- anarchy
- 1530s, from M.L. anarchia, from Gk. anarkhia "lack of a leader," noun of state from anarkhos "rulerless," from an- "without" + arkhos "leader" (see archon). Anarch (n.) "leader of leaderlessness," a deliciously paradoxical word, was used by Milton, Pope, Byron. Anarcho-syndicalism is first recorded 1913.
"Either the State for ever, crushing individual and local life, taking over in all fields of human activity, bringing with it its wars and its domestic struggles for power, its palace revolutions which only replace one tyrant by another, and inevitably at the end of this development there is ... death! Or the destruction of States, and new life starting again in thousands of centers on the principle of the lively initiative of the individual and groups and that of free agreement. The choice lies with you!" [Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)]