Routledge Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition
The political doctrine which asserts that economic and social life should not be subject to any governmental control. The leading early exponents of this view were Pierre Proudhon (1809–65) and Mikhail Bakunin (1815–76).
In practice, anarchism has been applied to industrial organization in the form of workers’ syndicates, but experiments of this nature in France and Spain in the early twentieth century were short lived. Although anarchists share with socialists a dislike of capitalism, with LAISSEZ-FAIRE economists a mistrust of the state and with members of the co-operative movement a belief that firms should be managed by labour, they are more extreme, especially in wanting the abolition of private property and being prepared to risk the abandonment of systems of law and order.
References
Ritter, A. (1980) Anarchism: A Theoretical Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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