Anarchism

What does it mean to live without rulers? Colin Ward’s Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction begins with this provocative question—one that doesn’t ask you to embrace chaos but to imagine a society organized around freedom, cooperation, and voluntary association. For Ward, anarchism isn’t merely an anti-state ideology; it’s a vision of human relationships built on mutual aid and shared responsibility.

Ward contends that throughout history, despite persecution and caricature, anarchism has remained remarkably resilient. In his view, anarchism continually re-emerges because it speaks to a universal human aspiration: the wish to live without coercion. To understand how this aspiration might become reality, Ward traces anarchism’s philosophical roots, its revolutionary experiments, and its evolution into modern forms—from green movements to educational reform and grassroots social organization.

From Disorder to Order Without Authority

Unlike the popular image of the anarchist as a bomb-throwing rebel, Ward defines anarchism as the belief that society can organize itself without hierarchical rulers. He emphasizes that anarchism doesn’t reject order; rather, it proposes a different kind of order—one grounded in voluntary cooperation rather than compulsion. This idea, famously articulated by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, became the cornerstone of modern anarchist theory: organization without government isn’t merely possible, Ward argues—it’s preferable.

From William Godwin’s philosophical rejection of government in the late 18th century to Peter Kropotkin’s scientific defense of cooperation over competition, anarchist thought evolved as both an ethical and practical response to inequality. Ward shows how thinkers like Bakunin, Emma Goldman, and Gustav Landauer imagined freedom not as anarchy-as-chaos but as anarchy-as-community.

The State as the Eternal Betrayer

For anarchists, Ward explains, the state is not a neutral mechanism—it is the enemy itself. Every revolution, from France to Russia to Spain, began with promises of liberation and ended with new rulers imposing fresh hierarchies. Bakunin’s warning that socialism without freedom becomes slavery proved tragically prophetic when Marxist dictatorships emerged in the 20th century. Anarchists, Ward suggests, are the perennial dissenters who remind society that tyranny often disguises itself in revolutionary rhetoric.

This tension between revolution and repression runs throughout the book. Whether analyzing the Paris Commune of 1871, the Spanish Civil War, or modern movements like the Zapatistas in Mexico, Ward shows anarchists as “heroic losers” whose experiments in freedom were crushed but whose ideals endured. They saw revolutions betrayed not because of failure from below, but corruption from above—the tragic inevitability that power breeds domination.

The Everyday Relevance of Anarchism

Ward insists that you don’t need to overthrow governments to live anarchically. In fact, most anarchistic acts are small-scale and local: community self-help, cooperatives, free schools, informal care networks, and neighborhood organizing. These “quiet revolutions,” as he calls them, are all experiments in freedom happening under the radar of formal politics. They embody anarchism’s practical spirit—changing relationships rather than conquering institutions. (Compare this to James C. Scott’s idea in Two Cheers for Anarchism that everyday resistance is more enduring than grand revolts.)

Ward’s anarchism is not utopian but realistic. He reminds you that all enduring change begins locally and voluntarily. From workers’ cooperatives and community health schemes to radical approaches in education and ecological living, he shows anarchism as a living practice—not a remote ideal. In this sense, his book becomes less about political theory and more about human possibility. His definition of anarchism is pragmatic: the continual effort to organize life without domination.

A Philosophy of the Future

Ward concludes that anarchism’s persistence across continents and centuries is proof of its enduring relevance. When authoritarian regimes collapse—from Hitler to Franco to Soviet communism—anarchist journals and movements resurface, articulating the same dream of cooperation without hierarchy. In the 21st century, he sees this dream in environmental activism, anti-globalization movements, and localized experiments in sustainable living. Anarchism, far from being obsolete, may hold the key to addressing future crises of power, inequality, and environmental degradation.

Ward’s Core Argument

“Society is not something that can be imposed from above but something built every day by the voluntary cooperation of ordinary people.” Ward’s central message is disarmingly simple: anarchism persists because it mirrors the spontaneous self-organization we practice whenever we cooperate freely.

By reframing anarchism as a mode of life and thought—rather than an unattainable revolution—Ward invites you to see it everywhere: in community gardens, mutual aid networks, grassroots education, and environmental initiatives. His book is not a call to destroy but to build; not to reject society but to reinvent it. And in doing so, Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction offers something radical: the conviction that freedom is not a dream deferred—it’s a daily practice.

Colin Ward begins his exploration by tracing anarchism’s ancestry in the long struggle of humans to live without domination. He argues that anarchism emerged not in chaos but in response to tyranny—offering a moral and practical alternative to inequality and governmental exploitation. From early philosophical roots to revolutionary practice, anarchism evolved as the logical extension of both liberal ideals of freedom and socialist ideals of equality.

Four Founding Thinkers

Ward highlights four seminal figures—William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michael Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin—each introducing critical dimensions to anarchist thought. Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) laid the philosophical groundwork, criticizing property, law, and authority. Proudhon’s provocative slogan “Property is theft” attacked the ownership of land and capital derived from conquest. Yet he also saw property as freedom when tied to personal livelihood—a subtle balance between individual autonomy and communal responsibility.

Bakunin added revolutionary energy, predicting that Marxist states would become tyrannies—a prophecy realized in the 20th century. His mantra “Socialism without freedom is slavery” became a moral compass for subsequent anarchists. Finally, Kropotkin provided scientific justification through his studies in biology and sociology. In Mutual Aid (1902), he argued that cooperation—rather than competition—was nature’s law for survival. This helped redefine anarchism from an ideology of rebellion to one grounded in ethical and evolutionary principles.

Global Echoes of Freedom

Ward emphasizes that anarchism wasn’t confined to Europe. Japanese radicals like Kotoku Shusui linked it to Buddhism and Taoism; Chinese students in Tokyo and Paris wove it into ancient ideals of communal harmony; and Indian thinkers such as Gandhi adapted its principles into non-violent resistance and village autonomy. Even African writers like Mbah and Igarewey identified “anarchic elements” in traditional communalism as models for self-managed societies. This universality reveals anarchism’s adaptability—it grows wherever people resist domination.

Misunderstanding Anarchy

Ward dismantles the stereotype of the anarchist as a violent extremist. He acknowledges that a small faction once believed assassinations might spark revolution, but insists that real anarchism is antithetical to terrorism. Its essence lies in voluntary cooperation and peace—even pacifism. Modern terror, Ward notes, is the monopoly of states and religious absolutists, not anarchists. He quotes Kropotkin’s vision of a government-free society bound by “free agreements” and reminds us that compromise, not violence, is the everyday politics of anarchism.

From slave revolts to peasant uprisings, Ward sees anarchist impulses wherever the oppressed reject authority. He ends this foundational chapter with Gustav Landauer’s timeless reflection: “The state is not destroyed by revolution, but by contracting other relationships—by behaving differently.”

Ward’s genealogy of anarchism reminds you that rebellion isn’t its essence—relational freedom is. Anarchism doesn’t seek to overthrow external orders but to replace domination with cooperation. Its ancestors show that the goal isn’t chaos but justice, and not destruction but renewal.

If anarchism is the politics of freedom, why have revolutions so often devoured it? Colin Ward explores this paradox by examining major revolutionary moments from the French Revolution to the Spanish Civil War—periods when anarchists helped overthrow tyranny only to be crushed by the new rulers they helped empower.

From the Bastille to the Commune

Anarchist precursors appear as early as the English Diggers and Levellers in the 17th century, who fought alongside Cromwell but were suppressed when his rule turned authoritarian. In the French Revolution, radicals like Jacques Roux and Jean Varlet denounced the new republic for replacing monarchy with committee despotism—proof, Ward notes, that power corrupts regardless of ideology. The Paris Commune of 1871 briefly embodied anarchist ideals: local autonomy, federated cities, and worker control. But it was violently destroyed, and its heroine Louise Michel was imprisoned. (Compare this tragedy to Hannah Arendt’s argument that revolutions fail when they ignore everyday freedoms.)

The Heroic Losers

In Mexico, Ricardo Flores Magon and Emiliano Zapata fought dictatorship and created peasant communes guided by Kropotkin’s ideas. Both were martyred—Zapata assassinated, Magon killed in prison. In Russia, the peasant leader Nestor Makhno faced Bolshevik betrayal after helping defeat the Tsarists. The same pattern repeated in Spain in 1936, where anarchists organized three million citizens into collectivized farms and factories in Catalonia and Aragon. Yet Soviet manipulation and Franco’s fascism crushed the revolution, leaving anarchists as scapegoats once again.

Ward recounts how Noam Chomsky, reading anarchist accounts of Spain as a boy, was struck by their moral clarity: the villagers of Membrilla shared food with refugees not out of ideology but humanity—a “socialization of poverty” that revealed the justice of freedom even in hardship. For Ward, this human decency is the lasting triumph of anarchism, even when its revolutions fail.

Lessons of Revolt

From the perspective of anarchism, revolutions teach a painful truth: real liberation cannot be seized by armies or ministers; it grows through self-organization. Ward quotes Sébastien Faure’s caution that some compromises—like joining government—can never be justified. The moral of anarchist history is humility: even small victories in human freedom matter more than grand illusions of power. When post-Communist regimes collapsed, anarchists reappeared, reminding citizens of the lessons of “the sheer horror and irresponsibility of government.”

Ward’s portraits of revolutionary failure are not bitter—they’re poignant. They show that each collapse renews the anarchist conviction that freedom cannot be institutionalized. It must be lived.

For you, his message is clear: every time hierarchy triumphs, the anarchist impulse survives somewhere—in community, in solidarity, in unexpected acts of cooperation. Revolutions fail; freedom persists.

Ward’s chapter on “States, Societies, and the Collapse of Socialism” urges you to rethink a fundamental distinction: the difference between society and the state. He borrows from Gustav Landauer and Martin Buber to explain that society is the realm of voluntary cooperation, while the state is the realm of coercion and hierarchy. The battle between the two defines modern politics—and explains why efforts to build utopia through authority always end in failure.

The Political Surplus

Buber’s insight, expanded by Ward, is that every state possesses more power than necessary—a “political surplus” used to dominate rather than administer. This surplus stifles what Buber called “social spontaneity,” the natural human tendency to organize cooperatively around common needs. Ward likens this to how welfare and education were once grassroots creations—the friendly societies, miners’ medical clubs, and community schools—before they were absorbed by bureaucracies.

He uses the example of Aneurin Bevan’s founding of Britain’s National Health Service, inspired by the voluntary Tredegar Medical Society. When mutual aid became state policy, it centralized compassion and drained local initiative. Ward doesn’t denounce welfare but warns that coercive uniformity kills social vitality. (Elinor Ostrom’s later work on polycentric governance supports this, showing communities manage resources better without central control.)

The Rise of Managerialism

Ward exposes how bureaucracy replaced participation in the late 20th century: professional managers usurped decision-making in every sphere—schools, hospitals, housing. This culture elevated jargon and hierarchy over human purpose. Quoting Herzen, Ward mocks “progress for future generations” when real progress should bring pleasure in work today. He argues that permanent organizations inevitably fossilize. To remain free, institutions must be voluntary, functional, temporary, and small. These four principles become his blueprint for anarchist organization.

“There is no point advocating freedom,” Ward writes, “if we set up organizations whose existence becomes an end in itself.”

Reclaiming Society

Ward’s realism shines here: he accepts that mass society cannot return to villages or communes but insists it must rediscover mutualism through “communities of interest” – local networks of shared needs and passions. He concludes that after disillusionment with bureaucratic socialism and corporate capitalism, people will inevitably reinvent anarchism—not as rebellion but as reorganization.

For you, Ward’s argument reframes political life: the state is not a protector but a parasite on social energy. His invitation is simple—to participate not through elections but through cooperation and creation, wherever you live.

Ward redirects the reader from political systems to deeper sources of conflict—nationalism and fundamentalism. Both, he argues, are products of the human craving for certainty. Anarchism responds not by fighting them with new dogmas but by dissolving their authority through tolerance and voluntary association.

Nationalism: The Politics of Division

Ward calls nationalism the inheritance of empire—the poisoned legacy of rulers who redrew borders and taught peoples to hate their neighbors. He agrees with historian Avi Shlaim that nationalism tends toward extremism and xenophobia. For anarchists, patriotism and nationalism are twin illusions: they disguise elites’ exploitation behind national pride. Martin Buber’s warning in 1921 that Israel must “live with the Arabs, not against them” highlights anarchism’s moral alternative—mutual coexistence over conquest.

Religion and Its Revolt

Drawing on Bakunin’s classic God and the State, Ward explores anarchism’s secular origins. Bakunin saw religion as “debauchery of the mind,” a mechanism of control upheld by the state. Yet Ward’s discussion goes beyond atheism: he shows how all fundamentalisms—Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, or Sikh—threaten freedom by merging faith with power. Nicolas Walter warned that fundamentalists use terror to impose religious law, from Christian bans on contraception to Islamic calls for sharia. For anarchists, true belief must remain private, never enforced by law.

Anarchism’s Response

Ward offers historical wisdom. Governmental suppression of religion, whether under Ataturk’s secular dictatorship or Soviet atheism, has always failed. Faith resurfaces stronger. Instead of repression, anarchists advocate mutual respect. He recounts how Jewish anarchist Rudolf Rocker refused to mock believers, insisting that “the place for believers is the house of worship, and for non-believers the radical meeting.” This balance—freedom of conscience rooted in coexistence—marks anarchism’s humane rationalism.

Ward cites Fatima Mernissi’s observation that Muslim men who oppose women’s rights do so not for religion but for privilege. Anarchism, by contrast, seeks equality before any authority, sacred or secular.

Ward’s message resonates today: fanaticism and nationalism thrive on fear and hierarchy. The anarchist remedy isn’t another ideology—it’s friendship. Live next to difference, cooperate across faiths, refuse the myth of enemies. Freedom begins where coercion ends.

Few writers connect crime and labor as intimately as Colin Ward does in his chapter “Containing Deviancy and Liberating Work.” He argues that both prison and employment systems reflect society’s obsession with control. Anarchism, by contrast, strives to replace punishment and exploitation with rehabilitation and autonomy.

Prisons as Factories of Misery

Ward recalls Kropotkin’s insight from In Russian and French Prisons: prisons are “universities of crime.” They transform petty offenders into hardened criminals. Building on Berkman’s memoirs and modern criminologists like David Cayley, Ward tracks how incarceration soared in the late 20th century—especially in the United States, which imprisons more citizens than any nation in history. The result is a self-perpetuating machine of social misery, disproportionately targeting the poor and minorities.

Like many anarchists, Ward doesn’t propose chaos; he proposes healing. The probation system—once meant to foster friendship between officer and offender—was corrupted by bureaucracy. Yet Ward insists rehabilitation through community remains the only humane path. Drug laws, he argues, epitomize the futility of repression. Citing Errico Malatesta’s 1922 article, he urges full decriminalization: “Make cocaine free, sell it cheaply, and teach plainly its dangers.” Allowing choice, not fear, curtails abuse.

The Liberation of Work

Ward turns from prison bars to workplace disciplines. Employers, like jailers, hold coercive power. Anarcho-syndicalism sought to break this cycle through worker control and cooperative industry. In the 1930s, CNT and IWW unions proved that self-management wasn’t fantasy—it worked. But globalization later undercut worker sovereignty, shifting jobs to cheaper labor abroad. Ward exposes the irony: capitalism’s promise of “freedom through enterprise” enslaves workers through insecurity.

Still, he sees hope in small business autonomy. Citing sociologist Paul Thompson, Ward shows that many artisans and entrepreneurs rebel against hierarchical capitalism in pursuit of personal satisfaction, not expansion. They conduct quiet acts of economic independence, rediscovering dignity through meaningful work—echoing Kropotkin’s dream in Fields, Factories and Workshops of integrating brain and manual labor.

“Prison is an expensive way of making bad men worse,” said Lord Waddington—a truth Ward turns into a metaphor for oppressive employment itself. The cure for both is freedom in responsibility.

Ward’s vision of liberated work mirrors his vision of justice: replace punishment with participation, replace obedience with creativity. Freedom, he reminds you, starts not after revolution but when you reclaim control of your own labor and compassion.

If anarchism is about freeing individuals from coercion, education becomes its moral frontier. Ward’s chapter “Freedom in Education” traces a radical lineage from William Godwin to A.S. Neill—educators who rebelled against the tyranny of schooling itself.

The Child Against the Pedagogue

Godwin’s 1797 book The Enquirer declared that “the true object of education is the generation of happiness.” Ward presents this as anarchism’s educational foundation: the belief that learning should cultivate autonomy, not obedience. Godwin opposed national schooling because it perpetuated prejudice and servility. His warning—“Government will not fail to employ education to strengthen its hand”—proved prophetic as states turned schools into social factories.

Alternative Traditions

Ward recovers the forgotten history of working-class private schools in 19th-century Britain—community-run institutions emphasizing basic literacy without authoritarian discipline. He juxtaposes these with the experiments of Tolstoy in Russia and Francesco Ferrer’s “Modern Schools” in Spain, where learning replaced religious indoctrination. Ferrer was executed for his secular ideals, yet his vision survived in the libertarian schools of Catalonia during the Spanish Revolution.

Bakunin imagined schools where teachers and students exchanged knowledge as equals, foreshadowing Ivan Illich’s later concept of “deschooling society.” Paul Robin and Sébastien Faure advanced “integral education,” combining manual and intellectual training, introducing co-education, and rejecting punishment. Their defiance shaped later innovators like Dora Russell’s Beacon Hill School and A.S. Neill’s Summerhill—where children decided whether to attend classes at all.

The Permanent Rebel

Ward celebrates Neill’s fierce independence from state control. Summerhill endured decades of criticism precisely because it embodied anarchism’s faith in the child’s self-determination. “Give the child freedom,” Neill wrote, “but don’t devise a system to limit it.” Ward contrasts this spirit with the bureaucratic imposition of standardized curricula and testing, which he views as the modern reincarnation of authoritarian schooling.

Anarchist education is the art of trust—a belief that curiosity is stronger than control. Its triumph isn’t in examination results but in the freedom of the learner.

For you, Ward’s lesson is liberating: education that produces obedience isn’t education—it’s indoctrination. Real learning begins when authority steps aside. His teachers of freedom remind us that the classroom can either reproduce hierarchy or rehearse liberty. The choice remains ours.

Colin Ward’s most hopeful chapter, “Quiet Revolutions,” asks you to see anarchism not in barricades but in the transformations of everyday life. From sexual emancipation and feminism to community activism, Ward uncovers the hidden revolutions that reshaped modern society without ever capturing a government.

Freedom in Daily Life

He begins with Dwight Macdonald’s insight: the alternative to mass living isn’t collectivized property but decentralized communities where individuals can live fully as humans. Ward shows how anarchist principles quietly influenced social progress—abolition of corporal punishment, decriminalization of homosexuality, and the end of capital punishment. Even reforms achieved through parliamentary means began as anarchist moral campaigns. When Freedom Press mailed A Handbook on Hanging to every MP, it was an act of humor and humanity that embodied anarchism’s ethics.

Love, Sex, and Personal Autonomy

Ward reclaims figures like Emma Goldman and Alex Comfort as pioneers of sexual freedom. Goldman’s 1911 essay called for rejection of servitude and celebration of self-ownership: emancipation must begin with the body. Comfort argued that good sexual experience fosters radical empathy—people “unwarlike” and resistant to authoritarianism. From free unions to contraception, the liberation of personal relationships becomes the most enduring anarchist revolution.

From Protest to Community

Ward revisits the imaginative activism of the Dutch Provos and Kabouters, who replaced confrontation with creativity—white bicycles for public use, playful street art against authority. In France, Situationists like Raoul Vaneigem announced that “the revolution must begin in everyday life.” These gestures prefigured today’s Green and anti-globalization movements, where humor, art, and nonviolence expose the absurdity of state and corporate control.

Ward defines quiet revolutions as “small liberations that lift a huge load of human misery”—proof that change doesn’t need armies but courage in daily kindness and cooperation.

For you, these stories offer reassurance: real revolution is humane and persistent. Every act of community gardening, mutual aid, or protest weaves freedom into everyday life. Ward invites you to join this long, gentle rebellion that begins wherever people help one another without permission.

Ward concludes by linking anarchism’s moral vision to the twin themes of federalism and ecology—the building blocks of a sustainable future. He shows that the anarchist faith in local autonomy naturally evolves into environmental and regional consciousness.

The Federalist Agenda

Drawing on the writings of Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin, Ward revisits their dream of a “United States of Europe” not based on nation-states but on regions freely federated. Proudhon foresaw the danger of centralization: once power concentrates, liberty evaporates. Bakunin expanded this vision, insisting on the right of secession as the foundation of true federation. Their model—the Swiss commune and canton—embodied the idea that coordination need not mean coercion.

Ward connects this 19th-century foresight to modern Europe’s challenges: bureaucratic globalization versus regional democracy. He cites Dutch sociologist Willem de Haan’s observation that diversity, not uniformity, creates tolerant societies—a principle anarchists recognized early. (The modern EU concept of “subsidiarity,” decision-making at the lowest possible level, echoes their doctrine almost verbatim.)

Green Anarchism and Sustainable Living

Ward then turns to ecology, where anarchist insights become practical imperatives. He recalls Kropotkin’s warnings in Fields, Factories and Workshops that energy isn’t infinite and production must become local and cooperative. Today, environmental thinkers like Murray Bookchin and Alan Carter argue that only anarchism offers a coherent framework for sustainability—decentralized, participatory, and equitable.

Ward introduces Peter Harper and the Centre for Alternative Technology as modern heirs to Kropotkin, experimenting with renewable energy and community self-sufficiency. Harper’s distinction between “Light Greens” (tech optimists) and “Deep Greens” (local minimalists) shows the variety of anarchist environmentalism. Both reject consumerism’s creed of “MORE!” and seek balance. Harper’s vision of urban sustainability—cities powered by cooperation rather than competition—embodies Ward’s conviction that ecology and freedom are interdependent.

Ward asserts that an ecologically conscious society will inevitably rediscover anarchism, because survival itself demands decentralization, equality, and voluntary coordination.

For you, this means anarchism isn’t a relic—it’s a roadmap. Whether through local food systems, cooperative economies, or regional autonomy, the future will require the principles Ward champions: small-scale responsibility, mutual trust, and creative restraint. His final promise is bold yet practical—the planet’s survival depends on our capacity to live freely together.