Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉A common tactic of anti-anarchist debate trolls is to demand examples of successful anarchist or non-state societies, their point being apparently that in the putative real world these would invariably become Mad Max or Somalia. Facts won't convince the aggressively ignorant, of course, but examples aren't hard to find. Just for instance maroons -- escaped slaves who established communities outside of state control -- in the Americas from the 16th century on are really interesting in this context and there's a ton of literature -- search "maroon" on libgen. I'm currently reading Daniel Sayers on marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp -- straddling the Virginia/North Carolina border -- from 1607-1860, which is fascinating. Here's a quote about one such community, maybe anarchist, maybe not, but definitely non-state and definitely persistent.
_______________
Life among scissioners and their communities was as minimally alienating as one can imagine—but, more important, perhaps as minimally alienating as any people have ever managed to achieve in the modern world. These were not communes that lasted a decade or so but rather communities and metacommunities that persisted across several generations, even if they did change during that long period.
The archaeological residues of this long-vanished mode of communitization at one site in particular, referred to as the nameless site, have yielded unassailable direct evidence, and much more additional indirect evidence, for a Diasporic community of individuals who followed rules of their own making and acceptance; who maintained community organization and coherence by generating custom and tradition; who labored for themselves and their fellow scissioners; and who existed as beings possessed of true consciousness, in the Marxian sense of truthful or accurate comprehension of the world around them derived from critical awareness of its real social conditions.
_______________
http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=2CC9C4BD690D8CF9568796BD8E240CE9
#Anarchy #Anarchism #Slavery #Virginia #NorthCarolina #GreatDismalSwamp #Maroons #Marronage
Jason_Dodd
Graydon
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the