Let us start by deconstructing the meaning of the word. Anarchism is not the belief in a society without rules, nor does it advocate violence. What it is, according to Webster's dictionary, is a "doctrine advocating the abolishment of government or governmental restraint...while achieving political liberty." Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first to use the term, which is derived from the Greek word anarchos, meaning "without rule." Proudhon describes anarchism as "the absence of a master, of a sovereign." (Love, p. 95) Knowing this, one might wonder why so many people have a negative perception of anarchic philosophy when we so clearly strive to not be owned by any one person or government. Too many times anarchy is coupled with terrorist acts against the establishment. Terrorism is not necessarily true a

Henry David Thoreau suggests that people in this situation need to let themselves be a counter friction to stop the machine. (Love, p. 103) He suggests that we take active participation in changing our situation, not by violent action, but through actions such as not paying your taxes, refusing the draft or choosing not to vote. By protesting in this way, we are internally chipping away at the infrastructure that denies us our individual freedom. The government acts like a parasite that lives inside its host and feeds off of it, but does not kill it. It feeds off of the host just enough to keep it alive, while also ensuring that its source of nourishment, the host, remains alive. How much longer will we continue to allow them to do this?

Both Proudhon and Goldman, through these ideas, are stressing the importance of the individual, an idea that has long been lost in our capitalistic society. Even though we are told to forage ahead and look for the individual American dream, we end up bowing to our secret master, the United States' government. In a government that is supposedly for the people and by the people, how is it possible for so many of the concerns of the people remain unaddressed? Instead, the individual ends up spending most of their energy taking care of the masses. Goldman says, "Order derived through submission and maintained by terror is not much of a safe guarantee; yet that is the only 'order' that governments have ever maintained."

narchism. Proudhon suggests that anarchism is to do what he calls "propaganda by the deed." With this new definition of anarchism in hand, we can move on to discussing why we need to seriously reconsider it as a viable optio

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1145
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)