Partly because of the extensive range of his thought and partly because of the diffuseness of his style, Veblen is a difficult thinker to classify. Several writers have made passing references to traces of anarchism in his works but most of them consider it a minor aspect of his thought. The thesis of this paper is that Veblen's political and social thought can be most clearly understood and evaluated in terms of philosophical anarchism.
Anarchism is as old as society itself; at least it has been traced back to Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoic philosophy. The Greek derivation of the word is “without a ruler,” not “without order.” Elements of anarchism form a more important part of many political theories than is sometimes recognized, and it has found able exponents in Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tolstoy, Thoreau, and Whitman. What distinguishes the anarchists from other political philosophers is the degree to which they carry their attack on existing institutions and believe in a principle of harmony in nature or human nature which will emerge if these institutions are eliminated. This principle, if followed, will eliminate the need for coercion and the state which they think is based on coercion. Only voluntary functional associations will remain in the anarchist's society but the principle of harmony will prevent the emergence of chaos. Quite clearly this is a philosophy of extremes and suffers the advantages and disadvantages of such a philosophy. In a unique way it forces its critics to examine their fundamental assumptions afresh. But because of the extreme assumptions made, anarchists' writings in general, and Veblen's in particular, abound in contradictions between freedom and authoritarianism.