Anarchy

So I'm reading Christopher Schwarz's book The Anarchist's Tool Chest and I come across this...

"Anarchism is not a cult, nor a party, nor an organization. Neither is it a new idea, nor a reform movement, nor a system of philosophy. It is not even a menace to the social order, nor yet a plotting for the destruction of kings and rulers. Indeed, the social order has often been in danger either from false alarms or from its own weight since the fabric first arose.


"Cults are common enough in these days: - they sprout and fade like the flowers of spring. Parties and organizations rise and fall with almost rhythmic regularity, running their course and becoming transformed with time like all things beneath the sun. Movements arise as occasion demands, and expire when their work is done. New ideas are rare enough, and seldom retain their novel character on close scrutiny. A philosophy is a scheme of life, an explanation of the universe, a concrete intellectual system.


"Anarchism is none of these things. It teaches not violence, nor does it inoculate insurrection. Neither is it an incipient revolution. None the less it has its place in the life of our times. Modern Anarchism, in a word, is primarily a tendency - moral, social, and intellectual. As a tendency it questions the supremacy of the State, the infallibility of Statute laws, and the divine right of all Authority, spiritual or temporal. It is, in truth, a product of Authority, the progeny of the State, a direct consequence of the inadequacy of law and government to fulfill their assumed functions. In short, the Anarchist tendency is a necessity of progress, a protest against usurpation, privilege, and justice."

Pretty prophetic.

These are not Chris' words written in 2011. He was quoting the introduction to the 1906 biography of Josiah Warren!

I'll keep thinking...