Welcome to Anarchy101 Q&A, where you can ask questions and receive answers about anarchism from other members of the community.

What is a good text on what an anarchist world/society would look like?

0 votes
i.e. what networks/institutes would exist and how would they be connected.
asked 1 year ago by anonymous
You could try Nostradamus' “Les Propheties”.
1 year ago by madlib (3,140 points)
The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin is good.  Also, there is a section of the anarchy faq at http://www.anarchyfaq.org on this.
1 year ago by Morpheus (100 points)

6 Answers

+2 votes
uh, if i read your question as "what an anarchist society *could* look like", and ignore the loaded terminology of institutions, then i can suggest bolo bolo by pm, which is expected to be back in print in a couple of months.

there is also The Dispossessed (or Always Coming Home) by leguin, of course.

if you meant some text that is not (science) fiction, then i have nothing for you.

edit: for a good survey of some utopian fiction, done by anarchist Marie Louise Berneri (yay!), read Journey through Utopia.
answered 1 year ago by dot (18,590 points) edited 8 months ago by dot
I have to second Dispossessed, have yet to read ACH or Bolo'bolo. I am doubtful that the technologicl infrastructure presented in Dispossessed is actually compatable with an anarchist society, but leaving that aside, Leguin does a good job there.
1 year ago by ingrate (3,270 points)
0 votes
"News from Nowhere" by William Morris (1890)
answered 8 months ago by RanDomino (170 points)
+1 vote
You can read Peter Kropotkin's  "The Conquest of Bread", also, you can read about "Free territory" of Ukraine, a.k.a "Makhnovshina"
answered 6 months ago by SydViking (360 points) edited 6 months ago by SydViking
0 votes
I also recommend Le Guin's The Dispossessed, primarily because it's an anarchist world I think many anarchists would not like, in which new forms of impersonal authority have arisen. Because it's problematic, it's better food for thought. Also creepily like the Zeitgeist utopia.

As for what anarchist societies have already looked like, try "Anarchy Works." Free pdfs are easy enough to find.
http://www.ramshackleglory.com/anarchyworks.pdf
answered 3 months ago by Petar Mandzhukov (1,250 points)
+1 vote
1. "The Headman was a Woman: the Gender Egalitarian Batek of Malaysia" by Kirk M. Endicott and Karen L. Endicott, 2008, has relevance to anarchist, feminist, anti-civ practices. Here's the relevant chapters excerpted: http://pastebin.ca/2109140

2. The ethnographic parts of "The Continuum Concept" by Jean Liedloff.

3. "Anarchy Works" by Peter Gelderloos.

4. "Anarchy In Action" by Colin Ward.
answered 3 months ago by Autumn Leaf Cascade (4,490 points)
0 votes
I suggest this text by Peter Kropotkin http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Petr_Kropotkin__Communism_and_Anarchy.html . What is interesting about it is the fact that he criticizes small communal experiments of the past in order to project a truly libertarian alternative in contrast to religious or ideological experiments.
answered 3 months ago by iconoclast (2,150 points)

Related questions