How does anarchy not devolve into "might makes right" when bad actors are in limitless supply?
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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Vigilance and not naively thinking someone else can handle your social responsibilities for you.
Bad actors are also a minority of a minority of people. The world doesn’t turn to MadMax just because there’s no one with a gun threatening your life if you don’t do what they want of you.
The problems are the smart ones, weaseling their way into power, dividing and spreading hate, doing anything for power, even if it takes decades when ordinary people just want to work and live a normal life.
I also think this is the biggest, and maybe only, problem to be solved before we can have a good society.
A test for empathy for any managerial post is potentially one way to do it, but as usual, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Change how we distribute authority and we solve that problem.
An individual can't have power over others without the people respecting said individual's authority to dictate how the people run and collectively manage their lives. Individuals are able to obtain this authority through the hierarchical institutions that the people abdicate their political autonomy to dictate their lives without their direct and informed consent. Anarchy dismantles those institutions. That's like the entire root of the system.
Anarchy is literally the opposite of Hierarchy.
Sorry but for me it just becomes easier for some charming strongman to grab power in a system you describe.
How can he grab power that doesn't exist? Without the hierarchy for him to command that others be subordinate to the strongman's will, that strongman has no power to grab.
When the collective is able to freely disassociate with the strongman trying to make power grabs, the strongman is unable to consolidate power to himself to command others against their will.
If he tries to get violent, then he has to fight a collective of people there to defend each other from these kinds of strongmen when they get violent.
It would be leagues harder for strong men to grab power, because the very systems that dictate our society would be fundamentally structured to not allow individuals to consolidate power over others. The way it is now fundamentally allows individuals to be out into power and the people just have to shut up and accept it or else face the end of a police baton.
He'll generate that power by rallying people?
Who said it will be against anyone's will? Example: Maga (but there are loads through history)
If he gets violent too early, that's easy (see hitler for example) but that didn't solve the problem at all.
And then you say the system should dictate our society? And that in some manner would not allow individuals to consolidate power. Like should you have an anti power police? It's all super hazy.
So say that it's 2060, you fish down at the lake in a utopian paradise. 5 dudes show up and just take your fish, what happens?
Seems like you just do not understand Anarchism and are trying to compare it to current society, which it is fundamentally different from and unable to make direct comparison to.
They can try to rally people but the rest of society will rally against them in kind to maintain their autonomy.
MAGA exists because of our current institutions reinforcing those beliefs. Dismantle those and those beliefs disappear with them.
The system already dictates our society. It isn't about "should" but "will". We currently live under a society where authority comes from the top down and the populace must listen or be forced to capitulate by threat of violence from the police. People gain that authority through manipulation of social biases to be granted position labor power to command over the above mentioned society. This is directly due to our institutions being structured with respect to hierarchical power of authority.
In Anarchism, you wouldn't have any police, you would have a completely and fundamentally restructured society that doesn't allow for individuals to garner hierarchical power and exert authority over others without direct and mutual consent from the parties involved.
Your hypothetical isn't a "utopian paradise" if 5 people feel incentivised to take your fish instead of just fish themselves. Why would they? They would understand that if they do so and gain a reputation for being thieves who take things by force then no one will want to associate with them, and thus they will lock themselves out of the collective benefits of society.
Go read more if things are not clear. Read Kropotkin if you want dense theoretical explanation, read Graeber for a historical understanding of how these powers came to be and the alternatives that are possible. Many other names exist as well such as Malatesta, Bakunin, Lucy Parson, Emma Goldman, etc...
You're having a hard time convincing me, someone who is already interested. How will you convince Maga (that is just an example), and dismantling society won't help, another will grow in its place, like history has shown again and again and again.
As for the 5 fish thiefs, well some people have no empathy, they'll prefer stealing than working, what is your society (if you can call it that) going to do about it? This is a fundamental question, if you don't solve it then your system, IMO, wont work.
Sorry this seems to be too complicated for you to grasp then.
Downvoting and berating, is that your "anarchist way of life"? Bet you think anarchy is vandalism.
And I bet you're a simpleton who thinks vandalism is inherently a bad thing.
Like I explained in plenty of details. If you're still not convinced, your lack of understanding is greater than my ability to simplify these complex concepts down to a way you can actually understand.
How do you run centralised production without some form of central oversight? How do you decide which commune gets the power plant or local food distribution hub.
You don't have centralised production or centralised oversight, you have distributed systems and mutual aid.
How do you decide? Some far away central body knows best for the needs of the local people despite never being there? Are those deemed less important to suffer because statistics dictate someone else gets the goods.
Can all production be practically done in a distributed manner?
Plenty of industry works best at scale-- you're not going to build neighbourhood-scale high-performance steel mills or semiconductor fabs.
Centralised production is the only option in some forms of production, is every town going to have it's own steel mill or power plant?
See the mutual aid part? That means peoples can work together for larger scale needs.
People are capable of voluntarily working together to create complex things without being ordered at gunpoint.
Yes sure, but there will be centralised production and because of that implicitly a form of centralised power.
Not how it works buddy.
Can’t have power if everyone leaves a worksite due to some wannabe despot. Being distributed allows flexibility and choice.
And when there is no state apparatus to force people to be beholden to power, there is no power to stop them.
Doesn't have to be one person, it can be the majority workers in a centralised production system deciding to stop exporting something to a certain region because they don't like them for whatever reason.
If a group of anarchists don’t want to associate with others, that’s their choice.
Sounds like a clustefuck, how do you organise internation production like that?
Through choice not coercion.
Anarchism is what the world had before we started forming governments. If anarchism is a good and viable means of self-governing, why is it not adopted in countries across the globe? Why is there so much history of structured society overcoming anarchy? Where are all the utopian anarchist societies today?
Where are all the utopian anarchist societies today?
Destroyed by people that like hoarding power, be it capitalist or self-proclaimed "communist".
What you're calling "overcoming" is actually "backstabbing" once anarchists are no longer needed.
But it'll work this time, right?
Sure, we just need to guillotine all the people who refuse to give up their authority
Frequently asked questions about anarchism:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full
Why should power and food distribution be restricted to only one commune in the first place?
My point is you will end up in situations where one town or city might a nuclear reactor which powers the whole region. So then you end up with inbalances of power between locally controlled production.
A nuclear power plant would need consumers as much as it needs engineers. Any place that builds it would be dependent on other communes to balance the load.
Why would it need consumers? It can function fine without unless you are describing a capitalist economy. No need to balance the load either one nuclear power plant can sustain the region where all the power plant workers live with electricity.
Exactly, and to balance the load you need someone consuming the generated power. Which in case of a nuclear plant needs a lot of people, otherwise you've just wasted a ton of resources, time and space on a Stalker cosplay set
No need to balance the load
I don't think you know anything about how electricity and power grids work. Unless we invent superbatteries that are several orders of magnitude more efficient than current ones, you need to balance the load if you want to actually use the power plant that you built.
Maybe energy is not a good representation of the point i'm trying to make.
Take steel production for instance, in my country there is 1 steel mill that supplies the whole country and partially surrounding countries. This gives the group controlling that factory power, these central power structures will exist even in anarchist societies and whenever i bring this up it just gets handwaved away like it will be fine mutual interest, everyone will be nice end of story.
But i think there will still be friction and collectives not getting along even in a classless society, especially right at the advent coming out of capitalism.
Well if your town has a steel mill and nothing else, why would you be an asshole and withhold your products from everyone else if you need to get other stuff elsewhere? Your scenario is only realistic if one commune somehow perfectly lucks out into eternal self-sufficiency.
Oh yea. Things will get very HOT, very QUICK if you don't balance that load, especially with how much output nuclear has. Even if you're just trying to shed the excess and waste it, you have to be able to discharge it fast enough.
And it's just more mutually beneficial to share that power with others.
Sorry if this is a tangent, but do we really need nuclear? Solar can be extremely decentralized.
We need some baseload electricity production to support renewables doesn't have to be nuclear, could be storing energy by filling a dammed lake or something along those lines.
You build a community that cares and values each other, a society of trust. I can already hear your thoughts, "oh vey how does anyone get rich off that?"
"Oh vey" is a weird typo, especially in conjunction with calling a Jewish guy a parasite
Whats your point?
If you build a classless organisation of production i think that will drastically reduce tension in society from a lack of class war and allow for development of community, however we shouldn't be utopian and pretend like no friction between people will exist, it won't all be all trust and care.