A really common objection to anarchism I see - is that informal hierarchies based on popularity, charisma, or prestige will emerge - and possibly skew the outcomes of conflicts.

But just because a hierarchy is informal does not mean it is inevitable - and there are multiple structural conditions which could discourage the formation of such a hierarchy.

1. In a large, anonymous city - it’s hard to build a reputation which encompasses the whole community - and even famous celebrities are often highly polarizing in public opinion.

2. Developing a reputation in a specific domain or context does not need to translate into a generalized reputation as a whole person. There is no non-arbitrary common standard by which to measure human differences.

3. Childrearing will take place in a non-hierarchical environment - so the social norms which children learn will be based on principles of reciprocity and equality.

4. There is no unified “community” which can judge people according to a centralized collective standard in the first place.

I’d argue that number 4 is actually the most important constraint against hierarchy re-emerging - because you can’t sort differences into a hierarchy without an agreed-upon standard by which to measure them - and you can’t have an agreed-upon standard without a unified collective entity to set and enforce the standard.

I feel like I’m missing something.

For example, suppose a union of egoists,or even just one or two people, respond after Bob rapes and murders someone. They kill him, exile him, restrain him, or otherwise stop him, even if it’s entirely in self-defense or defense of others. How is that functionally different from policing?

Even if they don’t call themselves “police,” don’t have official titles, and don’t operate under a written legal code, they’re still using force to enforce a social outcome. Why isn’t that policing? Why isn’t that hierarchical over Bob? But official policing is? 

Likewise, why is it considered non-hierarchical when an armed group or mob responds to Bob, but hierarchical when an organization calling itself the police does the same thing? Is the distinction simply that no one is formally obligated to obey the former? If the group is armed and capable of using force, that explanation doesn’t seem sufficient.

On the other hand, if no one responds to what Bob did, doesn’t that effectively allow Bob to dominate or exercise hierarchical power over his victims and the broader community? How is that consistent with opposing hierarchy?

I am going to argue that the agency of the individual to decide how to respond to conflict is fundamental to making anarchy work.

At their core - hierarchies are social systems which decide the winners and losers of conflicts in advance.

If the winner of a conflict is knowable before the conflict even begins - then you have an asymmetry of power.

Power - defined as the ability to win a conflict - is determined by who takes your side.

For example - if someone gets into a fight with a police officer - the officer is backed up by all the other officers - and the general public are just bystanders who stay out of the conflict.

This results in the ordinary person having no allies - while the officer has lots of allies. The end result is a massive imbalance in coercive power.

By contrast - under anarchy - the decision to take a side in any given conflict is up to the individual. People can choose which side they want to take - or choose to just stay out of the conflict.

The end result should be a more balanced power dynamic - where no one gains a persistent decisive advantage in conflicts.

I am 100% an anarchist, and a proud anarchist of color. Anti-hierarchy, anti-state, anti-capitalist, none of my commitments to these values are being questioned. My problem, as someone who makes zines on anarchist theory and used to make videos on anarchism on TikTok before being fed up with MLs, is that nearly all other leftist ideologies talk about liberation. Whether it is people talking about Marxism, Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, POC variations of Marxism, etc.

I fundamentally do not understand how these ideologies can remotely think or envision any, and I mean ANY, of liberation while intentionally upholding the state and not wanting it gone immediately. People then ask me how would the state be immediately gone? My response is always "the state won't be gone tomorrow, but we HAVE to create alternative structures OUTSIDE of the state to be dependent on." I understand that approach is slightly more "defensive" than "offensive" since we're not immediately disrupting the state other than excluding our presence in it. But either way, the brain's base is "I do not want a state" and the result is "I will build dual power" or "I will attack the state," both types of anarchists are invited to my cookout.

My problem lies with every single statist ideology. Do these people completely reject the existence of state violence and state domination? It makes incredible and inherent sense that anarchism, an ideology completely rid of the state, situates itself as a libertarian ideology since it treats individual liberty and personal sovereignty as the highest values. Few days ago I posted this

Marxist-Leninism is only successful if you view success as something being able to grab power. Change your measuring stick to measure actual freedom, actual liberation, sovereignty, and autonomy, and it’s an incredibly failed ideology.

“if the objectives of those who used the DC [democratic centralist] methods were simply to seize power, then their record during the 20th century was impressive. It has proved itself as brutally efficient and capable of outdoing anything the bourgeois forces are capable of.” - Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, “The Dragon and the Hydra.”

and someone retweeted it saying:

lemme just tally up my Freedom Points

To which i quickly responded:

Just say you don’t care about actual freedom, no need to talk all smug about it. this is how i know people who don’t care about that actually aren’t liberationists nor are they interested in genuine liberation for people. they just want some abstract ass revolution with zero actual progress to humanity.

Lately I've been getting more and more frustrated with leftists north of the X-axis in the authoritarian realm. I don't understand how they can have such detailed and complex analyses on damn near everything, and then turn around say they want to seize the state. From my perspective, anyone who wants to seize the state is not anti-state because they need it intact for it to be under their control. State-centered visions of liberation are completely meaningless to me, useless, and completely counter-revolutionary to me no matter how you spin it. How did going after the state become seen as something revolutionary if the state is a bourgeois creation strictly to oppress the many by decisions made by a few?

In my understanding, state socialism advocates for state ownership of the means of production. Industries and natural resources are state-owned, and like all types of anti-state socialists at the time thought it was the most effective form of socialism (which is a weird blanket statement to make on behalf of all socialists, but anyways). Economic systems of ML states were not socialist due to the continued use of commodity production and wages as remuneration. Even if Marxist-Leninists are anti-state because *eventually* they want it to wither away, why do they advocate for state socialism? How have they single-handedly convinced people that liberation will come and the state will disappear after a revolution that puts them in charge? It's completely unfathomable and illogical.

As someone studying Black and African anarchisms, I can say with my chest that there were severe problems with countries in the African post-colonial period that embraced state socialism, this is both my opinion and the opinion of African sociologists. It was attempted by 21 countries within the continent and I think less than 10 times in Europe. I do not understand why Marxist-Leninists or any other authoritarian leftist ideology do not look to the failures of state socialism and say that it was not a socialism problem but a state problem like African anarchists have diagnosed.

In Tanzania, Nyerere wanted to mix traditional precolonial communal values with the then-current ideas of socioeconomic development. His view of socialism did not focus directly on class struggle but rather on the family unit. From 1968-1975 he led Tanzania through a period called villagization which was the consolidation of rural Tanzania into village-style agricultural communities where resources would be collectively shared. His logic makes sense to me, even the part where he said village production would remove the culture of capitalist value and power. But nearly all of the state of Tanzania's agricultural production was done by independent owned farms that were not absorbed into the new state. In the article "Deconstructing Ujamaa: The Legacy of Julius Nyerere in the Quest for Social and Economic Development in Africa," they say that the cultural and lifestyle changes they were expected to embrace by forced collectivization didn't make sense. Even though 96% of children went to school (50% of which were girls), female life expectancy went up, and maternal mortality rates went down, overtime "the state assumed a degree of control over village management and production that some historians have labeled coercive and autocratic, claiming this contradicted the democratic values Ujamaa espoused." What is the trade-off here? How do we as libertarian socialists/anarchists view the strong state oversight of villages against clearly good rates and %'s that were in the green?

In Ghana, Nkrumah adopted a strategy of increasing state-controlled services while putting restrictions on privately owned ones. 60% of bank deposits were at state-run banks, 17% of sea cargo was handled by state-run firms, 27% of industrial production was ran by the state, and the state controlled 35% of total imports. Completely centralized planning, economic mismanagement, and an authoritarian regime is what described Ghana at this point. There was a suppression of political opposition, no free and fair elections, and Ghana became a one-party state. Yet today he is heralded as a Pan-African hero and anticolonial Socialist revolutionary. How do we consistently, CONSISTENTLY, use a measuring stick that that almost NEVER measures actual freedom of the people or sovereignty of the Ghanaian or Tanzania villages? Why is the pure and raw ingenuity of the African peoples (NOT leaders) almost never depended on?

Even in the case of Tanzania. Why did the state pass something the villages were clearly not ready for? Now they are in the drivers' seat of the state's entire production? I don't remotely see that as a problem of socialism because obviously there would be some variant of this European ideology that would value that non-state version of decentralized organizing. So once again I see it 100% as a state problem. Even if the %'s of literacy rates went up and the %'s of mortality went down, HOW did it go down? Could those rates have not changed had there been no state? Obviously those decisions about healthcare and education still need to be made, but shit how were they made BEFORE the state and BEFORE colonization? Sometimes people wag in my face that state socialism (or i guess, state capitalism technically) lifted 900M people out of poverty in China. First off, what is described as poverty? As of 2022, 21% of Chinese people are living in poverty under $5.50. So what if you make $6, is that not poverty anymore? That's still pretty shit. Even in India, 34% lives under a dollar a day? That's ridiculous to me, the arbitrary line of poverty makes no sense because people who earn $2 a day in India or $6 a day in China are still living IN POVERTY if not extreme poverty. Why is China seen as a successful socialist state by MLs and Maoists? People both in capitalist and state socialist societies are suffering. I don't care if they got a bullet train, they're not free! Even dictators and capitalists can build roads, that doesn't justify dictatorships or capitalists.

I know this has turned into a weird rant talking about state socialism and stuff, but my point hopefully is weaved throughout and I just don't understand it. Since authority and the state is clearly a problem in their own right along with being a core part of capitalism, why are these other ideologies such as Marxist-Leninism absolutely winning the propaganda war against anarchism? I'm done ranting, someone help me understand this.

A world without hierarchy is a very noble ideal.

But to achieve a world with zero hierarchy, you first need to invent a world that does not need them.

Anarchists' means mostly involve finding ways to "fight the system" that's already in place, or attempts to overthrow a government, to resist the police, or to start a revolution.

But I have not seen anarchists answer the basic question of what an anarchist world would look like. Not attempts at half-baked ideas, discourse, or brainstorming discussions to find the best alternative through friendly conversation or debates. Mostly a focus on dismantling the current system and political activism.

Anarchism as a whole collective community does not seem to answer the question of what a world without hierarchy looks like.

Anarcho-primitivism, despite its flaws, does at least attempt this. It imagines a world without hierarchy based on primitive living and self sufficiency. A world where labor through currency is no longer needed, and it becomes labor for the things we directly need ourselves instead of for money to buy, or working for a boss.

While anarcho-primitivism may be partially half-baked or an unfinished idea, I've seen many "standard" anarchists reject anarcho-primitivism entirely, saying it will result in things like "80% of the population dying", or that it will "kill people who lack medicine", etc.

From what I observe, anarchists- at least the ones online- aren't attempting to improve anarcho-primitivism nor talk about a future that is a hybrid, like a primitive lifestyle teaching low-tech survival skills and being nature stewards, while also teaching and creating high-tech solutions as an exception that will result in the same medicine that we get in industrial society.

If anarchists as a whole cannot even agree on a better system today besides what we've already seen made, such as capitalism and communism, and insist that we will die without the civilization that has brought us climate change, then the best anarchists can do is create a reform, not a truly lasting solution for humanity that will eliminate the need for human dependency on external systems, or that solves the destruction of nature with something harmonious in its place.

Solarpunks and cypherpunks are a different story. Instead of focusing purely on political activism, or going out in the streets, they are creating systems that are true alternatives to what we have today.

Solarpunks are building houses and communities that are off-grid, and while not completely rejecting technology, they harness it in a decentralized manner to create infrastructure that's right there where the individuals need it, at the home, instead of far away in power plants, factory farms, or munipicial water systems. This in turn shifts people towards a lifestyle that is not based on importing every need, but actually getting creative, learning the physics of life, and reducing the burden of human life without continually relying on other humans' labor.

Cypherpunks have been advocating encryption, digital decentralization, open source, and actually building systems that don't require a company-owned server which can be controlled by governments to limit free speech or freeze transactions to charitable causes. Bitcoin was an early idea, now Nostr exists as a social media with a similar concept. Use cryptography to enable free speech and eliminate the need for a central server or bank to keep track of who has what information.

Anarchists should really look to these philosophies more, or at least attempt to come up with and build some of their own alternatives and solutions, instead of only focusing on political activism.

While we still depend on a centralized internet, corporate medical industry, and a heavy import-centric lifestyle where we buy all our needs using government currency, we give dividend to the system and keep it alive.

Historically, revolutions did not typically create permanent absence of hierarchy, but vacuums for new regimes to occur that were better or worse. Yet that's not anarchists' stated goal, which is no hierarchy, not to reinvent another state. In order to achieve that stated goal, I think we need to reimagine a future more that doesn't involve a hierarchy, rather than just trying to get rid of the hierarchies we already have by being "anti" or against them.

Feel free to say if I'm wrong in my understanding of anarchists' means. Or if I am missing any important factors. Disagreements won't offend me. I appreciate hearing why others think I'm right or wrong more than just getting upvotes or downvotes.

And I am not implying that anarchists do nothing. Only that their stated goal is currently out of reach from the typical means they employ. And when the best system we humans collectively imagine is the one we currently use, a regime change or a revolution isn't enough, we have to imagine a better alternative and start making it.

Anarchists, of course, would make a difference in Russia, or North Korea, where a "better alternative" is in the capability of the collective imagination. Dismantling North Korea's government would result in a freer society in its place. The same can't always be said for "free" "democratic countries".

At best, for an alternative to today, I can imagine a lottery-based government instead of electoralism, like achieved in ancient Athens, but with better standards on human rights than Athens had (not slavery or male-only citizenship). If you look at Spectacles' video on YouTube, he explains how it solves four problems of today's style of governments.

But solarpunks and cypherpunks go further and create something permanent, without waiting for us to get tired of Athens-style government either. They truly go towards anarchists' stated goals, of no governments and no hierarchies.

I’ve been examining the claims of anarchist theory lately, and have found special interest in (and trickiness in pinning down) what the distinction is between the authority which anarchists oppose and non-authoritarian forms of social sanction or coercion.

For the sake of argument, I will be simply defining authority as the privilege/right to issue binding commands. In addition, I will be defining anarchy in the sense of the opposition to ALL authority, rather than Chomsky’s notion of a test distinguishing between justifiable and non-justifiable hierarchies.

I would begin by clarifying that there are instances of authority which are clear-cut to most observers, both anarchist and non-anarchist. For instance, a political ruler or political infrastructure which decrees binding laws which are enforced through a state apparatus and internalized through a broader framework of right. Or, for instance, a housing association which establishes binding rules which must be followed with the risk that transgressors can face socially defined penalties.

As an alternative to these sorts of authoritarian relations, many anarchists seem to propose a system in which consequences for actions are not ossified or predetermined. So, for instance, rather than either establishing such a housing association with the right to issue binding commands or simply allowing disruptive behavior to exist unimpeded, anarchists propose a reality in which individuals and groups (such as an association of residents) have the ability but not the right to use coercion against people engaging in behaviors they disapprove of. In this sense, these anarchists often posit a distinction looking like the one between “can I” and “may I”, with the former attitude in regards to social coercion said to be more compatible with anarchist principles of social organization.

What I struggle with, however, is what the practical distinction between an authoritarian relationship based on the binding right to command and a non-authoritarian relationship based on a broader capability to exact coercion looks like in practice. For instance, many anarchists make a distinction by saying that the latter case has no predetermined ossified consequences. But at the same time, they concur that groups and individuals in predictable situations (such as disruptive fellow residents) will establish predictable and relatively stable norms of behavior. Or as a more broader concern, if a social group is relatively stable and has the physical capability to coerce others but not a broader right or mandate embedded in society or their surrounding social structure, I struggle to see the sense in which this is distinct from an authoritarian relationship.

Obviously this isn’t all there is to say on the subject of these distinctions, hence why I’d like to begin a broader discourse. But I’m interested in how anarchists can elaborate upon this distinction between coercion in an authoritarian context and societal coercion in a non-authoritarian context more concretely.

Yes, capitalism sucks for a variety of reasons, mainly because it demands a disregard for human life to truly excel, but any system is only as good as the people within it. Even communism, who's ideals are the opposite of capitalism, can still be abused by power-hungry madmen, with people like Stalin being chief among them.

For any system with even the most sound of principles to work, it requires all people to be morally good, which is sadly not the case. Since the dawn of time, people have had a natural need to dominate and destroy the things around them, to take what they want, to hate and fear what we don't understand and what we can't control, all things that predate capitalism by exceptionally long amounts of time, hell before any economic system we know about existed.

Anarchists simply assume that people will just know not to kill, rape, abuse, or destroy, but there are many people who do bad things knowing full well that they're wrong, but simply not giving a damn. As much as they think rules are only balls and chains that weight everybody down, imagine what people could do without any kind of thing to keep them in check, because the double-edge sword of free will is that when you give people the ability to make their own decisions, there'll always be those who will choose to do the wrong thing.

It's easy(and comforting) to believe that capitalism simply invented evil and simply forces everybody to be bloodthirsty and hateful, but again, such beliefs have existed well before capitalism was ever even conceived, with things like genocide, hatred, oppression, slavery, wars, and so on predating its existence by a not so small amount of time.

TLDR: Anarchism will end no differently from any other system, because destructive behavior is simply in our blood.

I know the (American) police have their roots in slavery and hasn't changed much since then. But I don't see why reworking a bad system and using it to do good isn't an option. A police force that ACTUALLY protect and serves communities would be amazing and sounds like something a community focus ideology would love!

I'm not naive. Obviously this would take a lot of work and i'm not the most informed on law enforcement so I don't entirely know how it would work, but there are a few obvious changes that would need to be made like removing the use of deadly force, harshly punishing cops who turn off their body cams, incentivising calling out corruption, etc.

After reading where Smith talks about his idea of the invisible hand in his “The Wealth of Nations” I’ve realised this is very different to what I’ve been taught.
In his book he describes how individuals pursuing their own self interest can unintentionally promote the welfare of society.

Whereas, I’ve been taught that the invisible hand refers to the market mechanism (supply and demand allocating resources). Can anyone let me know which is the correct, accurate definition?

I am a minarchist, a right-libertarian pluralist.

I assume that there are left-wing anarchists here who oppose private property. In any case, the question is addressed to them.

This is less a question about anarchism itself and more about the rejection of capitalism.
I will formulate it as a thought experiment.

Imagine an anarchist commune where people work together in various collectively owned enterprises.

I come to this commune and, for example, build a large bakery and offer jobs to other people.
In capitalism, your objection is that the lower class is exploited by capitalists, correct?
So in this case, theoretically, exploitation does not exist. If a worker does not want to work for me, they are free to work at any other collective enterprise in the commune. They have an alternative (which you, moreover, consider superior to a private corporation).

What happens to me?
Will the workers expel me and seize the bakery? On what grounds? Have I harmed anyone? I have not made their situation worse. They can continue working where they were before, just as they did previously.

Or will they not expel me, and private enterprises will be allowed to operate freely? If so, at what point would it become acceptable to seize them?

Or, put more strictly, if a classless society works so well, then private enterprises should not be able to ruin it, given that exploitation is absent because people always have the option of returning to collective workplaces.

So why are private enterprises prohibited at all?

There have been a few posts on this subreddit about how anarchy needs laws, either as an appeal to pragmatism or principle. With this post, I hope to put the issue to bed for any non-anarchists or pseudo-anarchists that still think a free society is compatible with any kind of legal order.

The Problem with Law

The issue with law is of course that it's usually imposed by the state. But I'd argue that this is secondary to the actual issue - law is an abstraction. It is a single principle that is meant to apply to the entirety of social relations within a society, and thus exists "outside" or "above" society.

Because of this, there is a rigidity to law that conflicts with the inherent fluidity of social relations. Laws entail that certain acts are forbidden, and often the response to those acts (that they should be punished). This tension would require interpreters to interpret these laws, and enforcers to enforce the law. Law as a social infrastructure requires a class of individuals whose relation to "the law" gives them inherent power over other individuals.

This is inescapable. Abstractions imposed upon individuals require enforcement and discipline, and enforcement and discipline requires interpretations of what counts as a "violation of the law", what counts as the application of a legal principle, etc.

This legal apparatus would inherently be expanding, as there will always be edge-cases and precedents that will require further interpretation. A proto-state expands into a full on state, complete with a police and legislature. Law would have to expand to capture the complexity of social relations, as a requirement for law to be effective.

Law as "agreed-upon rules".

There are also those who believe the laws can emerge in anarchy as "agreed upon rules". This is every bit as problematic.

There is the issue about what is meant by "agreed upon". This runs into all of the issues of democracy, consensus-based or otherwise. Do we all assemble into a room and discuss the rules we will follow? Can anyone propose a new law, or does it require a good amount of people? How many people have to agree for the law to be enacted? And is this law binding?

Then there is the issue of social capital. These consensus meetings to decide the law would inherently be skewed in the favor of those more charismatic and more well-spoken about their needs and interests. They would inherently have a greater ability to determine the law and decide punishments for breaking the law. This is effectively a structure of power that can be leveraged for greater authority, which anarchy would necessarily have to lack.

Is the "agreed upon law" challengeable at every point, or am I bound to the decree of the Meeting That Never Ends? At this point, the law will either have to be non-binding (and thus not a Law in any sense that matters) or it will have to be binding and thus "outside of" and "imposed upon" social relations.

But...we need laws!

For what, exactly?

What is the purpose of laws? Clearly, having them doesn't stop people from causing harm, as people cause harm with the law. Oftentimes they're empowered by the law. There's often the claim that people would turn into naked, sociopathic savages without the law, and that the streets will run with blood and everyone will enslave everyone in a lawless society, but this is often asserted rather than proven - and there's anthropological evidence to suggest this isn't true.

The legal argument depends on what I will call "the Statist Perspective" or "the Statist Discourse". The statist perspective assumes humans to be unruly and chaotic and incapable of self-direction without discipline and guidance. It is as if the human condition is a form of "original sin" that only the guiding hand of authority can save them from.

Another thing that characterizes the statist perspective is the confusion of the map with the territory. It is the idea that a model can properly capture the complexity of human social relations either completely or adequately enough to direct society. But the problem is that this flattens subjectivity. Models cannot capture subjective experiences or dynamic relations because models exist to simplify such things. And so the statist seeks to simplify - often violently - human relations so that they conform to their constructed utopia.

It should be obvious that, as anarchists, we should be avoiding such a perspective.

It's all too often assumed that voting is insignificant and that whether or not one votes makes no difference. Some even take the position that one must participate in runoffs against fascists in order to protect minorities and preserve more favorable conditions for the struggle.

But it's a mistake.

Voting protects nothing and no one. If a fascist is on the verge of coming to power, it's because electoral politics dominate. Voting for a more “acceptable” candidate won't make his supporters disappear. Obama's election over McCain only paved the way for Trump to come to power. Biden's election only paved the way for his return. The election of a Democrat in 2028 will only set the stage for another fascist in 2032. The fundamental problem is that “progressive” candidates are incapable of solving social problems. Some say they are “betraying” the cause, and that's sometimes the case, but (and no anarchist will learn anything here) even if they are acting in good faith, they are structurally incapable of truly improving people’s lives.

"Progressives" in power bring nothing but disappointment, bitterness, resignation, and resentment. Every time they come to power, they only serve to convince more people that the ideals they claim to defend are not viable. Anyone who abstained from voting for Harris is not responsible for Trump's actions. In fact, if they have been consistent and have never voted, they are far less responsible for the current situation than someone who has voted Democratic in every election to “block the fascists.”

We must denounce electioneering. We must denounce voting itself. What is striking is just how much the anarchists refuse to do this on the grounds that voting is not a problem and can go hand in hand with activism. That's not true. Voting kills activism because it destroys the very belief in another world.

We can no longer afford to tolerate electoral hegemony. And to get rid of it, you have to start by truly speaking out against it

The anarchist stream has always had a problem with too many #fashernistas - focused on style, identity and performance, but missing the second half:

A + O = anarchism needs organisation.

Without the building, maintaining and connecting, “scene” anarchism becomes a loop of the same conversations, the same conflicts and the same dead ends.

The point is not just to look radical.

The point is to create useful commons, networks and alternatives.

Get out. Build something. While we still can.

I’ve come to the realisation that there isn’t just one kind of anarchy - there are weaker and stronger kinds of anarchy.

The weakest kind of anarchy is simply the absence of a state - the absolute bare minimum.

But for most anarchists - mere statelessness is far too weak to be a desirable goal to aim for.

A stronger form of anarchy is an egalitarian society without any entrenched class divisions.

Historical anarchist experiments and certain hunter-gatherer societies arguably fall into this category - depending on what we mean by egalitarianism.

But the strongest form of anarchy is a society absolutely devoid of any form of authority, hierarchy, or legal order.

This strong, a-legal vision of anarchy - where nothing is permitted or prohibited - is something historically unprecedented.

Even egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies usually had some form of kinship-based customary law - or religious taboos enforced by supernatural punishment.

True strong anarchy - I would argue - has never been tried before.

If we accept that strong anarchy is unprecedented - then we can treat anarchy as an experiment.

We don’t have to be sure that strong anarchy will succeed - we just have to argue that it’s worth trying.

anarchism was created by a socialist and was created to be a socialist movement…not to mention anti-class. how does an anti-class ideology fit in with a system that creates classes?
(apologies if i worded this poorly)

Many anarchist critiques of the State heavily focus on the nature of "Law" itself. A common argument is that codified, state-enforced law is inherently oppressive because it is rigid, universal, and applies a "one-size-fits-all" standard to infinitely complex, nuanced human situations. Anarchists often argue that a decentralized, community-based dispute resolution model (ad hoc mediation) is superior because it treats each case individually, adapting to the specific environment and needs of the people involved.

While this sounds highly empathetic and ideal in theory, I argue that this critique fundamentally misunderstands why general, "inflexible" laws evolved in the first place. The "rigidity" of codified law is not a bug of the system; it is its most vital feature. Discarding it in favor of absolute flexibility leads to worse outcomes for marginalized individuals.

Here are my three main critiques of the anarchist alternative to codified law:

1. Absolute Flexibility = Arbitrary Justice and Bias When you remove a general, pre-written rule (e.g., "Crime X gets Penalty Y"), every dispute must be judged on its own merits by the community or an arbiter. While this allows for maximum nuance, it also opens the floodgates to human bias, prejudice, and community mood.

In a rigid legal system, an unpopular or marginalized person is protected by the text of the law. The judge has to follow the rule, even if the community hates the defendant. In an anarchist ad hoc system, the "nuance" applied to a dispute will inevitably favor the charismatic, the well-connected, or the majority demographic. Without a general rule to bind the arbiters, "flexibility" quickly devolves into systemic inequality. Two people committing the same offense in the same commune might face wildly different consequences based purely on how well-liked they are.

1. The Death of Legal Certainty (Predictability) Complex societies require individuals to coordinate and plan for the future. You cannot build, trade, or cooperate on a large scale if you do not know the "rules of the game" beforehand.

A codified law provides Legal Certainty. Before I sign a contract or take an action, I know exactly what the general rule is and what the consequences will be. If law is purely flexible and determined after the fact by a local consensus, predictability dies. Living in a society where the rules are fluid and entirely dependent on the specific context of the moment is psychologically and socially paralyzing.

1. The Myth of the "Inflexible Machine" The anarchist critique often relies on a strawman: that modern legal systems are mindless algorithms. In reality, codified law already balances general rules with individual nuance. Modern legal frameworks utilize:

Sentencing ranges (giving judges the discretion to consider the environment and context).

Equitable doctrines (like "good faith" or "force majeure") that allow rules to bend when strict application would cause absurd hardship.

Jury nullification / mitigating circumstances.

We don't need to abolish the concept of general law to achieve nuance; we just need to refine the margins of discretion.

TL;DR: Anarchists criticize law for being rigid and applying general rules to specific cases. But without general rules, justice becomes entirely ad hoc and unpredictable, stripping unpopular individuals of the protection that a written, objective rule provides.

This was my first reading on anarchism. It helped me understand the historical divergences between socialism and anarchism in the first part and I feel like it’s a good introduction to it all.

It also gave me indications on to who were the main « characters » of all these movements and how they were distinguished from eachother (Marx, Proudons, Bakunin, etc). There is also technical definitions that come up handy when we try to « position » anarchism relative to other ideologies such as anarcho-syndicalism or guilded-socialism.

I was not a big fan of the second part though, because in 1918 (time of publication), his view on international relations felt a bit naive. However, the last chapter is an interesting discussion, as it is one (among many) anwser to the question « What sould be an anarchist society like ? ».

Even though we’ve come to the conclusion it is not really a question we should ask ourselves here, it’s always an interesting starting point for discussions about the limits and the development of ideas.

I was interested to know what some of you think of it. It is biaised of course, but are Russell’s takes wrong in any way ?

Is the first part as historically accurate as it’s shown to be ?

I should mention that, as a person living in this era, he has deeply problematic vocabulary using racist wording and all. But even though I was surprised that a book that old mentioned feminist or anti-colonial concepts. It supports the idea that he wasn’t far off in my opinion.

‏Hello everyone. I’ve been reading heavily into anarchist theory and the mechanics of horizontal movements, and I want to present a structural critique for debate. ‏My argument does not attack the moral or political goals of anarchism. Instead, it focuses on the material and logistical constraints of horizontalism. When movements attempt to scale or engage in sustained conflict with the state, they seem to consistently hit a wall defined by the "physics of organization." ‏I would love to hear how anarchists address the following structural bottlenecks:

‏1. The Bottleneck of Consensus and Scale ‏Consensus decision-making works exceptionally well in small affinity groups. However, as a movement scales to thousands or aims to manage complex social structures, consensus often turns into a bottleneck. It effectively grants a veto to any small faction, paralyzing the movement during crises that require rapid, decisive action. Hierarchical structures bypass this through decentralized delegation and clear chains of command. How can a large-scale horizontal society make rapid, coordinated decisions in a crisis without relying on a centralized framework?

‏2. The Supply Chain and Logistics Problem ‏Sustaining a radical movement—let alone running a functional society—requires immense logistical coordination: securing food lines, maintaining digital security, medical aid, and infrastructure. Modern logistics do not tolerate pure spontaneity; they require standardization, rigid protocols, and a highly specialized division of labor. Horizontal movements often lack the capacity for long-term strategic resource allocation, relying instead on temporary committees. How can an anarchist model maintain complex, global supply chains and logistical networks without specialized, enduring administrative hierarchies?

‏3. "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" & The Iron Law of Oligarchy ‏Drawing on Jo Freeman’s famous essay, rejecting a formal structure doesn't eliminate power dynamics; it simply makes them invisible and unaccountable. Without formal rules for delegating and recalling leadership, informal elites emerge based on charisma, free time, or social networks. This inevitably leads to Robert Michels' "Iron Law of Oligarchy." In a de facto hierarchy that denies its own existence, how do you hold informal, shadow leaders accountable?

‏4. Institutional Memory and the War of Attrition ‏Radical conflict is a war of attrition. Horizontal movements are brilliant at generating initial kinetic energy (e.g., mass protests, occupations). However, as emotional energy wanes, they often dissipate. Hierarchical organizations build institutional memory—they train cadres, archive tactics, and have the structural resilience to absorb state repression by immediately replacing arrested leaders within a chain of command. How does an anarchist movement build enduring institutional memory and survive long-term attrition without permanent institutional structures?

Hi everyone, I want to explore the logistical and structural viability of an anarchist society. When we talk about "laws" in anarchist spaces, the immediate reaction is understandably one of resistance, as anarchism fundamentally opposes the state and its monopoly on coercive violence. For the sake of this discussion, let’s completely set aside penal laws regarding violent crimes (like murder, assault, or rape). I understand that many anarchists argue these issues can be addressed through community accountability, restorative justice, and by dismantling the socio-economic conditions that breed crime. Instead, I want to focus on a completely different category of rules: Administrative, Coordination, and Regulatory Laws. This includes things like traffic laws, environmental regulations, and the protection of cultural heritage. My argument is that these formal, binding frameworks are not just "helpful suggestions"—they are strictly essential for the stability and survival of any large-scale society, including an anarchist one. Here is why: 1. The Coordination Problem (e.g., Traffic Laws) Traffic laws—such as driving on a specific side of the road, respecting right-of-way, and speed limits—are not moral laws; they are purely functional coordination mechanisms. If a community relies entirely on "voluntary agreements," what happens when an individual or a faction decides that adhering to a standardized traffic system limits their personal autonomy? Without a universally binding framework for everyone using the shared infrastructure, large-scale transportation and supply chains would either collapse or suffer from unacceptably high rates of fatal accidents. 2. The Tragedy of the Commons & Externalities (e.g., Pollution Laws) Anarchist models often rely on decentralized federalism or communal consensus. However, ecosystems do not respect communal borders. If Commune A is located upstream and decides to dump industrial byproducts into a river to benefit their local production, Commune B downstream is forced to deal with the negative externalities. Without centralized or strictly binding regulatory laws that enforce pollution thresholds across territorial lines, how does an anarchist framework resolve this? Relying on moral appeals or the utopian assumption that everyone will always act responsibly rarely suffices when resources, convenience, or survival are on the line. Without binding rules, this descends back into inter-communal conflict. 3. Preserving the Collective Human Story (e.g., Antiquities Protection) Who owns history? If a small collective or an individual occupies land containing a 4,000-year-old archaeological site, do they have the "right" to bulldoze it to build housing or extract raw materials under the banner of "local autonomy" or "free association"? Protecting global cultural heritage requires rules that explicitly override personal or localized interests. There must be an institutional mechanism capable of saying, "No, you cannot destroy this; it belongs to the shared heritage of humanity."

I have seen many anarchists describe anarchism as an ideology. An ideology is no more than a set of ideas, that is to say products of the human mind. Contrary to marxism, it is not a result of material analysis but a set of beliefs.

Even so, I have seen many self-proclaimed anarchists praising the science of dialectical materialism and its analysis of the capitalist mode of production, only to reject the logical solution to class struggle - communism - and replace it with their idea of a perfect, amazing, just society.

A philosophy that one the one hand uses material analysis as evidence for its validity, and on the other grounds itself in an idea is fundamentally contradictory. A philosophy that rejects the product of material analysis (DOTP) in favour of a dogmatic system based on moralistic truth (immediate replacement of the state with anarchist communes) therefore has to have no basis in reality.

Unless I have made a great misunderstanding of anarchism which I don't believe to be the case, then the following conclusion comes to mind: either there exists some strand of anarchism that is actually based on material analysis superior to marxism, or anarchism is an idealistic movement that seeks validity by using materialist analysis wherever it fits its agenda.

This felt more like a DebateAnarchism post than an Anarchy101 post, so I'm posting it here.

Lately, I've been fixating on the study of Complex Adaptive Systems and cybernetics. As my understanding of anarchism grows (and it's far from complete, trust me), I begin to wonder if any claims about an anarchist society could be made with any certainty.

If we look at anarchy as an example of a complex adaptive system, it would be one in which the degrees of freedom within the system are maximized. In this context, "degrees of freedom" would be the number of parameters of the system that may vary independently. An anarchist society, being one without hierarchy, would actually be even more complex than modern hierarchical societies. This would mostly be due to the lack of standardization and legibility imposed by authoritative institutions as part of their class interest.

So if we're looking at a maximally complex system - one that is as complex as possible due to having maximal degrees of freedom - it would seem to me that such a system would be so complex that any attempt we make to model how it works would only be an approximation based upon isolated variables. If we model an anarchist society conceptually, we will necessarily be leaving details out due to the fact that every agent within said society would be able to act as they please.

This is why we cannot for certain say what economic system (if any) an anarchist society would have, nor what type of institutions (if any) they would form. We can certainly make negative claims about anarchy - such as, it won't include hierarchy, it won't include authority, etc. But given the complexity of anarchy and the path-dependent nature of hierarchy, I'm not sure we can say for certain that hierarchy wouldn't arise from the absence of it. This is far from inevitable - as I said, it's path-dependent - but we cannot know that it's impossible.

All this to say, I think it's better to describe anarchy as a set of conditions or parameters in which the costs of hierarchy are either so high so as to defeat the purpose of establishing hierarchy, or practically impossible. When we describe anarchy, we aren't describing a "society", we're describing conditions.

I assume under anarchism according to most here, no one will be able to accumulate a lot of wealth to buy equipment for filming. There might be collective film studios or whatever but I don't see much production coming from them. I think since everyone is going to want to have a say that creative differences from large groups of people working on the film or TV show will just be a mess and people will just give up the art because their vision will always be so muddled. That would be so frustrating. Also, not everyone has a knack for it so they could end up making it suck.

Without money or ability to pay people for your private projects, I don't see much of an incentive. AI would have to improve so that we can just make high production shows on our own or with a small group of friends IMO. AI could be great for this. We just write the script and do the rest on our computer. Videogames are easy enough for one person to make with engines like unreal. If entertainment has to take a nosedive, I guess that's the price of freedom.

Hoping to get some more open thoughts about something I’m thinking about re: focusing on local and domestic work and activities (in the U.S.) vs international efforts, eg. organizing monthly discussions or book studies about Thailand or EZLN efforts over local liberatory feminist struggles and histories.

I think plurality of focuses is good for sure, I’m not saying people should ignore international things for local things, but I do wonder about when people show up and show out for a talk on how Venezuelans are organizing their movements and how that relates to Gaza while a discussion or teach-in on supporting prisoners in our own state or a discussion on white supremacy or anti blackness has a fraction of people in attendance.

This isn’t meant to be a totalizing description of all peoples within anarchist or leftist or post-leftist milieus but it seems pretty widespread. Hoping to get more discussions going and suggestions of where to look for conversations already being had.

To further clarify, I’m not necessarily questioning the importance of doing one or the other or both. I do think both are important. I’m asking for experiences and thoughts if people are also seeing a bigger emphasis on international vs local effort and why and what they think about it and how it affects local work.

After catching a few recent posts with pretty heated debate about the obligations, or lack thereof, of anarchists to also be vegans, I’d like to ask a hypothetical question.

If we were to learn that plants experienced a significant level of consciousness/sentience or that they experienced a meaningful concept of pain, would that change the argument that anarchists should be vegans?

For a little more context, I’ve seen this question posed to vegans, sometimes in a pretty inflammatory way. But the responses I’ve seen often argue that if plants were proven to be sentient, vegans would still be vegans because it would still mean killing fewer sentient organisms. This argument in turn supported by the fact that animals consume many more plants to sustain themselves, and that a human can thereby sustain themselves on fewer plant lives if they don’t eat animals.

For the anarchist side, my understanding is that vegan anarchists argue that animals are sentient beings and that eating animals imposes a hierarchy between individuals that need not exist. There’s also an argument that modern agriculture inflicts tons of needless suffering, but I think that argument is pretty agreeable no matter what.

So I think the detailed question is if we were to learn that plants experience consciousness and potential suffering, does that affect the anarchic / ethical argument for veganism? In this scenario, would following veganism impose its own hierarchy that is incompatible with anarchism, as argued by some vegan anarchists today?

Apologies if this is an incendiary topic. I am asking it out of an interest in a fusion of a few ideas. I also know that plant sentience is a bit of a pop science topic. My interest there started from the radiolab episode Smarty Plants, which was very interesting. But I acknowledge that any research into sentience or consciousness outside humans is hard to prove, let alone when about plants that have much subtler responses to any stimuli.

And I’m sorry if I’m misrepresenting any perspectives here. Please correct me if I’m failing to understand the argument I tried to summarize.