Welcome to /r/Anarchy101!

I think I'm a little confused on usufruct property relations and the difference between private and personal property so I want to see if I'm missing something.

The way I understand anarchism, it is based upon logic and morality.
It would be better for people if they could use and benefit from the means of production they interact with each day, it actually makes no sense as to why you can't do that now. It's also immoral to do something like own a bunch of property just to let it sit and inflate based on scarcity. From that we know that it's immoral to restrict someones right to use property and natural resources.

I am aware that this would basically never happen, but what about property not exactly held in common? What about homes, beds, and toothbrushes? What logically or morally separates common use of something like a field that the community can grow food on, as opposed to a house that you live in and maintain?

Apologies if this sounds like a really dumb question, I think I'm just confused, I swear I'm trying.

Hi! Looking for books, articles, pdfs, podcasts, video essays ect on how nation states/capitalism/colonialism homogenizes peoples. Like how the various people of Brettony, Provence became French. Or how the many many ppl inside Chinas borders became Han.

Thanks!!

Hey yall!

  Writing a term paper at the moment and I stumbled on some interesting stuff l am having a hard time researching. I vaguely remember some time ago reading how a lot of media can numb peoples will to actually act. For example, lots of dystopian media where the underdog rebels win and the evil upper class collapses can give reader’s a false feeling of change, leading to those readers not actually acting to improve their day to day lives.

 I know damn well I am doing a TERRIBLE job explaining the idea I have in mind which is why I was hoping some of yall who are more read than I would have a clue about what Im thinking of and if there are any texts that explore this idea. Thanks and have a good one!

I had a convo with some leftist friends a while back about book banning and I was honestly shocked that most of them didn’t care about book banning, basically saying “it shouldn’t matter if they ban POC/queer books, people who actually want to read those books will use other means to access them,” but this attitude hurt me because so much of my early political awakening came from books I was assigned in school, like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and I worry about the kids who don’t even know what radical books they’re missing out on.

I’ve considered building a Little Free Library and keeping it stocked with leftist/banned books. I’ve also thought about running creative writing workshops with my local library (and maybe even the local juvenile detention center) and using the writings of leftist figures as the example texts we read/analyze. What other ways can we be better beacons for education in our communities?

What was Knouto- about it? Why was bakunin writing a book about it?

Hi comrades, I'm studying to be a high school social studies teacher and for my final paper, I'm writing a literature review on anarchist education/pedagogies. Does anyone here have any ideas on specific topics, research questions, or knowledge gaps within this field that could be interesting to explore? I'm quite interested in environmental education (maybe "eco-anarchist pedagogies"?), but I'm open to any thoughts! Thanks in advance.

I find anarcho - Nihilism werry interesting.

Is there anyone more here that have more knowledge about this?

Other stuff I find interesting is hard determenism, social ecology and green anarchism.

There was this concept I found a while back that describes how there’s this weird space between advocating violence and sort of neutrally supporting it but not engaging in it even though you overtly support it. I’m pretty sure it was within the context of the French revolution.

Can somebody help me find it? Was it a chapter in a book? Who said/wrote it?

Anarchists what do you think of a Military system with generals? If you don’t want a military how do you want to defend against outsiders? If yes do generals count as a government system and how do you stop that turning back into a full state under a general or the military

Doing a project on the movies which have shaped anarchism. Anyone knows of good movies that explore it in depth?

I am an anarchist, and I think the values of the philosophy make it a good starting point for interpersonal mediation (I think we generally prefer seeking consensus over individual control of a situation).

I've realized that I have tendencies that make it hard for me to resolve interpersonal conflicts. My upbringing was a fairly oppressive traditional household where my material needs were met but I wasn't given much autonomy. Currently, my living situation is pretty difficult, and I hope to move out soon. And I'm neurodivergent with social anxiety, which makes me have a strong sense of justice, and care a lot about other people's approval.

All this to say: I have noticed that I have a tendency to shut down when someone crosses one my boundaries or makes me uncomfortable (i.e. I find it hard to vocalize my feelings in the moment, or just say "no" or "stop"), and I have revenge-seeking instincts. Very often, this results in me wanting to appeal to some sort of authority to mediate my conflicts. I feel like I'm setting myself up for failure by not seeking out positive, egalitarian mechanisms for conflict resolution. I am doing therapy, and it helps.

Any thoughts or resources are appreciated!

Hello Everybody!

I am new to anarchism and am looking for recommendations that could serve as a gateway to exploring other anarchist works. However, my interest is somewhat niche. Specifically, I’m seeking sources that address the status of the state through the lens of Ordinary Language Philosophy, as seen in the works of Wittgenstein and J.L. Austin. I’m particularly interested in interpretations by thinkers like Stanley Cavell and Cora Diamond. Here are some examples to convey the general tone and approach I’m looking for:

https://www.davidpublisher.com/Public/uploads/Contribute/5dba346b090f5.pdf

I apologize in advance if this comes across as dismissive of theory, especially since many anarchists view theory and praxis as deeply interconnected. I’m not rejecting theory outright but am drawn to approaches that challenge overly rigid or abstract frameworks. My goal is to explore works that question the authority of theory itself, offering more grounded, conversational, or experiential insights. The closest examples I’ve come across so far was Spontaneous Order. (Though I have mixed feelings about the latter, as it’s disappointing to see how Hayek, despite being inspired by Wittgenstein, co-opted his ideas to justify neoliberal doctrine.)

As well as having regular anarchist beliefs, I also believe in challenging many of the social norms that society has put in place, ultimately with the goal of true free speech and expression. Is there a specific type of anarchism or other belief system that I would fall into?

Max Stirner famously dismisses abstractions like morality, the state, and society as “spooks” that alienate individuals from their true selves. However, I wonder if his rejection of all abstractions undermines the ego’s ability to articulate its own will.

Without abstractions, can the ego truly comprehend itself, or does it risk losing its relational context? In my view, structures like language and social norms (while constraining) are also tools for self-definition and resistance. Does Stirner’s philosophy leave room for this kind of dialectical relationship, or is his ego confined to a vacuum of pure individuality?

Is Stirner’s radical individualism a liberating critique of abstraction, or does it dismiss the essential frameworks that shape the self?

Would it be welcomed at all or would it be perceived as another form of opposing dominance over marginalized groups?

Would the community react negatively to it

I know of the Siberian black army in the Russian Civil War and the CNT/FAI in the Spanish Civil War. But what are some other big anarchist movements through histroy ?

I was wondering, under a stateless society, what’s stopping people from doing horrible things. Without a state, surely horrible people could murder innocent people. Just take Somalia, Somalia is literally known for piracy.

When I try to understand a world without any property, I have to mention that land is not the only property, my bed is my property, and my earrings and clothes are my property, my body is my property. Is my art mine? Is that precious item Timmy's mom gave to him on her death bed his? Do I get any privacy? I have so many questions, because without property, nothing is mine, there is no "my" or "mine" or "his" or "hers" or singular "theirs" or any of it, but my body is mine, and my journal is mine, and so is my art, and the words in the books I wrote. This comment is mine, these thoughts are mine, my question here ig can be restored as "what is mine in a world without property, and how do we maintain privacy and human rights?".

Please discuss here what ideas you have on the definition of property, the philosophy of removing it and how you think this works while maintaining human rights. What is the boundary between bad private property vs what really should just be mine.

For example as someone who is diagnosed with ASD I personally tend to eat out of a specific bowl, plate and silverware of my own and if someone else used my bowl or my fork or my chopsticks I would probably throw a fit, is this an example of private property that should be eliminated? Because personally I think that mug withthec raccoon on it is mine and mine only.

Basically the title. I’m curious how the anarchist idea of self defense against the recreation of the state isn’t in itself, definitionally, recreating their own decentralized state by making a monopoly on violence.

Given that the right seems to have dominated the battle for hearts and minds across tiktok, podcasts, talk radio, and local news here in America (Rupert Murdoch and others). How do we counteract that influence? I'm not above using bots as long as what the bots say aren't lies, creating trendy dances, podcasts, dramatized and artistic public displays, using search engine optimization, whatever.

It feels to me that getting people to act can be the same as convincing them to direct their pre-existing anger at the right thing.

Or is this something that is considered anti-anarchist?

I guess I feel like there's a coalition of people with similar agendas executing a campaign to control people's opinions through maximizing the percent of that person's time that is spent receiving their message, and I feel I should be doing something to counteract that.

it was mentioned by Kropotkin as his inspiration, and I'm curious about it.

is it anywhere to be found?

Religious anarchism is a very curious subject to me and I think it helps to understand the perspective of irreligious anarchists along with the perspective of people who consider themselves, say, Islamic or Christian anarchists.

As for myself, I was never really religious but do belong to a Hindu family which has a lot of supporters of the RSS and BJP. I truly started considering myself irreligious (still figuring out faith and philosophy) when I read the Bible, the Quran and some of the Bhagavata Purana and Manusmruti.

That being said, I am deeply interested in religion, mostly for philosophical reasons. I've grown up in an environment where I interacted with a lot of Hindu atheists and agnostics as well as understood Sufi philosophy in the North Indian region. There are certainly metaphysical trends that grab my interest in these things, but from a strictly political perspective, I find it difficult to see how religion and Anarchism can intersect (if they even can).

Feel free to suggest me books by religious anarchists or, on the contrary, Anarchist books criticising religion.

Looking forward to hearing from y'all.

For context his comment was "why anarchist ("westerns") oppose Japanese religion (Shinto and Buddhism) if Japanese never damage or attack them (to the westerns)"

My friend is a little.... sensitive when talk about politics (he say me he get horrorized when read about what stuff ww2 japanese army do in China), so instead answer him i preffer ask you here what you could answer him

I'm trying to learn what philosophy of aesthetics is. Thus far, it seems somewhat elitist but like all forms of philosophy there may be multiple different forms of expression. I was wondering if there are anarchistic philosophies of aesthetics?

Hey been pondering this topic for various reasons, I came across the more leftist interpretation of Child Rights from thinkers like John Holt that questions many of the common notions of parenting and childcare alongside the accepted models concerning the intellectual and emotional capacities of children. I don’t know that much about this topic but I’ve pondered similar things about how an anarchist or other non-hierarchical society would deal with this topic so would like to learn more about this.

I’ve personally always felt like children should in many cases be given more freedom and autonomy than they’re often allowed by society but should also be more educated about potential predators and other dangers to more effectively avoid potential risks.

Thanks for any answers

Edited for clarification purposes

So my prof and I were going back and forth about anarchism in class today, he’s openly communist so was up to taking it on as a class discussion. (which also if you’re a leftist you’ll have a great time in sociology especially in a progressive area.) Obviously not gonna vehemently argue against my nice prof with an easy workload but the conclusion we came to is it can exist within a failed state and in cases of extreme political turmoil, but usually gets crushed by fascism, authoritarian communism, or stronger capitalist forces. We discussed Catalonia during the Spanish civil war as an example of this, and I used Rojava as a current example (I’m using anarchist as an umbrella term here, covering all libertarian socialist/communist sects).. So how would you address this? I’ve been a leftist forever but am somewhat new to anarchism, but anarchism arising from a failed state is always the way I thought it could happen.

Especially given that this an anonymous account, I hope this is a good place to ask this and I apologize if I inadequately frame this issue:

The one and only mutual aid organization in the deeply red capitol city of my state is encountering growing pains, having to now navigate hithertofore uncharted waters — waters which I hope others here might have had experience traversing. Of course we, as an organization, will come to a consensus regarding this matter, yet I ask for personally clarity at least, as this might also influence my arguments within the organization.

In terms of numbers we are doing decently if not quite well for ourselves relative to our history as an organization, yet we've recently had a request to on-board a person who couldn't use our digital organizing platform due to being a registered sex offender, since we don't verify age. Beyond this, we do not know more details. For example, we do not know which tier they are on the sex offender registry (i.e., I., II., III.), and so on.

Internally, while aid will still be provided, there's tension regarding the extent to which our organization will work with someone with this history. On one hand, there's arguments that the sex offenders registery destroys privacy, is unconstitutional, includes offenses broader in scope than many might guess, and induces moral panic without taking into consideration the circumstances nor the personal development one may go through — not to mention an obstruction of sympathy for a person who's material conditions have dramatically worsened consequentially. On the other hand, there's concerns: since our organization protects and largely consists of marginalized and vulnerable people within and near us — that this might betray our mission of protection and our principle of consent, that members are uncomfortable being alone or around said person (many who have personally experienced SA), that optically this is a liability for the organization, and that meaningfully organizing with a person who cannot use the digital platform by which we organize is simply beyond our capacity at the moment.

TL;DR: The mutual aid organization I'm in is debating whether organizing with a person on the sexual offenders registery will bring assistance to them or harm to us, and whether we should prioritize practicing our belief in restorative justice in giving this person a second chance or whether we should prioritize protecting the vulnerable and marginalized within and near our organization.

For those who have had similar experiences, how did you approach this issue? What recommendations might you have?

EDITS: Clarity.

How would people getting degrees help or hinder the movement towards anarchy? On one hand, I see the fallacious idea of meritocracy as something that could hold us back, and on the other, I see potential in people ‘earning’ more money to survive more comfortably (especially in areas with high cost of living). How can this be reconciled, if possible?