Anti-statism is any approach to social, economic or political philosophy that rejects statism. An anti-statist is one who opposes intervention by the state into personal, social and economic affairs. In

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...

, this is characterized by a complete rejection of all involuntary

hierarchical A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

rulership.

Overview

Anti-statism is present in a variety of greatly differing positions and encompasses an array of diametric concepts and practices. Anti-statists differ greatly according to the beliefs they hold in addition to anti-statism as significant difficulty in determining whether a thinker or philosophy is anti-statist is the problem of defining the state itself. Terminology has changed over time and past writers often used the word state in a different sense than we use it today.

Anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

Mikhail Bakunin used the term simply to mean a governing organization while other writers used the term state to mean any lawmaking or law enforcement agency. Revolutionary socialist Karl Marx defined the state as the institution used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule. According to liberal

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...

, the state is an organization with an effective legal monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force in a particular geographic area.

Topics

* Anti-militarism is the opposition to "

military rule Military rule may mean: * Military justice, the legal system applying to members of the armed forces * Martial law, where military authority takes over normal administration of law * Militarism or militarist ideology, the ideology of government as b ...

, high military expenditure or the imposition of foreign bases". It is an opposition to statist military policy, especially

nuclear armament Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as " Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Wea ...

, and is closely associated with pacifism. Anarcho-pacifism is a radical form of these principles. *

Civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...

is the practiced rejection of the legislative authority of the state. This is usually defined as pertaining to the relationship between the laws of the state and the

citizen Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

. Civil disobedience often aims to challenge the legitimacy of a political or judicial ruling through protest. * Disinformation is false information spread deliberately to deceive. * '' Laissez-faire'' is the absence of any

state intervention Economic interventionism, sometimes also called state interventionism, is an economic policy position favouring government intervention in the market process with the intention of correcting market failures and promoting the general welfare of ...

in a

market economy A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers ...

. The theory of rests on the principles that economic intervention by the government is either impractical, illegitimate or both. *

Self-governance __NOTOC__ Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any form of ...

is the ability of a group or individual to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. *

Surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...

saw the advent of technologies such as high speed surveillance computers and biometrics software. As governments now possess an unprecedented ability to monitor the activities of their subjects, many civil rights and

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

groups have expressed concern that allowing continual increases in government surveillance of citizens will end up in a

mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...

society, with extremely limited, or non-existent political and personal freedoms.

Forms

Besides Cynicism (contemporary) and

Nihilism Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...

, there are:

Political theories

Anti-statism is a common element in

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

and

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...

political philosophy. Anarchism is defined by its principle aim of abolishing the state and its institutions. According to anarchist doctrine, the state is a tool of domination and

coercion Coercion () is compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against a party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desi ...

that is illegitimate regardless of political tendencies. On the other hand, libertarianism seeks to maximize liberty and

political freedom Political freedom (also known as political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Hannah Arendt, "What is Freedom?", ''Between Past and F ...

as its core principles. This may include either a complete or partial opposition to state power, with the goal of abolishing or restricting the state.

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

approaches to anti-statism centre on the relationship between political rule and

class struggle Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor. The forms ...

. Karl Marx defined the state as the institution used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule. To this extent, the ultimate goal of communist society was theorized as both stateless and

classless The term classless society refers to a society in which no one is born into a social class. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievemen ...

. Political movements may adopt anti-statist principles for other reasons such as

aesthetic Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...

, ideological or religious beliefs, or as a result of social or political marginalization. Examples of this may include resistance movements under military occupation or a conflicting regime.

Egoism

In egoist philosophy, self-interest is held as the grounding principle of human action, morality or both. Max Stirner proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions such as the notion of state, morality and property rights are mere illusions or ghosts in the mind. In this way, noncompliance to government authority is always justified.

Anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism Anarcho-capitalism (or, colloquially, ancap) is an anti-statist, libertarian, and anti-political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforce ...

opposes the state, instead favoring private institutions, such as markets.

References

{{libertarianism Anarchist theory Libertarianism Libertarian theory Statism