On the internet I don’t see too many Anarchists give arguments past “communism doesn’t work because communists are doomed to repeat the same exploitative power structures of the capitalist state” and “we dont know what an anarchist society will look like we gotta wait til we get there!” Which like…is not convincing to me at all. I’ve engaged in what was supposed to be consensus based decision making systems and there were a ton of flaws, though that’s purely anecdotal.
So, I’d really like to have some suggestions on what to read that you think might really challenge where I stand/take anarchism more seriously. It might take me 5 years to get to them bc executive dysfunction but I really want to see if my mind can be changed on if it would be a better system from the get go than communism.
I think it would be super interesting to hear from anyone who shifted into anarchism from Marxism on why it made more sense to you
Yeah, being a punk I was introduced to (mostly) edgelord/accelerationist “anarchists” lol. There seems to be a fairly active anarchist community where I live; from what I remember it was thriving in the 90’s here too. There’s a ton of share fairs, FNB, mutual aid groups, etc. During some of the bad first wildfires here a mutual aid network sprang up overnight and it was so so impressive, I helped out a bit with delivering groceries to people without transportation or who were medically vulnerable to the intense smoke. It was very cool; that’s some anarchist shit I DO like.
That’s cool. When shit popped off in '20 it was very heartening seeing mutual aid systems pop up like mushrooms.