There are two defamatory myths concerning anarchy and anarchists:
- anarchy is chaos
- anarchists reject all authority
These myths have been manufactured by those who want to dominate others and cannot accept any form of order based on self-organization, as advocated by the anarchists.
"Even the theoretical anarchist, whose philosophy commits him to the idea that state or government control is an unmitigated evil, believes that with the abolition of the political state other forms of social control would operate: indeed, his opposition to governmental regulation springs from his belief that other and to him more normal modes of control would operate with abolition of the state."
John Dewey, Experience and Education, 1938
However, the fact is that anarchy means absence of domination and the emergence
of spontaneous order. Anarchy means neither absence of rules nor lack of
order. This is what state rulers want people to believe, but it is a notion
totally baseless.
In fact, anarchists have written in favour of organization as not imposed
order, originating freely and spontaneously from individuals and their life
experiences.
“Organization, that is nothing else that the practice of cooperation and solidarity, is a natural condition, necessary for social life; it is an unavoidable reality that everybody should accept, both within human society in general, and within any group of people that want to achieve some aim.”
“L’organisation n’est rien d’autre que la pratique de la coopération et de la solidarité ; elle est une condition naturelle, nécessaire de la vie sociale ; un fait inéluctable qui s’impose à tous, soit dans la société humaine en général, soit dans quelconque association de gens qui ont un but commun à rejoindre. »
Errico Malatesta, Un projet d’organisation anarchique, 1927
“... the free organization, produced and maintained by the free will of the associated individuals without any sort of dominating power, that is, without anyone having the right to impose his will to others.”
« ... l’organisation libre, formée et gardée par la libre volonté des associés sans aucune trace d’un pouvoir dominant, c’est-à-dire sans que quiconque ne s’attribue le droit d’imposer sa volonté aux autres. »
Errico Malatesta, Un projet d’organisation anarchique, 1927
In more recent times Colin Ward has defined Anarchy as a theory of organization and enunciated four principles behind anarchist forms of organization:
“(1) voluntary, (2) functional, (3) temporary, and (4) small.
They should be voluntary for obvious reasons. There is no point in our advocating individual freedom and responsibility if we are going to advocate organisations for which membership is mandatory.
They should be functional and temporary precisely because permanence is one of those factors which harden the arteries of an organisation, giving it a vested interest in its own survival, in serving the interests of office-holders rather than its function.
They should be small precisely because in small face-to-face groups, the bureaucratising and hierarchical tendencies inherent in organisations have least opportunity to develop.”
Colin Ward, Anarchism as a Theory of Organization, 1966
With reference to authority, Mikhail Bakunin made very clear that anarchists are not at all opposed to it, in principle, as long as it is not imposed but freely accepted.
"... there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination."
Mikhail Bakunin, God and the state, 1882
Bakunin was especially opposed to the rule of the pretended wise men who wanted, like the state leaders, to regulate the lives of everybody.
“Suppose a learned academy, composed of the most illustrious representatives of science; suppose this academy charged with legislation for and the organisation of society, and that, inspired only by the purest love of truth, it frames none but the laws in absolute harmony with the latest discoveries of science. Well, I maintain, for my part, that such legislation and such organisation would be a monstrosity …”.
Mikhail Bakunin, God and the state, 1882