These words all refer either to a general distrust of centralized government or to specific ideologies and their techniques for deliberately disrupting the fabric of an existing society in order to gain a stated set of goals.

Anarchism has both philosophical and historical senses. In a philosophic framework, anarchism refers to a tendency that sees individual freedom threatened by any trend towards collectivism in government: Thoreau’s very personal anarchism stemmed from an absolute dislike for all institutions in general. Most specifically, the word refers to a historical movement of the 19th and 20th centuries that held all existing societies to be corrupt and proposed to destroy them. Some strains of anarchism proposed single acts of symbolic, pointless violence, which gave rise in the popular imagination of the 1890s to the figure of the bearded, bomb-throwing anarchist . One strain of militant anarchism was called Bajuninism after the Russian theorist who deeply influenced the development of Marxism. Another strain, known as syndicalism , foresaw a world-wide shut-down of industry by workers in order to cause the collapse of capitalism. After this "general strike," comparable to the world-wide revolution foreseen by Marx, workers would govern society directly through the trade-union structure.

• The Industrial Workers of the World, known as Wobblies, were a curious group who sometimes appeared to advocate syndicalism , sometimes merely isolated acts of violent anarchism , and sometimes a systematic socialism.

Pacifism is a strain of anarchism sharply distinguished from others by its total disavowal of violence. Often called pacifist anarchism , it applies especially, but not exclusively, to those who wish to abolish war and who agitate against any military solution of international problems. Mahatma Gandhi, an adherent of pacifism and admittedly inspired by Thoreau’s philosophical anarchism , founded Gandhism (or satyagraha), a specific method of civil disobedience that successfully used non-violent techniques to free India of British rule.

Civil rights workers in America, agitating against the segregation of Negroes, at first deliberately adopted philosophical anarchism and the techniques of pacifism and Gandhism to win their goals. The phrase first used to describe this fusion of theory and method was passive resistance, but unwanted overtones in the phrase, implying helpless passivity, caused it to be rejected in favour of non-violence, a word now used by pacifists , non-violent anarchists , and integrationists alike to describe their methods. Non-violence implies active resistance to an unjust law or custom by such acts as demonstrations, boycotts and disruptions of the normal functioning of society.