Can a one society exist within another society? In particular, can an anarchist society exist within our deluded world? This is a question that has plagued me as long as my philosophies have been along the anarchist lines. Is it possible or must the dead tree be purged in order to grow the new flower? For all of these questions, unfortunately, there seem to be dozens of new questions.

To start, it seems reasonably possible to create a bubble of near isolation (societally) in which a small grouping of individuals could live as close as humanly possible to a egalitarian, utopian (i.e., anarchist) society. It has been done, as many of the communes of the past and present can attest to. The idea is sound enough: Step one, gather a group of like minded people into a residence; step two, live communally. Yes its an over-simplification, but at present I’m not prepared to go into detail (how to do it is an entirely different article – hell, a whole zine on its own). In any case, whether it was a lengthy or brief situation, despite natural or unnatural (the corporate overlords flexing their muscles worriedly) situations, it has been done.

Basically, what I want to examine is how a community could escape the confines of normal society, as well as how it would be repressed. It would be extremely difficult to do this. The main reason is that those in power fear the idea of anyone living without at least a small amount of their influence. I suppose the best way to look closely at this would be to present different scenarios:

A commune manages to acquire some land that is somehow independent from any countries grasp. It declares itself an anarchist commune, an independent land, etc.

A commune takes existing land, declares independence.

A commune (and this is the most unlikely situation) is granted independence from a government by a government.

Now, I’d like to compare and contrast the situations. Within these (and any other possibilities) lies one fundamental issue, which I mentioned earlier: Those with power, or wealth (or both) desire to control all that they see. The main problem is that those with power or money control military and propaganda sources. When looking at the first situation, as unlikely as it is that any land out of any government’s jurisdiction exists, if it were so, it would be unlikely that any countries that were power or land hungry would simply ignore this fortuitous opportunity. A group of peaceful, generally harmless individuals (though possibly armed) would be easy pickings for any such opportunist.

Let’s examine part two in this situation. This would obviously be the most forceful of the three scenarios. This essentially constitutes armed revolt or even rebellion against a government. Herein lies the basic problem. Very few groups, despite any military talent (which I certainly don’t have) are even remotely a challenge for any government with superior force, firepower and technology. Basically, what’s the point of having a peace loving, anarchist society if everyone dies trying to get there? Now it is possible that some governments would find this barely a threat and allow your little group to survive, or even send limited forces, but honestly, think about it: your existence is a threat to them. What if your little society succeeds (which I feel, if not interfered with, it very well should). This is a direct usurping of their power and status. If people were aware that an “Anarchist Society” could succeed, they may very well have some explaining to do, or even a full-scale revolution. Aside from that, it goes against their alpha-male need for dominion over everything they can see, smell, feel, hear or taste.

The third scenario is unlikely to ever exist for much the same reason I just mentioned. The only possibility I could ever see is if you lived in such an open society that the government that you lived under felt completely at ease with your existence. Such a society obviously does not exist (otherwise I certainly wouldn’t feel obliged to write this article).

Continuing onwards, I do feel compelled to mention that so far, I admit, it seems rather negative for the prospects of constructing this exo-societal “bubble”. But I don’t necessarily see it that way. There are other options, even within the given three. Historically we see negative reflections to the actions of anarchist societies. We see the police tearing apart the Paris Commune. We see the many attempts by Kropotkin, Bakunin, Goldman, etc. We see the failures of the Russian Anarchists in the revolution and the crushing defeat the anarchists in Spain by Franco’s Fascists (who encouragingly numbered around one and a half million). But at the same time, we do see minor successes on small levels; communes that have lasted for at least a few years. Even within the punk community there are examples of collectives and communes that have lasted and continue to last. Even within the defeat of the Spanish Anarchists there is the notion that they did last for a few years as a larger scale collective, and may have been able to continue for years afterwards, barring outward destructive interference.

One possibility that I could foresee being successful is something on a smaller scale within the confines (land-wise at least). This is something like an anarchist apartment complex (this is something that I’d like to explore in more depth, and maybe I’ll even write an article about it). My notion being that you gather a large group of anarchist tenants and pool funds to purchase a pre-existing apartment complex and its land. Each tenant would also act as super and maintenance for their own section. However incomplete the thought, it’s still something to mull over.

Another idea is similar to the list above. This is more of a ‘what if?’ than anything. The what if portion being: What if we just subsisted out on a chunk of land and hoped nobody noticed? Also a tad bit simplistic, I admit, but it’s a start I suppose.

What I’d like to stress the most in this article is hope. That and how important it is to keep imagining and dreaming. Ideas must be exchanged and formed in order for us to reach our goal and to liberate ourselves and hopefully hum_nity. 

* I suppose its somewhat of a namby-pamby finish to the article, and I wish I or someone else had a definite answer or means to escape this shithole we call the government, to break the chains of society. But in order to do this, we must innovate ideas already in existence, or create new ones. Thanks for your time.

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