Authority is the claimed right to command and be obeyed. It is the principle — not merely the practice — that anarchism opposes. The anarchist position is not that those in authority happen to misuse their power, or that the wrong people hold authority, or that authority needs better checks and balances. The position is that the claim itself — that some are entitled to command and others are obligated to obey — is the structure that produces domination.
Authority is distinct from competence. A person who understands medicine has knowledge; a doctor backed by a licensing board, a hospital administration, and the legal system has authority. The difference is that competence must persuade, while authority can compel. You can disregard advice from someone who knows more than you — it may be unwise, but it is not insubordination. You cannot disregard an order from someone who holds authority over you without facing consequences that authority has the power to impose. This distinction — between influence that persuades and authority that compels — is the line anarchism draws.
Bakunin addressed this directly: he accepted the “authority” of the bootmaker on the question of boots, meaning he deferred to competence. But he refused to let the bootmaker command him in any other domain, and he refused to accept that competence in one area entitles anyone to command in general. The liberal response to this is to design institutions that constrain authority — constitutions, separation of powers, elections. The anarchist response is that these constraints are themselves exercises of authority and reproduce the structure they claim to limit.
Authority operates through coercion (the threat of force), through legitimacy (the belief that authority is natural or necessary), and through dependence (the organization of material life so that disobedience is materially unbearable). The state combines all three. Capitalism relies primarily on the third: the employer’s authority over the worker is maintained not by force alone but by the worker’s dependence on wages for survival.
Related terms
- Hierarchy — the structure through which authority is arranged
- Domination — the condition authority produces
- Coercion — the enforcement mechanism of authority
- Obedience — the habit that sustains authority without constant coercion
- Self-organization — the capacity that makes authority unnecessary
- The state — the institutional concentration of authority
- Voluntary association — social organization without authority
- Hegemony — the process that makes authority appear natural