Posed similar questions about communism in the past. I’m just trying to understand, I ask because I know there is a reasonable contingent of anarchists here. If you have any literature to recommend I’d love to hear about it. My current understanding is, destruction of current system of government (violently or otherwise) followed by abolition of all law. Following this, small communities of like minded individuals form and cooperate to solve food, safety, water and shelter concerns.
I was part of a protest camp with around 5000 people that was organized according to anarchist ideals, for one week.
We organized in groups of ~10 people who selected one delegate to attend a daily “village” plenum. There were 5 villages, and each plenum would select a speaker to coordinate with the other villages.
Everyone in a plenum had the same right to speak, and every decision had to be reached unanimously.
The decisions were non-binding since there was no way to enforce them.
Sometimes it got frustrating when a delegate was clearly intoxicated or rambled incoherently and there was no one with authority to stop them speaking.
But in general, it worked really well as a tool to have everyone’s voice heard, inform everyone about news and coordinate daily life, schedules, protest marches, and chores in the camp.
Until an outside threat appeared. Police threatened to storm the camp and the plenum couldn’t reach a consensus to refrain from using molotov cocktails against them (in a tent city with children and disabled people sleeping inside). The group advocating for violence (“black block”) stopped attending the meetings, the remaining delegates split over the question whether the black block could be evicted from the camp, and most people stopped attending after that.
The police raid never happened.
Yep. Anarchy sounds great on a small scale, but cannot work on a larger scale (country level and above). Any complex enough task requires delegation, and at least a semblance of hierarchy, providing a level of authority to certain people within a group.
Just think about it. Building a simple carriage? That’s something you can do with 2-3 other people, no hierarchy needed. A modern car? Even to just assemble one you need 6-10 people doing the physical work and 2-3 “leaders” who coordinate these people, to do so effectively. And to build a rocket that can actually reach space? You need hundreds of people working in lockstep from design to manufacturing and to final assembly. With redundancies and checks and whatnot all planned for. Try to built a rocket without any hierarchy and you’ll just never reach the goal.
Anarchy is something people should strive for, but it’s not something we can achieve truly. It’s more a guiding principle rather than a concrete goal.
You can have delegation without hierarchy or authority, if everyone profits from the work equally.
Then the planner and manager of the project are just another specialist. The others trust them to know their shit, just like they trust the mechanics or builders.
If there’s a disagreement over what’s to be done by whom, this can be resolved in discussion.
Again, this works well if everyone has an equal stake in the success of the project, can freely leave, and isn’t just working on it due to threat of homelessness.
Anarchy is something that governs lots of aspects in life today.
For example, the IT team I work in is managed without authority. There is a team leader of course, but he doesn’t tell the team what to do at all. We decide that unanimously based on what there is to be done and who is best at which tasks. There is an authoritarian structure around it from the company of course, but our team leader isolates us from it. We document our own working hours, discuss scheduling and vacation days among the team. I’ve never gotten a “do this” or “you can’t take that day off” order from anyone in 2 years.
Again, this works because we are all motivated and aligned with the company’s goals (and the working conditions are great due to a strong Union).