Anarchy has more than one definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is used to refer to a society without a publicly enforced government or violently enforced political authority. When used in this sense, anarchy may or may not be intended to imply political disorder or lawlessness within a society.
Outside of the U.S., and by most individuals that self-identify as anarchists, it implies a system of governance, mostly theoretical at a nation state level although there are a few successful historical examples, that goes to lengths to avoid the use of coercion, violence, force and authority, while still producing a productive and desirable society.
Read more about Anarchy: Etymology, Anarchy and Anthropology
Famous quotes containing the word anarchy:
“Its the anarchy of poverty
delights me, the old
yellow wooden house indented
among the new brick tenements”
—William Carlos Williams (18831963)
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)