100 Quotes About Anarchism

The roots of anarchism as a political theory and movement can be traced back to the 18th century. While people may have different ideas about what an anarchist society would look like, the goal is always to create a system where all people are free to live their lives as they see fit. Read these quotes on anarchism to learn more about the movement that has influenced many throughout history.

1
People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take. Emma Goldman
2
You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education. Bob Black
3
The real enemy" is the totality of physical and mental constraints by which capital, or class society, or statism, or the society of the spectacle expropriates everyday life, the time of our lives. The real enemy is not an object apart from life. It is the organization of life by powers detached from it and turned against it. The apparatus, not its personnel, is the real enemy. But it is by and through the apparatchiks and everyone else participating in the system that domination and deception are made manifest. The totality is the organization of all against each and each against all. It includes all the policemen, all the social workers, all the office workers, all the nuns, all the op-ed columnists, all the drug kingpins from Medellin to Upjohn, all the syndicalists and all the situationists. . Bob Black
4
And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract–the Constitution–made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see. Lysander Spooner
5
For over a century and a half, anarchists have been arguing that coercive, hierarchical organization (as embodied in government and corporations) is not equivalent to organization per se (which they regard as necessary), and that coercive organization should be replaced by decentralized, nonhierarchical organization based on voluntary cooperation and mutual aid. This is hardly a rejection of organization. Chaz Bufe
6
Anarchism is not chaos; Anarchism is not rejection of organization. This is another popular misconception, repeated ad nauseam by the corporate media and by anarchism's political foes, especially Marxists (who sometimes know better). Chaz Bufe
7
To most anarchists, the advocacy of freedom on Earth while bowing to a heavenly tyrant (no matter how imaginary) seems an insupportable contradiction. Chaz Bufe
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men...
8
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others. Edward Abbey
9
L'homme qui n'a pas été anarchiste à seize ans est un imbécile. Mais c'en est un autre, s'il l'est encore à quarante. Unknown
School has become the world religion of a modernized proletariat,...
10
School has become the world religion of a modernized proletariat, and makes futile promises of salvation to the poor of the technological age. Ivan Illich
11
Most schooling is training for stupidity and conformity, and that's institutional, but occasionally you get a spark, somebody'll challenge your mind, make you think and so on, and that has a tremendous effect you just reach all sorts of people. Of course if you do it you may very have problems, you have to tread the narrow line. There are plenty of people who don't want students to think, they're afraid of the crisis of democracy. If people start thinking you get all these problems that I quoted before. They won't have enough humility to submit to a civil rule or they'll start trying to press their demands in the political arena and have ideas of their own, instead of beleiving what they're told. And privelage and power typically doesn't want that and so they react and the high school teacher that tries to get students to think may find oppression, firing and so on. Noam Chomsky
12
It is better to enlighten men’s minds than to teach them to be obstinate in their prejudices. PierreJoseph Proudhon
13
In modern states, the citizen is politically impotent. A citizen, it is true, may complain, make suggestions, or cause disruptions, but in the ancient world these were privileges that belonged to any slave. Mark Mirabello
Doing the forbidden is a normal function of growth.
14
Doing the forbidden is a normal function of growth. Paul Goodman
If your political theory requires humanity to
15
If your political theory requires humanity to "evolve", then you do not have a theory.... you have a dream. A.E. Samaan
If your political theory requires humanity to
16
If your political theory requires humanity to "evolve", then you do not have a theory. A.E. Samaan
This revolution will be noted. It will be successful and...
17
This revolution will be noted. It will be successful and above all, it will be in words. Moonshine Noire
18
More often than not, a statist's argument against Anarchism boils down to an unwillingness to take control and responsibility for their own lives, actions, and communities. The sad truth is that the human animal has been domesticated to the point where it actually fears Liberty. Dane Whalen
19
Proletarians of the world, look into the depths of your own beings, seek out the truth and realise it yourselves: you will find it nowhere else. Peter Arshinov
20
Freedom is the inherent state of nature. A bird is free until you clip its wings and put it in a cage. Just because you pick up its shit, give it food and water, and let it do as it pleases within the confines of its cage does not make it any less a captive. Even if the cage was made of pure gold, the ornate bars would serve the same purpose. Dane Whalen
Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations...
21
Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations and it is much, much louder than they care to remember. Alan Moore
22
That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met. Noam Chomsky
Every society has the criminals it deserves.
23
Every society has the criminals it deserves. Emma Goldman
24
The individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself. Unknown
Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.
25
Anarchism is democracy taken seriously. Edward Abbey
26
If this is the price to be paid for an idea, then let us pay. There is no need of being troubled about it, afraid, or ashamed. This is the time to boldly say, “Yes, I believe in the displacement of this system of injustice by a just one; I believe in the end of starvation, exposure, and the crimes caused by them; I believe in the human soul regnant over all laws which man has made or will make; I believe there is no peace now, and there will never be peace, so long as one rules over another; I believe in the total disintegration and dissolution of the principle and practice of authority; I am an Anarchist, and if for this you condemn me, I stand ready to receive your condemnation. Voltairine De Cleyre
27
Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners. Edward Abbey
28
Anarchists have a 'bad name' in the media, not because they can point to one indiscriminate massacre by anarchists--there have been none--but because the one thing holders of power fear is that they personally should be held responsible for their own actions Stuart Christie
29
The millions of human beings who were shot, tortured, starved, treated like animals and made the object of a conspiracy of ridicule, can sleep in peace in their communal graves, for at least the struggle in which they died has enabled their descendants, isolated in their air-conditioned apartments, to believe, on the strength of their daily dose of television, that they are happy and free. The Communards went down, fighting to the last, so that you too could qualify for a Caribbean cruise. Raoul Vaneigem
30
If crimes are committed they must be seen as a disease, and punishment as treatment rather than as social vengeance. Unknown
31
Far from checking the spread of immorality, repression has always extended and deepended it. Thus it is futile to oppose it by rigorous legislation which trespasses on individual liberty. Unknown
32
Terrorism is the use of violence or intimidation in the pursuit of a political aim. The highest political aim is the creation and enforcement of law. Cops use violence and intimidation to enforce law. Therefore, all cops are, by definition, terrorists. Dane Whalen
33
I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world – prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. Emma Goldman
34
Provided we can escape from the museums we carry around inside us, provided we can stop selling ourselves tickets to the galleries in our own skulls, we can begin to contemplate an art which re-creates the goal of the sorcerer: changing the structure of reality by the manipulation of living symbols ... Art tells gorgeous lies that come true. Hakim Bey
35
Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers, down it goes. Alan Moore
36
At one time in the world there were woods that no one owned Cormac McCarthy
37
The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. Emma Goldman
38
If anarchy is chaos, and chaos is war, why wasn't a single war started by anarchists? Unknown
39
Love is it's own protection. Emma Goldman
40
The authorities don't grant concessions out of the kindness of their hearts; they simply concede the reality of what their subjects are strong enough to compel from them. If you want political leverage, don't beg for it, don't seek it through their channels - take power outside them. CrimethInc.
41
There is no master cabal organizing the three-hundred plus Food Not Bombs or mad genius organizing the dozens of Indymedia's across the globe. We can all be the Johnny and Jane Appleseeds of anarchist counter-structure. We do this by harvesting good ideas and strategies from across the globe and replacing them on the local level. And while our passions and ideas should be brash, we should also be inspired by our day-to-day victories. People need to feel encouraged to start small, realizing the infrastructure begets infrastructure. Curious George Brigade
42
When faced with unbridled wildness of reality, dinosaurs fall into fevered delusions of grandeur. In fits of madness, they recreate the world in their own overblown image, bull-dozing the wild and replacing it with a wasteland that reflects their own emptiness. Where there was once the incredibly complex diversity of nature, there is now the dead simplicity of asphalt and concrete. Curious George Brigade
43
The faithful of Shiva or Dionysus seek contact with those forces which...lead to a refusal of the politics, ambitions and limitations of ordinary social life. This does not involve simply a recognition of world harmony, but also an active participation in an experience which surpasses and upsets the order of material life. Unknown
44
Traditionally, there have been two major strains of motivation (or perceived motivations) in anarchist politics: Duty and Joy. Like any duality, it is easy to fall into the trap of simplistic black and white labels, ignoring the more realistic continuum of grays. Instead, think of these two motivations as the end points on a continuum, illuminating everything in between. Curious George Brigade
45
Direct action meant that the goal of any and all of these activities was to provide ways for people to get in touch with their own powers and capacities, to take back the power of naming themselves and their lives. It was to be distinguished from more conventional political activity even in a democratic system. Instead of attempting to make change by forming interest groups to pressure politicians, anarchists insisted that we learn to think and act for ourselves by joining together in organizations in which our experience, our perception, and our activity can guide and make the change. Knowledge does not precede experience, it flows from it: "We begin by deciding to work, and through working, we learn .. We will learn how to live in libertarian communism by living in it." People learn how to be free only by exercising freedom: "We are not going to find ourselves .. with people ready-made for the future .. Without the continued exercise of their faculties, there will be no free people .. The external revolution and the internal revolution presuppose one another, and they must be simultaneous in order to be successful. Martha A. Ackelsberg
46
Freedom, or individual liberty, was a basic premise of the Spanish anarchist tradition. "Individual sovereignty" is a prime tenet of most anarchist writing; the free development of one' s individual potential is one of the basic "rights" to which all humans are born. Yet Spanish anarchists were firmly rooted in the communalist-anarchist tradition. For them, freedom was fundamentally a social product: the fullest expression of individuality and of creativity can be achieved only in and through community. As Carmen Conde (a teacher who was also active in Mujeres Libres) wrote, describing the relationship of individuality and community: "I and my truth; I and my faith .. And I for you, but without ever ceasing to be me, so that you can always be you. Because I don' t exist without your existence, but my existence is also indispensable to yours. . Martha A. Ackelsberg
47
With the way a lot of men function, I'd say "single" womyn are a threat to society. In fact, I'd go as single womyn are a threat to the system. As a womyn, if you aren't spending all your time looking for what you were socialized to, you're doing something productive. I'd say that scares a hell of a lot of people. Nocturnus Libertus
48
Domination is a relationship, not a condition; it depends on the participation of both parties. Hierarchical power is not just the gun in the policeman's hand; it is just as much the obedience of the ones who act as if it is always pointed at them. It is not just the government and the executives and the armed forces; it extends through society from top to bottom, an interlocking web of control and compliance. Sometimes all it takes to be complicit in the oppression of millions is to die of natural causes. . CrimethInc.
49
The continued appeal of anarchism can probably be attributed to its enduring affinity with both the rational and emotional impulses lying deep within us. It is an attitude, a way of life as well as a social philosophy. It presents a telling analysis of existing institutions and practices, and at the same time offers the prospect of a radically transformed society. Unknown
50
With their concern for personal autonomy and individual freedom, anarchists more than any other socialists are aware of the inhumanity of both physical punishment and manipulative cure for anti-social members of the community. They look to reasoned argument and friendly treatment to deal with criminals and wish to respect their humanity and individuality. Unknown
51
Whatever its future success as a historical movement, anarchism will remain a fundamental part of human experience, for the drive for freedom is one of our deepest needs and the vision of a free society is one of our oldest dreams. Neither can ever be fully repressed; both will outlive all rulers and their States. Unknown
52
Everything subtracted from the present is added to the future with interest. CrimethInc.
53
It's easier to ponder the future than it is to do something about the present. Curious George Brigade
54
There is a saying, if any stranger enquire of the first met of Maan, were it even a child, “Who is here the sheykh?” he would answer him “I am he. Charles M. Doughty
55
Victory will not go to those who can inflict the most suffering, but to those who can survive the most. CrimethInc.
56
It is impossible for me to be an Anarchist, for I do not believe in the essential goodness of man. The world, the physical world, that was once all in all to me, has at moments such as these no road through a wood, no stretch of shore, that can bring me comfort. The beauty of these things can no longer at such moments make up to me at all for the ugliness of man, his cruelty, his greed, his lying face. Unknown
57
Instead of worship or ignorance of the past, we must make our own tools, our own stories, and our own legends. Curious George Brigade
58
I have often been asked why I maintained such a non-compromising antagonism to government and in what way I have found myself oppressed by it. In my opinion every individual is hampered by it. It exacts taxes from production. It creates tariffs, which prevent free exchange. It stands ever for the status quo and traditional conduct and belief. It comes into private lives and into most intimate personal relations, enabling the superstitious, puritanical, and distorted ones to impose their ignorant prejudice and moral servitudes upon the sensitive, the imaginative, and the free spirits. Government does this by its divorce laws, its moral censorships, and by a thousand petty persecutions of those who are too honest to wear the moral mask of respectability. In addition, government protects the strong at the expense of the weak, provides courts and laws which the rich may scorn and the poor must obey. It enables the predatory rich to make wars to provide foreign markets for the favored ones, with prosperity for the rulers and wholesale death for the ruled. However, it is not only government in the sense of the state which is destructive of every individual value and quality. It is the whole complex of authority and institutional domination which strangles life. It is the superstition, myth, pretense, evasions, and subservience which support authority and institutional domination. It is the reverence for these institutions instilled in the school, the church and the home in order that man may believe and obey without protest. Such a process of devitalizing and distorting personalities of the individual and of whole communities may have been a part of historical evolution; but it should be strenuously combated by every honest and independent mind in an age which has any pretense to enlightenment. Emma Goldman
59
Whom one is speaking to - or which aspect of their character - fundamentally determines the meaning and consequences of an exhortation. 'Indulge Your Desires' comes across very differently on a billboard advertising SUVs than it does spray-painted across the broken windows of an SUV dealer. It follows that what you say is not nearly as important as how and when you say it. CrimethInc.
60
To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294. PierreJoseph Proudhon
61
Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500, 000 Iraqi children. In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous. Robert Higgs
62
I believe that in time we will have reached the point where we will deserve to be free of government. Jorge Luis Borges
63
Anarchy is a state of society where the only government is reason. Michael Schwab
64
Historical definition of a country's borders... "...here's where my murder geography ends and your murder geography begins, at least until I get more murderers to expand my murder-fest. Stefan Molyneux
65
But what about human nature? Can it be changed? And if not, will it endure under Anarchism?Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed? John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities? Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities. 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. This is not a wild fancy or an aberration of the mind. It is the conclusion arrived at by hosts of intellectual men and women the world over; a conclusion resulting from the close and studious observation of the tendencies of modern society: individual liberty and economic equality, the twin forces for the birth of what is fine and true in man. Emma Goldman
66
I consider Anarchism the most beautiful and practical philosophy that has yet been thought of in its application to individual expression and the relation it establishes between the individual and society. Moreover, I am certain that Anarchism is too vital and too close to human nature ever to die. It is my conviction that dictatorship, whether to the right or to the left, can never work--that it never has worked, and that time will prove this again, as it has been proved before. When the failure of modern dictatorship and authoritarian philosophies becomes more apparent and the realization of failure more general, Anarchism will be vindicated. Considered from this point, a recrudescence of Anarchist ideas in the near future is very probable. When this occurs and takes effect, I believe that humanity will at last leave the maze in which it is now lost and will start on the path to sane living and regeneration through freedom. Emma Goldman
67
Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partly with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy. As to truth, justice, and fidelity, who have been their brave exponents and daring proclaimers? Nearly always the godless ones: the Atheists; they lived, fought, and died for them. They knew that justice, truth, and fidelity are not conditioned in heaven, but that they are related to and interwoven with the tremendous changes going on in the social and material life of the human race; not fixed and eternal, but fluctuating, even as life itself. Emma Goldman
68
But the question is, historically, part of the group that you're a part of - whether it's racial, gender, religious, whatever - how has your group fared historically? The groups that you're a part of? Like, for me, as an atheist, Jew, I'm gonna go on, uh - oh and Emma Goldman is one of my great heroes and I really think that anarchism is a fantastic principle by which to fashion a utopian society even if we can't get there. Like historically, that does not go well. Jacob Appelbaum
69
Failure to recognize the historical specificity of the bourgeois conception of rights and duties leads to serious errors. It is for this reason that Marx registers..a vigorous indictment of the anarchist Proudhon.. Proudhon in effect took the specifics of bourgeois legal and economic relations and treated them as universal and foundational for the development of an alternative, socially just economic system. From Marx's standpoint, this is no alternative at all since it merely re-inscribes bourgeois conceptions of value in a supposedly new form of society. This problem is still with us, not only because of the contemporary anarchist revival of interest in Proudhon's ideas but also because of the rise of a more broad-based liberal human rights politics as a supposed antidote to the social and political ills of contemporary capitalism. Marx's critique of Proudhon is directly applicable to this contemporary politics. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 is a foundational document for a bourgeois, market-based individualism and as such cannot provide a basis for a thoroughgoing critique of liberal or neoliberal capitalism. Whether it is politically useful to insist that the capitalist political order live up to its own foundational principles is one thing, but to imagine that this politics can lead to a radical displacement of a capitalist mode of production is, in Marx's view, a serious error. David Harvey
70
As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy PierreJoseph Proudhon
71
Dante Alighieri wrote his first book in the prosimetrum genre — La Vita Nuova — in 14th century Florence. Since I’m compiling this collection — my first indie publication — in Florence, just blocks from Dante’s house, and since his book involves a lost love, and ‘A New Life, ’ I thought it fitting to emulate this style in my own casual, intuitive fashion. My hope is that the juxtaposition of poems, journal entries, essays and prose will create a story; a memoir in anarchistic vignettes. Jalina Mhyana
72
At first, one only recognizes particular instances to be worth of critique; critique appears synonymous with rejection, implying deficiency in the object. Over time, one discovers that everything warrants critique. This can produce cynicism: nothing is above reproach, nothing is pure, therefore nothing has value. But followed through to its logical conclusion, this insight inspires a profound optimism: if everything can be critiqued, then no matter how bleak things are, there is always a way to improve them. Those who comprehend this can pass beyond the binary of approval and disapproval to identify the conflicting currents within any subject of inquiry. There are sides to take inside every position, as well as between them. CrimethInc.
73
Patriotism is the product of successful systematic indoctrination. Dane Whalen
74
[M]an has as much liberty as he is willing to take. Emma Goldman
75
Every command slaps liberty in the face. Mikhail Bakhtin
76
My evanescent anarchistic tendencies are purely classical. I use the word anarchist in the sense in which it was understood by the ancient Greeks. They, of course, accepted the anarchist as a fairly respectable--if somewhat vehement--opponent of government encroachment on the individual's rights to think and act freely. It is in this sense that I glimpse myself as an anarchist--regretting the growth of government and the ever-increasing trend toward regulation and, worst of all, standardization of human activity. . J. Paul Getty
77
A libertarian is someone who graduated from thinking that there are problems with the state to realizing that the state is the problem. Unknown
78
Because I care about human beings, I want them to be free to do what is right for them. Isn't that more important than mere peace on earth? Isn't freedom, even dangerous freedom, preferable to the safest slavery, to peace bought with ignorance, cowardice, and submission? CrimethInc.
79
A thorough investigation would prove that nine crimes out of ten could be traced, directly or indirectly, to our economic and social iniquities, to our system of remorseless exploitation and robbery. Emma Goldman
80
An anarchist is someone who rejects the curious notion that crimes become virtues as they grow in size. Unknown
81
Plantie is a very strong Protestant, that is to say, he's against all churches, especially the Protestant: and he thinks a lot of Buddha, Karma and Confucius. He is also a bit of an anarchist and three or four years ago he took up Einstein and vitamins. Joyce Cary
82
In Labor movements generally, success through violence can hardly be expected except in circumstances where success without violence is attainable. Bertrand Russell
83
These ideas grew out of the Enlightenment; their roots are in Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality, Humboldt’s Limits of State Action, Kant’s insistence, in his defense of the French Revolution, that freedom is the precondition for acquiring the maturity for freedom, not a gift to be granted when such maturity is achieved. With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. In fact, on the very same assumptions that led classical liberalism to oppose the intervention of the state in social life, capitalist social relations are also intolerable. Noam Chomsky
84
Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much more. Edward Abbey
85
Meanwhile, two other great currents in political thought, had a decisive significance on the development of socialist ideas: Liberalism, which had powerfully stimulated advanced minds in the Anglo-Saxon countries, Holland and Spain in particular, and Democracy in the sense. to which Rousseau gave expression in his Social Contract, and which found its most influential representatives in the leaders of French Jacobinism. While Liberalism in its social theories started off from the individual and wished to limit the state's activities to a minimum, Democracy took its stand on an abstract collective concept, Rousseau's general will, which it sought to fix in the national state. Liberalism and Democracy were pre-eminently political concepts, and since most of the original adherents of both did scarcely consider the economic conditions of society, the further development of these conditions could not be practically reconciled with the original principles of Democracy, and still less with those of Liberalism. Democracy with its motto of equality of all citizens before the law, and Liberalism with its right of man over his own person, both were wrecked on the realities of capitalist economy. As long as millions of human beings in every country have to sell their labour to a small minority of owners, and sink into the most wretched misery if they can find no buyers, the so-called equality before the law remains merely a pious fraud, since the laws are made by those who find themselves in possession of the social wealth. But in the same way there can be no talk of a right over one's own person, for that right ends when one is compelled to submit to the economic dictation of another if one does not want to starve. . Rudolf Rocker
86
No genuine revolutionary challenge to either the State or Capitalism in the United States can fail to ignore racism's importance in maintaining the current system. Curious George Brigade
87
The theory of exodus proposes that the most effective way of opposing capitalism and the liberal state is not through direct confrontation but by means of what Paolo Virno has called “engaged withdrawal, ”mass defection by those wishing to create new forms of community. One need only glance at the historical record to confirm that most successful forms of popular resistance have taken precisely this form. They have not involved challenging power head on (this usually leads to being slaughtered, or if not, turning into some–often even uglier–variant of thevery thing one first challenged) but from one or another strategy of slipping away from its grasp, from flight, desertion, the founding of new communities. David Graeber
88
To Pierre, " said Mr. Buckmaster, "the Communists are of the Right. The far Right. He refers to them as 'those goddamned Bourbons.' Pierre is an anarchist. That's why he's so happy in his shoplifting--he feels it helps undermine the state. Poyntz Tyler
89
Nearly every "serious" anarchist writer in recent years has tried to distance anarchism from chaos. Yet for most ordinary people, chaos and anarchy are forever linked. The connection between chaos and anarchism should be rethought and embraced, instead of being downplayed and repressed. Chaos is the nightmare of rulers, states, and capitalists. We should not polish the image of anarchism by erasing chaos. Instead, we should remember that chaos is not only burning ruins but also butterfly wings. Curious George Brigade
90
The desire to “do more in less time” is not a neutral force in our culture; it is the handmaiden of miserable experts, specialists, and leaders. Not everyone has rushed to become efficient. Something else exists on the periphery: an inefficient utopia, a culture of consensus, collectives, and do-it-yourself ethics. A place where time is not bought, sold, or leased and no clock is the final arbiter of our worth. For many people in North America, the problem is not just poverty but lack of time to do the things that are actually meaningful. This is not a symptom of personal failures but the consequence of a time-obsessed society. Today, desire for efficiency springs from the scarcity model, which is the foundation of capitalism. Time is seen as a limited resource when we get caught up in meaningless jobs, mass-produced entertainment, and — the common complaint of activists — tedious meanings. Curious George Brigade
91
Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism. Not only are they compatible, but you can't really have one without the other. True anarchism will be capitalism, and true capitalism will be anarchism Murray N. Rothbard
92
Normally, when you challenge the conventional wisdom–that the current economic and political system is the only possible one–the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of how an alternative system would work, down to the nature of its financial instruments, energy supplies, and policies of sewer maintenance. Next, you are likely to be asked for a detailed program of how this system will be brought into existence. Historically, this is ridiculous. When has social change ever happened according to someone’s blueprint? It’s not as if a small circle of visionaries in Renaissance Florence conceived of something they called “capitalism, ” figured out the details of how the stock exchange and factories would someday work, and then put in place a program to bring their visions into reality. In fact, the idea is so absurd we might well ask ourselves how it ever occurred to us to imagine this is how change happens to begin. David Graeber
93
Work, then, institutionalizes homicide as a way of life. People think the Cambodians were crazy for exterminating themselves, but are we any different? The Pol Pot regime at least had a vision, however blurred, of an egalitarian society. We kill people in the six-figure range (at least) in order to sell Big Macs and Cadillacs to the survivors. Our forty or fifty thousand annual highway fatalities are victims, not martyrs. They died for nothing – or rather, they died for work. But work is nothing to die for. Bob Black
94
The rejection of mass organizations as the be-all, end-all of organizing is vital for the creation and rediscovery of possibilities for empowerment and effective anarchistic work. Curious George Brigade
95
You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere. Unknown
96
Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread. Emma Goldman
97
Give us what belongs to us in peace, and if you don't give it to us in peace, we will take it by force. Emma Goldman
98
The situation is like this: they hired our parents to destroy this world, and now they'd like to put us to work rebuilding it, and -- to add insult to injury -- at a profit. The Invisible Committee
99
We have been expropriated from our own language by television, from our songs by reality TV contests, from our flesh by mass pornography, from our city by the police and from our friends by wage-labor. The Invisible Committee
100
The duty of the individual is to accept no rule, to be the initiator of his own acts, to be responsible. Only if he does so will the society live, and change, and adapt, and survive. We are not subjects of a State founded upon law, but members of a society formed upon revolution. Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution. Unknown