Anarchism | AQA A-Level Politics (7152)
Anarchism
- 75 questions
- 5 subtopics
- Paper 3: one further ideology of five
- Paper 3
The rejection of the state and of the social contract that is supposed to justify obedience, and the split between an individualist tradition drawing on liberalism and a collectivist one drawing on socialism..
It covers the Anarchist Case against the State, propaganda by the Deed and the Charge of Chaos, individualist and Collectivist Anarchism, stirner and Bakunin and goldman, Kropotkin and Proudhon.
Sample questions from Anarchism
Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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The Anarchist Case against the State
Explain what anarchists mean by a coercive relationship, and name two institutions they attack as examples.
Show the answer
A coercive relationship is one in which some people command and others must obey under threat of punishment; anarchists attack the state and organised religion as leading examples. -
The Anarchist Case against the State
Explain why anarchists believe that power corrupts even well-intentioned rulers.
Show the answer
Power over others is self-serving and addictive, so those who hold office come to use it to protect their own position and privileges rather than to serve the governed. -
Propaganda by the Deed and the Charge of Chaos
Anarchism has been called the meeting point of extreme liberalism and extreme socialism. Explain this description.
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Individualist anarchism pushes liberal individual sovereignty to the point where the state disappears, while collectivist anarchism pushes socialist common ownership to the point where the state becomes unnecessary. -
Propaganda by the Deed and the Charge of Chaos
Why do anarchists insist that the means of revolution must match its ends?
Show the answer
Because using a centralised and authoritarian organisation to seize power simply installs a new set of rulers, so a free society can only be built by free and voluntary methods. -
Individualist and Collectivist Anarchism
Describe the union of egoists.
Show the answer
It is a voluntary association that self-interested individuals enter purely for mutual benefit and leave the moment it stops serving them, so it binds nobody to anything. -
Individualist and Collectivist Anarchism
How do the two traditions differ over property?
Show the answer
Individualists ground property in what a person can hold or has earned by their own labour, while collectivists want productive property owned in common by the whole community. -
Stirner and Bakunin
What is Stirner's view of property?
Show the answer
He rejects both private property as a moral right and communist common ownership, holding that whatever the individual has the power to take and keep is theirs. -
Stirner and Bakunin
What was Bakunin's warning about the dictatorship of the proletariat?
Show the answer
He predicted that a workers' state would breed a new privileged caste of officials and experts ruling in the workers' name, a red bureaucracy as oppressive as the old order.
The 5 subtopics
One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.
| Subtopic | What it covers | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| The Anarchist Case against the State | Recall questions on what anarchism is, why the state is the central target, what individual autonomy means and why the social contract is rejected. | 13 |
| Propaganda by the Deed and the Charge of Chaos | Recall questions on propaganda by the deed, the anarchist answer to the charge of chaos, the rejection of representative democracy and capitalism as coercion. | 12 |
| Individualist and Collectivist Anarchism | Recall questions on what separates the two strands, the wider traditions each draws on and the meaning of individual sovereignty. | 20 |
| Stirner and Bakunin | Recall questions on Stirner's egoism, spooks, freedom and property, and on Bakunin's collectivist anarchism, warning about the dictatorship of the proletariat and syndicalism. | 11 |
| Goldman, Kropotkin and Proudhon | Recall questions on Goldman's anarchism, marriage and the Bolsheviks, Kropotkin's mutual aid and anarcho-communism, and Proudhon's view that property is theft, order without power and the People's Bank. | 19 |
How the guide is worked
Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.
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Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
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Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
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Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.
Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.
Nearby topics
AQA A-Level Politics Active Recall Guide
Every topic, not just this one. 2,215 questions with their answers.