What is Anarchy ? Anarchy simply means : no government.
The word "Anarchy" in itself simply means no (an-) rulers (-arch). An Anarchist is someone who wants to live in a society without rulers, and who does not believe that government or any other form of statism is needed for individuals to flourish in a society.
There are as many kinds of Anarchy as there are States, and Anarchists disagree wildly on a range of issues, sometimes very disrespectfully. This is to be expected, as Anarchy in itself does not demand that you hold a specific value system. But all Anarchists agree that government should be eliminated. For a similar treatment of anarchy, see Anarchism Without Hyphens
This is a site build from the perspective of Market Anarchy. Most of the material you will see here was written from the perspective of free markets providing services usually thought of as government services.
Without government, wouldn't an Anarchy just be pure chaos ? No. Competing organizations would provide the services that government provides today.
Government means : a monopoly of force over a specific territory. An Anarchy, therefore, does not mean that there would be no police, no courts, no rules. There would simply be no monopoly of force. People would be free to participate to whatever system they want to live in, just like people today choose their work, their cell phone plan or their favourite grocery store.
As a monopoly, government is inefficient, corrupt, and has no incentive to provide the services you want, like fair justice, security, charity. For more information on the coercive incentives of any government system, see the incentives page.
Furthermore, historical examples show that Anarchies are no more chaotic than nation-states, and sometimes far less. There is more on this on the pro-anarchy page.
How would an Anarchy provide for... ?
Firstly, the whole point of an Anarchy is that individuals would be free to choose and finance the social solutions they find best. There is rarely only one way to solve a problem. The free market of ideas, and the competition between organizations, would promote much-needed innovation. For more information on why government doesn't work, see the anti-government page. For more information on specific anarchist issues, see the pro-anarchy page.
Secondly, the burden of proof is not on the Anarchist to answer your questions. Rather, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that government is desirable. Both real-life comparisons and political principles disprove this view, and thus Anarchy should be considered the default.
Isn't government a good thing, even if it is inefficient ? No. The very concept of government is morally wrong.
The premise of government is that an "official" group of thugs is perfectly justified in stealing, killing and threatening people at the point of a gun to impose their value system on the entire population for their own gain. At the same time, they suppress any attempt by other people to do the same. This is morally contradictory. If it is wrong for you to steal, kill or threaten people with force, then it is wrong for everyone. For more on the moral issues, see the morality page.
Isn't government needed to maintain "the law" ? Whose "law" ?
People with different value systems wildly and fiercely disagree about right and wrong, on issues as varied as the War on Drugs, abortion, or gun control. We should all be free to agree on whatever rules we decide are best for our own lives (not "the law", which only means social warfare). This is not to say that neither side is right, but government is not going to implement any truth anyway (for the reasons explained on the incentives page).
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Anarchy simply means : no government.