What is a good text on what an anarchist world/society would look like?

Question

i.e. what networks/institutes would exist and how would they be connected.

Comments

You could try Nostradamus' “Les Propheties”.

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The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin is good.  Also, there is a section of the anarchy faq at http://www.anarchyfaq.org on this.

Answer 1

uh, if i read your question as "what an anarchist society *could* look like", and ignore the loaded terminology of institutions, then i can suggest bolo bolo by pm, which is expected to be back in print in a couple of months.

there is also The Dispossessed (or Always Coming Home) by leguin, of course.

if you meant some text that is not (science) fiction, then i have nothing for you.

edit: for a good survey of some utopian fiction, done by anarchist Marie Louise Berneri (yay!), read Journey through Utopia.

edit two: james c scott writes about societies without government (i was kind of trying to avoid anthropology, but <shrug>). and a new VERY techno-friendly/techno-reliant anarchist vision is in cory doctorow's book Walkaway, which i'm reading atm.

Comments

I have to second Dispossessed, have yet to read ACH or Bolo'bolo. I am doubtful that the technologicl infrastructure presented in Dispossessed is actually compatable with an anarchist society, but leaving that aside, Leguin does a good job there.

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https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8884417/bolobolo.pdf

Answer 2

"News from Nowhere" by William Morris (1890)

Comments

I downvoted this because William Morris was not an anarchist, and, going along with that, News from Nowhere idealizes the sexual division of labor with women just loving to do domestic housework.
Its obvious that the book was written by a patriarch who wants women to more respected but still "keep their place...in the kitchen."

Fuck this patriarchal bullshit.

Answer 3

You can read Peter Kropotkin's  "The Conquest of Bread", also, you can read about "Free territory" of Ukraine, a.k.a "Makhnovshina"

Answer 4

I also recommend Le Guin's The Dispossessed, primarily because it's an anarchist world I think many anarchists would not like, in which new forms of impersonal authority have arisen. Because it's problematic, it's better food for thought. Also creepily like the Zeitgeist utopia.

As for what anarchist societies have already looked like, try "Anarchy Works." Free pdfs are easy enough to find.
http://www.ramshackleglory.com/anarchyworks.pdf

Answer 5

1. "The Headman was a Woman: the Gender Egalitarian Batek of Malaysia" by Kirk M. Endicott and Karen L. Endicott, 2008, has relevance to anarchist, feminist, anti-civ practices. Here's the relevant chapters excerpted: http://pastebin.ca/2109140

2. The ethnographic parts of "The Continuum Concept" by Jean Liedloff.

3. "Anarchy Works" by Peter Gelderloos.

4. "Anarchy In Action" by Colin Ward.

Answer 6

I suggest this text by Peter Kropotkin http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Petr_Kropotkin__Communism_and_Anarchy.html . What is interesting about it is the fact that he criticizes small communal experiments of the past in order to project a truly libertarian alternative in contrast to religious or ideological experiments.

Answer 7

why not take a shot at writing your own? doesn't have to be stellar prose, or a great story, or ANYTHING other than your own ideas (even bullet points) about what your world might look like minus institutions of authority and all the rest.