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Anarchy in theory is great and it is fairly obvious for small societies but it's complicated for me to imagine how a a functional anarchist society would work with more people.

It would need very proactive and trustworthy people. Anyways I want to know how you all think of solving these problems.

The penalty system. I mean like what now is judges, cops, lawyers. I am guessing there will still be laws? I mean who would decide those anyways and if there were no laws ig it would be case specific. I guess people could do that without needing cops and if you get enough people you cpuld also find a system for that instead of laws

Military forces. I mean like an anarchist country could already be a target. So like if you have no defenses you disappear eventually and if that happens what was the point of having an anarchist country. And then like who is keeping all the weapons and stuff. I mean it could technically just once again be a non-for-profit and people who wqnt to fight just fight.

And some person just trying to take the power while getting people join to them. Even if they don't get control a lot of people could die.

Like Idk maybe I am missing something or I'm dumb, well I am but like fkdjmed I was saying like all of these would need proactive, trustworthy, dedicated and good people. But I don't think that's the mayority of people, maybe I may be wrong but idk. Besides from a lot of people being agaonst the whole idea in the first place making it vey hard or almpst impoasible to mantain.

I still wanna hear what you all think of this ans other possible problems that you know of to like clear things up a little more for me, ty!

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[-] y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 1 week ago

So, this question is often asked and the real answer is that due to the very nature of anarchism, no one can really say for sure. To prescribe one system for "how it will all work" is sort of antithetical to anarchy. Emma Goldman touches on this in her essay "Anarchism" (iirc, someone correct me if i'm wrong lol).
There are lots of different schools of thought, however. It's not like there haven't been attempts to answer the question, its just that they should all only be considered as possibilities, whereas the actual implementation may draw from all of these ideas or none of them, possibly even shifting according to the needs and abilities of the people over any given period of time.

Here's a good resource as well: https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionI.html

[-] ButteredBread@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

yea makes sense. I was kinda asking for what people thought in a sense.

[-] compostgoblin@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

One book that I found helpful, that I think is what you’re getting at, was Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos

We’re anarchists, so of course some people will have critiques and feel differently than he does, but I think it’s a pretty accessible overview that addresses some of your questions

[-] aproposnix@scribe.disroot.org 15 points 1 week ago

Just a reminder to everyone, if you're running Linux you can install the Anarchy package which contains the full Anarchist FAQ.

On Debian based systems, run: sudo apt install anarchy

[-] A404@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 week ago

neat, i didnt know that

[-] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 14 points 1 week ago

Do you like fiction novels? I feel like novels that describe potential anarchist societies through the lense of one or more individuals are pretty helpful in kickstarting your imagination.

I would recommend highly

Maybe others can recommend similar oe shorter stories or different media with similar anarchist societies as a backdrop.

[-] oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago

A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys is even better than The Dispossesed ioo.

[-] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago

Going to see if I can find a copy of that, thanks for the suggestion!

[-] oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Sure! It's one of the best books we have ever read, it really brings us hope.

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[-] oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Hello there, these are good questions. Thank you for asking them.

Anarchy in theory is great and it is fairly obvious for small societies.

The point here is that, societies may in fact have to be smaller to function, at least for a while, until people learn to work together better. They may interoperate through networks though, for a good example of this we recommend the book "A Half-Built Garden" by Ruthanna Emrys.

The penalty system.

Time and time again carceral and punitive system have shown not to work for their stated goals. It is likely we would switch to a restorative and transformative model of justice, that or use violence very careful, like a scalpel instead of how it is currently used: like a sword or a bomb, swinging widly around or destroying whole communities of people.

Military forces. I mean like an anarchist country could already be a target.

If people cooperate, share freely and aren't held back from doing so then it is likely there wouldn't be those problems, plus we would likely move on from the resources, and ways of thinking that caused this. Though yes that is a good question to ponder in transitional phases, likely there would be something akin to a military that worked for the people whilst they deconstructed both systems and thinking which caused this.

anarchist country

This is kind of a contradiction in terms, countries are a product of having a state/central system of authority which isn't what anarchists are likely interested in having.

And some person just trying to take the power while getting people join to them.

Right, which is why education and community support would have to be improved in order to counter this kind of person or group, not through coercion but more through teaching people to think for themselves and how to weigh costs against benefits. We tend to think that people would be more for a collective, and caring system/community, especially once they saw the benefits and weren't raised in a coercive, individualistic, and violent one.

Like Idk maybe I am missing something or I’m dumb

It's okay to not understand things, that doesn't make you dumb. However, we would recommend reading, watching and listening to some people who break it all down. We can give recommendations if you'd like?

But I don’t think that’s the mayority of people.

People are maleable and tend to perform better when there's less or no violence, coercion and they can get rest, none of these things are currently offered by most socieites/communities people live in.

Besides from a lot of people being agaonst the whole idea in the first place making it vey hard or almpst impoasible to mantain.

A lot of people are against things that would benefit them until they see them in action, most fights against anarchist communites/societies have been top down rather than communities against them.

That isn't to say it wasn't provoked by those communities, or couldn't be, however, they usually use state aparatus in order to get their way which is why we have to dismantle the state or figure out ways to protective ourselves against it until we can maintain control in a transitional phase. Which yes, would not be easy, but it would be worthwhile.

[-] Wobble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago

What has helped me with my imagination is the idea of the abolishment of money and private (not personal) property. In any society without those two things the burden of being is just not there.

In most societies the pressure that you must work for the sake of working because you must have money makes people desperate. If you do not work you do not get money and then you starve and you are homeless. I ask people "imagine if money is no longer issue. What would you do..." then they see the world through different eyes.

Your question on trust and law today is with that punishing system of work and money and capital. Remove that burden and you remove a lot of those challenges. You begin to no longer judge crimes of need, you begin to mediate conflict of interests.

It is a long path. It is not easy and is against the nature of everything around you. That is why it is revolutionary.

Imagine the same society, but everywhere there is hierarchy, you replace bosses by a collective assembly, which takes biggest decisions and mandates people for small, specified missions of oversight/management, and you get one option. From there, you can get another one if we want to do it without money : get rid of banks anf stuff, and organize local communities into regional federations, with multiple associations getting the information of what people need, and handling the collection and distribution of what is produced to everyone, and you get another one. Like people said, it can take many forms, both because there is a lot of different anarchist movments and because each one is not written in stone and is meant to evolve according to people needs.

For cops/judges, most anarchist advocate for reparative systems instead of repressive ones. There does not really need to be laws, though you could still have it, because it just tries to solve problems with everyone agreeing on a reparation specific to each situation. People in Chiapas are trying to implement that if i'm not mistaken.

For armies, anarchist did have armies in the past, you could have one or multiple existing in autonomy, or have a system where common people are trained to join an army of needed, like swiss people.

The problem of people trying to rebuild power is of course a big one, but if we managed to get rid of a fully developped power in place since centuries, there's no reason to think we can't get rid of an emerging one.

The questions you ask are very common, it's not dumb. It's just asked from the perspective we've been told so much and so early that it's deeply rooted in us, that violence and coercion are necessary for a working society, so it's hard to imagine anything outside of this.

[-] ButteredBread@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

Oh yea I'm also not so conserned of people regaining power but more in a large amount of people trying to regain power and like killing a lot of people in the process.

Oh, ok, then that's part of the bigger problem of Counter-revolutionary processes, though it's a wider term that can apply to anything that slightly deviates from the goals of the person employing it, including more "radical" or more "anarchistic" movements, it was first used for people opposing the french revolution and trying to reestablish monarchy. It's not a specificity of anarchism, more of any revolution. I'm afraid there is no clear answer to that problem, it will always depend on local specificity and have an at best imperfect solution.

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[-] vane@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Every person who have hands can hold weapon. Every person can perform moral judge. People can join group and abandon any system they want and it doesn't have to be anarchy system. Any people can arrive to any country at any time. Like imagine all UK people are suddenly abandoning their homes and arriving to France. Who can stop them ? Don't overthink it. We are only two weeks of power failure away from this system.

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this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2026
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