this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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I'm not an anarchist, but a lot of people here are misrepresenting anarchism. Anarchists don't reject coordination or planning, only hierarchical state control. Large infrastructure would be built by federated councils, unions, and communes, with common plans and technical bodies coordinated by accountable, recallable delegates. Central coordination without a state hierarchy is entirely possible.
My disagreement with anarchism is different: I think only a state with a strong coercive apparatus can survive sustained imperial pressure and capitalist encirclement.
Its not a state, its a insert extremely convoluted term that does everything a state does
In fairness, a lot of socialist theory has a distinction between a "state" and a "government". The former is the repressive apparatus (police, army and ideological state aparatuses) and the latter consists of the civilian administration which deals with centralised organisation of labor/economy. This is why marx could describe a "stateless society" as developed-communism.
But in that case we again land on square one problem of pushing the communism button instantly.
Yeah. I'm an ML
Even the non-repressive function of states need hierarchies. All administration needs specialists, managers, organization.
Think of a hospital, or a large-scale engineering project. There is no conceivable way these could be run without hierarchies and centralized control.
Oh yeah the hierarchy stuff has always been out of control with anarchists. But anarchism itself is just stateless society. The rest, anarchists disagree on heavily.
And if inevitably the projects reach outside of the commune line into another commune line, how would the intercommunal council be called lol. At what point do you just have a state without calling it a state?
You can call a federation of communes a "state" if you want. Anarchists are not against this kind of "state". As long as power flows bottom-up by delegation and recall.
Sounds a lot like democratic centralism.
The "delegation and recall" part of it? Totally! The "vanguard party" and "DotP" parts? Not so much.
Lol then I'll ask the age old question of how do you expect to protect your revolution with no vanguard or DoTP? How do you stop the systemic issue of racism without an actual system to suppress it? That was the chief reason as to why I thought anarchism was silly.
This is literally what I wrote in my first comment:
Why not just be an ML at that point, you're already like 75% there lmao
I am an ML.
I never said I'm an anarchist I'm just explaining what anarchism is and it's not what a lot of people here think it is.
I think they were asking why, if anarchists are already 75% of thecway there, don't just become MLs.
as an ex-anarchist who is now an ML, I read more lmao
That's fair 👍🏿
A Vanguard Party is just the most dedicated and ideologically advanced people working together. It doesn't have to call itself a party at all.
DotP is the state machine being in the hands of the proletarian class. If one accepts the concept of classes, that should be a nonissue.
I'm just answering a poster saying anarchism is a lot like democratic centralism. Some parts are similar (delegation and recall), others are not at all (vanguard party, dotp)
What do you get in the absence of a DotP?
sorry i'm not good at telling tone and maybe i'm just not smart and not proficient at theory but is this not like the soviet system
Early Soviets maybe, before war communism, for like less than a year... There was a reason anarchists tried to assassinate Lenin as a counterrevolutionary.
mmm yeah thats true but either way the idea of from the bottom going to top governance is something characteristic of most AES innit? genuine question
Definitely!