No Rules, No Rulers: A Response to the Idea That Anarchy is When We Have Rules But No Rulers

The anarchism described in this article as "genuine" has never existed in the world and excludes all existing formations. This is something they need to investigate further and be explicit about, particularly given how unfairly dismissive they are towards other formations. The most generous interpretation is that anarchism is a far-off ambition, but this also flies in the face of anarchist organizing and actions taken by anarchists historically, who seek to establish anarchist social relations as quickly as possible in a given polity, even in just months or years.

The extent to which the article is just meandering (and often false) polemic may reveal why these errors were made. Self-criticism is the most important form, questioning one's own ideas amd how they measure against one's standards for others and the overall political project. They spent so many words not getting to the point and the point ends up being weak, unable to frame the central goal as a real historical project with any kind of immediacy.

I kinda get their point, but i feel like it's using a relatively specific meaning of the word "rule" : to me, not all rules imply external enforcement. For example, rules of a game rely solely on players good will. Or "principles" of an anarchist community are still rules, even if they just rely on people respecting them to exist. But that may also come of my limited understanding of english : is the necessity of coercion really necessarily included in the meaning of "rule" ?

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