Pleraeque historiae anarchismi historiam similem [Marxismo] fuisse adsumunt: anarchismum ostendunt conceptum esse cuiuslibet saeculi undevigensi philosophi—Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, etc.—et proinde organizationes classis laborariae incitavisse. . . . Sed re vera, analogia ista aloga est. Saeculi undevicensi "conditores anarchismi" se ipsos aliquid proprie novi invenisse non se ducebant. Prima anarchismi principia—constitutio sui, consortio voluntaria, auxilium mutuum—ad formas activitatis humanae spectabant, quae tam longe quam humanitas existisse adsumebant. Item de reprobatione civitatis omniumque formarum violentiae structuralis, iniquitatis, dominationisque (anarchismus "sine dominatoribus" verbatim sibi vult), et quidem adsumptione, quae omnes illas formas connexas esse seque invicem corroborare habet. Nihil quasi nova doctrina portentifica divulgatum est. Probe, re vera: scripturas invenire potes de hominibus similiter per historiam arguentibus, etsi omnes causae sint ut credamus tales opiniones, plurimis temporibus locisque, minime eas esse, quae inscriberentur.[cit. 1][7]
↑"Most accounts of the history of anarchism assume it was basically similar: anarchism is presented as the brainchild of certain nineteenth-century thinkers—Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, etc.—it then went on to inspire working-class organizations. . . . But in fact, the analogy is strained at best. The nineteenth-century “founding figures” did not think of themselves as having invented anything particularly new. The basic principles of anarchism—self-organization, voluntary association, mutual aid—referred to forms of human behavior they assumed to have been around about as long as humanity. The same goes for the rejection of the state and of all forms of structural violence, inequality, or domination (anarchism literally means “without rulers”), even the assumption that all these forms are somehow related and reinforce each other. None of it was presented as some startling new doctrine. And in fact it was not: one can find records of people making similar arguments throughout history, despite the fact there is every reason to believe that in most times and places, such opinions were the ones least likely to be written down."