this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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A lot of that "theory" is just pure fiction that is based on nothing but the author's wishful thinking.
Anything from the Spanish Civil War, Thomas Sankara, The Black Panthers, or the Zapatistas is real.
As is anything from the Tupamaro guerrillas, lots of stuff from Lenon, and Mao was tried and tested, but may need verification. Stuff from Ho Chi Minh is thoroughly tested, as is stuff from the Kurdish YPG.
Lawrence of Arabia's book Seven Pillars of Wisdom was thoroughly tested, as was anything involving Nestor Makhno.
Actually come to think of it, lots of this stuff has been tried and tested.
As opposed to the capitalist theories of "free" markets and companies honourably competing with better products for market share?
Theory and practice not aligning doesn't necessarily mean the theory isn't sound.
Humans are weird creatures with varying ideologies and motives. Anarchism or communism could work in practice but they require education and good faith, which obviously capitalists oppose and try to prevent. But capitalist practice most certainly doesn't match the theory either, so I think it's a bit weird to call out leftist theory when no political theory perfectly matches its practice.
Read that sentence again. Real slow.
That isn't a gotcha... Things can be close enough to still work.
There's a reason the scientific method tests theories with experimentation. Sometimes they're spot on, sometimes they're real damn close, and sometimes they're well off.
Why is left wing theory constantly held under microscopic scrutiny when right wing theory is clearly bollocks by looking at the western world around us?
Whataboutism. Also there's hardly a shortage of practical applications of authoritarian left theory. And it all ended the same.
You explained why they can't work in practice. There are always bad actors in society. There needs to be a strong state to keep bad actors (capitalists) under control.
Not at all, society just needs to learn how to hold people to account themselves. It's a new way of thinking from what the majority are used to, but it's possible.
I've been in anarchist syndicates before and one of the major hurdles was preventing the bystander effect. Getting people to act of their own volition instead of waiting for the "adults" to step in. It's difficult, because it's new and foreign to most people, but it's certainly doable.
Many eyes and ears, all with the authority to call out bad actors, is far better than one central authority that you must go running to and hope that they believe you, and aren't themselves bad actors.
Want proof? Look at any large western country. All of them have vast swathes of people suffering due to bad actors, and all of them have a strong central state authority. How are the bad actors under control?
You've reinvented the state. You can't fix injustice when a local society thinks they are correct. The state used the national army to force desegregation.
You should really look into the Zapatistas. They used civil justice, and were relatively stateless. Also, just because someone talks about anarchism doesn't mean they're talking about being without a process of community involved problem solving/justice. You just need to know what anarchosyndicalism is, or communitarianism, or maoism. The previous user did say "anarchism and communism" after all.
Throughout most of human history "standing armies" and "permanent police forces" didn't exist, they were formed from the community when necessary (and often merely to beat up bad bosses or known criminals).
So the whole idea that society pops out of existence without central command over violent forces - doesn't match up against most of human history.
Countries didn't need standing armies until they came up against countries with standing armies. Rome is the best example I can think of. If your society is instantly subjugated by another country it doesn't work in practice.
US Wild West was like that. I was called the wild west because many successfully raped and killed their way across the country without ever being caught because of uncoordinated community response. There was also slavery supported by local communities so no one local was going to change it.
Expecting people to be generally good in the absence of enforced regulation through the state's monopoly on violence is the same claim libertarians make.
Rome was defeated by "other standing armies". So no, that's nothing to do with anything..
Also who the fuck cares about recent US history and the wild west. You sound like a dumb ass who knows very little about the scope of politics, history, and the topics being discussed.
Don't rant as cover when you could entertain the possible truths others are telling you: Community policing was the longest form of stable communities.
Not enforced centralized or uniformed violence.
Yeah and there definitely hasn't been any advances in communication, education, coordination, or political understanding since the days of the wild west...
Expecting the state to be generally good through its monopoly of violence is what we're witnessing right now and have witnessed many, many times previously. And it has shown itself to not be.
Coordination requires a professional policing force. Trump's Gestapo has taken over cities and despite everyone having Internet connectivity on them at all times there has been no country wide general strike.
It's because of bad actors. Those same people are around all the time. It is bad because there are so few good people. Reducing the friction of the state apparatus only allows bad actors to be worse.