anarchy

noun

1. (uncountable)The state of a society being without authorities or an authoritative governing body.

   “La propriété et la royauté sont en démolition dès le commencement du monde ; comme l’homme cherche la justice dans l’égalité, la société cherche l’ordre dans l’anarchie. Anarchie, absence de maître, de souverain, telle est la forme de gouvernement dont nous approchons tous les jours, et que l’habitude invétérée de prendre l’homme pour règle et sa volonté pour loi nous fait regarder comme le comble du désordre et l’expression du chaos.”

   “Oui, l’anarchie c’est l'ordre; car, le gouvernement c’est la guerre civile.”

   “Rather than democracy, justice as well as economic efficiency require a pure and unrestricted private property society – an ‘anarchy of production’ – in which no one rules anybody, and all producers’ relations are voluntary, and thus mutually beneficial.”

2. (rare, uncountable)The political theory that a community is best organized by the voluntary cooperation of individuals, rather than by a government, which is regarded as being coercive by nature.
3. (countable)A chaotic and confusing absence of any form of political authority or government.

   “And each dweller, panic-stricken, Felt his heart with terror sicken Hearing the tempestuous cry Of the triumph of Anarchy.”

4. (countable, uncountable)Confusion in general; disorder.

   “It was total anarchy in the clothes shop on Black Friday as soon as they opened the doors.”

   “Der Widerspruch zwischen gesellschaftlicher Produktion und kapitalistischer Aneignung stellt sich nun dar als Gegensatz zwischen der Organisation der Produktion in der einzelnen Fabrik und der Anarchie der Produktion in der ganzen Gesellschaft.”

   “The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil.”