Anarchy 101 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Anarchy 101: General Thoughts on Appropriation

May 22, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

Links: “Take me to the river…” (2010) “Practicing the Encounter: Appropriation (and Ecology)” (2013) “Notes on What is Property?” (2019) “New Things and Old Words in Proudhon’s Late Works” (2022) This is the second in a series of documents addressing the various questions surrounding the notion of property. Archic property is theft. — Let’s start with a very minor revision of Proudhon’s infamous judgment, clarifying that, having started to address property in its full range of meanings, we can specify a particular variety of property that is the natural object of anarchistic critique. We can then — after a few […]

Anarchy 101: Archy, Property and the Possibility of An-archic Property

May 20, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

Links: “Notes on Anarchy and Hegemony in the Realm of Definitions” This is the first in a series of documents addressing the various questions surrounding the notion of property. One key difficulty in providing a general account of basic anarchist theory is that, once a few basics have been established, it’s hard not to find yourself talking — or trying to talk — about everything all at once. Anarchists often get around this difficulty by relying instead on narrower accounts, where the general programs of particular anarchist tendencies take the place of a broad and general theory of anarchism as […]

Anarchy 101: Notes on Force and Authority

April 26, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

Some of the most basic concepts in anarchist theory can prove terribly slippery when we try to apply them — sometimes even when we apply them with great care. Authority is arguably the most difficult of these notions to tame, which obviously poses problems for us, given the central place of anti-authoritarian critique in anarchist analyses. So, in response to some questions that have emerged since the first post on authority and hierarchy, I want to spend just a little more time exploring the concept in the context of anarchist theory.

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A Return to the Question of the “Polity-Form”

March 2, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

The polity-form, then, in its simplest sense, is the form given to social collectivities when they are accounted for, explained, “realized” (in the language used by Louis Blanc in 1849-50), etc. by a transformation into political units. In this process, individuals — participants in the social relations that give rise to these social collectivities — are reimagined as citizens, subjects, members of the political unit, with rights, duties, privileges, etc. granted or imposed as a result. This governmental relation seems inescapably hierarchical — although in certain instances of extensive, stable consensus that hierarchy might be considered more or less “voluntary” (if only because there is no occasion for enforcement.)

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Anarchy 101: Thinking about Authority and Hierarchy

February 24, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

It is common, when discussing anarchist critiques of “hierarchy” and “authority,” to encounter conflicts between those who consider anarchism a critique of all hierarchy and every form of authority and those who, for one reason or another, object that it is only certain forms of hierarchy and authority that anarchists oppose — or should oppose. We are reminded of “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” Bakunin’s “authority of the bootmaker,” etc. For our purposes here, I want to present a general framework that draw sharp distinctions between anarchy and these other elements of social organization.

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Anarchy 101: Thinking about “Crime”

February 11, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

This is the first in a series of documents attempting to frame the discussion of key concepts in anarchist theory. The goal is to address a series of frequently asked questions, not necessarily by giving definitive answers to them — as that may often be impossible — but at least by summarizing the particular considerations imposed by a fairly consistently anarchistic approach to the analysis. That means attempting to examine the questions in a context where there is no question of “legitimate” authority, “justified” hierarchy or any of the various sorts of “good government,” “anarchist legal systems,” etc. The guiding assumption here is that the simplest conception of anarchy is one that can be clearly distinguished from every form of archy. If self-proclaimed anarchists might perhaps choose to embrace approaches that are, in practice, more complex or equivocal, there is presumably still value for them in the presentation of more starkly drawn alternatives. For some of us, of course, there simply is no question of any compromise between anarchy and archy.

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