Thread: Anarchism and Leadership
Perhaps you have encountered one or both of these related ideas:
- That every society inevitably has leaders of some kind, or
- That every leader exercises command, so that
- No truly egalitarian society without hierarchy of command is likely or even impossible.
I have frequently seen these arguments deployed in an effort to invalidate anarchism. A summary would go something like this: “anarchism is impossible, or at least we have no evidence that anarchism could be possible, because even the most primitive tribe has chiefs or elders, and these leaders issue commands that must be obeyed.”
I thought it would be worth unpacking this a bit.
1/12
Perhaps you have encountered one or both of these related ideas:
- That every society inevitably has leaders of some kind, or
- That every leader exercises command, so that
- No truly egalitarian society without hierarchy of command is likely or even impossible.
I have frequently seen these arguments deployed in an effort to invalidate anarchism. A summary would go something like this: “anarchism is impossible, or at least we have no evidence that anarchism could be possible, because even the most primitive tribe has chiefs or elders, and these leaders issue commands that must be obeyed.”
I thought it would be worth unpacking this a bit.
1/12
