Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is the first self-proclaimed anarchist, a label which he adopted in his 1840 treatise What is Property?. It is for this reason that some declare Proudhon the founder of modern anarchist theory.

Individualist anarchism in the American tradition began with nineteenth century figures such as Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, Benjamin Tucker, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Victor Yarros, and Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau's individualist anarchism is purely philosophical and does not recommend any kind of action. Rather, it calls "us to recognize the inevitability of self-government accompanied by atrophy of the State" and argues that the state has no power other than what individuals accede to it.
"Anarchism does not exclude prisons, officials, military, or other symbols of force. It merely demands that non-invasive men shall not be made the victims of such force. Anarchism is not the reign of love, but the reign of justice. It does not signify the abolition of force-symbols but the application of force to real invaders." Tucker, Benjamin. Liberty October 19 1891. Unlike anarcho-communists, they supported a right to purchase the labour of others and for individuals to sell their own. They argued that the state prevents true free competition in the market, which they thought prevented labor from receiving its true value in exchange. Accepting a labor theory of value, they believed that free-market competition would cause prices paid for labor, and the goods labor produces, to be proportional to the labor embodied in those goods and services. And they thought that unregulated banking and private money issuance would cause interest rates to drop to zero, because they thought this would increase the supply of money and intensify competition in lending.


Benjamin Tucker, who was one of the most prominent individualist anarchists, opposed what he called four "monopolies": the money monopoly (state control over currency, credit, and banks); the land monopoly of land-titles that remained in effect if individuals were not using their land; patents, which prohibit competition; tariffs, which restrict competition in favor of established firms. There was also agreement among the early American individualists on the permissibility of employment ("wage labour"). Unlike other individualist anarchists, Spooner supported intellectual property rights and permitted absentee ownership of land.

Anarchism without adjectives, in the words of historian George Richard Esenwein, "referred to an unhyphenated form of anarchism, that is, a doctrine without any qualifying labels such as communist, collectivist, mutualist, or individualist. For others, ... it was simply understood as an attitude that tolerated the coexistence of different anarchist schools." . It arose as the result of being troubled by the "bitter debates" between the different movements and was a call for more tolerance. Anarchism without adjectives emphasizes harmony between various anarchist factions and attempts to unite them around their shared anti-authoritarian beliefs. The expression was coined by Cuban-born Fernando Tarrida del Marmol, who used it in November 1889 in Barcelona.

To these anarchists, economic preferences are considered to be of secondary importance to abolishing all coercive authority. Rudolf Rocker, who was one of these anarchists, said that the different types of anarchism presented "only different methods of economy, the practical possibilities of which have yet to be tested, and that the first objective is to secure the personal and social freedom of men no matter upon which economics basis this is to be accomplished."

Voltairine de Cleyre was one of the most prominent "anarchists without adjectives". Although she initially identified herself as an individualist anarchist, she later espoused a collectivist form of anarchism, while refusing to identify herself with any of the contemporary schools. She commented that "Socialism and Communism both demand a degree of joint effort and administration which would beget more regulation than is wholly consistent with ideal Anarchism; Individualism and Mutualism, resting upon property, involve a development of the private policeman not at all compatible with my notion of freedom." In The Making of an Anarchist, she wrote, "I no longer label myself otherwise than as 'Anarchist' simply."

Errico Malatesta was another proponent of anarchism-without-adjectives, stating that "it is not right for us, to say the least, to fall into strife over mere hypotheses."

In Europe, harsh reaction followed the revolutions of 1848. Twenty years later in 1864 the International Workingmen's Association, sometimes called the 'First International', united some diverse European revolutionary currents, including French followers of Proudhon, Blanquists, English trade unionists, socialists and social democrats. Due to its genuine links to active workers' movements, the International became a significant organization.

Karl Marx became a leading figure in the International and a member of its General Council. Proudhon's followers, the Mutualists, opposed Marx's state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings. Mikhail Bakunin joined in 1868, allying with the anti-authoritarian socialist sections of the International, who advocated the revolutionary overthrow of the state and the collectivization of property. At first, the collectivists worked with the Marxists to push the First International in a more revolutionary socialist direction. Subsequently, the International became polarized into two camps, with Marx and Bakunin as their respective figureheads.

Bakunin characterised Marx's ideas as authoritarian 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.•

In the 1920s and 1930s, the familiar dynamics of anarchism's conflict with the state were transformed by the rise of fascism in Europe. Italy saw the first struggles between anarchists and fascists. Anarchists played a key role in the anti-fascist organisation Arditi del Popolo. This group was strongest in areas with anarchist traditions and marked up numerous successful victories, including driving back Blackshirts in the anarchist stronghold of Parma in August 1922.

In France, where the fascists came close to insurrection in the February 1934 riots, anarchists divided over a 'united front' policy. In Spain, the CNT initially refused to join a popular front electoral alliance and abstention by CNT supporters led to a right wing election victory. But in 1936, the CNT changed its policy and anarchist votes helped bring the popular front back to power. Months later, the ruling class responded with an attempted coup, and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was underway.

In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain where they collectivized the land. But even before the eventual fascist victory in 1939, the anarchists were losing ground in a bitter struggle with the Stalinists. The CNT leadership often appeared confused and divided, with some members controversially entering the government. According to George Orwell and other foreign observers, Stalinist-led troops suppressed the collectives and persecuted both dissident Marxists and anarchists.

From Proudhon and Bakunin to the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists, Anarchists have traditionally been skeptical about and opposed to organized religion, believing that most organized religions are hierarchical in nature and, more often than not, aligned with contemporary power structures like state and capital. Nonetheless, there are those who reconcile anarchism with religion.

Christian anarchists believe that there is no higher authority than God, and oppose earthly authority such as government and established churches. They believe that Jesus' teachings and the practice of the early church were clearly anarchistic, but were corrupted when "Christianity" was declared the official religion of Rome. Though he did not call himself an anarchist because he applied the term to those who wanted to change society through violence, Leo Tolstoy is considered to be the most famous Christian anarchist whose 'The Kingdom of God Is Within You' is considered a key Christian anarchist text. The Catholic Worker Movement is a modern Christian anarchist organisation.

Buddhist anarchism originated in the Chinese Anarchist movemnt of the 1920s, Taixu, one of the leading thinkers and writers of this school, was deeply influenced by the work of christian anarchists like Tolstoy and by the ancient Chinese well-field system. A much more recent incarnation of this school of thought was popularized by Jack Keroac in his book The Dharma Bums.

In the late 1800's the Ghadar movement in India (see Har Dayal), influenced by Buddhist thought and by Swami Dayananda Saraswati (founder of Arya Samaj), saw anarchism as a way of propagating the ancient culture of the Arya. (Not to be confused with the much later appropriation of "Aryan" identity by German Fascists). .