Anarchists advocate for the abolition of hierarchy, arguing that hierarchy is necessarily coercive and detrimental to the psychological well-being of the people and the moral state of the society. A very good question arises from this: how can an anarchist society possibly come about? The establishment of a stateless society would require one of three propositions: the people must rise up against the state, the state must remove itself or dwindle its own power in such a way that it becomes obsolete, or the state must be undermined in such a way that its existence is proven unnecessary. However, can any of these three truly lead to a stateless society? I will use this as a "proof" of sorts that an anarchist society cannot form without certain preparative systems in place. In essence, a stateless society requires decades of cultural evolution.
The people must rise up against the state.
The state’s illegitimacy comes from its coercive nature and its need to dominate over its own citizenry and over other governments. Mikhail Bakunin argued in "Statism and Anarchy" that the state, being an institution of power, had a naturally competitive spirit that encouraged warfare and diplomatic intimidation to show national hegemony. In truth, the plague of nationalism had created a culture of hegemony, in which groups feel a sense of superiority over others due to their nation. That superiority leads to conquest, genocide, mass murder, and the suppression of rights. In that case, would it not be legitimate to rise up against the state, as its existence is inherently illegitimate and detrimental? No, it would not.
If the state is illegitimate for its coercion and violence, in what sense would a revolution not be illegitimate for the same reasons? The violent removal of a regime promotes the mentality of the state. That is, there exist times where asserting dominance (the people over the institution) can be used as a tool for our advantage. Once that mentality sets in, the anarchist revolution is doomed. It sets precedence for another state, another revolution, more death, and more suppression. I reject the notion that revolution is inherently necessary and I reject the notion that the state needs to be removed through force. Instead, the only true revolution is a “Glorious Revolution” of sorts, with the state being removed without violence and without coercion. Naturally, then, we must look for a nonviolent approach to state removal.
The state must remove itself or dwindle its own power.
Simply put, the state will never remove itself from authority for one simple reason: by and large, the institute of the state attracts those who seek power. There is a reason why the general stereotype of the politician is power-hungry and that is because power attracts those who wish to exploit it for their own ends. It is the very reason why statism is dangerous in the minds of anarchists. However, can a government dwindle itself until it becomes obsolete? I will look at the minarchist philosophy, where the state should only be responsible for certain responsibilities, because this is arguably the lowest form of statehood that one can achieve without the abolition of power. In short, can we transition from a socialist state to a minarchist state to a stateless society?
Many politicians advocate for private enterprise, which they see as a good for the economy. As such, to the capitalist statist, a minarchist society is not hard to imagine nor is it even that radical. Allow private enterprise to take care of everything – excluding socialist programs made for the benefit of the public like the police force, the military, the fire department, road construction, etc. – and the economy will boom from increasing enterprise to fill the gaps. Most people are starting to reach a consensus that a libertarian future would be preferable to the current democratic socialist future that the world is leaning towards. However, can that world lead to anarchism?
In order for this process to continue, certain concepts need to be chipped away. The mentality that a police force and military force are necessary (and, in connection to the military, that border preservation is necessary) is culture and would be difficult to overcome. However, basic services like road construction can be finished by private enterprise. To replace that problematic ideology would require the use of private security forces for whole communities, which is feasible, but hard to convince others of. The way to a stateless society, in short, would require capitalism if the state were to regulate itself out of statehood. Is this preferable?
A capitalist society can work. I doubt that anybody can argue that it cannot function coherently as we’re currently living in one. However, is a capitalist society a preferable society over other states? Likely not. Capitalism is inherently hierarchical, advocating for a society in which one group rules over another in an authoritarian way by coercing them – in the capitalist society, by creating a system of payment for work that requires the citizenry to act in a manner they do not want to in order to meet basic necessities – it forms an essentially slave-run society that is inherently statist. In fact, capitalism is an essential tool of the state in today’s society. As such, the capitalist “state” as advocated by anarcho-capitalists cannot bring about a stateless society, but rather a quasi-stateless society in which businesses and insurance companies become the peoples’ new government.
As such, a government cannot be simply dwindled down through government. That is inherently illogical due to government's self-perpetuation and its requirement of a naturally statist system. Instead, we need to look at our third option.
The state must be undermined in such a way that its existence is proven to be unnecessary.
There are two approaches to this: either the people use an agorist economy advocated for by Konkin III in his "New Liberation Manifesto" or the people completely remove themselves from government-run society through individualist single-household family units or through communal societies whose people work together to accomplish a functioning society with all needs met and may work together with other communal societies for the same purpose. An agorist economy is a Counter-Economy of sorts, which is an economic system that advocates for the use of black markets and sub-markets that act independently of the state and in defiance of non-violent crimes (with coercion and theft as a part of the agorist definition of violent) imposed by the state. In essence, the agorist system advocates for civil disobedience of law through illegal uses of private enterprise. While I can respect the method, as it is inherently non-violent while also undermining the government’s legitimacy, it would not work in creating a stateless society. All it would truly do is create a system in which government is replaced, as with the dwindling of government, in which the black market establishes itself as a quasi-government in its stead.
Instead, we must look at removal from government-run society as an option. From an individualist perspective, this is perfectly acceptable. If a family unit can maintain itself individually and wishes to, it would appear completely moral. Provided that family unit allows for all members to leave voluntarily, there is no coercion involved and no immoral action is taken. However, families will likely choose to stay close together, which will create a close, tight-knit community of like-minded people voluntarily working together for both groups' benefits. Furthermore, there must be some interactivity between individualistic household groups as, without it, the human race would simply die out. Either inner-breeding over several generations will lead to mutations that would prevent pregnancy or prevent survival in any meaningful sense, or there simply would be no opportunity to procreate. To add even more criticism to the idea, societies of this sort cannot adequately punish misbehavior. The concept of there being consequences for one's actions can only be truly discovered in a community. For example, how does one punish a rapist in an individual society. Short of killing them (which would be a violation of the nonaggression principle), what can you really do? You can stop trading with them, but an individualistic household would be self-sustaining. There is no real way to stop this person from acting in an immoral way.
Looking at a communal society, this system allows for that sort of punishment. Being interdependent on one another, one's actions have genuine and detrimental consequences. By acting in a way that violates that society's moral expectations, the society has many weapons at its disposal: they can kick the person out of the community, they can refuse to give resources to them that they may need to survive, etc. In that sense, the society has punished the immoral act. This is not a coercive action similar to a state because the person can voluntarily leave the community and found their own, where they can instill their own moral code (such as the allowance of rape). However, such a society cannot possibly exist in a world where a communal society exists. After all, if people existed that felt that, for example, rape is acceptable, then there must exist a mentality somewhere in society, perhaps in the underground of it, that encourages that mentality in some way or another. Further problems arise, as states would likely begin to overtake societies that form in order to make them a part of the state once more as they become more self-sustaining. As such, the only way a society of communal effort can function without problem would be to fundamental change the culture.
Is anarchism doomed?
I have provided several proposals for an anarchist state, all of which have fundamental flaws to their reasoning. Then, how do we fix them? Unfortunately, capitalist run societies are doomed to fail by definition; they cannot form societies without hierarchy because they advocate for a system of hierarchy. It is self-defeating. So, we must look at the communal society, which has the most likelihood of success, and see if there is a way to create a society in this manner.
In order to accomplish this, early education must enforce a sense of morality based on the nonaggression principle. Children must be taught to question authority and to act in a moral way. They have to know how to identify immoral activities in society and be taught based on a communal education in order to accomplish this. The mentalities that threaten anarchism, such as the necessity of the state or the inherent bigotries and immoralities in society, need to be rooted out or subverted into obscurity in such a way that their influence is minuscule at best. Only then can we establish a system of individual societies that are either self-sustaining or interdependent between one another that would not diverge into a state of coercion. The only possibility is to create a new culture in society that sees the problems of removing one's freedom of leave and freedom to choose. Only then can a system of communes that act within a morally acceptable and truly anarchic framework can be accepted by society as a whole (See "On The Social Contract And The Legitimacy of Government" for specifics on how a world of this nature would operate) because people would move enmass to communal societies outside of government coercion and would have the mentality of protecting other communities, seeing government as the natural enemy to the freedoms they fought for by establishing the community as the first place. As such, it would only be natural for communities to work together to escape the state, because to do otherwise puts each community in jeopardy. This would take decades and decades and decades of work, and almost surely none of us will see the fruits of our labor, but it is necessary for the establishment of a more moral society.
