The earliest[43] anarchist themes can be found in the 6th century BC, among the works of Taoist philosopher Laozi,[44] and in later centuries by Zhuangzi and Bao Jingyan.[45]
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Zhuangzi's philosophy has been described by various sources as anarchist.[46][47][48][49]
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Zhuangzi wrote, "A petty thief is put in jail.
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A great brigand becomes a ruler of a Nation."[50]
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Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics, their contemporary Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, also introduced similar topics.[44][51]
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Jesus is sometimes considered the first anarchist in the Christian anarchist tradition.
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Georges Lechartier wrote that "The true founder of anarchy was Jesus Christ and ... the first anarchist society was that of the apostles."[52]
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In early Islamic history, some manifestations of anarchic thought are found during the Islamic civil war over the Caliphate, where the Kharijites insisted that the imamate is a right for each individual within the Islamic society.[53]
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Later, some Muslim scholars, such as Amer al-Basri[54] and Abu Hanifa,[55] led movements of boycotting the rulers, paving the way to the waqf (endowments) tradition, which served as an alternative to and asylum from the centralized authorities of the emirs.
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But such interpretations reverberates subversive religious conceptions like the aforementioned seemingly anarchistic Taoist teachings and that of other anti-authoritarian religious traditions creating a complex relationship regarding the question as to whether or not anarchism and religion are compatible.
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This is exemplified when the glorification of the state is viewed as a form of sinful idolatry.[56][57]
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The French renaissance political philosopher Étienne de La Boétie wrote in his most famous work the Discourse on Voluntary Servitude what some historians consider an important anarchist precedent.[58][59]
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The radical Protestant Christian Gerrard Winstanley and his group the Diggers are cited by various authors as proposing anarchist social measures in the 17th century in England.[60][61][62]
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The term "anarchist" first entered the English language in 1642, during the English Civil War, as a term of abuse, used by Royalists against their Roundhead opponents.[63]
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By the time of the French Revolution some, such as the Enragés, began to use the term positively,[64] in opposition to Jacobin centralisation of power, seeing "revolutionary government" as oxymoronic.[63]
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By the turn of the 19th century, the English word "anarchism" had lost its initial negative connotation.[63]
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Modern anarchism sprang from the secular or religious thought of the Enlightenment, particularly Jean-Jacques Rousseau's arguments for the moral centrality of freedom.[65]
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As part of the political turmoil of the 1790s in the wake of the French Revolution, William Godwin developed the first expression of modern anarchist thought.[66][67]
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Godwin was, according to Peter Kropotkin, "the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his work",[44] while Godwin attached his anarchist ideas to an early Edmund Burke.[68]
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Godwin is generally regarded as the founder of the school of thought known as 'philosophical anarchism'.
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He argued in Political Justice (1793)[67][69] that government has an inherently malevolent influence on society, and that it perpetuates dependency and ignorance.
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He thought that the spread of the use of reason to the masses would eventually cause government to wither away as an unnecessary force.
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Although he did not accord the state with moral legitimacy, he was against the use of revolutionary tactics for removing the government from power.
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Rather, he advocated for its replacement through a process of peaceful evolution.[67][70]
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His aversion to the imposition of a rules-based society led him to denounce, as a manifestation of the people’s ‘mental enslavement’, the foundations of law, property rights and even the institution of marriage.
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He considered the basic foundations of society as constraining the natural development of individuals to use their powers of reasoning to arrive at a mutually beneficial method of social organisation.
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In each case, government and its institutions are shown to constrain the development of our capacity to live wholly in accordance with the full and free exercise of private judgment.
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The French Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is regarded as the first self-proclaimed anarchist, a label he adopted in his groundbreaking work, What is Property?, published in 1840.
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It is for this reason that some claim Proudhon as the founder of modern anarchist theory.[71]
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He developed the theory of spontaneous order in society, where organisation emerges without a central coordinator imposing its own idea of order against the wills of individuals acting in their own interests; his famous quote on the matter is, "Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order."
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In What is Property?
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Proudhon answers with the famous accusation "Property is theft."
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In this work, he opposed the institution of decreed "property" (propriété), where owners have complete rights to "use and abuse" their property as they wish.[72]
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He contrasted this with what he called "possession," or limited ownership of resources and goods only while in more or less continuous use.
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Later, however, Proudhon added that "Property is Liberty," and argued that it was a bulwark against state power.[73]
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His opposition to the state, organised religion, and certain capitalist practices inspired subsequent anarchists, and made him one of the leading social thinkers of his time.
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The anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque was the first person to describe himself as "libertarian".[74]
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Unlike Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, he argued that, "it is not the product of his or her labour that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature."[75]
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In 1844 in Germany the post-hegelian philosopher Max Stirner published the book, The Ego and Its Own, which would later be considered an influential early text of individualist anarchism.[76]
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French anarchists active in the 1848 Revolution included Anselme Bellegarrigue, Ernest Coeurderoy, Joseph Déjacque[74] and Pierre Joseph Proudhon.[77][78]
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In Europe, harsh reaction followed the revolutions of 1848, during which ten countries had experienced brief or long-term social upheaval as groups carried out nationalist uprisings.
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After most of these attempts at systematic change ended in failure, conservative elements took advantage of the divided groups of socialists, anarchists, liberals, and nationalists, to prevent further revolt.[79]
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In Spain Ramón de la Sagra established the anarchist journal El Porvenir in La Coruña in 1845 which was inspired by Proudhon´s ideas.[80]
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The Catalan politician Francesc Pi i Margall became the principal translator of Proudhon's works into Spanish[81] and later briefly became president of Spain in 1873 while being the leader of the Democratic Republican Federal Party.
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According to George Woodcock "These translations were to have a profound and lasting effect on the development of Spanish anarchism after 1870, but before that time Proudhonian ideas, as interpreted by Pi, already provided much of the inspiration for the federalist movement which sprang up in the early 1860's."[82]
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According to the Encyclopedia Britannica "During the Spanish revolution of 1873, Pi y Margall attempted to establish a decentralized, or "cantonalist," political system on Proudhonian lines."[80]
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In 1864 the International Workingmen's Association (sometimes called the "First International") united diverse revolutionary currents including French followers of Proudhon,[83] Blanquists, Philadelphes, English trade unionists, socialists and social democrats.
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Due to its links to active workers' movements, the International became a significant organisation.
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Karl Marx became a leading figure in the International and a member of its General Council.
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Proudhon's followers, the mutualists, opposed Marx's state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings.[84][85]
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Woodcock also reports that the American individualist anarchists Lysander Spooner and William B. Greene had been members of the First International.[86]
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In 1868, following their unsuccessful participation in the League of Peace and Freedom (LPF), Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin and his collectivist anarchist associates joined the First International (which had decided not to get involved with the LPF).[87]
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They allied themselves with the federalist socialist sections of the International,[88] who advocated the revolutionary overthrow of the state and the collectivization of property.
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At first, the collectivists worked with the Marxists to push the First International in a more revolutionary socialist direction.
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Subsequently, the International became polarised into two camps, with Marx and Bakunin as their respective figureheads.[89]
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Bakunin characterised Marx's ideas as centralist and predicted that, if a Marxist party came to power, its leaders would simply take the place of the ruling class they had fought against.[90][91]
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Anarchist historian George Woodcock reports that "The annual Congress of the International had not taken place in 1870 owing to the outbreak of the Paris Commune, and in 1871 the General Council called only a special conference in London.
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One delegate was able to attend from Spain and none from Italy, while a technical excuse – that they had split away from the Fédération Romande – was used to avoid inviting Bakunin's Swiss supporters.
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Thus only a tiny minority of anarchists was present, and the General Council's resolutions passed almost unanimously.
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Most of them were clearly directed against Bakunin and his followers."[92]
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In 1872, the conflict climaxed with a final split between the two groups at the Hague Congress, where Bakunin and James Guillaume were expelled from the International and its headquarters were transferred to New York.
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In response, the federalist sections formed their own International at the St. Imier Congress, adopting a revolutionary anarchist program.[93]
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The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from 18 March (more formally, from 28 March) to 28 May 1871.
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The Commune was the result of an uprising in Paris after France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War.
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Anarchists participated actively in the establishment of the Paris Commune.
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They included

Louise Michel, the Reclus brothers, and Eugene Varlin (the latter murdered in the repression afterwards).
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As for the reforms initiated by the Commune, such as the re-opening of workplaces as co-operatives, anarchists can see their ideas of associated labour beginning to be realised ...
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Moreover, the Commune's ideas on federation obviously reflected the influence of Proudhon on French radical ideas.
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Indeed, the Commune's vision of a communal France based on a federation of delegates bound by imperative mandates issued by their electors and subject to recall at any moment echoes Bakunin's and Proudhon's ideas (Proudhon, like Bakunin, had argued in favour of the "implementation of the binding mandate" in 1848 ... and for federation of communes).
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Thus both economically and politically the Paris Commune was heavily influenced by anarchist ideas.[94]
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