En defensa del anarquismo

In 1970, Robert Paul Wolff published this short text in which he clearly positioned himself in favor of the school of philosophical anarchism. He based this on the impossibility of combining full individual autonomy with legitimately moral state authority. The book sold more than two hundred thousand copies in its first printing, and quickly became a reference book. Wolff does not hesitate to attack representative liberal democracy, which seems to him an insufficient solution -since it never represents the will of the entire population- to the conflict between authority and autonomy, and advocates direct participation of citizens in the political decisions that ideally culminates in consensual unanimity. Only in this way would the power of states over citizens become legitimate. Wolff does not ignore, however, the difficulties of a project like this, which navigates the waters of utopia. Faced with the alienation of our individual autonomy and the collapse of the legitimacy of the State, Wolff proposes that we give ourselves over to anarchism instead of sacrificing our personal political desires.