To change everything, start anywhere

Peter Clayborne answers a question about examples of anarchy in action by pointing to practical reading on anarchism, then frames the anarchist answer as refusing any single universal solution. He says the first work is to dismantle systems of power that coerce obedience, and that free life would replace coercion with participation, play, exchange, and local conflict resolution.

Reading notes

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• He recommends Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos as a practical introduction organized by questions and answers, with historical and contemporary examples and reading lists, especially in the economy section.
• He points to Peter Marshall’s Demanding the Impossible, especially the fifth part on anarchism in practice and the chapters on Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity.
• He recommends David Graeber’s Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology for its discussion of how difficult it is to ask what anarchy would look like in practice.
• He says the anarchist solution is that everyone should be free to find their own solution, which means there must not be one solution for all.
• He rejects both surrender and indifference, insisting instead that anarchists oppose any universal model and resist efforts to impose one.
• He says anarchy’s first task is dismantling systems of power, since freedom requires removing the coercive structures that force obedience.
• He argues that worries about what will replace police assume the police already serve safety and conflict resolution, and that when spaces are freed from the rule of law, many conflicts disappear and others are settled more peacefully.
• He describes a free society as one where people play rather than work under coercion, children participate in communal life instead of attending school, and societies exchange goods and ideas across borders without charge.
• He says suffering will remain, but people can still work to end the unnecessary harm they inflict on one another and on the world.
• He notes that the answer remains unspecific because it is an initial email and because anarchists do not decide specifics for others.