Basic Principles of Anarchism
March 3rd, 2021
Our world is beset with all manner of social problems. Inequality runs rampant - a few have far more wealth than they could ever use, while many live in poverty. The police assault or murder regular people semi-randomly, while turning a blind eye to the crimes of politicians and the wealthy. Nations use lies to justify waging wars upon each other - wars really meant to benefit the rich & powerful. Governments preach austerity and free markets when the poor ask for assistance, but shower the wealthy with bailouts. Over a half-century of reform movements have failed to achieve equality for women, racial minorities, or homosexuals. Corporations (and governments) pollute the planet with abandon, dumping waste on the least powerful while raising global temperatures. Disease spreads across the population while companies prioritize profits over the health of their workers and governments refuse to correct the inequalities that worsen public health.
To solve these problems and make society better we ought to abolish hierarchy, including capitalism, the state, patriarchy, and white supremacy. Rather than an unequal society based on command and obedience, we should have a society based upon voluntary cooperation; we should have anarchy. Anarchism does not mean chaos, random violence, or total opposition to all organization. Anarchism is a philosophy calling for the abolition of hierarchy, an analysis of how hierarchies work, and a vision of a better society. There are many different versions of anarchism, but anarchists do agree on some core principles. For the most part, anarchism as a social system has not been attempted in the modern era, but there are some historical precedents and limited experiments that show it is a viable system.
Common Myths About Anarchism
Anarchism is among the most misrepresented philosophies in the world. When not ignoring anarchism entirely, it is common for academia, the news, and schools to slander or mischaracterize anarchism, sometimes wildly so. Anarchists seek to overthrow the rich & powerful and drastically change or abolish most existing institutions, including governments, the media, and corporations. Consequently, those institutions tend to promote negative and inaccurate portrayals of anarchism. The more popular misconceptions about anarchism include:
Anarchists advocate complete chaos: Perhaps the most common myth is that anarchists are against all rules & order and want everyone to run in circles throwing things at random, spreading chaos. In fact, anarchists do not advocate chaos and anarchy does not mean chaos. Joseph Proudhon, the first person to call himself an anarchist, wrote, “as man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.”
In previous historical eras, many people used to believe similar misconceptions about democracy and republics. In periods when monarchies were thought necessary the idea of elected governments was often equated disorder, and democracy was used as a synonym for chaos. Similarly, today many mistakenly believe capitalism and the state are necessary and recycle the same straw man previously used in defense of monarchy.
The circle-A symbol of anarchism; means “anarchy is order.” The A stands for anarchy, the O for order.
Anarchists believe in mindless violence: Another common stereotype is that of the mad bomb-throwing anarchist who advocates carnage and destruction for the sake of it. This too is a myth. Anarchists do not normally go around throwing bombs at everyone nor do we consider assaulting the elderly a virtue. It is true that there have been anarchists who used violence to advance their cause but this is true of every political philosophy. Liberals and conservatives have used much more violence throughout history than anarchists, yet they are never demonized as crazed bomb throwers. Indeed, the state is not only inherently violent but the most violent organization in human history. It uses violence on a systemic level (in the form of police & militaries) and is responsible for numerous genocides. The state is far more violent than the most violent of anarchists.
Anarchists, by definition, are opposed to organization: The vast majority of anarchists are not opposed to organization. What anarchists oppose is hierarchical organization - organizations in which one group of people rules over another group of people, such as corporations, states, and patriarchal families. Instead, anarchists advocate organization without authority, where all members have an equal say in group decisions. As the anarchist Errico Malatesta argued, “organization, far from creating authority, is the only cure for it and the only means whereby each one of us will get used to taking an active and conscious part in the collective work, and cease being passive instruments in the hands of leaders.”
What Anarchism Really Stands For
Anarchy comes from the Greek and literally means "no rulers." Anarchists are anti-authoritarians who seek to abolish domination. Anarchists are against authority in the sense of some people ruling over others, but, in most cases, are not against “authority” in the sense of expertise. There is a difference between being an authority and having authority. Being an authority means a person is recognized as competent for a particular task based on their knowledge and individual skills; it is socially acknowledged expertise. Authorities in this sense are people who are particularly knowledgeable, skillful or wise in any particular area. Anarchists generally do not oppose the existence of experts. It may be in our best interests to follow their recommendations, but they have no power to force us to do so, nor should they.
Having authority is a social relationship based on status and power derived from a hierarchical position within a group. It means dividing society into order givers and order takers. The order givers, the authorities, tell the order takers what to do and they must obey. This is authority in the sense that anarchists oppose. A boss, for example, is an illegitimate authority because employees must obey his orders. When anarchists denounce something as "authoritarian" we usually mean that it is based on authority in this sense. As the early anarchist Mikhail Bakunin wrote, “Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me.”
Hierarchy is essentially institutionalized authority. It is pyramidally structured social organization consisting of a series of grades, ranks, or offices of increasing power, prestige, and/or remuneration. Those with lower ranks must obey those with higher ranks. Hierarchies maintain control by coercion - the threat of negative sanctions (physical, economic, social, etc.) against those who don’t obey. Hierarchical organizations are, by definition, organizations that are run by elites. Those on the top, the elite, have more power then those on the bottom. Hierarchical authority is the authority that is inherent in any hierarchy - that is, relations of command and obedience.
Anarchism is extreme skepticism of authority. The basic idea is to abolish domination in favor of a society based on voluntary cooperation. Anarchists seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and challenge them; they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled. That includes the state, economic hierarchies, relations among men and women, and much else. Anarchists argue that hierarchy, bodies of people having authority over others, is unjustified and should be abolished. All major authoritarian institutions should be abolished. Instead of dividing society into a hierarchy of order givers and order takers everyone should have control over their own life and an equal say in group decisions.
What Anarchists Oppose
Hierarchy: Anarchists are opposed to domination; relations of command and obedience are not only unnecessary but also inherently detrimental to humanity. Everyone should have control of their own life instead of being bossed around by others. Hierarchy renders those on the lower levels vulnerable to exploitation & abuse. It discourages them from developing their own decision-making abilities, fostering a kind of dependency. You will generally be better at making your down decisions, rather than allowing someone else to rule you, because you have better access to information about your own life.
Capitalism: The prevailing economic system in most of the world today, anarchist see wage labor - the boss-worker relationship - as integral to the capitalist system. Since that relationship is hierarchical, anarchists oppose it. Under capitalism, a small percentage of the population, the capitalist class, owns the means of production (land, factories, mines, etc.) or otherwise controls them through organizations they run (such as corporations). The bulk of the population - the working class - does not have access to the means of production and must sell our labor to survive or else face starvation. Anarchists generally argue that, while capitalism can generate a great deal of wealth for a small number of people, it also impoverishes a large number of people and results in homelessness, economic instability, environmental destruction, and unnecessary waste.
Anarchists also oppose all other class systems, including feudalism and Stalinism, but emphasize opposition to capitalism because it is the dominant system today. Anarchists see all class systems as authoritarian, coercive, unequal, and exploitative. The very wealthy in every hierarchical economic system live off the labor of the lower classes.
The State: The state is an organization with a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. It is a centralized body with a pyramidal, hierarchical structure that uses its monopoly of force to control all those within its jurisdiction. It maintains various armed bodies of people (police, military) and coercive institutions (courts, prisons) with which it coerces the population into obeying its dictates. Because of its hierarchical structure and monopoly of force the state always acts to enforce the rule of a small elite. It exists not to "enforce order" or anything like that but to enforce the will of the ruling class. In some countries the term government is a synonym for the state, in others it refers to the leaders of the state (such as the cabinet and prime minister). In either case, anarchists seek its abolition. Anarchists are opposed to all states, including:
Representative "Democracy:" Elected governments are run by and for a small elite, just like all other states. Ordinary people have no real control over the decisions of politicians - once elected they can make what ever decisions they want regardless of their campaign pledges or what most people want. Representatives are separated from the general population but exposed to powerful pressure groups including state bureaucracies, corporations, lobbyists, and political-party operatives. Being in power changes politicians perspective and corrupts them. All politicians are required to pursue the interests of the elite; if they do not they will be obstructed by the state bureaucracy or disciplined by capital flight.
"Socialist" States: Attempts to overthrow the capitalist class and implement a socialist "workers' state" inevitably lead to the replacement of the old ruling class with a new, bureaucratic ruling class that exploits the working class just as the old ruling class did. There is no effective way for the working class as a whole to control the state. It has a monopoly of force and will simply use that monopoly to establish itself as a new ruling class. Decision-making power lies with the leaders, not with the masses of ordinary workers. When the politburo, parliament, council of people's commissars, or other leaders are making the decisions the workers are not.
As a consequence of the abolition of the state, police and prisons, as well as nations and borders as we know them, would also be abolished.
Imperialism: Imperialism is a social relationship in which the rulers of one state dominate the population of another country or territory. At present the United States is the main imperialist nation, dominating most other countries in the world. Past imperialist powers have included the Soviet Union, Rome, Germany, England and the Aztecs. Imperialism is a common offshoot of the state. States typically war with each other, which compels each state to build up its own military and seek to dominate other states. Any state that fails to do so will itself be conquered. Consequently, states that are not subordinate to an imperialist power tend to develop their own imperialist tendencies, with the most successful establishing large empires.
Patriarchy: Patriarchy is male domination - a social relation in which men have power over women; gender hierarchy. In every society men and women are expected to behave in certain ways and if they do not they are subjected to various forms of pressure ranging from being ridiculed to violence to exile. How a man or woman is expected to behave in a given society is called their gender. This is different from sex, which refers to the biological characteristics that distinguish male from female. Gender varies greatly from society to society. Under patriarchy gender is constructed so that, on average, men have more power than women. The results of patriarchy are quite negative - in addition to diminishing women's freedom it also results in sexual harassment, reduced opportunities for women, rape and various other forms of sexual violence. Anarchists advocate equality of the sexes. Anarchists are also opposed to the oppression of homosexuals and other people who do not conform to gender norms, oppression that is usually an offshoot of patriarchy. Anarchists are opposed to any sort of oppression on the basis of one's gender or sexuality.
White Supremacy: Anarchists oppose all ethnic hierarchies. Ethnicity, including race, is a social construct. Race divides a population into a hierarchical set of "races" and treats those on top - the white race - better than those in the "lower" non-white races. Race is usually hereditary. Typically people are assigned a race based on arbitrary characteristics, such as skin color and ancestry. Race is not at all biological but is a pure social construction. It varies from country to country, and is different in different time periods. What Americans call blacks are actually broken into several different races in most Latin American countries (blacks, mulattos, etc). In the US Irish, Italians, and East Europeans were considered non-white in the nineteenth century but today are considered whites. In Rwanda two groups most Americans would consider black, Hutus and Tutsis, were regarded as two different races until recently. White supremacy first arose with the conquest of the Americas and the Atlantic Slave Trade as a way of justifying empire and of dividing the lower classes to insure that poor whites did not ally with rebellious slaves or indigenous peoples. Anarchists also oppose other ethnic hierarchies that are not versions of white supremacy, such as caste hierarchies in India and the oppression of Kurds in the Middle East.
Basic Principles of Anarchism
Anti-Authoritarianism: Anarchists are extremely skeptical about the need for any kind of authority. Hierarchy should be abolished. Instead, all should have control over their own life and an equal say in group decisions.
Feminism: Anarchists favor social, economic and political equality for men and women. The domination of men over women should be abolished.
Mutual Aid: Rather than attempting to dominate each other, social relations should be based on solidarity and voluntary cooperation. When individuals come together to help each other they can accomplish more than when they work against each other.
Autonomy: Everyone should have control over their own life; no one should rule others or be ruled be ruled by others. There should be no kings, bosses, police, landlords, or politicians.
Free Association: Everyone should be allowed to associate freely with those they choose and to disassociate from those they do not wish to be involved with. Individuals should not be forced into social relations against their will; society should be based upon free agreement, rather than coercion.
Self-Management: In groups, decisions should be made in a manner so that everyone has an equal say. People should govern themselves, rather than dividing into those who give orders and those who obey.
Radical Egalitarianism: Anarchists believe in an egalitarian society. By equality we do not mean a totalitarian society where everyone is identical or lives the exact same life, nor we we mean eliminating individual diversity or uniqueness. Rather, anarchists believe in equality of wealth and power - a consequence of the abolition of hierarchy.
Decentralization: Large organizations should be decentralized, granting local groups a degree of autonomy. Centralization gives those in the center power over those outside the center, which leads to hierarchy and thus to oppression. Leaders of centralized organizations, even when well-meaning, lack adequate information to take into account local nuances and tend to make bad decisions when they micromanage local affiliates.
Vision of a New Society
There are multiple different ideas of what an anarchist society would look like. Any vision that abolishes the things anarchists are opposed to and is consistent with basic anarchist principles is compatible with anarchism. There are, however, many institutions that have been proposed by anarchists to run a non-hierarchical society. Most of these are not based on idle speculation but on practical experience running non-hierarchical organizations and by looking at how anarchist societies have worked in the past. Some of them are:
General Assemblies: In any organization people can come together to meet and discuss whatever common problems or activities they face. At these assemblies everyone would have an equal opportunity to participate in both the discussion/debate and the final decision. Assemblies are based on free association so whenever a group of people wants to get together to accomplish a goal they can simply form a general assembly to organize it. Free association also means that no one is compelled to participate in an assembly if they did not want to.
Assemblies can be formed to organize around anything - workplaces, neighborhoods, universities, clubs, space exploration, etc. Worker assemblies can be used to run workplaces by meeting regularly to plan production, divvy up the tasks that need to be accomplished, and agree on policies. Neighborhood assemblies can be formed to deal with issues common to people in that neighborhood, and organize to deal with them. Worker assemblies, neighborhood assemblies, university assemblies, community assemblies and the like can all be formed to run society without hierarchy, based on self-management. General assemblies are sometimes given other names, such as popular assemblies or mass assemblies.
Federations: Different assemblies can coordinate their activities by forming federations. This is done by each assembly assigning a contact person(s) (sometimes called a spoke or delegate) to meet with contact people from other assemblies which they want to coordinate things with. The meeting of contact people is sometimes called a council (or spokescouncil). The position of contact person should rotate frequently, to insure no one can monopolize it. Each contact person is mandated, meaning that they are given instructions by the assembly that they come from on how to deal with any issue. Mandates are binding, committing delegates to a framework of positions chosen by their assembly, which they are required to abide by. Contact people can also be easily recalled by their assembly at any time, and their decisions can be revoked by their assembly if the delegate violates their mandate. Decision making power stays in the assemblies; contact people simply convey and implement those positions. Contact people do not have any authority or special privileges.
Federations are organized from the bottom up, with control staying in the assemblies. They are not hierarchical organizations but simply coordinate the activities of the assemblies without authority. Anarchist federations differs from representative institutions in that decision making power stays in the assemblies, whereas representatives can make whatever decisions they want and have authority over others.
Federations can be formed to coordinate the activities of assemblies on whatever level needed. Worker councils can coordinate worker assemblies; neighborhood councils can coordinate neighborhood assemblies. When needed, federations of federations can also be formed. For example, all the worker assemblies in a town can form a federation of worker assemblies, all the town federations can federate to form a regional federation, and regional federations could federate to form a global federation. In all cases decision making power stays with the assemblies upon which the federations are based; assemblies are the core of any organization.
Decision Making Processes
Any decision making process in which everyone has control over their own life and all members have an equal say, rather than dividing people into order givers and order takers, is theoretically compatible with anarchism. Although there are many processes which could conceivably fit the bill, most anarchists advocate one of two main methods of non-hierarchical decision processes:
Consensus: In consensus everyone in the group must agree to a decision before it can be put into action. All contributions are valued and participation is encouraged. Any member can block consensus, stopping a decision they strongly object to. Members may also "stand aside," allowing a decision they do not like to be made without blocking or supporting it.
Direct Democracy: Decisions are be made by directly voting on the options; the option with a majority of votes is implemented. Anarchists who advocate direct democracy do not believe in a mechanical process whereby the majority just votes away the minority and ignores them. Participants should discuss what they are voting on first, listening to each other and exchange ideas before voting. Direct democracy is combined with free association as well. Anyone who is out-voted does not absolutely have to abide by the decision; they can leave the group if they strongly object to what it voted for.
These processes would be used to make decisions in the general assemblies and federations. There are many variations and it is also possible to synthesize consensus and direct democracy. Some groups use direct democracy but require the majority be of a certain size (such as 2/3rds or 3/4ths) instead of a simple majority. Another variation is to attempt to achieve the largest majority possible.
Economics
There are many different economic systems envisioned by anarchists. These different visions are not necessarily incompatible with each other and could probably co-exist within the same society. The main ones are:
Mutualism: In mutualism everyone would either be self-employed or a member of a worker-run cooperative (individual cooperatives would be run by worker assemblies). They would produce goods or services and trade them on a market. Although mutualism uses markets to coordinate production it is not capitalist because wage labor would be abolished. No one would sell their labor to others but instead work in cooperatives or for themselves. There would be no bosses, but commerce and trade would still exist.
Collectivism: In collectivism markets would be abolished. Instead of using markets to coordinate production, collectivists would set up worker federations to coordinate production. Each workplace would be run by its own worker assembly and would federate with other workplace assemblies in the area, forming a local workers council. The workers councils would federate with each other (forming more councils) as needed on many levels. Money would still exist and people would be paid on the basis of how much they work. Most collectivists believe that collectivism would eventually evolve into a gift economy, but believe the transition would take a very long time.
Gift Economy: A gift economy would abolish money and trading all together. Production and distribution would be done on the basis of need through a federation of free communes. The economy would be organized along the lines of "from each according to ability, to each according to need." Everything would be free and work as we know it abolished. The abolition of work does not mean nothing would be produced; things are already produced outside of work today - many people garden for fun, work on cars as a hobby, or do other productive activities outside of work. A gift economy would do away with work, drastically expand that kind of production, and allow automation to flourish.
Gift economies are also called anarcho-communism or libertarian communism. The "communism" in anarcho-communism has nothing to do with Leninist countries which some erroneously call "Communist,” such as the USSR or China. None of those countries actually claimed to be communist - they claimed they were transitioning to communism but had not achieved it yet. Anarcho-communists opposed those dictatorships from the very beginning and participated in many rebellions against them. Anarcho-communists would do away with money, central planning, and the state - all of which were present in “Communist” states.
Primitivism: Primitivists advocate the abolition of industry, civilization, and most forms of technology. Instead, anarcho-primitivists advocate a low-tech green society, either an agrarian or hunter-gatherer society. Primitivists are split on the question of agriculture: some want to do away with it all together while others would keep some forms of primitive agriculture. Primitivism is a less popular version of anarchism.
Building the New Society Within the Shell of the Old
When it comes to bringing about an anarchists society, there is not a complete consensus among anarchists on how to get from here to there. However, there are some core ideas, largely derived from experience and basic principles, held in common:
Pre-figurative Politics: The means affects the ends. As such, anarchists organize following the same principles we advocate organizing society: non-hierarchically. For this reason, anarchist organizations are often based around general assemblies and federations. Many anarchists see the initial framework of anarchy being created within the old society, before eventually displacing capitalism and the state. Popular self-managed organizations would be founded prior to the overthrow of the old society, such as neighborhood assemblies, workers councils, revolutionary labor unions, and the like. These non-hierarchical organizations struggle against the institutions of the old society (government, capitalism, patriarchy, etc.) and as the old society is destroyed they take over the running of society.
Self-Liberation: The liberation of the oppressed can only come about through the actions of the oppressed themselves (either individually or collectively). Those on the bottom of society have to rebel against those on the top, refuse to obey them, make their own decisions, and form alternative ways of running society. People cannot be forced to be free. Anarchy cannot be created by a vanguard seizing power but only by the self-liberation of the oppressed. If a handful of people seize power and try to forcibly liberate everyone else against their will that handful of people will just establish themselves as a new elite, and de-facto perpetuate hierarchical society.
Direct Action: Instead of relying on someone else to act for you (such as a politician), act for yourself. Direct action is any action that a person or group of people decide upon and undertake themselves which does not rely on getting intermediates to act for them. Examples of direct action include strikes, boycotts, sabotage, insurrections, and civil disobedience. Direct action is liberatory when undertaken by the powerless because it shifts power away from the powerful to the powerless; instead of relying on someone else to do something we do it ourselves.
Anti-Electoralism: The opposite of direct action is voting in government elections. Trying to improve things through voting is not direct action because voters are relying on someone else, politicians or a political party, instead of taking matters into their own hands. Even if the politician does what you want, it perpetuates their power because we are relying on them to enact change. Anyone elected to office will be corrupted by power and perpetuate the existence of the state. Elections create the illusion that the people are in charge when, in reality, a small elite governs even the most democratic state. Elections also act as a safety valve: discontent that might turn into rebellion gets redirected into electoral campaigns. Resources that could be used on direct action instead go towards election campaigns. Electing dissidents to office has the effect of perpetuating state and corporate power, as dissidents tend to pull their punches when they are part of the institution they are ostensibly opposed to. It also demobilizes opposition social movements because they tend to view the state less critically if one of their own is elected to lead it. Participating in campaigns to elect particular candidates or parties to government office is contrary to anarchist principles.
Varieties of Anarchisms
In addition to differences over what an anarchist society should look like, anarchists also have disagreements on many other issues. Divisions between the various kinds of anarchists overlap and are not absolute. Most different kinds of anarchists are willing to co-exist and work together. The more prominent points of contention include:
Differences of Focus: Different anarchists prioritize different issues. Anarcha-feminists emphasize women's liberation and the struggle against patriarchy. Green anarchists prioritize ecology and the destruction of the environment. Anarcho-syndicalists emphasize unions and the labor movement. Queer anarchists stress the fight for LGBTQ rights. In some cases those differences of focus reflect differences in political analysis, in other cases it is more of a personal preference or a desire to focus on the issues that affect you the most.
Evolution vs. Revolution: The majority of anarchists are revolutionaries who believe that an anarchist society will come about as the result of a social revolution. The state would be overthrown and abolished, the means of production expropriated and placed under self-management, and a rapid transition to anarchy made. Others believe in an evolutionary approach - that anarchy will come about as a result of a lengthy centuries-long transition in which capitalism and the state are gradually displaced.
Violence: Some anarchists are also pacifists who believe all forms of violence are immoral. True pacifism implies anarchism. The state is inherently violent and the most violent organization in human history; other forms of hierarchy are usually violent as well. The majority of anarchists are not pacifists, however. Although non-pacifist anarchists usually do not glorify violence, most believe that the use of violence in self-defense and/or to overthrow hierarchy is justified.
Religion and Philosophy: Anarchists come from many different religious and philosophical backgrounds - from atheistic materialism to postmodernism to egoism to Taoism to Christianity and everything in between. Although most anarchists are atheists/agnostics there are religious anarchists including Pagans, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Any religion or philosophy is theoretically compatible with anarchism so long as it does not advocate things (such as a god-king) that contradict the basic principles of anarchism.
Anarchy In Action
Anarchism is not solely a set of ideas, but also something that has been implemented in the real world. These experiences show that anarchism is a viable way of organizing society that would be better than the current system. The more prominent examples include:
Everyday Life: Most people have experienced interacting with others as equals, without anyone being in charge, with friends or sometimes with partners or family members, albeit usually only on a small-scale or informal basis. For instance, if a group of friends went on a camping trip they might plan their trip collectively, without a single person being in charge, and each contribute something to the trip. They cooperate voluntarily, pass the time as they please (in groups or alone). If issues come up they discuss them and come to a solution. No one is compelled to go along with the group, but most generally stick with it out of a desire to remain part of it. If irreconcilable disagreements arise, dissenting members of the group are free to form a different group or leave as individuals without fear of persecution. Similar non-hierarchical forms of organization happen all the time, even in the most authoritarian of societies. They are informal and small scale, but it is an example of anarchy in action. In an anarchist society non-hierarchical forms of organization would be larger and, in some cases, more formal but would be the prevailing form of organization.
Primitivist Societies: There have been many anarchist societies throughout history; most of them were agrarian or hunter-gatherer societies. The immense majority of human history was lived in primitive anarchy. The human race has been around between 50,000 and 500,000 years (depending on how you define human and whose estimates you use) but the first states were not founded until approximately 7,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia. For a long time after states and classes were created they were limited to certain parts of the world while people in much of the globe continued to live in anarchy. It is only in the last couple of centuries that states came to rule the entire world, primarily as a result of conquest. Although far from perfect, most primitivist societies were not the Hobbesian hellholes they are often portrayed as (see Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins). Well known pre-modern anarchistic societies include the !Kung, the Igbo (prior to western imperialism), and the Indus Valley Civilization. While most anarchists do no wish to abolish all modern technology, the fact that so many people lived without capitalism or the state for so long shows that it is possible to organize society very differently from the way it is currently run.
Ukrainian Revolution: In early 1918 the new Soviet government in Russia made peace with Germany and surrendered the Ukraine, formerly part of the Russian Empire, to Germany. The inhabitants of the Ukraine largely opposed the treaty but had no say in it, so they launched an insurgency against German rule. Anarchists (including the anarcho-communist Nestor Makhno) were among the more prominent insurgents, and soon turned it into an anarchist revolution. The revolution primarily based in rural areas (where most of the population lived), although it spread to cities at its height. Peasants seized the land and formed village assemblies; workers seized the factories and formed workplace assemblies. Insurgents organized decentralized democratic militias and waged guerilla warfare against the multiple statist armies that invaded the Ukraine, successfully defeating the Germans, Austrians, Ukrainian Nationalists, and two counter-revolutionary armies led by General Denikin and then by General Wrangel. In 1921 the Soviet state, fresh from winning a civil war with counter-revolutionaries, invaded the Ukraine, used their vastly superior resources to suppress the revolution, restored the state, and implemented a reign of terror.
Shinmin Autonomous Province: In the late 1920s anarchists organized a revolution in the Shinmin prefecture of Manchuria, near Korea (which was a Japanese colony at the time). Peasants smashed the state, organized federations of village assemblies, and expropriated the means of production. The movement faced attacks not only from the local government and the Japanese military, but also from a Marxist guerilla movement backed by the USSR, which fought both Japan and the anarchists. The Marxists eventually assassinated several of the more prominent anarchist organizers. In the early 1930s the Japanese empire decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Manchuria; the anarchists eventually realized they were outgunned and went underground, ending the revolution.
Spanish Revolution: On July 19, 1936 General Francisco Franco, intent on installed a fascist dictatorship, staged a coup against the Spanish Republic. In response the CNT, an anarcho-syndicalist union, and the UGT, a union affiliation with the Spanish Socialist Party, called a general strike. The Republic refused to release arms to the workers, so anarchists broke into the barracks, distributed arms to the people, and fought and defeated the fascist coup in two-thirds of Spain. In the aftermath of the coup a social revolution swept over anti-fascist Spain. The state was crippled; the military was in rebellion and the police dissolved during the fighting. Workers and peasants proceeded to take over the land and factories, forming collectives and operating the economy on a self-managed basis. Every political party, anarchist organization, and labor union on the anti-fascist side formed democratic militias to fight against the fascists. After three years of civil war, the fascists won. The victory of fascism was due not only to their superior arms and assistance from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, but also strategic errors made by the CNT and betrayals by Marxist and Republican "allies" in the fight against fascism.
Common Questions and Objections
What Would You Replace The State With?
Nothing. Would you replace a tumor? Society should be organized by voluntary non-hierarchical organizations.
What About Human Nature
If human nature is bad then hierarchy should be abolished because those on the top will inevitably abuse their power. If human nature is good then there is no need for hierarchy because people will do good things without being dominated by others. Either way, we should have anarchy. If people are too evil to rule themselves then they are far too evil to rule others.
The immense majority of human history was lived in hunter-gatherer societies, a form of primitivist anarchy. If human nature favors any particular social system it favors hunter-gatherer anarchy because that system lasted the longest. Given the wide variety of social systems humans have created over the eons, human nature, if it even exists, does not restrict us to a single unchanging social structure.
How Could An Anarchist Society Defend Itself From Foreign Aggression and Statist Armies?
The same tactics used to overthrow hierarchy, direct action, could be used against counter-revolutionary armies. Civil disobedience, strikes, insurrections, street fighting, can be used not only to overthrow the current system but to resist attempts to restore it. If necessary, the population can be armed and a decentralized network of democratic militias formed to wage guerilla warfare against the statist forces. Insurgencies can be waged against both foreign invaders (if one part of the world is in anarchy and the other is authoritarian) and against domestic counter-revolutionaries who attempt to use violence to force everyone back into an authoritarian society.
How Would Anarchists Deal With anti-Social Crimes?
Crime is the result of hierarchy; the abolition of hierarchy will cause it to disappear. Most crime is caused by patriarchy and/or class society; its abolition will result in the end all or most crime. The inequality and poverty caused by capitalism (and other class systems) motivates and encourages crime. If any crime remains it can be better dealt with by community assemblies and other voluntary organizations than by any police force. Many historical pre-capitalist societies had little or no crime; a few weeks after the Spanish Revolution began crime plummeted. The state has proven completely incapable of combating crime - it has been trying to prevent it for years yet has been a complete failure. At best it merely punishes people after the fact. Prisons are generally ineffective at rehabilitation and often counter-productive. Prisons act as universities of crime, where criminals learn new skills and knowledge from each other. Once released being an ex-con makes it difficult to find a job and survive - pushing them towards illegal means to make ends meet. Furthermore, many things that are crimes - such as drug use - are not anti-social and should be permitted. The state and capitalism are far worse than crime; they kill and rob on a scale far greater then any ordinary criminal. Under the present system petty criminals go to prison but the big criminals run the world.
What Would Happen To Former Politicians and Capitalists?
Individual politicians and members of the capitalist class from the old society would be allowed to become part of the new society as equals. They would lose their former powers, wealth, and privileges and live alongside everyone else as equals. Those who do not want to are free to become hermits or leave. Anyone who does not want to participate in the various collective organizations would be free to resign and would be given access to a portion of the means of production so that they could support themselves on their own. During the Spanish Revolution, the few peasants who did not want to join the collectives were allocated some land they could use to support themselves by farming, but only enough they could work themselves (they were not allowed to employ wage-laborers or otherwise enslave people).
Allowing people to not participate in federations, general assemblies, and so on does not open the door to the restoration of capitalism, as no one would choose to be poor and work in capitalist sweatshops when given an alternative. Few people will volunteer to be oppressed, especially in an anarchist society, where the population actively chose to reject capitalism and the state and views hierarchy negatively. Reestablishing some form of domination through purely voluntary and non-violent means would therefore could not be done.
But We Need Coordination and Administration
It is possible to coordinate activities without hierarchy. Any group of people can get together and hold a general assembly where they can divvy up the tasks they need to do and decide who will do what. In the Ukrainian and Spanish Revolutions, when workers took over factories the worker assemblies often created factory committees that performed administrative and coordination tasks. Decision making power stayed with the worker assemblies; the factory committees simply implemented what the workers decided in their assemblies. Coordination between multiple assemblies can be done by forming federations.
Most people would be better off if federations and general assemblies were the prevailing organizations rather than states and corporations. Anarchism provides a vision of a better society, an outline of how to get there, and a useful set of tools to understand and analyze societies past and present. The way the world is set up today is not the best way to organize a society; we can do better. Another world is possible.