this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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Part of anarchism that bothers me is that without central authority keeping track of everything my ability to find specific help I need would be solely dependent on whether I or any of my friends know person with that particular set of skills.
Anarchism depends on free exchange of information, I'll give a real life example from people without an anarchist ideology to make this more approachable:
I've recently installed an arch-linux based operating system, knowing that there is ArchWiki to depend on if i need guidance on specific issues, that is solely because the arch community tries to be helpful and documents almost every issue or thing one might need help with.
So now I, someone who's new to linux (albeit with existing knowledge in software overall) and arch specifically, does not need to know anyone personally to fix my own issues.
Do note about this example, that this approach is limited by my existing knowledge and also by how accessible the wiki is, BUT, in other, simpler situations I wouldn't be as limited in my scope.
TL;DR: as long as people can exchange information (ideas, recipes, etc) comfortably, we can expect they will, and we can depend on information sources (libraries, platforms, etc.) to hone our skills, fix whatever we need in the moment, or whatever else.
PS. All anarchists advocate for bringing about a reality in which we all have more free time, so that we may reap the fruits of this and many other aspects of life we want to improve, read about other ideas for a more in-depth explanation.
If you're interested in more, read about Tool Libraries, I'd go into more details about all this but this comment is getting long enough :^).
I know what a tool is. And while I admire the ideals of renaissance men trying to become proficient in every possible skill, I would not trust a person who watched few videos and tinkered a bit with every single situation in my life.
I guess anarchism isn't something I would be able to work with.
Look, maybe given the situation you would try to become proficient "in every possible skill", most people will just focus on a few key ones, and maybe have a few auxiliary ones.
No one is telling you to put your life in the hand of a hobbyist, but if you had a big wooden table with a broken leg, would you rather buy a new table (seeing as actually finding someone who deals with woodwork in this economy is almost impossible), or go see a friend/neighbor/friend-of-friend who does woodwork as (mostly) a hobby, and trade favors with them in exchange for keeping your old table you are probably sentiment about for longer than expected?
Nothing in anarchisms stops doctors / patients from creating a website / list where they collect contacts and provide them to their community. Same goes trades, IT specialists etc.
Yes, but wouldn't whoever creates and manages that list became new equivalent of authority? They decide who is worthy to get on the list, and who can access it.
If the list is such an important resource that managing would give the person / people too much power, mechanism to mitigate that could be implemented either from the organizational side or from the technical.
Examples for organizational mitigations could be:
Technical mitigations might be:
Also like... why would you do that in a world where nobody else does that? Growing up / living in a society where sharing, solidarity, equal access to ressources etc. are the norm, its hard to imagine this being much of an issue. There wouldnt be a profit motive, being in a position of power would be undesirable and maybe even looked down upon and you could spend your effort for something actually fullfilling. But even if that issue would pop up, a society attuned to a anti authoritarian life style would be easily challenging that situation anyway. When capitalism, the state, and hopefully other systems of power are out of the way, this small problem would probably get dealt with in a single meeting or mediation session. Because its so miniscule in the grand scheme of things.
We're on the fediverse, if you don't like one server you go to another. Maybe you moved here from reddit? Systems can be created with anarchism in mind.
What central authority pairs you with finding specific help today? When I need to find someone, I generally search online and connect myself with people I need to.
Internet, of course!
By central authority in this case I mean any list, forum, chat, collection etc. that gathers information like "A person X has competences Y and office in place Z with contact number Q". Whoever manages, control that list becomes effectively able to dictate who and why should be accessible to public.
By saying that you search online you support Google, Bing or any other specific search algorithm as the global central authority
You can also have wikis or defederated platform, you should know, you're on one...
Internet is the definition of a decentralised information sharing system, though. If you don't like your current search engine, you swap to another. If you can't find the information you need on one forum, you go to another. If you have the information more accurate and up to date than the list you find online, you update it (if it's in a wiki format) or contact its author to contribute.
Centralisation of the internet is the direct result of authorities trying to impose their will on people who didn't consent to it.