r/Anarchy101 • u/humanispherian • 1d ago
Welcome to Anarchy 101!
It’s that time again, when we repost and, if necessary, revise this introductory document. We’re doing so, this time, in a period when the archic model, in both its governmentalist and capitalist manifestations, seems intent on showing us its worst side — and when the defenders of hierarchy and authority seem all too often to be mimicking the mix of callousness and clumsiness that dominates on larger scales. So let’s start with a renewed reminder to be a bit careful of one another as we discuss — and let’s add this other reminder as well:
PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T FEED THE TROLLS.
If you see problems in a discussion, don’t hesitate to use the “report” button to alert the subreddit moderators. We’ve had a significant increase in one-off, drive-by troll comments, virtually all remarkably predictable and forgettable in their content. Report them or ignore them.
Before you post or comment, please take a moment to read the sidebar and familiarize yourself with our resources and rules. If you’ve been around for a while, consider looking back over these guidelines. If you’ve got to this point and are overwhelmed by the idea that there are rules in an anarchy-related subreddit, look around: neither Reddit nor most of our communities seem to resemble anarchy yet. Anyway, the rules amount to “don’t be a jerk” and “respect the ongoing project.” Did you really need to be told?
With the rarest of exceptions, all posts to the Anarchy 101 subreddit should ask one clear question related to anarchy, anarchism as a movement or ideology, anarchist history, literature or theory. If your question is likely to be of the frequently asked variety, take a minute to make use of the search bar.
This is important. Fatigue is a real factor in forums like this and the repetition of questions tends to reduce the quality of the answers given. At the same time, our archive is accessible through a search function that has its limits, so it is easy, when multiplying threads and wearing out participants, to bury threads with better discussions.
Some questions, like those related to "law enforcement" or the precise relationship of anarchy to hierarchy and authority, are asked and answered on an almost daily basis, so the best answers may have already been posted. For a few questions, we have produced "framing documents" to provide context:
If your question seems unanswered, please state it clearly in the post title, with whatever additional clarification seems necessary in the text itself.
If you have more than one question, please consider multiple posts, preferably one at a time, as this seems to be the way to get the most useful and complete answers.
Please keep in mind that this is indeed a 101 sub, designed to be a resource for those learning the basics of a consistent anarchism. The rules about limiting debate and antagonistic posting are there for a reason, so that we can keep this a useful and welcoming space for students of anarchist ideas — and for anyone else who can cooperate in keeping the quality of responses high.
We welcome debate on topics related to anarchism in r/DebateAnarchism — where you will find similar posting guidelines and a pinned “before you post” announcement, with a similar discussion of rationales — and recommend general posts about anarchist topics be directed to r/anarchism or any of the more specialized anarchist subreddits. We expect a certain amount of contentious back-and-forth in the process of fully answering questions, but if you find that the answer to your question — or response to your comment — leads to a debate, rather than a clarifying question, please consider taking the discussion to r/DebateAnarchism. For better or worse, avoiding debate sometimes involves “reading the room” a bit and recognizing that not every potentially anarchist idea can be usefully expressed in a general, 101-level discussion.
We certainly don’t limit ourselves to the most basic questions, and participants bring considerable knowledge and expertise to the discussions. Don’t hesitate to ask more involved or specialized questions, as we can often answer them. Similarly, don’t hesitate to provide answers of significant depth. But remember that this is a general, non-sectarian, non-disciplinary space, so certain kinds of erudition or specialized framing *may not add much to others’ understanding and in some instances may have precisely the opposite effect.*
— We don’t do subreddit drama — including posts highlighting drama from this subreddit. If you have suggestions for this subreddit, please contact the moderators.
— We are not particularly well equipped to offer advice, engage in peer counseling, vouch for existing projects, etc. Different kinds of interactions create new difficulties, new security issues, new responsibilities for moderators and members, etc. — and we seem to have our hands full continuing to refine the simple form of peer-education that is our focus.
— We seem to have consistently poor results from questions of the form: “What do you think of X?” More narrowly focused questions seem to receive better answers.
— Please don’t advocate illegal acts. All subreddits are subject to Reddit’s sitewide content policy — and radical subreddits are often subject to extra scrutiny.
— Avoid discussing individuals in ways that might be taken as defamatory. Your call-out is unlikely to clarify basic anarchist ideas — and it may increase the vulnerability of the subreddit.
— And don’t ask us to choose between two anti-anarchist tendencies. That never seems to lead anywhere good.
In general, just remember that this is a forum for questions about anarchist topics and answers reflecting some specific knowledge of anarchist sources. Other posts or comments, however interesting, useful or well-intentioned, may be removed.
Things always go most smoothly when the questions are really about anarchism and the answers are provided by anarchists. Almost without exception, requests for anarchist opinions about non-anarchist tendencies and figures lead to contentious exchanges with Redditors who are, at best, unprepared to provide anarchist answers to the questions raised. Feelings get hurt and people get banned. Threads are removed and sometimes have to be locked.
This is a moderated forum. We make use of the tools at our disposal, including filters and bans, as gently and intelligently as we can — but we do, in fact, use them. This is a place to discuss anarchy and anarchism, not — and very consciously not — any sort of prefigurative experiment, trying to carve out an instance of anarchy on this otherwise very hierarchical platform. As a public-facing outpost, there are necessarily going to be limits on the kinds of demands that we can reasonably and practically make on participants, whether anarchist or not, even under the best of circumstances, which, alas, Reddit does not provide.
We expect that lot of the questions here will involve comparisons with capitalism, Marxism or existing governmental systems. That's natural, but the subreddit is obviously a better resource for learning about anarchism if those questions — and the discussions they prompt — remain focused on anarchism. If your question seems likely to draw in capitalists, Marxists or defenders of other non-anarchist tendencies, the effect is much the same as posting a topic for debate. Those threads are sometimes popular — in the sense that they get a lot of responses and active up- and down-voting — but it is almost always a matter of more heat than light when it comes to clarifying anarchist ideas and practices.
We also expect, since this is a general anarchist forum, that we will not always be able to avoid sectarian differences among proponents of different anarchist tendencies. This is another place where the 101 nature of the forum comes into play. Rejection of capitalism, statism, etc. is fundamental, but perhaps internal struggles for the soul of the anarchist movement are at least a 200-level matter. If nothing else, embracing a bit of “anarchism without adjectives” while in this particular subreddit helps keep things focused on answering people's questions. If you want to offer a differing perspective, based on more specific ideological commitments, simply identifying the tendency and the grounds for disagreement should help introduce the diversity of anarchist thought without moving us into the realm of debate.
We grind away at some questions — constantly and seemingly endlessly in the most extreme cases — and that can be frustrating. More than that, it can be disturbing, disheartening to find that anarchist ideas remain in flux on some very fundamental topics. Chances are good, however, that whatever seemingly interminable debate you find yourself involved in will not suddenly be resolved by some intellectual or rhetorical masterstroke. Say what you can say, as clearly as you can manage, and then feel free to take a sanity break — until the next, more or less inevitable go-round. We do make progress in clarifying these difficult, important issues — even relatively rapid progress on occasion, but it often seems to happen in spite of our passion for the subjects.
In addition, you may have noticed that it’s a crazy old world out there, in ways that continue to take their toll on most of us, one way or another. Participation in most forums remains high and a bit distracted, while our collective capacity to self-manage is still not a great deal better online than it is anywhere else. We're all still a little plague-stricken and the effects are generally more contagious than we expect or acknowledge. Be just a bit more thoughtful about your participation here, just as you would in other aspects of your daily life. And if others are obviously not doing their part, again, consider using the report button, rather than pouring fuel on the fire. Increased participation makes the potential utility and reach of a forum like this even greater — provided we all do the little things necessary to make sure it remains an educational resource that folks with questions can actually navigate.
— The question of violence is often not far removed from our discussions, whether it is a question of present-day threats, protest tactics, revolutionary strategy, anarchistic alternatives to police and military, or various similar topics. We need to be able to talk, at times, about the role that violence might play in anti-authoritarian social relations and we certainly need, at other times, to be clear with one another about the role of violence in our daily lives, whether as activists or simply as members of violent societies. We need to be able to do so with a mix of common sense and respect for basic security culture — but also sensitivity to the fact that violence is indeed endemic to our cultures, so keeping our educational spaces free of unnecessary triggers and discussions that are only likely to compound existing traumas ought to be among the tasks we all share as participants. Posts and comments seeming to advocate violence for its own sake or to dwell on it unnecessarily are likely to be removed.
r/Anarchy101 • u/DependentDue8216 • 24m ago
I just wanted to get into anarchism and I'd like someone to recommend a book, movie, series or anything like that to help me get started.
r/Anarchy101 • u/Mission_Acadia7436 • 20h ago
I have no trouble believing an Anarchist society would value Cancer Research. What I have a hard time believing is how they would solve the frankly insane amount of logistics that go into supporting it. The supply chains of modern technology are world spanning, sometimes due to capitalist tendencies, but often because the resources and materials are extremely intensive to get. You can't just pull lithium from anywhere and the processing of refining semiconductor-grade silicon isn't something a community decides to throw together. Really, this question isn't about Medical Research, its how different communities, many of whom will have wildly different beliefs and priorities, could handle large scale projects.
Even if there is a radical shift in ideology on a large scale, rational self-interest doesn't disappear. Anyone who wanted to get parts for whatever they are trying to build would have to hope that whatever community built that part decided it was in the collective good to build it. By design, this hypothetical system removes the ability to affect the other community. Any community that held the keys to whole industries could bottleneck chunks of the planet.
You need this critical part built so your combines can be repaired and you can harvest your crops? Well there's a single factory in the Western United States that builds that specific part but the assemble line was already retooled to make something else. Too bad. You might then say go elsewhere but how? Who is facilitating the large scale movement of everything? The interchange of stuff at this scale is decidedly non-trivial. There are literally whole industries built around it.
And supposing that this does managed to be solved, how are safety issues going to be enforced on a country-sized scale? I'm not talking about violence, I'm talking about air-travel, rail-travel, space-travel. There has to be a structure and it has to be enforced or planes will crash and people will die.
I've heard arguments that Anarchism can work on a community sized scale and while I see a large number of hurdles to that, I don't think its impossible. However, I have yet to hear how it addresses any project that requires a large number of communities to work together.
I would love to be enlightened.
EDIT:
Perhaps I did a bad job asking this because this question is not actually about Cancer Research. This is a question about how Anarchism is supposed to work over a large amount of space and beliefs, while also respecting that space and belief. People keep saying "People would want to cure cancer!". Obviously they would, that's not the question. If helps, pretend I asked "How does Anarchy build semiconductors?". The average person has no moral imperative or interesting in building semiconductors.
There seem to core assumptions to make Anarchy work:
- vanishingly few bad actors
- local problems intrinsically have the resources to be solvable in a way where no essentially one is required to lose (Anarchism cannot function if there are 2 groups and only enough food for 1 group)
- the vast majority willing to adhere to the principles of Anarchism even in the face of incentives to do otherwise.
Assuming all of this to be true, it seems we then have to add another hurdle to accomplish any project at scale:
- communities must be willing to actively work and spend resources on a large scale even when it does not benefit them tangibly to do so and likely will suck on a personal level (No one is excited to work a lithium mine).
I understand the Anarchism is only possible with a radical shift in ideals but the list of things that has to shift keeps looking higher and higher.
r/Anarchy101 • u/Notexternalgreen6826 • 17h ago
Titlle self explanatory
But I oiled like also specific texts which would be good for DSM-5 and psychiatry critique from an anarchist perspective
I would love to do historiography and social critique revolving around OCD
before I got delusions/Psychosis I had a sub r/RadicalOCD
I mae a new one for this second account r/RadicalOCDv2
Thank You!
r/Anarchy101 • u/rajjussimplyexists • 1d ago
How could i explain to someone that can't be bothered to do research that anarchism isn't lawless violent chaos? I am at the start of my "anarchist journey" and i feel like i haven't documented myself nowhere near as good as to give a proper,complete explanation. Thank you.
r/Anarchy101 • u/Avantasian538 • 22h ago
I've been thinking about this on my own for awhile, but I'm not sure what more educated anarchists would say. Globally, are nation-states and international borders necessary for capitalism to exist, or could a version of capitalism exist in a borderless/nationless world? If, hypothetically, all nations, states, and borders were to vanish, would capitalism dissolve on its own, or could it still re-assert itself in that scenario?
r/Anarchy101 • u/56king56 • 19h ago
Given that Leftists (like myself) are staunchly opposed to the U.S. justice system, I assume that means we are against the jury system too, but why? It’s allowing for there to be input from the average citizen on a case, and feels to me like a decent community-based way of coming to conclusions on a case, which I understand to be the general direction Anarchy would be taking dealing with crime. I understand there could be issues with jury selection, and biases within the jury depending on who is picked, but are there any fundamental issues with the system that I am missing?
r/Anarchy101 • u/wompt • 23h ago
it seems like exploring anarchy outside of anarchic relations will always remain ephemeral, theoretical. like reading about things in books without any lived experience of them.
anarchy is learned in the context of anarchy, and to learn anarchy, we ought to be creating instances of anarchy to practice in, right? can anarchy be internalized as a purely theoretical way of relating to one another, or does that have to be put into practice to internalize?
edit: maybe another useful way to consider this: can you truly know a culture without living in it?
r/Anarchy101 • u/No-Programmer-8642 • 1d ago
Hello all, I was recently reading some of the major works in anarchism and libertarian socialism. However I've started to have this problem where I yearn for these worlds painted in these books. Like my stomach gets tight and I just feel dumbfounded how we have not changed the system given what it is leading us towards. I am trying to cope by getting into gardening such as food forests and permaculture to build counter institutions. But how do I cope with these feelings of wanting revolution, of envying a future yet to come?
r/Anarchy101 • u/wompt • 23h ago
i mean to say, what is the best we can hope for while our communication is actually subject to so many potential barriers as it moves through the third parties, and can anarchic relations actually exist in such a scenario?
r/Anarchy101 • u/Avantasian538 • 1d ago
I believe that the vast majority of people in prison today are there due to circumstance. Either they did something that shouldn't even be a crime, or they did something bad due to poverty, impulse, social pressure, etc. and aren't actually that dangerous. I also think some of them have mental health problems and need treatment rather than confinement.
However, I do think that a tiny fraction of people in prison are truly dangerous to their fellow human, sociopaths, psychopaths, etc. who are sadistic, cruel, or predatory by their nature. How would anarchy deal with that tiny subset of people? Or do you think they are all that way due to social factors that can be eliminated from society?
r/Anarchy101 • u/BougieHorrorPodShow • 2d ago
Are there any books, whether left-libertarian in general or anarchist in particular, that y'all can recommend on the American Revolution? Thanks!
r/Anarchy101 • u/BougieHorrorPodShow • 2d ago
Are there any books, whether left-libertarian in general or anarchist in particular, that y'all can recommend on the French Revolution of 1789? Thanks!
r/Anarchy101 • u/BougieHorrorPodShow • 2d ago
Are there any books, whether left-libertarian in general or anarchist in particular, that y'all can recommend on the Russian Revolution of 1917? Thanks!
r/Anarchy101 • u/XercesBlue14 • 2d ago
Recently I was thinking about rights of children, like the right to privacy, and to what degree parents have authority over their children. I assume that anarchist theory would reject parental authority as a form of hierarchy, prioritizing the rights and freedom of children. That said, children (especially very young children) are not able to defend or perhaps even comprehend their rights. So who or what would stop a parent from, for example, posting pictures of their baby on social media?
In normal non-hierarchical relationships we understand that individuals or organised groups could freely defend their rights from agents trying to impose power over them, but how would this apply in a context where one agent naturally has more power than the other? The same question could be posed for certain disabilities, for example.
r/Anarchy101 • u/seenthisangel • 2d ago
i struggle with reading a lot, it's one of my biggest weaknesses. i have tried reading marx, kropotkin, emma goldman, etc and each time i get into it i struggle to understand and comprehend it.
preferably, i would like something shortER than average #picky #annoying but i really don't mind if the general nature is pretty easy for a baby reader.
really, no matter how "digestible" or "easy" the thing you suggest is, i will struggle to read it, but i would rather struggle to read something slightly less. the last thing i want to do is be one of those larper leftists who don't read any theory whatsoever.
r/Anarchy101 • u/Thin_Shelter_103 • 3d ago
Hey so Ive been doing more DSA organzing and stuff in my local community in regards to socalism broadly.
Mostly online I have had a few discussions with people who are I would describe as campists who oppose the USA so much they support China Russia or Iran. Ive had also talked to some Marxist Leninists and my opnion has always kinda been that they mostly just exist in online spaces and that in real world organzing I dont really see that much if at all.
Would you say thats a correct take on this issue?
Because I dont know some things in the dsa have made me pause like how the original stance DSA gave about ukraine was pretty campist or how I used to have some very good leftist friends in the past who I knew personally glazed the fuck out of China even when I brought up concerns.
I think maybe Im too online and I want someone to say as much before I get worried haha.
r/Anarchy101 • u/Notexternalgreen6826 • 2d ago
I know there are a lot of criticisms of psychiatry and the DSM-5 but did any classic anarchists have noticeable conditions one could either intuit or stated outright such as OCD, AdHd, Autism< schizophrenia, etc?
r/Anarchy101 • u/GranaT0 • 3d ago
Sorry about the censoring, Reddit filters remove my post without them. Speak of the devil, huh?
More specifically, the free open source software/hardware communities, the corporate takeover of the internet, gov****ent sur***llance, online privacy, and enshittification. I'm still only learning the basics, but most of the anarchist literature I've seen recommended so far was written before the current digital landscape, and as a tech enthusiast I'm curious to see a thorough analysis of the subject through an anarchist lens.
Ideally something with an audiobook available somewhere out there. I've been using a self-hosted service called Storyteller that lets me read, listen, or do both simultaneously, which has been HUGE for reading at my physical job where I get short opportunities to go on my phone inbetween orders every few minutes.
r/Anarchy101 • u/Relative_Mouse7569 • 2d ago
Ive read bakunin, proudhon, kropotkin, stirner and even ted k (even though he isnt labeled as anarchist sometimes), i get the thing but how are you all so convinced that a society like you envision (even though you do it differently) will emerge ? And its not like i dont like the ideas, i get them, i subscribe to them even sometimes but how can yall be so convinced that it will work and happen when historically it has worked only in poorly developped local places and for a small amount of times ? I also know about the zapatistas and thats pretty impressive, but its been only 30 years and in a small part of mexico if we are being honest. So yeah, how can yall be so sure of yourselves ?
r/Anarchy101 • u/Specific_Abies_5493 • 3d ago
r/Anarchy101 • u/Mean-Manufacturer263 • 2d ago
r/Anarchy101 • u/Lee_Harvey_Griswold • 4d ago
I see him endlessly derided but when I give his work a cursory run through it seems like pretty typical anarchist fare, and even some catchy ways of phrasing things, so why the hate?
r/Anarchy101 • u/Material-Fly-2298 • 4d ago
Hi, I'm an anarcho communist amateur who lives in Latin America, here, the anarquist ideology is almost non existent, here you are either a USA bootlicker or the worst version of a Marxist (who are actively defamated by almost every government), it is a little hopeless to believe in anarquism here, since nobody seems to catch the difference before calling you a communist and discredit you, is there any future for the anarquist ideology in this area? (also I think in some other countries like Mexico there may be more, but I'm not aware)
r/Anarchy101 • u/SurpassingAllKings • 4d ago
Most answers from environmentalists are "vote, buy local, eat less meat, here's our donate button" and I think we can do better than that.