ABSTRACT
Arising from a reaction to the growing power of government and the increasing influence of capitalism, anarchism developed among a small but highly motivated number of people. Poorly understood in our society, anarchism is the purest expression of individualism in political thought. Anarchists of all sorts see institutional government as an impediment to human progress and wish to eliminate it in part or even completely. Agreeing that government should be limited, anarchists tend to disagree on matters of substance and on tactics. Social anarchists—those on the left—wish to free individuals from governmental restraint so that individuals can do the greatest good possible for society as a whole. By contrast, individualist anarchists—those on the right of the political spectrum—seek to limit government so that individuals can accomplish the greatest good for themselves alone.
