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Article: Anarchists
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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ANARCHISTS
ANARCHISTS.
It is fitting that the word "anarchism" derives from
anarkhia,
the Greek word for "nonrule," for that is what anarchists essentially espouse: the eradication of government in favor of a natural social order. A libertarian variant of socialism, the ideals of anarchy date back at least as far as the eighteenth century. Elements of anarchic thought were evident in the seeds of the American Revolution and Thomas Jefferson's writings often hinted at anarchist thinking.
Nineteenth-Century Anarchism
During the nineteenth century, anarchism gained a wider following and branched out in two distinct directions: one pacifist and philosophical, the other violent and radical. ...