Can we build durable institutions without domination?
Anarchism is often described like a bonfire: a political philosophy of no institutions, no coordination, just a perpetual “no.” But the anarchist claim is subtler and more demanding: end domination, not organization.
Anarchism is not an allergy to form; it’s an allergy to compulsory form.
What must die is hierarchy-as-default; what then remains is any structure we can justify by what it carries rather than whom it commands.
If an institution can absorb social shocks and stresses without extracting obedience, anarchism has room for it.
Public, Not Statist; Common, Not Corporatized
The core of this framework is a sharp line drawn between the public and the state, between the common and the corporate. The test for an anarchist institution is simple: legitimacy is earned by absorption—by how much remainder people don’t have to carry—not by ritual or rank.
Under these rules, access is universal by design; gatekeeping is the exception that must be justified. Coordination is federated: local where possible, regional where necessary, always with rights of exit and appeal. Budgets outrank branding, because a narrative never substitutes for protection. Anarchism, then, readily hosts institutions with real scale—they just can't be permission machines.
The Politics of Load Bearing
Variance is inevitable. Illness, economic downturns, climate shocks — they all arrive eventually. The political question isn’t if they come, but who absorbs the hit. Every society already runs a risk-management plan, making every government an engineering choice. What differs is not the existence of shocks, but
What These Institutions Look Like
These aren't fantasies. They already exist, often inside hostile regimes, and they work because inclusion is cheaper than policing it.
Libraries as universal absorbers. They are the quintessential anarchist institution: open stacks, no audition for help, and privacy by default. They expand their function to include social-worker kiosks, record-sealing clinics, and device lending. This is coordination without coercion—access first, paperwork last.
Unarmed crisis response. These programs divert calls from police and jails toward care. The metric isn’t awareness; it’s injury averted—overdoses reversed, ER trips avoided, and arrests prevented.
Universal school meals. No forms, no stigma. A cafeteria is a better anarchist than a grant program because it feeds first and argues never. Minnesota’s recent universal school meal program, for instance, saw participation in breakfast jump forty percent once the paperwork disappeared—proof that universality is sturdier and cheaper than means-testing (Beyond Deservingness).
Lifeline utilities and public options. Postal services, public transit, and municipal broadband with transparent tariffs and shut-off protections are anarchist infrastructure. When denial is tallied as “efficiency,” the design is technocratic, not public. Taiwan’s single-payer system shows how simple universal enrollment collapses overhead, while Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend demonstrates how collective ownership of shared resources can fund universal provision at scale (Universality Disincentivizes Surveillance).
Mutuals, co-ops, and community land trusts. In these models, members own the risk and the surplus. The business model rewards durability, not churn, and de-speculates essentials like shelter and food, absorbing price shocks upstream so eviction isn’t the downstream “discipline.”
Governance Without Domination?
An anarchist institution has teeth, just not fangs. Its governance feels less like obeying and more like maintaining. This is achieved through a few key mechanisms:
Charters with real power. If the absorber stops absorbing—if denials and churn rise—the charter can auto-trigger a redesign. Legitimacy is mechanical, not mythical.
Refusal and revision by design. Appeals are first-class workflows with deadlines, not suggestion boxes. People can say “no” or “you got it wrong” without forfeiting access. Any interface that can’t handle correction is a blame machine (What I Said Came Out Wrong).
Federation and forkability. Institutions should be forkable: any group can clone the rules to run their own instance, and any user can exit without losing essential protections. Forks discipline founders better than oaths do.
Funding without fealty. The perennial cudgel is, “Who pays?” Anarchism answers: those who benefit, pay—together. This can mean social floors that auto-enroll, cross-subsidies that privilege the vulnerable, or land-value capture to fund the absorbers built on shared ground.
A Politics of Service, Not Spectacle
Anarchism is not an allergy to form; it’s an allergy to compulsory form. Without institutions that catch what falls, freedom collapses into rationed luck and private charity. Conversely, without anarchist constraints, institutions drift into sanctifying harm, offering monuments and PR in place of budgets and uptime.
The arrangement is mutual: anarchism lends institutions a conscience; absorbers lend anarchism a chassis. The result is a politics that feels less like spectacle and more like service—less about who is honored, more about how little people have to carry. Any institution built on this rule has a home in anarchism, and a future beyond it:
Treat variance as non-negotiable; measure your legitimacy by the remainder people don’t have to bear.
Coercion as Fragility
When we think about the systems shaping our lives—whether in work, governance, healthcare, or resource distribution—one uncomfortable truth stands out: they don’t trust us. These systems are built on coercion, not collaboration. Punitive laws, surveillance, and exclusionary policies are framed as necessary safeguards for stability, masking harm as efficiency.