or real society based on a group's beliefs about anarchism.

Anarchism is a political theory that is opposed to all forms of government. Anarchists believe that the highest attainment of humanity is the freedom of individuals to express themselves, unhindered by any form of repression or control from without.

In 1793 the Englishman William Godwin, the first modern proponent of anarchism, published a book, Political Justice which argued that authority is unnatural and that social evils arise and exist because people are not free to live their lives according to reason. A Nonconformist minister in his younger days, Godwin gave up preaching in the early 1780s due to his increasing doubts about the Christian faith.

The 19th-century French writer Pierre Joseph Proudhon (January 15, 1809 – January 19, 1865) is generally regarded as the father of anarchism. Proudhon was the first person to declare himself an anarchist, using that term and is widely regarded as one of anarchism's most influential theorists. 

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

According to Proudhon and his followers, anarchism would exclude authority from society, setting up extreme individualism. Proudhon was a Philosophic anarchist who repudiate violent methods and hope for a gradual evolution of society toward anarchic organization. Those anarchists who reject Proudhon’s theories maintain that the entire trend of human development is toward achievement by cooperation and that social cooperation can never by wholly voluntary. 

Although most anarchists have not advocated terrorism, the popular view has unjustly identified all anarchism with violence. Assassinations such as those of US President William McKinley, who was shot by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz in September 1901, have given support to the popular opinion of anarchy. Other assassinations committed by anarchists include those of Humbert I, king of Italy; George I, king of Greece; and the president of France, Marie François Sadi Carnot.

When Fyodor Dostoyevsky was writing his novel The Devils in 1872, he returned secretly to St Petersburg in order to retrieve the papers of his murdered stepson Pavel. Pavel had been a member of the anarchist group, Nechaev Gang, and elements of this were included in his book.

The first European tofu factory was opened outside Paris in 1908 by the Chinese anarchist Li Shizeng

According to the CIA World Factbook there is only one nation, Somalia today, that is in a state of anarchy. In Somalia, the government is no longer in control, and some parts of the country are ruled by mobs and warlords who sometimes fight one another.