Communism has failed because of corruption both of the state and the ideas, it's not about scale.
Anarchy, however, cannot work because how we humans act in groups. Groups larger than 12 starts to break apart based on the nature of how our psychology works. We need structure to follow in order for larger groups to work.

You can also have anarchy under rules, close to the ideals of Ayn Rand. That we have rules and systems invented to be followed by lesser people and those who have the ability to control and prosper do so at their own will. This is pretty much the foundation of Cyberpunk dystopias in which corporations have taken over society and they control the rules and laws applied.

Essentially we have four corners of extreme political ideas on the


Meaning we have communism in the upper left, and upper right we have an autocracy, single ruler (dictatorship) both with low freedom because of the totalitarian rule. In the lower corners are total freedom, but based on community or individualism. So the normal view on Anarchy is still that you work together as a community, but you do not have rulers, the problem arises through tribalistic behavior between groups. And the bottom right is individual rule, in which you can become your own ruler if you have the power to do so.

I consider any organized control by (at least threat of) force to be sufficient for government. Given that, I don't believe that anarchy is possible. Some group of people would always organize and take some control via threat of force.

Dictatorship by me of course is the most efficient way of government... :-D

This debate is simple. Which government (or lack there of) would function better out of the two: Anarchy or communism? — Franklin

Both ideals have never been implemented on a larger scale. That is, communist have tried to achieve communism via totalitarian socialism, but it never has been pure communism. And even if a totalitarian system that truly sucks to it's core, the socialist workers paradise worked somehow. Life in East Germany or the Soviet Union wasn't that bad (had the chance to visit both places when they were up and going).

Terrapin Station is correct, basically with total anarchy, without the government controlled security system and legal system of any sort, ordinary people will typically form bands to protect themselves from others. History is full of samples when the police force or the military has collapsed, people form their own militias or vigilante groups. Of course, this is for many anarchists the ideal: voluntary and self-governing communities rising without a centralized authority commanding them. Yet this kind of society works even less than communism.

So I guess this one goes to communism.

The two aren't opposed.

Anarchy is against hierarchy of any kind. Communism is an economic model where ownership over land, capital, and labor is somehow collective rather than individual. The two complement one another because collective ownership levels hierarchies on the economic field -- and without a state to enforce individual property rights over land, capital, and labor you naturally obtain communism, ignoring the problem of warlords and gangsters that others have already mentioned.

As per the map above.

Yeah, pretty much. Just a different way of saying the same thing.

I've been trying to complement that map, thinking about if there are other parameters.
Right now it's pretty solid in showing the collective, the individual ruler and their levels of having a state. But can we go in another direction? Just like a square becomes a cube with more dimensions, is there room for other variants of a political system that no one is really thinking about and do not fit the coordinates present at this time?

Sure. After all, it's just a way of arranging theoretical stances. You could graph anything, though. Even quantitative features, like GDP, infant mortality, or life expectancy in addition to the more qualitative notions viewed on a spectrum.

Even quantitative features — Moliere

Yes, but for this graph, it's more about the political coordination of political systems in relation to the people. Quantitative features have more to do with defining "the health" within the coordination on this graph.

One form I have in mind is the individual strength within this graph. Right now it only shows where you are if you place yourself somewhere, but not the strength of it. You might be a total supporter of dictatorship, a servent of that ruler, or you are someone at the outskirts of society, but still in support of that ruler. Which means the less you support something, the more centralized you get, but also less positioned. So that the 3D form of the graph is that of a pyramid, with the graph at the bottom and the point at zero interest or knowledge.

But this is a work in progress, nothing that I have thought through in its entirety yet.

Both will fail, as neither as sustainable. So I suspect that either way will bring about the end in about the same time as the other.

Both communism and anarchy fall into tribalism, I think communism at least, you can hope for a benevolent leader whereas anarchy doesn't appear to have any good outcomes.

I'm not saying communism with a benevolent leader will be better than what we have currently, not even close, just better than anarchy.

Both come up short simply by the fact that being born itself is the first form of coercion. We are used by society from the beginning- as labor, for the most part. However, it is said to us, that by symbiotically using society for one's own desires and needs, one is really doing it for the "individual" pursuit. The first premises that any government should be based on is, "What is the purpose of people being born into this world in the first place?" If you can't answer that without coming to the conclusion that all forms of procreation are using the individual, then all else is secondary.

I think anarchy would run better because if I think people have some morals. Also at least in anarchy the people have motivation to do something. Communism is a dream that one Mrk's came up with and thought people were carbon copys, because that is the only way it can work.

I think the bigger question humanity has to ask it self is what system does work in our modern day societies

Anarchy or Communism — Franklin

But there was communist anarchy.

But there was communist anarchy. — TheMadFool

Can't have communism without a state. I know the general Marxist idea is that the state disappears, but without a state that could organize the common ownership, there would be no communist society. Anarcho-communism is essentially anarchy and in some forms, it seems to move over to individual liberty which isn't really in the realm of the collectivism that communism is supposed to work under, so not only does the state absolve, the entire point of common ownership is absolved. Anarcho-communism is, in my view, for those who confuse their political views, who want capitalistic individualism but common ownership and absolvement of the state, try putting that on the above map.

It's in the bottom-left corner.

But at the same time, individualistic freedom is at the bottom right. That's where organized individualistic freedom is positioned, the form where businesses have the power to create their own laws and rules within their bubble. The collective anarchy (regular) is bottom left, totalitarian state communism is top left. Are we placing anarcho-communism at the mid-left then? Even though some branches of it are individualistic?

I think you're confusing two different strands of communism and trying to fuse them together into one theory. But as your own political chart admirably shows, there is an economic and an organizational dimension which is both independent of one another.

I think you are confusing liberty with individual liberty -- as if this were the only thing under consideration. It's important to anarcho-communism, or libertarian communism, but not the whole story.

Kropotkin is a pretty typical thinker when it comes to understanding anarcho-communism. Lenin is a typical thinker when it comes to understanding the communism you are referring to.


Anarchy and communism go hand in hand, from my perspective, so there is no need to distinguish between the two except for the fact that there are different dimensions to political description -- one with respect to organization, and the other with respect to economy.

And, anarchy -- as one might predict given even just a general notion of anarchy -- has so many strands within it that it sort of just doesn't fit on the chart very well when taken as a whole. Anarcho-communism fits nicely, but there's, like, a lot of different strands of anarchy.

I think you are confusing liberty with individual liberty -- as if this were the only thing under consideration. It's important to anarcho-communism, or libertarian communism, but not the whole story. — Moliere

You have the authoritarian-liberal scale and the collective-individualism scale on there.
What other scale of liberty are you referring to? You are either totally free or you are free in a community-form.

Kropotkin is a pretty typical thinker when it comes to understanding anarcho-communism. — Moliere

But he is essentially describing anarchy. I think there are lots of people who miss that anarchy isn't "Mad Max", it's just a society in which everyone exists as a collective without authority given to anyone specific.

With Anarchy as an aim and as a means, Communism becomes possible. Without it, it necessarily becomes slavery and cannot exist.

And if people want freedom on such an individual level that no state exists, you end up down in objectivism and Ayn Rand.

You have the authoritarian-liberal scale and the collective-individualism scale on there.
What other scale of liberty are you referring to? You are either totally free or you are free in a community-form. — Christoffer

Ah, perhaps I'm mistaking your chart for the political compass chart because of their superficial similarity.

But he is essentially describing anarchy. I think there are lots of people who miss that anarchy isn't "Mad Max", it's just a society in which everyone exists as a collective without authority given to anyone specific. — Christoffer

He is describing a particular kind of anarchy, but anarchy is multifarious. There are even, though they are (in my estimation) confused, anarcho-capitalists.

I understand that anarchy is not like Mad Max.

And if people want freedom on such an individual level that no state exists, you end up down in objectivism and Ayn Rand — Christoffer

I disagree with you here. Without a state, even a minimal state, to back up private property claims you do not have private property. You may have warlords or gangsters, but you don't have a court system to enforce contracts over private property.

The two aren't opposed.

Anarchy is against hierarchy of any kind. Communism is an economic model where ownership over land, capital, and labor is somehow collective rather than individual. — Moliere

In the communist economic model the market mechanism is replaced with central planning. Central planning is anything but anarchism.

Furthermore, that everywhere it was tried the communist endeavour lead to totalitarianism, hence totalitarianism is de facto an integral part of communism. Again quite different from the objectives of anarchism. But of course, trendy daydreamers in the political left have no problem mixing the two.

Depends on how you count "everywhere it was tried", and also what counts as totalitarianism for that matter. Libertarian communism has a rich history of its own. It's its own separate political line of thinking.

Or, of course, Lenin could just be referring to some non-existent trend in communism to ward against what may theoretically come to pass according to some theorists. :P -- I linked the two thinkers to demonstrate my meaning in a descriptive sense. It has both supporters and detractors, and has influenced institutional organization.

I disagree with you here. Without a state, even a minimal state, to back up private property claims you do not have private property. You may have warlords or gangsters, but you don't have a court system to enforce contracts over private property. — Moliere

True, but in anarchy, you are free to claim anything for yourself, but if you don't support the community you will be left alone and if you force yourself onto the community, they will bond together to get rid of you. Think a small village thousands of years ago with no attachment to any kingdom. Some African tribes used this anarchy type; where families came together to organize bigger things for the community, but no one was enforced by anyone other than other tribe-members, like when someone stopped helping within the community. Communism requires a state and authority, anarchy is anarchy.

In Objectivism, there is no community other than everyone's individually created one. If you want to find a place you need to take it or be a slave to masters. The only way to be happy is to embrace your own situation, become your own master, own your own slaves and create your own rules and laws within your property. It's essentially the kind of anarchy people usually think of because if society falls and we end up with nothing but survival, it's the kind of chaos and society that Mad Max represents, it's not anarchy, it's Ayn Rand. That's why the game Bioshock perfectly captures this; a society that bloomed because of Objectivism, but eventually fell due to its irrationality as a system in which power struggles between the powerful boils over and then end up with the type of Mad Max society people often mistake for anarchy.

ibertarian communism has a rich history of its own. It's its own separate political line of thinking. — Moliere

Libertarian communism is in my view an odd oxymoron. Now it's true that Leftist libertarianism has been overshadowed by right-wing libertarianism (and all the Ayn Randians).

In my view there's a glitch in the idea of libertarian communism, or in fact, any kind of libertarian thought that mixes with a totalitarian ideology. And that is that basically libertarianism starts from the fact that people are free, and free people simply won't adapt to one single ideology.

Hence in an the most optimum libertarian society, socialists and conservatives will enjoy the fruits of society quite well... and believe in their own ideologies, thanks to the freedom in the society. The most closest society to the (right-wing) libertarian ideals would be Switzerland, and it has implemented a lot of leftist/socialist ideas. And I'm sure there are Swiss people who find their country in many ways being against libertarian ideals.

True, but in anarchy, you are free to claim anything for yourself, but if you don't support the community you will be left alone and if you force yourself onto the community, they will bond together to get rid of you. — Christoffer

I disagree that you are free to claim anything -- in particular I highlighted land, labor, and capital. There is also often a notion of personal property, the sorts of things that one might own at home, vs. private property which is contrasted to public property. If someone personally owns a journal then you can't claim their personal property -- that's theirs.

What enforces this? The community does, as you said. But the community is not a state. According to anarchy the problem with the state is one of hierarchy -- where, with a state, there will always be rulers (of some sort), and thereby there will be the more important and the less important; the more powerful and the less powerful.

It's in the word itself -- an-archy. Against rulers, chiefs, kings, presidents, bosses, heads of household, or senators.

But, then, how does one enforce the community rules if they are violated? Does that not establish a kind of hierarchy? Not if everyone is involved in the decision-making process. Or, so one strand of anarchic thinking believes.

Communism requires a state and authority, — Christoffer

That depends on what you believe people will be like without a state.

Perhaps you might say that a criticism against anarcho-communism is that communism requires a state, and so the anarcho-communist is committed to a practical, if not theoretical, contradiction. I think much the same thing about anarcho-capitalists.

But from a historical perspective these two strands of thinking really have rich histories of their own.

And Lenin would say of your freedom that it is a bourgeois freedom, and not freedom proper -- that only the dictatorship of the proletariat as enacted by a vanguard revolutionary party in the interests of the working class can found a free society.

But if we adopt a more historical perspective we'll see that pretty much every political theorist throws criticisms and barbs at their opponents -- and while these can be insightful, it is also insightful to see what people have to say for themselves. And anarcho-communism, or libertarian communism, or Eurocommunism, or anarcho-syndicalism -- as in, the people who describe themselves in these terms -- say different things than you do about themselves.

Perhaps you might say that a criticism against anarcho-communism is that communism requires a state, and so the anarcho-communist is committed to a practical, if not theoretical, contradiction. I think much the same thing about anarcho-capitalists. — Moliere

Yes, anarcho-communism is a contradiction for me, it feels like communism is slapped onto anarchy in order to not frame it as pure anarchy, but it makes little sense. Anarcho-capitalists are down in the Ayn Rand objectivism, it's essentially Bioshock's Rapture.

That depends on what you believe people will be like without a state. — Moliere

I am too nihilistic to believe that a pure anarchy society can function in any way. It will most likely become an Ayn Rand nightmare. But it also has its roots in the sociological and psychological observations that groups of 12 are the maximum in which people can behave as a functional anarchy system, beyond that people start grouping together, form tribalism and if there is no over-arching authority someone will start calling the shots, demanding things from the other groups etc.

I think that sub-definitions of political forms doesn't really change the over-arching map. A scale of authority to liberal, collectivism to individualism is the most basic map we can define by and within it, we get those corners which makes sense according to the first scales. Central economy and capitalism forms naturally under them and slapping together different parts trying to create some combination are usually why they never work and become failed sub-category political movements. It's the "eat the cake and have it too" of politics. The only way to do that is to embrace Objectivism and take the cake, eat it and by gunpoint demand that the one who owned it makes more.

Yes, anarcho-communism is a contradiction for me, it feels like communism is slapped onto anarchy in order to not frame it as pure anarchy, but it makes little sense — Christoffer

Oh, no! That's not the point at all. It's to differentiate itself from Bolshevism or other forms of authoritarian communism, not to save anarchy. Anarchy doesn't have a pure form, really. And anarchists don't believe anarchy needs saving -- they like anarchy! :D

As one might expect of a group of people who don't submit to any authority anarchists have developed many, many strands and thoughts on the subject. About the only unifying theme seems to be a commitment to the abolishment of all hierarchies out of a belief that the root cause of social evils stems from said hierarchies.

I get the desire to clarify anarchy as not some sort of Mad Max scenario. I'm just trying to point out that anarchy has many forms, and one such form is anarcho-communism -- and, as I see it at least, the two basically predicate one another, but there's a difference between how one organizes and who owns what.

Though that kind of gets at the difference between what your chart says and what the political compass chart says.

I am too nihilistic to believe that a pure anarchy society can function in any way. It will most likely become an Ayn Rand nightmare. But it also has its roots in the sociological and psychological observations that groups of 12 are the maximum in which people can behave as a functional anarchy system, beyond that people start grouping together, form tribalism and if there is no over-arching authority someone will start calling the shots, demanding things from the other groups etc.

I think that sub-definitions of political forms doesn't really change the over-arching map. A scale of authority to liberal, collectivism to individualism is the most basic map we can define by and within it, we get those corners which makes sense according to the first scales. Central economy and capitalism forms naturally under them and slapping together different parts trying to create some combination are usually why they never work and become failed sub-category political movements. It's the "eat the cake and have it too" of politics. The only way to do that is to embrace Objectivism and take the cake, eat it and by gunpoint demand that the one who owned it makes more. — Christoffer

I don't think our charts and conceptualizations are as important as attending to the history of political movements. We can, after all, come up with some sort of theoretical concept that does not fit the world. Further I don't think that our personal incredulity about such and such an idea should guide our explorations very much, especially with respect to politics. The political systems we inhabit in our life -- whatever they may be -- have a vested interest in influencing our feelings on plausibility. This would be true in an anarchist society as much as it is true under liberal capitalism. if people have similar feelings of plausibility on what is possible for themselves then that increases group cohesion and stability, and a society which does that is more likely to propogate than a society which does not do that.

So if we want to understand the lay of the land like a political scientist or historian or philosopher then we have to put aside our immediate feelings of plausibility and read not just what people say of others, or what a theoretical frame might say, but also what people say of themselves as well as the actual history in practical institutions of said ideas -- because it is never the case that the actually-existing-institution matches the idea.

This isn't to say that there is a theory-neutral place from which we can actually lay out some kind of uber-map of all maps. There is not. But we can improve our understanding, in spite of that.