Moribund Society and Anarchy

Jean Grave argues that the society of his day is not thriving but dying, rotted by the state, private property, and the institutions that keep them standing. Across these chapters he attacks government, law, patriotism, militarism, and the church, then makes his case for anarchism as the order that would grow once authority falls away. First published in France in 1893 as La Societe mourante et l’anarchie (Dying Society and Anarchy), the book was provocative enough to help send its author to prison. This English version comes from the American anarchist and feminist Voltairine de Cleyre, and it remains a clear, uncompromising statement of late nineteenth-century anarchist thought. Free to read as a PDF and EPUB edition.