Longing for freedom:The world through anarchist eyes

Part 1: An anarchist dystopia

Imagine it is a warm summer morning somewhere in the inner parts of Europe. The sun has just risen, and the clouds clothe themselves in the richest colours of pink and purple. Awakened by a soft breeze of warm air coming through the open windows, you open your eyes. The birds chirp away in an old oak tree nearby as a distant stream mumbles soft promises for the day. After a quick glance at the alarm clock that is sitting on the cupboard next to your bed, you let yourself sink back into the pillows. There is still plenty of time until you need to get up. You close your eyes again and try to remember what you had planned for today. In about two hours, you wanted to meet the others to pick the ripe fruits from tree fields around the corner. Just the vision of all the strawberry jam and apple pies that you all will feast on during the winter makes you almost drool on your pillow. At midday, you promised the kids to teach them how to fix their bikes. Even though you have taught them so many times before, they seem to forget it repeatedly. Not because they are foolish. Apparently, a few of the kids are intentionally breaking their bikes just to get to hang out with you again. It seems like the kids really enjoy being taught by you. Maybe it’s because you don’t treat them as if they are somewhat less human than you, unlike other adults.       

You hope to be done with the teaching before afternoon to be able to go to the weekly general assembly. Today is quite a rare occasion; On Thursday night last week, your sister’s car was stolen, which prevented her from trading her art in a nearby city the next day. However, just a few days later, just shortly before she had planned to apply for a new car, a young man showed up and brought it back. Dissolved in tears, he apologized for needing the car to quickly get to his grandmother, who at that point had been in her final moments of life. Today, the assembly is going to decide what to do in this case. Since he himself did not have a car – who even has one these days?! -  As well as the fact that he had quite a good reason to acquire one, they can have empathy with him. Since he has also already brought back the car to your sister and even left some flowers inside, he might just be asked to help your sister trade her art in the next few days to compensate for the damage.              

Today is also the day when the assembly is going to appoint the next representative for the big city assembly next month. As you were the representative last time, you expect one of the elders to be assigned. Most topics that are going to be brought forth during the city assembly have already been voted on. Only who is going to be responsible for the next infrastructure endeavour of turning the city highway into a tramway is still open for debate. You expect this decision to be tiring, since some of the others have still not found a consensus on with which city to trade materials with. However, you also think that everyone will try to keep the discussion as short as possible since you are sure everybody wants to be out on the street by early evening to prepare for the big celebration tonight.                                              

“20 years of Anarchy…”, you think. “That is quite some time… I wish I could see how things were before I was born. It must have been horrible after all of what my parents have told me”. As your mind drifts off to faraway times, you start dreaming about the fun you will have tonight. The barefoot dancing on fields next to your house. The others, getting drunk on the finest homemade liquor. The music coming out of every single window of the city. And you, sitting down at your kitchen table, after a long, restless night of dancing, laughing and enjoying life. While maybe even sharing the last slice of apple pie with that cute boy from next door. How happy you would be. How grateful for all the love and freedom that was given to you by the great revolution. All the freedom that was given to everyone and all.

Then, just after you had closed your eyes to fall back to sleep, you hear a sharp banging on the door. Completely startled, you raise your head as the wooden door explodes in front of your eyes. Three men in blue clothes come storming inside, yelling and pointing guns at you. In shock, they drag you out of your bed. “Move!”, they scream in your ear, after they handcuff you and force you down the stairs, out of the house. Outside, a big black van is waiting for you. One after another, you and the others are forced inside. As you sit down on the hard metal bench inside, you pinch your eyes to see in the sudden darkness of the transporter. You can barely see the others. Some are crying; some are shaking with fear. Some just sit emotionless, staring at the cold steel floor under their feet. “Who are you?” you ask one of the men in blue. “Where are you bringing us?”. Your voice trembles as you try to stay calm. The man in blue doesn’t react. Instead, he yells at one of the other men to start the engine and shuts the door of the van, wrapping you and the others in complete darkness. As the van sets in motion, you can hear your brother wince next to you. You nudge him with your still handcuffed hands. “Hey!”, you say. “Everything is going to be alright! This is just a big misunderstanding. They will let us go very soon, I promise you”, barely believing your own words.      

After an hour or so drive, the car suddenly stops. The motion is so sudden and forceful that you lose balance. You slip on the floor and hit your head against the steel door of the van, unable to catch yourself with shackled hands. You feel blood dripping down your head as the van door opens, and you are blinded by the strong bright daylight. The men in blue grab you by the arm and drag you outside. As they throw you on the floor, you look around. Everything is grey. The ground is plastered in concrete. Thousands of buildings, mountains, squeeze themselves between each other in perfect alignment, as far as the eye can see. There is no colour, no music, no joy in this place. The trees are gone, and the birds have left. Even the sun above seems to have lost its brightness.                             

“Welcome”, you hear a cold but clear voice speak. Just the sound of it makes you shiver. You spin around. A tall white man, with a shiny conical black hat, binoculars and a wide greasy smile, had appeared from one of the buildings. “Take off the chains from these poor creatures, won’t you?”, he points at the handcuffs, and the men in blue take off the metal manacles. “Thank you!”, you mumble, but you have the slight feeling that gratitude is probably not the appropriate emotion right now. “You are probably well aware why you have been brought to this place, right?”, the man asks you with a gentle smile on his face. Without waiting for a response, he continues: “The house that you have been living in for quite some time now… well how can I phrase it…. is not yours. It is mine. In fact, it has always belonged to me.” He pulls out a white letter that reads something like “property rights,” but he continues to explain anyway. “After the new laws, everyone who lives in a house needs to have written proof of it. And since you don’t have proof…”, he takes a short break from speaking to see whether any of us disagrees with him, “you have lived on property illegally, which means that you are criminals”. You cannot believe your ears. What is he talking about? He says that the very house that you and your parents, yes, your grandparents have been living in for their entire lives, belong to this man? “What do you mean?” you throw at him. “We never needed proof other than our existence to live in a house. How come we need one now?”. The man in white barely notices you and continues speaking: “Hence, you have been living on my property without paying rent. After article 213§ b …”, unable to finish his sentence, your grandfather interrupts him: “What do you mean? We haven't had written rules in this part of the world since 2025. Did I miss a general assembly in which we decided on writing law again?” He seems utterly confused and you can see his legs shaking from all the fuss. “You old fool”, the man in white yells at your grandfather. “The government has written that law centuries ago. That government that you elect, that cares for your security and that enables you to live in peace. The government, without which this very nation could have never existed, with which you could have never existed”. “We have never elected a government, have we?” you ask. But before anyone is able to respond, one of the men in blue draws a stick and hits you on the head. Strong and determined, as if to tell you not to make the mistake again, to ever disagree with the men in white again. Your head starts to spin as you sink to the floor. The others come to help, you even see the men in white pull out a bottle of water. However, as you reach out for the bottle, he pulls it back. “Ah, you want to have that water here. I see!”, his voice suddenly becomes soft and gentle, and you almost think that he has empathy for you. “However, you see, I have worked very hard for this water to be here right now. I have found the very river from which this water has come, I have invested a lot of money to build a well and I made a lot of people fill the water into this very bottle. Now you want to come and take that bottle away from me without having contributed anything to it? That seems to be very unfair to me”. The man and blue nod in agreement, but your sister interferes: “How evil of a man are you?! We would get ourselves our own water, but everything here is plastered in concrete. There are no rivers for us to drink from. No lakes to take a bath. Look around you! This is a desert! And now you are telling us that you won’t give him the water that he needs so urgently?” Her voice trembles in rage as she continues. “What do you want us to pay you after you have just taken away everything from us, by bringing us here?”. The men in blue draw their sticks again to silence her, but the man in white waves them off. “Well, young lady, that is an excellent question. Luckily for you, I have just opened a new jam factory next to my house in which you have lived illegally for so long. I am still in search of a few more workers.” You can see his eyes glitter in joy as he elaborates. “Here is the deal: you start working in my factory for a few hours a day. In return, I will give you lots of money with which you can buy the water that you appear to be needing so urgently. Of course, I will not force you to work in my factory. Everything is based on a voluntary basis. You are free to go wherever you want and do whatever you like. But keep away from my property!”  

“What about our children?”, one of the others asks, seriously worried. The man in white smiles again as he sets on to speak. “The children are safe now, much safer than before. They seem to be quite rebellious at this point in time, but I believe that a fair share of punishment will do the job just well enough. We will bring them to school, where we will teach them how to read, write and calculate. But most importantly, we will make them compete against each other so that they become eager and ambitious to contribute to our great nation! “Your nation?” You stumble, your head still spinning from the impact of the stick and all the information that you have just received. “Nono, our nation”, the man in white answers. “This nation belongs to all of us! The nation that ensures that everything is peaceful, just, safe and organised, where everyone follows their duties.” As these words reach your ears, anger rises within you. “What do you mean by peaceful? Were we not peaceful when bashed in our doors, invaded our homes and clubbed us out of our beds? What do you mean by safe? Were we not safe when we lived without force, without murders and without war? Were we not safe when we chose our loved ones to live with us, tirelessly taking care of each other, never letting down any single one of us in need? How were we not organised when we discussed and voted on every single damn topic that was brought up in our community no matter how small? Were we not organised when we were building streets, cultivating our land or throwing the biggest parties of the century? We had a perfect life and now you take that away from us for the argument of safety and order?” The man in white suddenly drops his smile as you continue anyways: “How can it be that you take away our home, take away our fruit trees, take away our children to make us work in a factory that is using our very own resources for your profit. Stripping us of the ability to sustain ourselves, to make us pay for our survival. And worst of all, how dare you take away our love, take away our happiness, take away our freedom just for the sake of owning, of worshipping your god of greed. You cut down our trees, scare away our birds and lock the sun out, just for building your empire of destruction. Your life is not a life that I want to be living. As I am standing here as an equal human to you, eye to eye, heart to heart, I tell you: You will never seize my soul!”.                                        

As the last words leave your lips you look around, somewhat baffled by your own courage to talk back. The man in white looks as if you had just spat in his face; as if he was unable to process your audacity to question his authority. The men in blue stand in silence, exchanging nervous looks and waiting anxiously for the next move. Then, as if awakened from paralysis, the man in white snips his finger and the men in blue in blue pull out their sticks again. Before you can raise your arms to shield your face, you feel the first sharp blow on your head. Then the second stick is rushing down on you. As you sink to the floor, you take a last glimpse at your friends. In its midst, the boy from next door. An orange beam of light has laid itself gently on his face, caressing his cheeks as the sun starts to settle to greet the night. You meet his eyes, and it almost looks as if he is smiling at you. As you raise your head towards the sky as the first stars start to appear on the horizon, the third blow hits you and everything fades to black, once again. 

Part 2: An anarchist critique

Take a moment to digest what we have just witnessed. A short story. Almost too short to process all the loss, agony and despair. However, what we have just read did not spring from the quills of a Margaret Atwood or  George Orwell. Neither does it stem from a low-budget dystopian Hollywood screenplay. Rather, the story was inspired by the very systems that we live in ourselves. The very systems that we have grown up in. In which we went to school and are planning our future ahead. The very systems that promise us to be just; that promise us to hold high the values of justice and peace; that promise us that nothing matters more than the happiness and freedom of the people. While in the end these very systems do nothing more than strip us of our self-determination, our agency to care for ourselves and the ability to live a life that we, the people,  have imagined, not them. In the end, these very systems strip us of the purest form of human organisation, which – to the surprise of many - is called Anarchy. But wait! Before you start rolling your eyes and condemn this little piece of writing as yet another blunt critique of the “oh so evil” capitalist state. Let me tell you that I do not want to brainwash you into becoming a left extremist, to stop eating meat or to cancel your highly overpriced rental contract and move into a squat. Rather, all my effort is just a shy attempt to introduce you to the most honest of all human desires: to live in freedom and peace. All I want to achieve is to shift imagination away from the rigid discourses that dominate our understanding of the world towards a more creative way of dreaming about how society ought to be. To introduce you to the philosophical thought of freeing humankind from all injustices and chains of oppression, in order to live a life that is worth dreaming about.

What even is Anarchy?

Contrary to the very common misconception, the word Anarchy does not - and I repeat - not mean chaos, destruction or violence. Rather, the conceptualisation of the word advocated for a society that is structured without the presence of hierarchies and permanent rulers in which individuals and communities organise themselves based on mutual consent and in the absence of coercion and force. Even though centuries of politically motivated misuse and misinterpretation were weaponized to delegitimize any forms of society that diverge from a capitalist and hierarchical structure of society, in its original thought, anarchy offers more than just a lumpish rejection of the status quo. In fact, the tradition of anarchy has evolved from a very affluent history of political thought and practice into an intricate and aspirational field of philosophy with manifold nuances and deviations. Hence, to enable a deep understanding of anarchist thinking, it is appropriate to begin with precisely that - by criticising the system.

What is wrong with our nations?

From a Western Anarchist perspective, the world that we live in today is not quite yet a utopia. On the one hand, advocates of a liberal, capitalist world order would argue that our current system has enabled an effective organisation of billions of people into communities, cities and nation states. Through strict rules and the establishment of institutions that develop, control and enforce such rules, societies have become stable and safe. This stability has facilitated an effective communication between humanity which in turn enabled the organisation of electricity and water distribution systems, coordinated waste and sewage collection, fast and diverse transport infrastructures; pension funds; healthcare systems and many more unprecedented achievements of humanity. Moreover, apart from the effective organisation of humans, the nation state protects the people from external and internal conflicts and war. Without nations chaos and violence would prevail.

However, anarchists couldn’t disagree more with this rather positive perception of the nation state. While on the one hand, many anarchists would agree that humanity has indeed managed to organise itself effectively to construct complex structures to make life more comfortable and safe, they would disagree with the idea that nations are a guarantor of peace and stability. Rather, the state is in itself a manifestation of the violence that it is promising to cease. Countless military interventions in faraway regions of the world, or permanent surveillance, policing and punishment of their own population through the police serve as the executive of that violence. While condemning violence as an “uncivilized” way of conflict management, the state has managed to legitimize its own use of it as necessary for the survival of the nation. Instead of ending violence, the state has monopolized and externalised it. Take colonialism, for example, where the then newly established nation states used extensive force to subordinate whole continents. Take, Nazi Germany, for instance. Or the Vietnam War. Take the US in Iraq or Russia in Ukraine. What about the war of Turkey against the Kurdish people? Or the occupation and genocide of the Palestinians by the state of Israel. You see, conflict and war have never ended. The nation state has just done a very good job in legitimising violence by framing it as “necessary interventions” for a higher purpose. But then you might wonder, “If the state is still so violent, how come I never see any of it in my daily life? Apart from a few robberies and murders each year, our societies seem to be quite peaceful, no?”.  

Please, do not despair! There is an easy way to enjoy state violence first hand: By opposing it. Take the Netherlands of 2025, for example. For maintaining a western sphere of influence in the Middle East, the Netherlands is not only turning a blind eye to tremendous human rights and international law violations of the state of Israel. Much more, the Dutch are actively contributing to the occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people by exporting military equipment, such as combat-trained dogs, and normalizing diplomatic relations with Israel. Furthermore, in light of thousands of pro-Palestine protests all around the country that criticize and demand an end to Dutch complicity, the Dutch government is criminalising open solidarity with Palestine. With the use of repeated and excessive violence by the Dutch riot police and the arrest of peaceful protesters, the nation state of the Netherlands is using force against its own population to repress political dissent. As so often, the use of violence is framed as a necessary means to restore order, while police officers are yet to be held accountable for beating up protestors. Not only is the police repressing opinions that are diverging from those of the state, on a broader scope, a radical transformation of society towards true commitment to human rights, equality and global justice is impeded. Anarchists would conclude that the main task of the police is not to prevent crimes but rather to prevent revolutions. Take the socialist Black Panther movements in the 60’s and 70’s, in which leaders such as Fred Hampton were murdered by the FBI. Take the Egyptian revolution of 2011, which first managed to successfully remove Hosni Mubarak from power but was violently suppressed by military and police under Sisi’s rule. Or take the recent pro-Europe protests in Georgia, which experienced an enormous amount of police violence and state repression. Hence, the nation state is not contributing to a safe world without violence at all. Rather, it centralises and redirects the violence against political competitors and individuals to reinforce its own spheres of power and influence while maintaining the status quo.

What’s the problem with hierarchy?

Building on this critique of state violence, anarchists argue that all permanent hierarchies are to be avoided by any means. Think of it this way. If a child runs on the street without looking and you grab their arm to prevent them from being hit by a truck - that would be physical coercion. You force the child to obey your rule not to run over the street without looking. You create a temporary hierarchy that is resolved as soon as you let go of the child. However, in that case, almost everybody would agree that it is a legitimate use of coercion and hierarchy, as it was for the benefit of the child. However, if you then go take the child, leash it up and bind it to a nearby pole to prevent it from ever running on the street again - well that would feel a bit different, right? Any pedestrian who would see the child sitting next to the pole, not being able to move more than a meter, would indeed get very startled. At the very least, they would ask themselves whether it was really that necessary to restrict the freedom of the child by so much and whether there wouldn’t be any other ways for preventing it from running on the street again?

That is where the centre of the anarchist critique lays: See Anarchists as the pedestrian walking by, who demands that for authority and hierarchy to exist, there needs to be a valid justification. If a hierarchy fails to comply with that, it needs to be criticised and in the worst case dismantled. Hence, to go back to the example of repression of political dissent by the state, anarchists would ask the question of whether the violence of the police against protesters is really justified. Why would the state decide to use so much violence in the first place? Is it because the state wants to restore peace and order to protect democracy? Or is it rather because the state wants to protect the status quo and hence the ruling powers? To go even further, hierarchy does not only need to be questioned on a state level. Hierarchies between institutions, communities, and individuals also need to be justified. Schools act as a perfect example of questionable hierarchy: From very early on, children, who at this point of life need nothing more than intimacy, friendships and love are being forced to sit still, listen to more than unempathetic and cold teachers while memorizing the thoughts, discoveries and rules of people who are long dead. Much more, while it is already quite a challenge to force children to sit still in the first place, non-obedience of school rules and failure to memorize the curriculum are punished violently by the teacher. While for some the word violence might seem to be a bit of exaggeration, at this point I want to be clear that the verbal abuse, humiliation, and emotional terror that children are exposed to on a daily basis is nothing less than violence! While the hierarchy between the teacher and the children might be legitimate in the sense that the teacher has more life experience and knowledge than the children, this legitimacy becomes unstable once the hierarchy is questioned. For example, if the not-so-unlikely case occurs that a student knows more about a certain topic, or simply has a diverging opinion, this opinion will not be seen as equally legitimate as the teacher’s, no matter its righteousness. In fact, the strict hierarchy of the teacher and those being taught hinders an equal and diverse exchange of perspective and destroys an environment of fearless learning.  

Yes, education is important. But again, anarchists would ask whether the way that current schools run is contributing to a peaceful and respectful collaboration between peers and generations, or rather contributing to a toxic environment of competition and domination, which hinders the healthy development of our future generations.

By looking at these examples, it becomes clear that all hierarchies, no matter how normal they might appear in our daily lives, need to be scrutinised and challenged to justify themselves. Anarchists would argue that if we fail to dismantle all redundant hierarchies, it binds us to neglect the potential freedom that we as individuals and society could embrace. However, since we are born and raised in the very environments that we are supposed to criticise, sometimes we lose sight of all unnecessary hierarchies and hence injustices that prevent us from becoming truly liberated. As Goethe famously said: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” For Anarchists, this rationale, where people are unable to distinguish freedom from captivity, climaxes in our current economic system: Capitalism.

Do we have a choice?

When being born into society we are not given a choice whether we would like to spend our childhood chasing good grades, to find a job that pays us “good enough” money for 35 years, and for us to then silently die. While that all doesn’t sound that bad, because “that is just the way it is” for many who dare to think outside of the box, or for those who have just listened to their basic instinct of what a fulfilled existence means to them, this way of living sounds rather depressing, to say the least. Unfortunately, it would be more than silly to have every newborn sign a contract agreeing to live in that kind of system even before being checked for vitals by the doctors. Nor would it make sense to deny children the opportunity to go to school or to not help them find jobs just for the possibility that they could one day spontaneously decide not to want to be part of our society anymore. No, the problem does not lie in the fact that children are automatically included in our society. The problem lies in the fact that our current societies make it literally impossible for anyone to challenge it, let alone drop out of it to build a self-determined and independent life. If you don’t belong to the very few people who happen to own a house or have a full bank account, you have already lost. When you refuse to work a 9-to-5,you will not be able to pay someone else money for living in a house to shelter yourself from environmental forces. If you don’t sell your time and energy for working for a company you will not be able to pay someone money for basic necessities such as clean water, heating, or food. What happens is that you will be excluded from society, denied access to life-sustaining needs and brought to the very brink of existence. Not only anarchists would criticise that the trade off between working the majority of your life on the one side and pure poverty or literal death in many contexts on the other side, is in fact not a free decision. Rather, as the anarcho-syndicalist Noam Chomsky explains in his book On Anarchism, the current attitude of society to work in order to survive is a new form of slavery, more precisely, wage slavery. See it this way: The owner of a gun factory needs workers to produce her guns. Luckily, she cannot use force to make people work in her factory. Instead, she offers people money to work for her. While working in a factory seems to be a voluntary decision to take, in fact, the workers don’t have a choice, as poverty awaits them on the other side. Hence, the owner is able to employ a lot of people who then produce a lot of guns. Because the owner only pays as much money as needed for the workers to survive, all the profit coming from the gun sales can be put aside for her own pleasure. In sum, the owner of the factory exploits the workers’ need for money to survive for producing a maximum of profits for herself. Doesn’t sound fair, right?

Luckily, centuries of class wars and union strikes have pressured the capitalist state to enforce rules that ensure workers’ rights, a minimum wage and a bunch of insurance. Nevertheless, a capitalist system remains strictly hierarchical and undemocratic, while posing an actual threat to society and the freedom of the people. As a capitalist system has the sole purpose of generating everlasting and growing profit, companies and corporations do not care about what is being produced. It does not matter whether society really needs a new version of a Nike sneaker, nor the 100th version of a Barbie. In their drive for growth, companies are producing whatever brings profit. The limits of natural resources are neglected, and public concerns on climate change or extinction of species are ignored. While hundreds of millions of people all around the world protest every day against the destruction of our planet based on unnecessary consumption and production, the general population does not have any say in what companies should produce. In vain attempts to make politicians enforce climate laws and to hold companies accountable, we see the contrary happening. Instead of a rapid political change, climate project after climate project comes to nothing, as we get ever closer to an ultimate climate collapse. As no surprise, Anarchists have indeed recognized these patterns of capitalist destruction as early as the first steam engine was born during the Industrial Revolution. It was not hard to see that companies never act in the interest of the public, nor are politicians able or willing to intervene in the destruction of the environment. Citizens of an anarchist society, however, who themselves are dependent on the local climate and a sustainable environment, would be better suited to decide what products companies should produce. Instead of risking a total breakdown of the world’s climate and threatening the very survival of the community, communities would realise the destructive nature of capitalism and organise themselves in a way that sustains rather than destroys life. 

An anarchist Utopia

We have reached a point at which some readers might become a bit impatient. Criticizing a system is always easy. The real challenge is to argue for alternatives. And this is where I would like to take you next. Does a society without hierarchies even work? Wouldn’t there be complete chaos and conflict? And if not, what would an anarchist society look like in detail? Well, let us start with the first question: Do we need hierarchies to maintain rule and order? The short answer to this question is no! The long one might need a little bit more explanation. Stick with me as I try to explain.

Firstly, in western societies, the creation of controlling hierarchies such as the state and the police are based on a Hobbesian world view. Marked by the English civil war of 1642 to 1651 which was coined by the most brutal and disturbing violence between supporters of the monarchy on the one and those of the Parliament on the other side, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes sat down to write the book “Leviathan” which would become one of the most influential books on the philosophical nature of humankind. Here, Hobbes states that humans are inherently selfish, brutal and power-driven creatures. In the attempt to maximise one’s own needs, humans would stand in constant competition with each other, not shying away from fraud, theft and manslaughter. The natural state of humankind hence would be complete chaos and war. Building on this rather pessimistic attitude towards humankind, humans would need a centralised power that is capable of enforcing rules to maintain peace and order.

After having read my prior elaborations on hierarchy, I am sure that it comes as no surprise that anarchists would not agree with this world view, to put it mildly. Human nature is by no means violent, non-cooperative and selfish. Rather, humans have always engaged in peaceful, non-violent cooperation. As humans are gregarious animals who are programmed to interact, play and love, being peaceful was a necessity for survival. How else than with cooperation would an animal which is so weak in its physical appearance, with arms as thin as matchsticks, but a more than disproportionate huge head, have survived in the merciless wilderness for millions of years? Yes, there were conflicts, and yes there was war – not even just a little bit. But anarchists argue that the evil spirit of human beings has never outweighed the generous, altruistic and cooperative nature of humankind. In fact, competition, conflict, and war were only introduced on a large scale when humans invented property. As soon as the richest acres of land, the sweetest fields of apple trees and the mountain with the most beautiful sunset to have romantic dates on became owned not by the collective but the individual, force had to be used to defend them. Permanent hierarchies were established to legitimize why the king should have so much land or why a man should make the decisions. However, the true nature of humans remained. Mutual aid, altruism and solidarity prevail and overrule hate, greed, and competition. Of course, this claim is easy to make. And honestly, it seems to be much too optimistic in current times of war and merciless exploitation of millions of people and whole ecosystems by humans. But let me argue that the roots of the purest form of human nature can be seen all around the world, in the remains of ancient cultures and everyday life.

The Igbo in pre-colonial central Africa, for instance, serve as a well-known example of a society that organised itself around small, decentralised units without a general authority or king. In those times, decisions were made through consensus in village assemblies and community obligations were shared based on mutual responsibility. Or have a look at the now Spanish region of Catalonia during the Spanish civil war in the 1930’s, where anarchists collectivized factories, farms and services, which were run by the worker assemblies, while money was abolished or shared based on collective needs. Or then you have the Zapatistas in Mexico that have managed to gain autonomy in 1994 and organise societies without the presence of a state or central authority. Institutions such as schools, clinics and local councils are managed through direct democracy without political parties or professional politicians. I would even argue that Anarchism is part of our daily lives. Think about the countless and voluntary aid groups such as food banks, fire brigades or neighbour watches who organise themselves voluntarily without a centralised authority to show solidarity to those in need. Or think about how people react to natural disasters such as earthquakes or forest fires. Instead of ignorance or indifference, every time shit goes down, whole societies transform to one altruistic community. These people do not help because the state tells them to, nor because they fear punishment. No, they help because solidarity is ingrained into their DNA, because not competition but cooperation is human.

I hope the point became clear that current governments want us to believe that a world without centralised hierarchies is not possible and that we need them to live a peaceful and nonviolent life. By trying to depict the human as inherently evil, governments try to legitimize themselves while neglecting countless examples of anarchical organised societies and everyday Anarchism that exist without the rule of coercion and force.

Now, after having yapped quite a bit about hierarchy, violence and the nation state, let us take a look at the question of what an anarchist society would look like in detail? Well, unfortunately, it would be quite presumptuous to tell anyone how an anarchist society ought to be, since the very nature of anarchy is the free organisation of humans without premade rules or blueprints. As it is even more difficult, if not impossible, to design a complete society with all its implications and assumptions, the only thing that can be made are proposals and ideas of how anarchy could work. One of these proposals that has been picked up quite often in anarchist practice is the idea of direct democracy. Instead of electing representatives all around a country who then go to vote on important decisions on their own, in a direct democracy, the people skip the part of electing someone and just decide on their own. For example, regional councils are set up on a regular basis, which consist of around 200 or 400 people, where decisions are taken based on public interest without the threat of individual corruption and lobbyism. On a bigger scale, these councils could elect temporary representatives who vote in favour of the local population and can immediately be dismissed as soon as their task is completed or misuse of power is suspected. Hence, both large and small-scale decisions would not be dependent on election strategy or power games, but on the needs of the population.

Secondly, the capitalist economic system would have to be restructured. Instead of an economy that seeks to maximise profits while dragging a tail of destruction and exploitation through the planet, corporations and companies would be owned by the community and workers. Instead of strict hierarchical decisions on what to produce, the community decides what products are necessary to fulfil general needs. In the best case, products are not sold but rather gifted or traded, while people finally start to dedicate precious time to living instead of working. Much more, work is not measured by how much money it brings. Care work such as raising children, cooking, cleaning and healing, which has been made invisible for centuries due to its apparent zero economic value, would finally be appreciated and shared between all genders. 

Thirdly, property is not owned by landlords or billionaires anymore. Everyone has the right to affordable (or simply free) housing, and nobody is forbidden to take a bath in the nearby lake (if you have ever travelled to northern Europe, you might have already learned to appreciate policies like that). Schools, workshops, pools, cinemas, religious sites, streets, hospitals… all infrastructure is managed by communities and collectives without restrictions on who is allowed to enter and at what price. Everyone has the same possibilities to move, live and strive without the need to pay for the world that was given to all of us. 

Lastly, peace and security are not enforced by centralized violence, police and prisons. Conflicts are resolved on a community basis rather than by a singular entity such as a judge or court. Everyone has the responsibility for their own behaviour and everyone is responsible for addressing and solving the misbehaviour of others. Hence, in the case of conflict or harm, the focus is laid on dialogue support, accountability and reconciliation instead of punishment. Sources of conflict need to be understood and justice restored, not by revenge (such as putting someone in prison) but rather by reconciliation.

Hence, anarchists have a very vivid imagination of what society without hierarchies and coercion could look like. Nevertheless, as there are many ideas on how to structure society, there are even more different trends of anarchy that have evolved. Communist anarchism, socialist anarchism, green anarchism, individual anarchism, crypto anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism are just the very few currents of anarchist thought. Needless to say, the depiction of anarchism above is just one of countless proposals of how to order society. In fact, the ideas of different streams of anarchism often stand in direct competition or even conflict with each other, while some currents even deny each other the right to call themselves anarchists.

Thinking ahead

While the thought of anarchism proves itself as an extensive and nuanced critique of the capitalist system and hierarchical orders, implementing this thought into practice seems a rather utopian project. Even if convinced by the theoretical conceptualisations of this political philosophy, no activist would pretend that a realisation of anarchism in the current world would go smoothly or even just slightly according to plan. Humans are complex, societies even more so. Nevertheless, centuries of dreamers and realists have tried tirelessly to create a world that is less unjust, less cruel and just a little bit more free. I am by no means arguing that anarchism as described above is a perfect society. I am not even arguing that a perfect society exists. All I wanted to achieve with this little article is to stimulate conversations about our world. Is the world in which we live right now just and fair? Couldn’t we be more connected to each other? Couldn’t we be more free, more loving and even happier? And if not, what would we need to change to achieve this? Is it already enough if we are a bit nicer to our neighbours? Or is there something fundamental, like our society that we need to rethink?

If I have succeeded in rousing even the slightest interest in any of these questions, or in evoking even a few emotions, be it hope, confusion or anger, then I have fulfilled my task here. Ultimately, I just want you to dream. To dream of a world in which everyone can be free, without hierarchies, without force, without pain. Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether society is called anarchy or not, what matters is that we return to a society based on solidarity, love and connectedness to fulfil the purest of principles that no one is free until everyone is free.