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.

I've done a lot of scattershot reading about views on criminal justice from anarchists, as well as prison abolitionists who don't necessarily consider themselves anarchists. Non-anarchist prison abolitionists have somewhat of an easier time proposing alternative systems as they assume there might still be a concept of crime, law, land-as-property, courts, judges as people who hold some sort of authority, borders, etc, which can make a framework easier. For example, they can propose a system where determining guilt/innocence is essentially identical to the US jury trial system, and if guilt is determined, a judge has legal authority to declare someone must do X hours of community service to help re-integrate them with the community, with the implicit idea of the judge having authority over the criminal who broke a law.

Anarchists, questioning all that is implicit, must be more creative. Unfortunately, those who do make proposals seem to fall into one of two camps:

Vigilantism - "The community decides what to do" or "the victim decides what to do" with little thought as to (1) deciding guilt/innocence and (2) limiting the actions of the victim/community. Yes, this is punitive justice, but without (2) we cannot guarantee people will avoid punitive justice, especially for severe crimes. While KYLR (not spelling out the acronym to avoid automod issues; middle words are "your local") isn't necessarily an anarchist position, if there are no limits to what the victim/community decides, the anarchist position can become KYLR. And when combined without a clear way to decide guilt or innocence, and no limits on measures taken... it just reinvents lynching. You can argue under anarchist principles it would be less racialized than how Americans associate the word with American historical context, but that doesn't change the fact that a group of people (be that "the community" or a subset thereof) having a free pass to kill someone based on an accusation ultimately is still lynching.

Let's-all-get-along — This implies rehabilitative justice for everyone and punitive justice being completely off the table. This seems okay for many situations, but... * There is no clear answer to "what happens if X person refuses to even begin to cooperate with the restorative justice process?" in an anarchist system as an anarchist system typically implies a lack of authority to force people to cooperate * There are situations where people refuse or physically cannot be "reformed" (severe traumatic brain injury, true lack of understanding, etc). For petty "crimes" like "Bob won't stop getting wasted every Monday and singing along to super loud music that wakes up his neighbors" they could be tolerated (maybe his neighbors work night shift or think it's funny). For serious situations involving violence, rape, child molestation, arson, you don't want a truly unrepentant person doing it again and again. You could tell everyone "don't give the serial arsonist matches" but that doesn't really matter if he keeps swiping lighters to start more fires. * Most rehabilitative/transformative justice systems seem to involve some sort of system where the accuser and accused meet with each other to come to an understanding. Many victims of rape do not want to even briefly face their rapist in the modern court system; I cannot imagine what it would be like to have a situation where both parties have to do something together, even if it is for a rehabilitative purpose, and even if it is not "forced" but rather socially pressured.

I am not saying anarchists believe either "all justice is punitive" or "all justice is rehabilitative." What I am seeing is either "some/most justice is rehabilitative but any type of punitive is still on the table at the discretion of the victim/community" or "all justice is rehabilitative," and both end up with deeply concerning results. Sometimes there's a bit of exile sprinkled in, with seemingly no real way to enforce it in a borderless anarchist society beyond shunning or constant physical removal by some nebulous community self-defense team.

For clarity, here is what I'm not contesting: * In most places the criminal justice system is excessively punitive and that's not helpful in the long-term * Prisons are terrible at rehabilitation * False accusations are uncommon * "Crime" (however you define it) would be rarer under anarchism because everyone has their needs met (assuming it's anarcho-communism or similar) * The history and current state of prison, policing, and laws is nasty and quite often racist * Most anarchists are okay with temporary detention for immediate safety (arrest/self-defense)

Anarchism aims for the abolition of the state, but what if someone tries rebuilding the state after it's been abolished? How on earth would you prevent this from happening? Wouldn't forcing them to stop would be authoritarian, and therefore contrary to your belief. And don't ask "Who would try to recreate the state?", because that's just a plain stupid question.

Edit: Let me rephrase, if anarchy took over overnight, and some statists established a new faction that hasn't yet invaded anybody and has no intention, wouldn't forcing them to stop be authoritarian? Also, how realistic do you think it is that you could realistically stop them?

If you push for social democracy couldn't that make the movement towards anarchism easier by educating people and giving them the free time, resources and security to think about anarchism and build more horizontal structures? Couldn't pushing for more direct participation on a local level foster the practice of community councils like anarchism and lead to a lessening of representative power? Eventually maybe we could widdle down the state more and more.

Also, pushing for less regulation might help us create these structures too and create intentional communities that can serve as examples of anarchism in action Perhaps moving towards geolibertarianism and a land value tax could help us take valuable resource rich land.

I have been reflecting and designing what an anarchist society might look like, and I find nothing plausible for modern society outside of Communism and Democratic Confederalism. There are over 8 billion of us humans, and I can't find any way to organize a society based on contracts, and to top it all off, without money. I didn't buy the argument "you live in capitalism and you can't imagine it," because that's not what I'm talking about. I mean that it's impractical to have a society based on bartering, and to top it all off, it's based on contracts.

The tyranny of the majority

The argument constantly used to oppose direct democracy is "the tyranny of the majority," and its variant, "the tyranny of the minority." But believe me, I triedI've thought about it and reasoned it out, but a society where one group or individual must enter into a contract with another, and where everyone must have their full consent, is impractical when it comes to building a a society, since the population margins we deal with in the world today are so immense that it is not possible to organize a territory, not even one of 100,000 people, based on contracts of consent, since there will always be more than one who disagrees, and you'll say "let them go to another commune then," to which I say that wouldn't be possible, since you would end up generating a group of marginalized and socially isolated people, since even if they leave and are comfortably received in another community, it can easily happen that in many communities there is dissent from a group, And that even those who disagree can't reach an agreement. Now, let's suppose we use a vote, 75% agree with A 30-hour work week is proposed, but the other 25% disagree. Obviously, this cannot be imposed on this 25%, so they go and form their own commune. Let's assume everyone agrees In a 25-hour work week, perfect, they leave and form their own commune, but then there's the dissent of another who says "we abolish work," and that "everything should be a game," and that 25% says "Working the land isn't fun, but it's a necessity; you suggest childish things," and that person ends up leaving the commune. Well, that individual is going to be isolated, alone, and marginalized, and he's going to die.

In a society based on contracts and consensus, there will always be someone who opposes, who unleashes chaos, and among those who consent, who breaks the rules of others, simply out of dissent. The fact is that perfect consensus cannot exist in large societies, only in very small ones of less than 100 or 150 people, and you might say "let's create communes around that number", and that may seem like the solution, But there's a problem: the complexity of the economic system and society. If you create isolated communes around that number, even if they barter, it's impossible for them to achieve self-sufficiency, The quality of life we currently have would be significantly lower; if what we have isn't good already, autarky would be even worse, As I said, even if trade is done through barter in a federal system, there's no guarantee that someone will want what you have, and if production is mandated by direct democracy, that would also go against the The idea of anarchism, which some advocate, would basically be council communism with direct democracy, not anarchism. 

This is where I was shocked; I couldn't resolve this dilemma. Unfortunately, a federation of communes that wants to agree on general rules must resort to direct democracy and to the tyranny of the majority, However annoying it may be. That's why we must focus on what is truly possible; let's remember that we are millions of human beings, it's impossible to have consensus among everyone, and maintaining technological development Stable. At least the anarcho-primitivists are more honest and admit that they should return to hunter-gatherer societies. 

Perhaps when we reach a post-scarcity economy we can serve ourselves without following rules imposed by a majority, and go in our bands or groups, or alone, collecting what a Robot gives us, meanwhile I believe that the only possible society close to anarchy is an economic Mutualism together with a political Democratic Confederalism

All criticism and contributions are welcome as long as they are respectful and free of insults. I've truly thought about this a lot, and I haven't been able to forge a society based on contracts and consensus without generating an unstable society that says "I don't like this, screw you" and destroys the entire community 

If there's one thing we don't like about the tyranny of the majority, the solution isn't to throw everything away, but rather to try to convince people, based on reason, why the majority is wrong, Only in this way can we defend against the injustices that arise from a possible tyranny of the majority, avoiding a segregating infantilism

It is not surprising that most who use the argument of "the tyranny of the majority" overlook the actual construction of the attempts that have come closest to anarchism, such as Makhno's Ukraine, Spain From 1936 onwards, all have a degree of direct democracy, from which it is impossible to escape in large communities and complex societies. Let's be realistic, please; only in this way will anarchy be built. 

There will always be differences when applying general rules; we cannot disregard them simply because a few disagree. Federalism has its limits; we can't implement individual federalism just because one person doesn't like it, as that could ultimately affect everyone's quality of life. Communes wouldn't have all the rules, diverse factors that would make it impossible to build large, efficient societies with a good quality of life, or we would cause individuals to ignore an entire group, and destroy social cohesion! Basically, I only find problems, irresolvable complexities, which direct democracy easily solves. And in a world of 8 billion people we must be realistic, reasonable, only in this way will we do what seems impossible.

Well, that's it, sorry for the "long text", but it's a topic that I think is important.

I'll define my terms for the purposes of this post:

Speciesism: An ideology and system that places one species (usually humans) as superior to another species.

Anthrocentrism: An analytical lens that centers human perspectives, ends, and means (that is, means that only humans are capable of) when considering the effect of certain actions and phenomena.

Now, the vegan anarchist claim seems to be that humans consuming other animals and killing them is an example of speciesism. I'm going to make an effort to steelman this argument before I refute it and any vegan anarchists, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Humans certainly create systems to consume animals, and the big example is factory farming. This is a system of industrial farming that subjects animals to unspeakable cruelty before killing them in outright horrific ways for the purposes of harvesting their meat. This, if nothing else, is very much an example of speciesism.

However, it doesn't then follow that all meat consumption is speciesist. It's anthrocentric.

Given the absence of industrialized meat consumption systems, it doesn't actually require humans to view animals as "inferior" to eat them, it just requires humans to center their perspective over the animal's. The centering of certain perspectives over others certainly can be a symptom of speciesism, but it isn't itself synonymous with it. For example, we center certain perspectives when analyzing things all the time without necessarily thinking that perspective is "superior". An example of this would be in cases of addressing harm, where we center the victim's perspective, but this doesn't then follow that we argue for the "superiority" of the victim.

So when humans kill and eat animals, we are not engaging in a speciesist hierarchy, we're engaging in anthrocentric means.

This doesn't mean anthrocentrism is good, mind you. Anthrocentrism can be a problem, especially when addressing our impact on ecologies. But anthrocentrism is no more a hierarchy than the prioritization of my moral value judgements over another.

Have a bit of a chicken and egg dilemma going on. I think the question is really asking "which precedes the pther?", and my answer to that would be power. Because legitimacy flows from social relations set in stone while power has it's origin in the capacity of coercion; the ability to seize resources, monopolise violence and enforce will. My confusion lingers on whether legitimacy is also a source of power or just it's epiphenomenon?

New to this page and MUCH more familiar with Murray Rothbards interpretation of Anarchism (Anarcho-capitalism) I had heard of left-wing anarchism long before Rothbard but didn't take much of an interest in it before because it seemed like a contradiction that made no sense and after reading "Read the Anarchism in a nutshell page of the wiki." page, I'm still struggling to see the difference between the two ideologies listed in the title of this post. The really both read from the same hymn sheet. What am I missing?

In addition to that Anarchists are anti-capitalist but are also anti-state and also anti-violence, how is anarchism supposed to prevent the accumulation of capital in the hands of people if the anarchist society in question is unable to use either the state or violent force to prevent that from happening? How is justice/prevention against the oppressors administered? What do you do with people in an anarchist society who are not anarchists themselves who will naturally violate one or more of the anarchist principles at some point?