Anarchy without Government

Item Data

Date

Unknown

Item Source

Joseph A. Labadie Collection, Political Posters

Description

The basic definition of Anarchism proposed in this undated poster is taken, with some omissions, from the opening of the 1891 pamphlet Anarchy, penned by the famed Italian anarchist and revolutionary socialist Errico Malatesta (1853-1932).

The poster's text in full reads:

Anarchy is a word which comes from the Greek and signifies, strictly speaking, without government: the state of a people without any constituted authority over them.

Before such an organization had begun to be considered possible and desirable by a whole class of thinkers, so as to be taken as the aim of a movement (which has now become one of the most important factors in modern social warfare), the word “anarchy” was used universally in the sense of disorder and confusion, and it is still adopted in that sense by the ignorant and by adversaries interested in distorting the truth. 

the government is the aggregate of those who have the power to make law. It decides upon and claims taxes. It judges and punishes those who transgress its laws. It sanctions and supervises private contracts. It monopolizes certain branches of production and public services, or, if it will, all production and public service. It promotes or hinders the exchange of goods. It concedes or withholds free trade. It makes war or peace with governments of other countries. In short, government has the power—no matter how obtained—to make use of the collective force of society to oblige each person to its wishes.

In all times and in all places, whatever be the name that the government takes whatever has been its origin or its organization, its essential function is always that of oppressing and exploiting the masses, and of defending the exploiters and oppressors.

Its indispensable instruments are the policeman and the tax-collector, the soldier, the judge, the jailer and the time-serving civil servant and teacher—all supported and protected by the government, enforce the belief that without government chaos and disorder would reign.

When the public becomes convinced that government is not necessary, but extremely harmful, the word ANARCHY precisely because it signifies WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, will become equal to saying natural order, harmony of the needs and interests of all, complete liberty with complete solidarity.

IS GOVERNMENT NECESSARY?

WITHOUT GOVERNMENT——ANARCHY.

Format

Paper flyer