this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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And how would anarchy fix that if nothing would change?
Who said nothing would change?
We currently live in a top-down system, where a handful of rich influential people decide everything. Anarchism is a bottom-up system where the people directly decide everything.
Why would I want anarchism if it would not change this?
Then not only do I have to worry about the largest state, which may or may not want to kill me and is thousands of kilometers away. But I would also have to worry about my neighbors, which I have many at less than 100m away from me. And I would also have to worry about the largest state even more because I wouldn't be in a state myself that could defend me against the largest one.
"My system is not worse than the current one because your concerns about my system exist in the current one" is not a valid argument when "concerns about my system" is way larger than the ones in the current one.
The same people who overwhelmingly voted this shitshow into power?
This shit show one, has the electoral college (an anti-democratic institution in the first place), and two is a system where a simple majority gets to decide who's the leader (also not a democratic system).
Lastly, then what the fuck are you suggesting? Sounds to me like youbare saying "people are what got us into this mess in the first place." So whats your alternative? Fascism? Monarchy? Cause if your issue is that the people are stupid and thus shouldn't be trusted, then you are either a pessimistic/cynical anarchist or an authoritarian. One of which I can sympathize with. The other I have a hard time not punching in the face
You are thinking of Communism mate.
There is more than one way to crack an egg, and some you can do at the same time. Hence anarcho-communism
Communism the thing with a vanguard party dictating the show and a top down state?
No, that is very clearly much not it.
But unless we kill everyone who has access to those big guns, they'll still have access to them after the system changes. I agree that a change needs to happen, but I can't really wrap my head around how we're going to stop people with city-destroying bombs, who wouldn't hesitate to use them on American soil if their lives were at risk. We either let them live, and keep their weapons, or we try to kill them and get taken out in a firestorm of mutually assured destruction. Taking about what we're going to do after we've won that battle just feels like planning a wedding before asking someone out on a date.
The ideal route to anarchist as I understand it wouldn't be taking away the weapons, it would be taking away the concepts of power. Musk's power is predicated on the idea that he owns more things ranked by percieved value than I do. That value is an agreed upon concept, enforced by the government that we participate in. If the stock market and dollar bill are replaced overnight with a barter system, his power would plumit to the value of assets he can physically provide himself.
Right now, oil executives have the power to dictate nations. If collectivly the majority of people just refuse to use cars, their power is now subject to a different scale. If enough of a given society makes this change fast enough, or change to something so rigorously coordinated that it cannot be exploited, then the power of the system fizzles and the ability to use force goes with it. How are you going to bomb a nation of hippy comunes if 90% of your soldiers are now in the comunes?
It's an interesting stance, but I don't personally buy it. It requires a level of group effort that we're not capable of. Personally, I feel a rigid and open source technocracy would be the easier option. Computers aren't subject to opinion or emotions and have been a billion times more capable than our best politicians for nearly a century.
Thatbis definitely an idealistic strategy on its own..it is close to an actual anarchist strategy called syndicalism, also prefiguration. However most anarchists also believe in using other strategies on top of that. And as you said, power is control over others. The people in power are not the ones who have the nukes or the buttons to launch them. The people who push the buttons have a lot more to lose in a revolution by pressing the button than the people in power (because the people in power will lose everything either way). Now do I think calling their bluff is a good bet? Yes. Do I think its enough on its own? No. I think an important thing that is being left out is that those in power are not going to order the buttons be pushed at the slightest hint of revolution. They will wait until all hope is lost. Which means before that point, seizing nuclear launch sites and anti-nuclear defenses is a priority. The dilemma is not between status quo and nuclear annihilation. Its between status quo (with possible nuclear annihilation anyways), or revolution (with possible nuclear annihilation if we fail in a very particular way). To me thats a much easier dilemma to choose from.
The only way it would be better under anarchy is that you would no longer be shouldering the moral burden of participating.
In a democracy you need to come to terms with the fact that things are shitty. I held my nose and voted for Harris because YES she would have still allowed Israel to continue their campaign of terror against Gaza, but there's a laundry list of terrible things that have happened under Trump that absolutely would not have under Harris.
To be an anti-democracy anarchist is to hide your head in the sand. To stand at the trolley switch without touching it, trying to convince yourself that the blood is not on your hands. Trying to pretend like we can sequester off pieces of this one planet into containers that do not impact each other.
It's a great ideology for teenagers explore. To see things in extremes and think more abstractly without getting bigger down with the details of reality.