In Defense of Anarchism

An analysis of the foundations of the authority of the state and the problems of political authority and moral autonomy in a democracy.

"A deep and provocative discussion of some of the most fundamental issues in political philosophy, written crisply, with candor, in a style that I find very winning. It is a most useful book, and a very good one."—Carl Cohen, author of Communism, Fascism, and Democracy

"An engrossing introduction to current questions of political legitimacy, consent, deliberative democracy, the basis of majority rule, workers collectives, etc., that have been taken up by contemporary political theorists."—Georgia Warnke, author of Justice and Interpretation

"To entitle a book In Defense of Anarchism simply requires chutzpah. To do it well requires some intelligence. Professor Wolff has both. Anarchy, being generally relegated to the ideological dust-bin or drafted as fodder for editorializing blasts, has long been in need of an intelligent reassessment. Wolff's brief book attempts this by taking the reader along a political via dolorosa which begins with his own innocent belief in 'traditional democratic doctrines.'"—Lawrence S. Stepelevich, author of The New Scholasticism

In Defense of Anarchism is a 1970 book by the philosopher Robert Paul Wolff, in which the author defends individualist anarchism. He argues that individual autonomy and state authority are mutually exclusive and that, as individual autonomy is inalienable, the moral legitimacy of the state collapses.