page_title: Anarchism
section_title: Post-classical and contemporary
hierarchical_section_title: Anarchism / Thought / Post-classical and contemporary
caption_attribution_description: English: Lawrence Jarach and John Zerzan in discussion at the Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed booth, during the 2010 Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair.
context_page_description: Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. It calls for the abolition of the state which it holds to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful. It is usually described alongside libertarian Marxism as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement and as having a historical association with anti-capitalism and socialism.
  The history of anarchism goes back to prehistory, when some humans lived in anarchistic societies long before the establishment of formal states, realms or empires. With the rise of organised hierarchical bodies, skepticism toward authority also rose, but it was not until the 19th century that a self-conscious political movement emerged. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Spanish Civil War, whose end marked the end of the classical era of anarchism.
context_section_description: Anarchist principles undergird contemporary radical social movements of the left. Interest in the anarchist movement developed alongside momentum in the anti-globalization movement, whose leading activist networks were anarchist in orientation. As the movement shaped 21st century radicalism, wider embrace of anarchist principles signaled a revival of interest. Contemporary news coverage which emphasizes black bloc demonstrations has reinforced anarchism's historical association with chaos and violence, although its publicity has also led more scholars to engage with the anarchist movement. Anarchism has continued to generate many philosophies and movements—at times eclectic, drawing upon various sources, and syncretic, combining disparate concepts to create new philosophical approaches. The anti-capitalist tradition of classical anarchism has remained prominent within contemporary currents.
  Various anarchist groups, tendencies, and schools of thought exist today, making it difficult to describe contemporary anarchist movement. While theorists and activists have established "relatively stable constellations of anarchist principles", there is no consensus on which principles are core. As a result, commentators describe multiple "anarchisms" (rather than a singular "anarchism") in which common principles are shared between schools of anarchism while each group prioritizes those principles differently. For example, gender equality can be a common principle but ranks as a higher priority to anarcha-feminists than anarchist communists. Anarchists are generally committed against coercive authority in all forms, namely "all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism". However, anarchist schools disagree on the methods by which these forms should be opposed.
caption: Lawrence Jarach (left) and John Zerzan (right), two prominent contemporary anarchist authors, with Zerzan being a prominent voice within anarcho-primitivism and Jarach a noted advocate of post-left anarchy
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