noun

• (by extension) A political and philosophical belief that proposes the establishment of a stateless society as well as the abolition of authority and hierarchy in most or all forms.
  "Opposed as it is to authority and hierarchy, anarchism is typically associated with chaos and disorder, and thus often connected with violence and terror. The means by which to achieve a nonhierarchical society animate debates within anarchism."
• (rare) The state of a society being without authorities or an authoritative governing body.
  "By now the evils of the governments born of twentieth-century revolutions have been documented. And so anarchism – the absence of government, the direct administration by people of their own lives – is still intact as an ideal, for it has never been tried."