Anarchism In A Nutshell was made by r/Anarchy101 to explain anarchism, however, I believe that this is one of the worst possible introductions to anarchism. I believe this piece is significant, at many points I have had new anarchists use it as a source or treat it as reliable. It is a substitute, or perhaps introduction, to theory for new anarchists. Reddit has played a large part in bringing people towards anarchism in recent years, along with breadtube. This leaves anarchism being distorted due to how misrepresenting these mediums are of anarchism.
This is the page on the sidebar of r/Anarchy101, anybody browsing the subreddit is met with it and can leave many with a false impression of anarchism.
Here is the first paragraph of the work.
Anarchism is a social movement that seeks to abolish oppressive systems. Anarchists advocate a self-managed, classless, stateless society where everyone takes collective responsibility for the health and prosperity of their community.
The first paragraph is mostly correct, however, I believe that anarchism can manifest itself as individualistic and not simply a community, you can certainly have an anarchist community where you take collective responsibility for health, and individualism can manifest itself in that community. But that isn’t a requirement for anarchism, anarchism can also be in cases caring for yourself before others, pursuing self-interest and your desires.
Anarchism is simply the first part where they reject all oppressive systems, all hierarchies, with an emphasis on the state and capitalism. Individualism without collectivism or community emphasis can manifest itself in this. The scope of anarchism is a lot broader than simply a community caring for each other.
The 2nd paragraph I take no issue with it, It is true that anarchism is against coercive hierarchy, power corrupts people, and people should be treated equally.
By non-coercive hierarchy would technically not be hierarchal at all, I would consider the only true non-coercive hierarchy one where you can opt-out at any time, you were not persuaded or forced to join, and you lose absolutely nothing by doing, or not doing it. I don’t consider this to be a hierarchy as nobody holds real power over you, like consensual BDSM, the power between you and your partner is not real, it’s constructed for the sake of it and can be revoked at any time. If any of the previously mentioned things are present then it is coercive and anarchists are fundamentally against it. This section is not a critique but instead an elaboration on a point I am in agreement with
Anarchists seek to reduce or even end violence and oppression. The increasingly frequent misrepresentation of anarchism by the media to be about violence, nihilism, or disorder is completely false
This is true, for the most part, violence and oppression are clearly oppressive and to be done away with, violence in response to another violence or force against you wouldn’t be anything anarchists are against however that is implied.
However one take away from this is that anarchism isn’t inherently nihilist, but can certainly be. Anarcho-Nihilism is a very relevant anarchist thought which tends to believe that current human manifestations (Like civilization) are beyond saving and hence should be met with pure hostility. The article never claimed nihilism couldn’t be anarchist but in an attempt to be too simple it had been left out.
The next 2 (or one depending on where you draw the line) 2 paragraphs I take no issue with. I believe that they are fully accurate in saying anarchism is anti-capitalist and anarcho-capitalists are not really anarchist. But what follows the 2 paragraphs I am in heavy, heavy, disagreement with.
Anarchists advocate socialism instead of capitalism. Under socialism, workers have direct control of the means of production, or the land, factories, and offices. Through democratic organization, anarchists seek to remove the abusable systems of power that bosses and politicians leverage today to unjustly rule over society. Anarchists want to give everyone complete control over that which affects them.
Some anarchists do advocate for socialism, but anarchy is not inherently socialist. Anarchism simply advocates against hierarchy, socialism is not the only way to manifest opposition to hierarchy.
I will explain my personal beliefs as those are the ones I am confident in doing justice. I want all hierarchies to be abolished not through socialized means of production but through anti-civ and anti-economism. I believe that small groups of people as opposed to big urban civilized areas can best determine what is best for the individual and the community. Somebody may own more of something they cannot make capital off of it, nor can they exploit for it, they can cooperate and collaborate on a small scale. A ruling class has always been the reason for perpetuating civilization. The bourgeois turned the most barbarian of nations into civilization, civilization was made to conjure people into more centralized populations to allow the selling of their products and ownership of people through wages. They made industry and commerce out of civilization and so they encouraged the prosperity of it. If we allow for communities of small, less urbanized areas, then you can eliminate all hierarchy with it.
There is not an inherent socialized means of production in this system, hence making it not socialist, there exist many other ways to manifest anarchism without socialism, capitalism, however, is 100% fundamentally opposed to anarchism which is why it's important to realize it isn’t a binary between capitalism and socialism. Political philosophy is far broader than simply that binary.
Most anarchists are communists, and advocate a “classless, moneyless, stateless, society.” Others are mutualists, and advocate “free market socialism”. Anarchist society has no central authority, but instead consists of interconnected communities that use direct democracy (specifically, consensus) to organize themselves without rulers or bosses.
Most anarchists are communists, there are mutualists as well, But anarchists do not advocate for interconnected communities that use direct democracy. Some communities may be interconnected but interconnectedness is not a tenet of anarchism. A community can be lonesome with no contact with outside communities, it doesn’t stop them from being anarchist, if they are against all hierarchy then they are an anarchist society
The next issue follows directly after the point about interconnected communities, direct democracy. This has been a long distorted part of anarchism. Consensus democracy is not anarchist. It exists as a form of governance and serves to create rulers (even if the majority are rulers). Some people are ineligible to participate in the consensus democracy, whether that be through disability, unable to attend that meeting, are becoming unrepresented. Then the rules made by the community could subjugate those groups or individuals, In fact, why are we making rules in an anarchist society to begin with. As mentioned earlier in Anarchism In A Nutshell where I was in full agreement with was “Anarchism is a social movement that seeks to abolish oppressive systems”. Rules are oppressive and serve to limit the individual, they create arbitrary ideas of good and bad, and in order to oppress them, you need rulers and hence governance. Rules are an oppressive system, governance is oppressive, and a hierarchy is made of law/rules over the individual or collective and as established, anarchism rejects all hierarchy.
Consensus democracy is also coercive, to attend meetings you must physically go there for perhaps hours, if you choose to opt-out then your voice is no longer to be heard. You cannot opt-out of consensus democracy without facing some sort of repercussion. It IS a coercive hierarchy in itself. Democracy and anarchism generally cannot mix, they are diametrically opposed to each other. Anarchism is free association, individualism, and sometimes mutual aid, that is the system anarchism generally runs off of.
Conclusions
This is an awful introduction to anarchism and unfortunately many firsts, and with the rise of ‘new anarchism’ which is a distortion of actual anarchism and I believe that this trend will only grow. This Reddit post will continue to be screenshotted/cited and spread around. It doesn’t organize us without rulers or bosses, it makes the majority rulers and bosses.
If you are new to anarchism, refrain from breadtube as much as possible, be critical to all ideas even if under the cloak of anarchism, and if you are able to read theory (I recognize that some people aren’t able to and that's okay) TheAnarchistLibrary.org is a great tool to use, they have a huge selection and a lot of which is relatively short.
Some things were less of a critique and more of elaboration or something I felt left-out of the read, read between the lines and investigate beyond 1 form of anarchism because you will soon realize that anarchism is vast with ideologies.
Remember, not all hierarchies manifest themselves in super apparent ways. No matter how apparent they are, recognize them all as an unjust authority.
If you would like to visit the article for yourself, here is a link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/wiki/nutshell
