Criticisms of anarchism originate from groups it opposes as well as related theories such as Marxism. Specific ideas within anarchism have been criticized, as has anarchism generally. Some charges leveled against anarchism by its critics are utopianism, authoritarianism, tendency towards violence, hypocrisy and being an expression of the class interests of the petite bourgeoisie.
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Anarchism is often labeled by some of its critics as unfeasible, or plain utopian, even by those who agree that it may be an appealing principle. For example, former European history professor Carl Landauer, in his book European Socialism claimed that anarchism is unrealistically utopian, and holds that government is a "lesser evil" than a society without "repressive force." He holds that the belief that "ill intentions will cease if repressive force disappears" is an "absurdity."[1]
In recent decades, some schools of anarchism (chiefly the Bakuninist concept of the revolutionary secret society) have been criticized by Situationists and others of preserving tacitly statist, authoritarian or bureaucratic tendencies.[2] The anarcho-capitalist economist Bryan Caplan argues that the treatment of fascists and fascist sympathizers by Spanish anarchists in the Spanish Civil War was a form of illegitimate coercion, making the anarchists "ultimately just a third faction of totalitarians," alongside the communists and fascists. He also criticizes the willingness of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) to join the Republican government during the civil war, and references Stanley G. Payne's book on the Franco regime which claims that the CNT entered negotiations with the government of Spain six years after the war.[3] Many anarcho-syndicalists, anarcho-communists, and other types of anarchists have criticized the CNT's mistakes during and since the events of the Spanish Civil War.[4]
Since a section of the anarchist movement has often been associated with violence and destruction[5 ], it has often been portrayed as being inherently violent.[6] This is a matter of much debate between anarcho-pacifists and those who argue for the right to use violence in self-defense, whether of individuals or of class interests[5 ]. Communist Friedrich Engels criticized anarchists for not being violent enough:
A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon – authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois?"[7]
Some critics point to the alleged sexist[8] and racist views of some prominent anarchists, notably Proudhon and Bakunin, as examples of alleged hypocrisy. Some anarchists criticise the modern anarchist movement for continuing to be Eurocentric and reference the impact of anarchist thinkers like Proudhon on fascism through groups like Cercle Proudhon.[9]
Marxists have characterized anarchism as an expression of the class interests of the petite bourgeoisie or perhaps the lumpenproletariat. For example, Georgi Plekhanov supplied a Marxist critique in 1895.[10]
   | ''Anarchist Integralism - Stewart Home:Anarchist Integralism |
| | Contemporary feminist critic of Proudhon - Jenny P. d'Hericourt, actually Jenny P. d'Héricourt, 1807 - 1875, Women's History Month 2003 by Sunshine for Women |
| | Anarchism and Socialism - Plekhanov: Anarchism and Socialism (1895) |
| | The Anarcho-Statists of Spain - The Anarcho-Statists of Spain |
| | Controversy: Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution - "Controversy: Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution", by Sam Dolgoff |
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