Talk:Anarchy

Incomplete and biased

This entry seems fairly biased against anarchy and lacks much in the way of an applied understanding of the concept/outdated though foundational, and could at the very least use more contemporary examples and definitions from the late 19th century French anarchists up to modern movements and even redefinitions by Noam Chomsky, for starters. 2001:861:3D41:8B90:7C1C:440D:F559:D2CC (talk) 10:33, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Anarchy Wikipedia page

They Wikipedia page of pure anarchy anyone is allowed to do anything in the page until it forms into something Yooyoh (talk) 19:24, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Is this a question? Knitsey (talk) 19:28, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

No just a random thought by a enlightened monk Yooyoh (talk) 21:14, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

It is to the extent that this is an answer. Leutha (talk) 21:37, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

"Without rulers"

@MZoooo: It's better to discuss an article on the article talk page, rather than user talk pages, so I'm responding here. The definition of anarchy as "without ruler" is bared out throughout the cited sources:

• Dupuis-Déri 2010, p. 13:

  From an etymological point of view, “anarchy” comes from the greek word anarkhia at the heart of which the root an signifies “without” and arkhia “military chief,” which eventually comes to denote simply a “chief’ or “leader.” From an etymological point of view, therefore, “anarchy” refers to the absence of a leader. From a mathematical per­ spective, it signifies no, or zero, leader.

• Marshall 2008, p. 3:

  ANARCHY IS USUALLY DEFINED as a society without government, and anarchism as the social philosophy which aims at its realization. The word 'anarchy' comes from the ancient Greek word αναρχία in which αν meant 'without' and αρχία meant first a military 'leader' then 'ruler'.

• Chartier and Van Schoelant, p. 1:

  Anarchy is a social condition free not of rules but of rulers—and so especially, but not only, of states.

• Marshall 2008, pp. 19-20:

  Proudhon [...] defined anarchy as the absence of a ruler or a sovereign as a 'form of government'.

• McKay 2018, pp. 118-119:

  Anarchy was “the absence of a master, of a sovereign,”

This definition is also bared out in the wiktionary definitions for the word ἀναρχία, the prefix ἀν- and the suffix -αρχία. Making unexplained changes to sourced content, that have no basis in the source material, is not acceptable per our policy on verifiability. If you have alternate definitions, then add those alongside these, do not change existing sourced material to say something the sources never say. If you disagree, I'm happy to invite a third opinion to settle this dispute. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:44, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

I've expanded the definition slightly to incorporate more of the specific wording used in the cited sources (see diff). Note that my objections were over changing the wording to imply the cited sources define αρχία as "to govern" (per diff), which they do not; and later implying that the cited sources fundamentally define anarchy as the "self-government of all" (see diff), which they do not. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:10, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Dupuis-Déri 2010 defines anarchy as the "self-government of all"

"If we are to remain true to the mathematical logic of the tradition of political philosophy, anarchy (the rule of all) must be distinguished from democracy (the rule of the majority). Mathematically speaking, ”all” and ”many” are not synonyms and therefore there is no mathematical correspondence between a democracy (majority rule) and anarchy (consensus rule and genuine self-government)." p. 7 MZoooo (talk) 11:30, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Marshall 2008 also suggests this definition, while not saying directly

"The idea of ruling oneself rather than being ruled by others is implicit in the anarchists’ advocacy of self-government and self-management." MZoooo (talk) 11:32, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Marshall does not mention anarchy here, it seems clear that he's talking about anarchist philosophy, which is better reserved for the article about anarchism. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:40, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

@MZoooo: This part from Dupuis-Déri was already referenced later in the definition section. I've added a bit more to clarify what he means by the "rule of all". --Grnrchst (talk) 11:38, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Hey, I wanted to post here, but couldn't tag you properly for some reason.

I was mistaken about what one of the sources said, and in other case which citation was used, I didn't intend to change information without sources, I thought I was correcting the information to be accurate to them.

---

In the wikitionary suffix -αρχία is said to mean (archy) form of government or rule, -άρχης (arch) means a ruler, leader, I see you corrected "means" to "derives from", but I think it would be better to say what it means, the 'derives' part can still be there. MZoooo (talk) 11:26, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

"αρχία as "to govern" " Compare the related term Archon (ruler, chief magistrate), and the specialization polemarch (commander-in-chief, warlord) for archons with specifically military responsibilities. They derive from the verb ἄρχω which (depending on context) means to lead, to rule, to govern, and to command. Dimadick (talk) 11:34, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

I see I was incorrect in that definition, but what about "(archy) form of government or rule", that is the definition on wikitionary MZoooo (talk) 11:39, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

@MZoooo: Per guidelines on reliable sources, we cannot cite Wiktionary as a source. We can link to it, but we can't use it as a source to change article content; we need to stick to what scholarly sources (i.e. not the Wikimedia community) say. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:43, 7 May 2026 (UTC)