Anti-authoritarianism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as a "political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule: absolutism, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism."[1] Anti-authoritarians believe in an equal distribution of power among all people. They typically support social arrangements like direct democracy, gift economies, and worker self-management.
Anti-authoritarian was also the name given to the anarchists inside the First International who opposed the Communists. They were excluded from the IWA after the 1872 Hague Congress. Sometimes the term is sometimes used interchangeably with Anarchism, although at other times it refers to any number of decentralized but usually left-wing groups, including certain factions of Maoists and other Third World Marxists, certain Nationalist groups (including certain Black nationalists who repudiate the party form), or other Leftists who belong intellectually to a recognized strain of thought, but who politically organize in a decentralized manner. Sometimes these groups, such as the Situationists, are very close philosophically to anarchism, but at other times, they can harbor opposing values.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus (1995). "authoritarianism". Houghton Mifflin Company. http://www.bartleby.com/62/15/A0111500.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-25.
