Are there any examples of a successful anarchy?

Question

I need examples for a school research paper ASAP!

Answer 1

someone else (dot?) commented in reference to another question that a couple good places to look for examples of anarchy-in-practice would be "Anarchy Works" by Peter Gelderloos, and "Anarchy in Action" by Colin Ward.

Beyond that, there are lots of examples of anarchic societies that exist outside of Western Civilization. Anthropological works might be a good place to start looking. In particular, you might want to check out the work of Pierre Clastres (Society Against the State) and Harold Barclay (People Without Government). Neither of these focuses on anarchist societies, but rather on societies that existed without rigid or formal hierarchies. Another place you might look that is not strictly anarchist but that might offer some inspiration is at Argentina immediately following the economic collapse there (a good starting place might be Marina Sitrin's Horizontalism). The horizontalist organizing in Argentina has at this point been largely recuperated, but in my opinion is worth reading about.

If you are interested in examples of intentionally anarchist societies, perhaps look in to the Makhnovists in the Ukraine during the Russian Revolution, as well as studies of the Spanish Revolution. My warning about these is that both are now gone - the Makhnovists were ultimately crushed by the Bolsheviks, and the Spanish Anarchists were either done in by the Stalinists or by themselves (depending on how romantically you view them). They both offer glimpses of imperfect moments of anarchism in practice, and both offer lessons to be learned.

Comments

it's not exactly an answer to tell people to go look up stuff somewhere else - but another book to check out is "the art of not being governed", by james c. scott. i have only read a little bit of it so far, but it's pretty interesting.

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I agree that suggesting looking elsewhere is not really an answer, and I had initially been thinking about writing a more specific response, but I would've essentially been cribbing secondary sources to do so, and I thought pointing in the general direction might be more helpful. Perhaps should've been a comment not an answer. I have been thinking about checking out "The Art of Not Being Governed" myself.

Answer 2

It depends on whether you're looking for successful *anarchy* (a condition of social existence without the state and government) or successful *anarchism* (a condition created by anarchists in opposition to a formally constituted state or government).

The former describes 99% of human history, the latter describes events ranging in duration from a few hours to a few years. (An interesting area for contemporary research might be to examine and compare the barrio organizations in Argentina with the neighborhood assemblies that happened recently in Cairo.)

Anarchism requires a majority of anarchists to implement; anarchy does not require any anarchists at all.