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This essay identifies two different methodological strategies used by the proponents of anarchism. In what is termed the "ontological" approach, the rationale for anarchism depends on a particular representation of human nature. That characterization of "being" determines the relation between the individual and the structures of social life. In the alternative approach, the epistemological status of "representation" is challenged, leaving human subjects without stable identities. Without the possibility of stable human representations, the foundations underlying the exercise of institutional power can be challenged. This epistemological discussion is traced from Max Stirner to the twentieth-century movement known as poststructuralism.The problem of defining the &dquo;proper&dquo; relationship between the individual and the larger community is as old as civilization. Classical and modern political theories have traditionally addressed this problem by grounding descriptive and prescriptive political formulation in conceptions of human nature or human essence. Questions regarding the aggressiveness, avarice, and rationality of the individual have provided the underlying dynamic for the debate regarding the necessity and form of external institutions.In the classical and modern periods, the conflict over how to represent the character of the individual culminated in a variety of competing political formulations. If human beings are self-serving and aggressive, then the strong coercive state becomes necessary. If the individual is shaped by the social body, then community practice becomes the essence and the teleology of human endeavors. If human beings are rational, to the extent that they can formulate a structure for controlling their aggressiveness, conflicts can be mediated. &dquo;Authority&dquo; becomes a substitute for force, and participation and consent provide the legitimacy for collective decisions.

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Jean Baudrillard’s concept of “symbolic exchange” represents an important concept in understanding why Marx’s prediction regarding the collapse of capitalism has not been realized. Baudrillard adds to the Marxian concepts of use value and exchange value, suggesting that, in today’s consumer‐oriented society, commodities take on a symbolic value that constitutes their “status” and, therefore, power. In the Western industrial societies that are “networked” into information cultures, the generation of symbolic value results from a constantly changing symbolic environment in which new demands for access to symbolic status are generated. Baudrillard sees the United States as the farthest along on the path to a simulated environment of symbolic exchange. Manufacturing for symbolic exchange is directed toward the production of the fetish: an object that is positioned purely for its symbolic value. By directing production increasingly in the direction of the fetish, as an object to be used in symbolic exchange, capitalism is able to sustain itself even after the material needs of the population are satisfied.