Pierre-Joseph Proudhon has been called the father of anarchism, a title that is accurate insofar as organized anarchist movements throughout the world can be traced to his teachings and to the actions of his disciples. Proudhon was also the first writer deliberately to accept the title of anarchist, which he did in 1840. Before his time the term had been used to denote one who seeks to promote social disorder; Proudhon argued that it could be used with more justice to describe one who seeks social order without authoritarian government. "As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy," he said. "Anarchy—the absence of a master, of a sovereign—such is the form of government to which we are every day approximating." Such doctrines were not entirely original; the English writer William Godwin had expounded them fifty years earlier without describing...