If two young children meet outside in a playground, and one of them has a ball, it wont be long before they are passing it to each other. Then, if a third child comes along, within minutes they’ve invented a new game, which is improvised and adjusted as they go. Humans are naturally creative and collaborative like this. These are some of the oldest human instincts.

For most of human existence, not just the last few centuries of recorded history we tend to fixate on, but the hundreds of thousands of years humanity has been around, people lived in ways that look, to us in our modern world, as almost unrecognisable. Anthropologists and archaeologists have discovered that we often organised ourselves, in the similar cooperative ways that children do, even at a larger scale.

This wasn’t because we were less intelligent (we weren’t, survival took more intelligence back then), nor was it because life was brutal and short (that’s a story told much later, by people with something to gain from it). But because the basic organising principle of daily life wasn’t ownership of things, and earning a living by working for someone else.

Back then you worked as much land as you could work in a day1, without paying someone else to do it. You took from the forest what you needed, and didn’t take any more to sell it. You grazed your animals where there was grass, which was usually on land you all shared. And so did everyone else, not in competition, but alongside each other, within a web of informal agreements that everyone understood because everyone had grown up inside them.

There was no deed. No title. No fence (and when those were invented it was to keep wild animals – not people – out). The relationship between a person and the land they worked was immediate and practical: you had an immediate temporary claim on it because you were using it, and your claim lapsed when you weren’t. Anthropologists call this ‘usufruct’, the right to benefit from something you don’t own, though the people living this way wouldn’t have needed a word for it, any more than fish need a word for water.

The historian James C. Scott, drawing on archaeological and anthropological evidence across multiple continents, showed that early human communities were far more mobile, flexible, and resistant to fixed hierarchy than we tend to assume. Hunter-gatherer bands moved seasonally, following resources rather than claiming them. When things got scarce, they moved on. When they returned, the land had recovered. This wasn’t accident. It was a practice developed, transmitted, and refined across generations. It was called the commons.

‘Ours’ before ‘mine’

The commons begins, as most things do, with family. Think about how resources move within a household. Nobody invoices their partner for cooking dinner. Nobody charges their child for the use of a bedroom. There’s no market inside a family, because the relationships are organised around need and reciprocity rather than transaction. What’s mine is available to you, what’s yours is available to me, and we’re both better off for it.

This logic extended outward, to neighbours, to the village, to the wider community, for most of human history. The commons wasn’t a formal institution imposed from above, it was the natural shape that cooperation takes when people live closely together and depend on the same land.

Scholars used to assume, following Adam Smith, that before money there was barter, that people traded wheat for shoes and meat for pots in a primitive version of the marketplace. The anthropologist David Graeber spent years looking for ancient evidence of this barter economy and couldn’t find any. No society has ever been documented that organised itself primarily through the exchange of goods between individuals. What actually existed, everywhere, were systems of mutual obligation, gift, and reciprocal support. The shoemaker didn’t trade shoes for wheat, the community fed the shoemaker, and the shoemaker kept everyone’s feet dry. Debts were social rather than financial. Memory and relationship did the work that money later claimed to do.

This matters because the standard story, that markets are natural and ownership is instinctive and competition is the default, is not history. It’s a story told backwards, projecting the assumptions of the present onto a past that worked very differently.

How the commons worked

In medieval England, most of the land was managed as commons. Villagers held strips of arable land for their own crops, but the woodlands, meadows, and pastures surrounding the village were shared. These weren’t free-for-alls. They were governed by detailed, locally negotiated rules about how many animals each family could graze, when different areas could be used, and how much timber could be taken and for what purpose.

The rights had names: pasture (grazing), estovers (collecting wood for fuel and repairs)2, piscary (fishing), pannage (letting pigs forage in woodland), and turbary (cutting peat). These were customary entitlements, handed down and understood, later enforced by the community through the manorial courts. If someone overgrazed their allocation, neighbours would say so. Social pressure, reputation, and long memory were the mechanisms of governance.

Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009 for her research on exactly this question, documented hundreds of commons systems across the world that functioned for generations without collapse: Swiss alpine pastures managed collectively since the sixteenth century, irrigation systems in Spain and Japan organised through village assemblies, fishing communities in Maine that developed their own informal territorial rules without any government involvement. Her conclusion, backed by decades of careful fieldwork, was that communities managing shared resources are perfectly capable of doing so without collapsing into conflict or depletion, provided they can make their own rules, monitor compliance themselves, and adapt as conditions change.

None of this required a state. None of it required a market. It required trust, communication, and a shared stake in the outcome.

There’s a theory, popular since the 1960s, called the ‘tragedy of the commons’. It claims that any shared resource will inevitably be overexploited, because each individual has an incentive to take more than their share before anyone else does. It’s taught in economics departments and cited to justify privatisation. As a description of how actual commons worked, it is also wrong. The economist Garrett Hardin, who coined the phrase, wasn’t describing a commons at all. He was describing an open-access resource with no rules and no community. Real commons had both. The tragedy he described was the tragedy of the market, not the commons.

Rights and obligations

In a commons, rights and obligations come as a pair. You can’t pull them apart. The right to graze your animals on the common pasture came with the obligation not to overgraze. The right to collect firewood came with the understanding that you wouldn’t strip a hillside bare. The right to fish the local stream came with the expectation that you’d leave enough to breed. These weren’t constraints imposed on freedom from outside, they were the conditions that made the freedom possible in the first place.

This is very different from how we talk about rights today, where the emphasis falls entirely on individual entitlement: what I am owed, what I can do, and what cannot be taken from me. The commons tradition held that rights were relational. They existed in the space between people, and they only worked because everyone was bound by the same obligations to everyone else.

The Franciscan theologians had a phrase for this: juri divino omni sunt communia, by divine law, all things are held in common. The argument wasn’t sentimental but structural: the earth is not anyone’s to own absolutely, and we are all of us tenants here, with obligations to each other and to what comes after us. According to the biblical book of Acts, this was the way the early Christians lived. However, you don’t have to share the theology to recognise the logic.

The commons is not just land

It’s tempting to think of the commons as a historical land arrangement belonging to a pre-industrial world that has no bearing on ours. But the commons is a practice before it’s a place, and that practice turns up wherever people choose to share rather than compete.

Consider the seeds that farmers have saved and exchanged for ten thousand years, the accumulated knowledge of what grows where, encoded in the varieties themselves, passed from hand to hand across generations. Or the folk songs or fairy tales that nobody owns. Or the mathematical theorems that belong to everyone who understands them.

Commons can be the common practice, or even an act of rebellion. Consider Sci-Hub. In 2011, a Kazakhstani graduate student named Alexandra Elbakyan set up a website that made tens of millions of academic papers freely available to anyone who wanted them. Much of this is publicly funded scientific and medical research — work that could benefit any of us, paid for by our taxes — produced by researchers, peer-reviewed by other researchers (usually for free), then locked behind journal paywalls that charged universities (including those which did the research) hundreds of millions of pounds a year for access, and individuals up to £30/$40 for a single article. Sci-Hub removed the paywall. By 2025 it had indexed over eighty-five million papers. It is the largest library of scientific knowledge in human history, and it exists because one person decided that knowledge is a commons and acted accordingly, without asking permission.

The commons is anywhere that people create or maintain something together, without privatising the result. It’s the pub where regulars know each other’s names and someone gets a round in. It’s the allotment where people swap surplus vegetables over the fence. It’s the mutual aid group that organised food deliveries during the Covid lockdown. It’s the community workshop where anyone can use the lathe or the maker shop where they share the 3D printer.

Why the commons threatens power

The commons didn’t become obsolete. It wasn’t replaced because we found a better way. The commons had to be destroyed rather than simply outgrown, and there’s a reason for that.

A community that feeds itself from shared land does not need an employer. A community that maintains its own water supply does not need a water company. A community that shares knowledge freely does not need to buy it. Wherever it exists, the commons reduces dependence on the market and on the state, and dependence is the mechanism through which both extract their power.

Dominance hierarchies, whether political or economic, require that the people below them have limited alternatives. A worker who could survive without wages has leverage. A tenant who could house themselves without a landlord has power. A community that can meet its own needs without the mediation of capital or state is, from the perspective of capital and the state, a problem.

The commons also does something more subtle and perhaps more threatening: it demonstrates, in practice, that people can organise their own affairs. Every Swiss alpine community that has managed its pastures for five centuries is evidence against the claim that human beings are too selfish or too chaotic to cooperate without authority over them. Every Wikipedia article is evidence against the claim that people won’t contribute without payment. The commons doesn’t just provide resources, it provides proof that a better way is possible.

Commoning as prefiguration

There’s a word in radical politics for the practice of building the world you want to live in rather than waiting for permission to do so: prefiguration. The idea is that you plant the seeds of a better world within the one you already inhabit, and tend them through community, rather than trying to overthrow the competitive world head-on. The means and the ends have to match. You can’t build a free society through authoritarian methods, any more than you can poison the water upstream of your enemies without poisoning yourself downstream.

The commons is prefiguration in its oldest form. Long before anyone coined a political theory of it, communities were organising themselves without bosses, distributing resources without markets, resolving disputes without courts. This wasn’t an experiment, but ordinary life. The commons didn’t prove that a better world was possible. It proved that one already existed, in fragments and patches, everywhere people chose to put their shared life ahead of their individual advantage.

Contemporary commons are doing the same thing. The free software licences that prevent code being enclosed by corporations, the community land trusts that take housing out of the property market, the cooperatives that give workers control of their workplace, the Mondragon cooperatives in the Basque Country that have sustained over eighty thousand worker-owners across interconnected businesses since the 1950s. They’re not arguing for an alternative. They’re building one.

There’s a Zapatista phrase, preguntando caminamos, ‘asking questions, we walk’. You don’t need to know where you’re going before you set off. The path is made by walking it, and the questions you ask along the way are part of how you find your footing. The commons doesn’t offer a blueprint, it offers a practice.

It asks what it would mean to manage this resource together, to make these decisions in common, to hold this thing for everyone rather than extracting value from it for a few. And then it gets on with doing that, while the argument about whether it’s possible continues somewhere else.

What we already know

We already know how to do this. We’ve always known. Every time you share without keeping score, every time a community decides something together, every time knowledge is passed on freely, every time a resource is managed with future generations in mind, the commons is happening. It isn’t a foreign idea imported from theory. It’s what people do when nobody is forcing them to do otherwise.

The commons is the default. What replaced it took violence, law, and centuries of effort to install. For most of human history, most people most of the time understood that the earth was something you belonged to, not something you owned. The land fed you because you tended it, and you tended it because it fed you, and the same was true for everyone around you. That’s not nostalgia. It’s most of human history.

The children in the playground didn’t need to be taught how to share. They had to be taught not to.

The kingdoms of the world are yours 
each heart self-governed 
the vast family of love 
raised from the common earth 
by common toil 
enjoy the equal produce 
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Bibliography

• David Graeber & David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021.

• James C. Scott, Against the Grain, 2017.

• Massimo De Angelis, Omnia Sunt Communia, 2017.

• David Bollier, Think Like a Commoner, 2014.

• David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, 2011.

• James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 2009.

• Peter Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto, 2008.

• Christopher Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest, 1999.

• J.M. Neeson, Commoners, 1993

• E.P. Thompson, Customs in Common, 1991.

• Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 1990.

• Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 1972.

• Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, 1944.

• Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, 1902.

‘There is no such thing as a free lunch.’ Few phrases have implied so much in so few words. We’re told it’s just common sense, that it is a truth so obvious it can’t be argued against. Economist Milton Friedman used it as a book title. The right-wing propertarian (so called libertarian) movement made it practically a creed. But it contains, like most ideological common sense, a grain of truth wrapped around a large and consequential lie.

The grain of truth is real enough: resources are finite, choices have costs, somebody somewhere pays for things. That’s fine as far as it goes. But notice what the phrase does with that observation. It takes a description of how markets work and quietly slides it into a prescription for how the world must work, and must always work. It tells you that the hungry have only themselves to blame, that post-scarcity is a fantasy, that the only honest transaction is one where you pay your way. It is economics dressed up as physics.

What the phrase conceals is the actual history of how people have fed themselves for most of human existence – not through markets, but through commons: through collectively shared resources.

The Original Free Lunch

Before the enclosures stripped them bare, the commons of England were not a tragedy waiting to happen. They were a functioning system. Villagers grazed animals, gathered wood, fished streams and harvested fields on shared land, governed by community rules built up over generations. Nobody owned the commons in the sense of being able to exclude others from it. Everybody had a stake. The free lunch (meaning food and fuel that did not require you to first sell your labour to someone else) was not a fantasy. It was available every day of the week.

The enclosures ended that. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, land that communities had worked in common was seized, fenced, and turned into private property. The people who had depended on it were not compensated. They were simply told to leave, and then told — by Ricardo, Malthus, and a whole chorus of economists — that their poverty was natural, inevitable, and probably their own fault. The Iron Law of Wages held that workers would always be paid just enough to survive, and that this was simply how things were. Darwin arrived later to confirm it: nature red in tooth and claw, survival of the fittest, with no free lunches anywhere in the animal kingdom. Except, of course, that’s not how animals actually behave (we’ll come back to that).

The Religious Tradition

One of the oldest arguments against the idea of their being ‘no free lunch’ comes from an unexpected quarter: The Christian tradition (including the Jewish legal tradition from which it grew) insisted that basic subsistence was a right, not a reward. The Mosaic law required landowners to leave the edges of their fields unharvested so that the poor could glean. It cancelled debts every seven years. It forbade charging interest. It held that the hungry traveller was entitled to eat from any field they passed through, so long as they took only what they needed. The manna in the wilderness, famously, could not be hoarded, but rotted overnight, removing any possibility of accumulation.

The theological logic behind all of this was straightforward: if God made the earth and everything in it, then no human being can claim ultimate ownership of its fruits. What looks like ‘your’ land, ‘your’ harvest, or ‘your’ surplus is held in trust. You are a steward, not an owner. And stewardship comes with obligations to the poor, the stranger, the widow, and the landless.

This is the tradition that Hugh Nibley, a Mormon scholar relied upon in his 1982 lecture titled Work We Must But The Lunch Is Free. Nibley was not a radical in any conventional sense, but his reading of scripture led him somewhere that would make most economists deeply uncomfortable. He described two competing ‘employers’: one who offers lunch only in exchange for obedience and toil, and another who says, ‘forget about lunch, do the work that matters, and the lunch will be provided.’ The first employer, Nibley noted, holds power precisely because he controls the food supply. The second asks you to trust that you don’t have to worry about scarcity.

Nibley was writing from faith. But his argument translates remarkably well into secular terms, because the thing that, in his account, provides the free lunch is not really a supernatural intervention – it is community. It is the accumulated abundance of a shared world, distributed by collective agreement rather than individual transaction. If we strip out the theology what we have left is a description of the commons.

Paul, Lenin, and the Question of Eating

However, like many Biblical principles, there are interpretations which argue the opposite case. Such is the situation with Paul’s injunction in his second epistle to the Thessalonians: ‘he who does not work, neither shall he eat.’ This is a commandment which seems to contradict Jesus’ own teachings and practice. If we are to believe the Gospel accounts, he fed five thousand people on a hillside and asked nothing of them in return, he told his followers to take no thought for what they would eat or drink, he described the kingdom of heaven as a banquet to which everyone was invited regardless of what they had earned, and he reserved his harshest words not for the idle but for the rich. Yet Paul’s line has become the ‘tough love’ of many Christian denominations, and is the passage reached for when the question of the undeserving poor comes up.

These words have travelled far beyond Christianity to take root in the philosophy of Vladimir Lenin, who cited it approvingly, embedded it in the Soviet constitution, and applied it during the Russian Civil War to enforce grain requisitioning. The slogan resurfaced during the Soviet Ukrainian famine of 1932–33 (the Holodomor) where it shaped how the state decided who deserved to eat.

For Marx, the defining principle of a socialist society was not punishment of idleness but the organisation of production around human need. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, he put it simply: ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.’ (Quoting Louis Blanc, 1839) This was an essential part of socialism’s definition known as decommodification: production for need, not for sale. A society still distributing resources on the basis of how much labour you had performed was not yet socialist, it was capitalism with different management.

Lenin’s position was that the Soviet state was not ready for this and that it was not yet capable of it. He argued that the habits of capitalism were too deeply ingrained. So the religious Pauline slogan became official secular policy: work for the state, or go without. What Marx had described as the a failure of capitalism became, in Lenin’s hands, its replacement. Trotsky, later, put the practical outcome more plainly: the old rule, ‘he who does not work shall not eat’, had been quietly replaced by a new one, ‘he who does not obey shall not eat.’ Applied by a state that controlled both the food supply and the definition of ‘work’, it became a tool of coercion dressed in the language of fairness.

The Freedom Problem

Here is the argument that tends to get lost in all of this: you cannot make genuinely free choices if your survival is at stake. This is not a sentimental point. It is a structural one. Consent requires alternatives. If saying no to an employer means your children don’t eat, then your ‘yes’ means nothing. If leaving a dangerous relationship means destitution, then you haven’t really chosen to stay. If the only way to access food, shelter and medicine is to sell your labour on whatever terms the market offers, then the market is not a free one. It is one owned by others, who charge an admission fee. With purchasing, renting, interest payments, and tolls being the price of permission to enter.

The right-wing libertarian (propertarian) tradition is oddly blind to this. It celebrates the freedom of the contract whilst ignoring that contracts between people with wildly unequal power – for example a Victorian mill owner offering subsistence wages to a homeless family just thrown off their common land – are not really fair agreements in any meaningful sense. For the workers they are just a form of being coerced into surrendering in order to survive, with legal paperwork to enforce the advantage the company owner has over them.

Robert Owen understood this, at least in part. At New Lanark in the early 1800s, he provided his workers with decent housing, schools for their children, and a co-operative store. The results were striking: productivity rose, and the community thrived. Owen drew from this the conclusion that human character is formed by environment, that people behave badly not because of innate wickedness but because bad conditions make bad behaviour rational. Give people security and dignity, and they’ll respond accordingly.

The trouble with this situation was that Owen remained the boss. He built the mill town, created the schools and housing, and never gave the workers control over their own work, because it would have meant losing his personal control. The generosity was real, but it was dispensed from above. The workers of New Lanark were better off than workers elsewhere, but they were not free in any full sense, they were dependent on Owen’s continued benevolence and his continued ownership of the mill. Material security is essential for freedom, but if it depends on the goodwill of an owner, it is neither secure nor free. As the workers of New Lanark discovered the moment Owen left, and his partners promptly ran the experiment into the ground.

Would UBI Solve This?

Universal Basic Income gets raised at this point as the obvious fix: give everyone unconditional income, and the coercive element of wage labour dissolves. People could say no to bad jobs, bad employers, and bad conditions. The free lunch problem disappears.

It helps. But it doesn’t resolve everything, and it matters a great deal how a UBI is designed and what it replaces. A UBI funded by cutting existing social provision (healthcare, housing, social care) simply redistributes poverty differently whilst dismantling the collective infrastructure people actually depend on. A UBI set below subsistence still leaves people choosing between bad options. And a UBI that leaves the ownership of productive resources (land, factories, and technology) entirely in private hands leaves the fundamental power imbalance intact. You can turn down this employer, but some employer still owns everything you need.

The deeper issue is that the ‘no free lunch’ ideology operates not just at the level of income but at the level of property. The question isn’t only whether you have enough money to buy what you need, it’s who owns the land, who owns the means of production, and on whose terms access to those things is granted. Commoning — the direct, collective management of shared resources — addresses this in a way that income transfers alone do not. It puts the question of access outside the market rather than simply giving people more money to spend within it.

Nature’s Actual Free Lunch

Strip away the ideology, and the natural world looks rather different from the Victorian picture. The sun provides energy without an invoice. Rain falls without means-testing. The soil bacteria that make agriculture possible have not yet demanded equity. Forests, fisheries, aquifers and the atmosphere are all, in the most literal sense, gifts, which have been accumulated over geological time, are available in principle to everyone, but destroyed when enclosed and privatised.

Every calorie you have ever eaten began as sunlight. Not purchased, just light, falling on leaves, driving the chemical reactions that build sugars from air and water. The plant does not invoice the photon. The photon does not charge the leaf. What we call agriculture is, at its foundation, the organised reception of an enormous free lunch that the sun has been providing for four and a half billion years without asking anything in return. The soil that makes it possible – that extraordinary living system of fungi, bacteria, worms and decomposing matter – was not manufactured. It was built up over millennia by organisms that had no interest in ownership, only in the next exchange in an endlessly cycling web of mutual dependency.

Even the most hardened Social Darwinist struggles to make the animal kingdom perform the role they’ve assigned to it. The most efficient predators – lions, leopards, wolves – hunt only when genuinely hungry, take the weakest prey, and share the kill. Between hunts they rest, play, groom one another, and ignore the herbivores grazing placidly nearby. It is only the human capitalist who maintains a constant lookout for prey in the manner prescribed by the M.B.A. courses and management books. ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’ is less a description of how nature works and more a description of how Victorian industrialists worked, and would like nature to have worked so as to endorse them.

The commons tradition understood that abundance is real, that sharing is not weakness, and that the earth produces more than enough when people are not organised primarily around extracting maximum value from it. Pre-enclosure English villages were not wealthy by any modern standard, but they were not starving either. The open-field system, the rights of common pasture, and the gleaning laws all added up to a ground beneath which people did not fall. Not because of charity, but because the resources to prevent it were held collectively and the community had an interest in everyone’s survival.

None of this requires going back to the land, or romanticising the past, or imagining that everyone should become a smallholder. The commons is not a agricultural lifestyle choice, it is a principle of ownership and governance. It asks who controls productive resources, and on whose terms access to them is granted. A software commons, a housing commons, a healthcare commons, and a community owned energy grid all operate on the same logic as the open field: collectively held, collectively governed, and oriented toward use rather than profit. These same principles apply as effectively today as they ever did, and sometimes in the most unlikely places.

The community of Gaviotas offers a more recent example of what that floor can look like. In the 1970s, a Colombian engineer named Paolo Lugari established a community on the eastern savannah: one of the most inhospitable landscapes in South America, with soil too poor to farm and no infrastructure for hundreds of miles. Within decades, Gaviotas had developed its own water purification systems, a hospital that served the surrounding region, and a pine forest that eventually covered seventeen thousand acres and generated enough resin to sustain the community economically. None of it was built through private investment or state subsidy. It was built by people who needed it, deciding together how to do it. When the pines regenerated the soil enough to allow the return of native species, the community switched to protecting and expanding the native forest, because that was what the land needed. Nobody voted on it by filing shareholder proxy forms.

That is why the ‘no free lunch’ doctrine is not merely an economic claim. It is a claim about power. If everything must be purchased, and purchase requires prior sale of your labour, and the terms of that sale are set by those who own what you need, then the loop is closed. There is no exit, no outside, no ground on which to stand that has not already been priced. The enclosures did not just take land. They took the possibility of refusal.

Building a better possible world through commons, collective ownership, and the unconditional provision of what people need to live is not generosity. It is necessary and non-negotiable for anything that deserves to be called freedom. The free lunch is not a luxury. It is the basis of a world in which human beings can actually choose how to live, rather than simply accepting what they are offered because the alternative is worse.

There is such a thing as a free lunch. The commons is such a thing. The question is not whether it exists. The question is who gets to take it apart, why we let them, and what we are going to do take it back.

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This is part of the Entitlement series of articles

A couple of other articles you might find of interest -

That assumption deserves more scrutiny than it usually gets. Because if you look at the actual track record – the Crusades, the Transatlantic slave trade, the genocide of indigenous peoples, the Holocaust – the institutions claiming to be the foundation of moral order are also, in historical fact, among the greatest sources of organised harm. The church blessed the slave ships. The state built the concentration camps.

So before we accept the premise, let us at least ask the question, ‘what if hierarchical religion and the nation state are not the solution to the problem of human cruelty? What if, in very many cases, they are the problem?’

Two Directions For Morality

The clearest illustration of why hierarchical authority is the problem rather than the solution came, perhaps surprisingly, from inside evangelical Christianity. In 2017, Andy Stanley, pastor of one of the largest megachurches in the United States, began arguing publicly that Christian ethics contained two fundamentally different moral systems that had long been conflated. He called one Vertical: the relationship between humanity and God, top-down, defined by divine command. He called the other Horizontal: the relationship between people, defined by love of neighbour and the avoidance of harm.

His argument that these two systems were not only distinct but in many respects incompatible became a controversy within evangelical Christianity, not least because of its obvious implication: if horizontal morality is about love and not harming others, then forms of love such as homosexuality between consenting adults cause no horizontal harm. Instead of succumbing to the pressure to disavow such views, Stanley embraced and expanded this argument in his 2018 book Irresistible, and began actively welcoming gay couples to his church.

The framework was developed further by atheist educator and activist Rachel Klinger Cain in her 2024 TikTok video on the subject. She stated that Vertical Morality takes authority as its standard: something is wrong ‘because God said so’, whereas Horizontal Morality takes harm and consent as its standard: something is wrong because it hurts someone. There is a certain irony in the fact that Stanley’s Christian critics accused secular morality of lacking a consistent foundation, given that the vertical system has shifted constantly across history, commanding genocide here, prohibiting inter-racial marriage there, sanctioning slavery throughout, depending entirely on who held interpretive power at the time.

Philosophy has wrestled with this tension between hierarchal and horizontal ethics for centuries, in the conflict between two broad traditions: rule based, top down, (deontological) ethics grounded in duty to law or authority, and relational (or consequentialist) ethics grounded in actual effects on actual people.

None of these is an obscure philosophical position. Most people already reason horizontally most of the time. When you tell a child it is wrong to hit their sibling, you don’t appeal to a law, you say ‘because it hurts them.’ When someone does you a genuine wrong, the apology you want is from them, not from a judge. When you help a neighbour without being asked, you aren’t consulting a rulebook first.

Horizontal morality is not an abstract theory. It is how people who care about one another actually behave. What the rest of this piece tries to show is that wherever the vertical systems (religious and secular alike) have produced moral clarity, they have done so by accidentally employing horizontal logic. And wherever they have produced horrors, they have done so by ignoring or overriding it.

Vertical Religious Morality

Christianity, as the dominant moral tradition in the ‘Western’ world, presents itself as the guarantor of morality. Without God, we are told, there is no basis for good and evil, and ethics becomes mere opinion. The claim is worth taking seriously, and when you do it collapses fairly quickly.

Plato posed this as what is now called the Euthyphro problem in 380 BCE, and it has never been satisfactorily answered by religion since: ‘Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?’ If the former, then morality is entirely arbitrary, then God could command anything and it would become moral by definition. The God of the Old Testament, who commands the wholesale slaughter of neighbouring peoples and tolerates slavery, makes this not merely theoretical. If it is the latter (that God commands it because it is good) then goodness exists independently of God, and divine command is not needed to ground ethics at all. Horizontal morality sidesteps the dilemma entirely by grounding goodness in something observable: in harm, suffering, and consent, which exist and matter whether or not anyone commands them.

Then there is what might be called the intermediary problem. We never hear from God directly. We hear from human beings claiming to speak for God. ‘Divine authority’ is, in practice, always human authority wearing a divine mask. Whether the Pope, pastor, Ayatollah or Imam, the vertical structure requires a class of interpreters, and that class will interpret in ways that serve its own interests. The history of religious institutions accommodating slavery, suppressing women, and persecuting those they declared heretics follows naturally from this structural fact.

Almost every major expansion of the circle of moral concern in the last two centuries – the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the recognition of indigenous rights – happened against the dominant vertical religious position of the time. The churches did not lead these movements. They resisted them, often ferociously. When progress eventually came, the vertical institutions updated their theology to accommodate it and then, with remarkable frequency, claimed credit.

This is not an attack on religious people, many of whom have been at the forefront of exactly those progressive movements. What made their moral arguments compelling was something specific: ‘love your neighbour’, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, which came with the insistence that every person carries inherent dignity. These are not vertical claims, they are as horizontal as it gets. The best of religious ethics has always been from the horizontal core beneath the vertical superstructure, and the worst has come when the vertical superstructure overrides the horizontal, and the institution takes precedence over the people it was meant to serve.

Vertical State/Legal Morality

The secular version of the same argument runs roughly like this: without law, without enforcement, without the threat of punishment, without the state’s monopoly on force, human beings would prey on one another. The state keeps order, and the law defines right and wrong. Again the claim is worth examining seriously, and again the theory does not hold water.

If we start with the most basic moral problems, what was legal was very often not moral, and what was moral was very often not legal. Slavery was legal, helping an enslaved person escape was a crime. Women could not vote, own property, or refuse their husband. Homosexuality was a criminal offence. Workers who organised for basic rights were arrested.

Anyone who had lived by the principle that legal equals moral would have been on the wrong side of every important moral question in modern British and American history (as well as undoubtedly in all other nations). The law has never been a reliable guide to what is actually right, and in periods of significant injustice, it has been a near-perfect guide to what is wrong.

Then there is the question of what the law actually covers. Enormous numbers of crimes cause no harm to anyone: drug use between consenting adults, vagrancy, distributing food or literature without a permit, and even organising a union for better work conditions. Conversely, enormous harm occurs entirely within the law: the wage theft that costs workers more each year than all street crime combined, pollution that destroys the health of working-class communities, and colonial extraction that has impoverished entire continents over centuries. The law does not exist to address harm, it exists to support power.

This becomes clearer when you ask who writes the law. Laws are not written by the people they govern. They are written by legislators who are, with very rare exceptions, drawn from and indebted to the wealthy and powerful (or who are wealthy and powerful themselves). Property law protects property, and therefore protects those who have it, at the expense of those who don’t. The history of enclosure, of union-busting, of the criminalisation of poverty, is the history of the law doing exactly what you would expect from a tool made by and for the powerful.

And the institution claiming to be the guarantor of moral order is also responsible for the largest instances of organised harm in recorded history. State-organised war, state-sanctioned slavery, and colonial genocide, carried out under state flags and with state armies. The Holocaust, which was a feat of bureaucratic organisation as much as ideological evil. Concentration camps, gulags, apartheid systems: all of these were legal, and all of them were conducted by states. The monopoly on ‘legitimate’ violence turns out, in practice, to be a very efficient mechanism for conducting extraordinary violence while calling it order.

The parallel to the religious critique should be plain enough. In both cases, an authority above people defines right and wrong. In both cases, the actual victim is sidelined, as the offence is against God, or against the Crown, never straightforwardly against the person who was harmed. In both cases, the interpreting class (clergy, judiciary, police) accumulates power and uses it self-servingly. In both cases, history’s moral advances came from people defying the authority, not obeying it.

The Same Argument Dressed Differently

Divine command and state law are not different kinds of moral system. They are the same system, wearing different clothes. Both work by placing an abstraction (God, the Crown, the Law) above the actual people involved, and telling those people that their job is to satisfy the abstraction rather than to repair their relationships with one another.

Both concentrate the power to define right and wrong in a specialist class (priests or lawyers) who are answerable upward to the authority, not outward to the community they claim to serve. Both claim eternal legitimacy while shifting constantly with whoever holds power. And both, when they fail, fail in the same direction: the person who was actually harmed ends up sidelined, and the perpetrator gets to settle accounts with an institution rather than with a human being.

It doesn’t matter if the institution calls itself a socialist state. A state is still a state, with all the structural features that come with it: the monopoly on violence, the specialist interpreting class, the abstract way the victim is dealt with, the tendency toward serving whoever controls the system. The problem is not just which values the vertical system claims to hold, the problem is the vertical structure itself.

Moral Motivation

So if the structure is the problem, what does a genuinely different moral foundation look like? It starts not with rules, but with motivation - with why people act morally at all.

Pyotr Kropotkin, the anarchist philosopher, identified four types of people when it came to moral motivation:

• Those who act from pure self-interest (the brute)

• Those who act for divine reward (the calculator)

• Those who calculate the balance of outcomes for all society (the utilitarian)

• And those who act from genuine feeling for the people around them (the mutual aider - from the social instinct that develops through living alongside and depending on others.)

The first two (the brute and the calculator) are clearly vertical: external, transactional, and conditional on the authority holding up its end of the bargain. The utilitarian is an interesting edge case, being nominally horizontal in considering outcomes for others, but distrusted because they remain fundamentally always vulnerable to clever reasoning that justifies harm. The fourth type (the mutual aider), are those who act from genuine feeling for those around them, is horizontal to its core.

Kropotkin argued the mutual aid moral position is possible when morality doesn’t need to be imposed from above because it has already been built from below, through the accumulated experience of people living together and needing one another. This is not sentimentality, the anthropological record supports it. Communities without strong state oversight show sophisticated systems of mutual obligation, conflict resolution, and collective accountability. The cooperation is not the product of enforcement, it precedes it. The moral order is not the state’s achievement. In many cases, it is what the state has systematically dismantled.

What Horizontal Morality Actually Is

This raises a fair objection: ‘God and the state have a poor record. But what do you put in their place? Wishing doesn’t make people good. What happens when someone genuinely causes harm?’

The honest answer is that people cause harm regardless of what governing system exists above them. Good conditions reduce antisocial behaviour significantly, but do not eliminate it. No-one seriously claims otherwise. The question is not ‘will anyone ever do wrong?’ but ‘what kind of arrangement best addresses it when they do?’

Horizontal morality offers a clear framework. Something is wrong when it genuinely harms someone, when it causes damage or loss to a real person, or when it violates their consent. The standard has the considerable advantage of being grounded in observable reality rather than in the interpretation of an invisible authority’s will. Harm and consent are things people can witness and argue and do something about. Divine will and legal code are not.

When harm occurs, the response should involve the person who was harmed. Restorative and transformative approaches to justice do exactly this, and the evidence (where they have been tried seriously) shows better outcomes for victims, higher rates of genuine accountability, and lower rates of future harm than punitive state approaches deliver. The logic is simple: when the goal is to repair a relationship and make a damaged person whole, you need them in the room whenever possible and safe. When the goal is to punish an offence against an abstraction, you don’t.

Community norms, those unwritten understandings that make daily life possible, are not something that needs to be installed from above. They are something people build, constantly and mostly unconsciously, through the ordinary friction and cooperation of living alongside one another. What horizontal morality asks is simply that we take those norms seriously on their own terms, rather than dismissing them in favour of whatever the authority currently dictates.

None of this means everyone will always behave well. Some will not, but consider what vertical systems actually offer as a solution to bad actors: punishment after the fact, delivered by an institution with its own interests, producing approximately the same level of future harm or more. Genuine accountability, community pressure, and restorative repair are not a weaker response. In most cases, they are a stronger one. (For a look at the failures of our current system see Justice: Legal vs Good)

Morality Doesn’t Need A Master

Political scepticism gets applied to economics, to governance, and to institutions of all kinds, but rarely to morality itself. Most of us are quite comfortable questioning whether a particular law is just, whether a given government deserves its power, and whether a specific religious ruling makes sense. What we rarely do is ask is, ‘why should morality itself require a master?’

The accusation was that without God or the state, there is no basis for ethics. What the historical record actually shows is something close to the opposite. The most reliable moral guidance human beings have developed has been the guidance that comes from paying attention to and caring for one another. This holds across cultures, across centuries, and across the messiness of actual lives. From noticing when someone is hurt to extending the ordinary decency of human relationship outward into wider and wider circles. From asking not ‘is this legal?’ or ‘is this commanded?’ but ‘does this harm someone, and did they consent?’

That is not a sophisticated philosophical position. It is, in fact, what most people already believe when they aren’t being told otherwise. Children grasp it before they can read. It preceded the written law and has outlasted every idol whose worshippers once considered them eternal.

Ordinary people, relating to one another honestly and directly, are more reliably morally than any system built above them to manage that relationship. History, examined without flattery to its rulers, most clearly supports that conclusion.

Morality does not need a master. It needs a community.

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What if the most radical political position is actually the most obvious one? What if, instead of needing to justify why imposed hierarchy is bad, we should be demanding proof that it’s ever good?

Most people think the absence of hierarchy (anarchy) requires faith in humanity’s goodness or a utopian vision of the future. They’ve got it backwards. Anarchism is like atheism: it’s not a belief, it’s the absence of belief in the necessity of others ruling over us. Anarchy literally means ‘without rulers’ just as atheism means ‘without god’.

Atheists don’t need faith to disbelieve. They simply don’t accept the claim that gods exist until someone proves it. The burden of proof falls on the person making the extraordinary claim (‘there’s an invisible being who created everything’), not on the person saying ‘show me the evidence.’

Anarchism works the same way. We don’t accept the claim that some people have the right to rule over others until someone proves it. The burden of proof falls on those claiming authority over others, not on those questioning it.

Atheism says: ‘I don’t believe your God claim until you prove it.’ Anarchism says: ‘I don’t believe your hierarchy is justified until you prove it.’ And just as atheists can say ‘show me the evidence and I’ll reconsider,’ anarchists can say the same. We’re open to evidence. We just haven’t seen it yet.

Of course every tyrant can give a dubious reason for their position, but a claim doesn’t have weight just because someone with power makes it or uses violence to maintain it. The atheist might be burned at the stake for their heresy, and an anarchist might be imprisoned for their impertinence, but neither affects the truthfulness of the argument they are making.

Consider what we’re actually being asked to accept. We are born without any knowledge of a state. No one consents to the state’s authority at birth; it’s simply declared over us, the same way a child is told to obey without explanation. As the historian Robert Higgs put it:

‘In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.’

The evidence bears this out. The disasters of stateless society are speculative. The disasters of states, the wars, the gulags, the famines, the colonialism, are documented history.

You don't need faith to be an anarchist, whereas to be a hierarchist you need faith to believe that this time, these rulers will be different, this hierarchy will liberate you, and this concentration of power won’t corrupt. The burden of proof is on anyone claiming people need to be ruled, they are the ones making an extraordinary claim, and it is their responsibility to produce the evidence for it.

They are the ones who need to show an example of a hierarchical system that didn’t ultimately become corrupt if they want us to take them seriously. Until then, the real question isn’t whether authority needs justifying, it’s why so many people keep accepting it without asking.

The Falsifiability Test

Although anarchism doesn’t need to justify itself the way hierarchy does, there’s a separate, practical question worth taking seriously: Even if a world without hierarchy is theoretically better, is such a world actually achievable?

If every attempt at mutual aid, cooperation, and voluntary association consistently failed to meet people’s needs, whilst every hierarchy consistently succeeded without exploitation, only then would the argument for rulers being essential have merit.

However, the evidence points the other way. Worker cooperatives work. Mutual aid networks work. The Free Territory of Ukraine, Revolutionary Catalonia, the Zapatistas, and Rojava all functioned. Some were crushed by external hierarchies, but not by internal failure. Meanwhile, every authoritarian ‘temporary’ state became permanent and oppressive. Every promise that ‘we’ll dissolve once the transition is complete’ turned out to be a lie.

We don’t have to prove that anarchism would work perfectly at a massive scale in every area, because that burden falls on the other side. Our core claim, that concentrated power corrupts, has mountains of evidence. The claim that this time hierarchy will lead to different results has none. So the practical question, whether anarchism is achievable, remains genuinely open. The theoretical question, whether hierarchy is justified, does not.

The case for hierarchy would only hold if concentrated power consistently produced better outcomes than horizontal organisation, and did so without the corruption, oppression, and violence we always see accompanying it. But the evidence is overwhelmingly against hierarchy. How many failed states, how many dictatorships, how many broken promises of ‘temporary’ authority do people need before they accept the reality that hierarchy is always dangerous? No state has ever voluntarily dissolved itself. Every revolutionary authority that promised to dissolve once the transition was complete has broken that promise. The pattern is consistent.

Those who want to justify their preferred form of political authority tend to reach for elaborate theoretical frameworks, but any philosophical system that is built backwards from its conclusions will always confirm them, regardless of whether it matches reality. That’s not science, that’s circular reasoning. When every historical counterexample gets reinterpreted to fit the theory rather than test it, you’re not doing analysis, you’re doing religious apologetics.

Anarchism doesn't need a counter-theory. It just needs the question to be taken seriously. Anarchism asks for something simpler: scepticism toward arbitrary authority. No need for faith in someone else’s theory, just apply the same standards of proof to claims of hierarchy that you'd apply to anything else.

The fundamental tension isn’t just capitalism versus workers, but domination versus autonomy, the recurring pattern across all of history and all cultures of some humans claiming authority over others, and others refusing it. This pattern is observable, repeatable, and requires no special framework to recognise. You’ve lived it.

We Are Born Anarchists

The burden of proof falls on hierarchy for a simple reason: Anarchism is what humans do naturally. Hierarchy has to be beaten into us.

Think about your own childhood. Did anyone have to teach you to share your toys with friends? To cooperate in games? To help someone who fell down? No, those impulses are natural. What you were taught was to ‘respect authority,’ to ‘do as you’re told,’ to stop asking ‘why?’ Children instinctively question ‘why do I have to?’, and that resistance has to be broken through socialisation. We have to teach children to obey. We don’t have to teach them to play cooperatively; they do that naturally when adults don’t interfere.

Think about how you organise with friends. You don’t elect a Friend Leader with power over the group. Horizontal cooperation is what we do naturally amongst equals. Hierarchy only emerges when there’s inequality to protect. Create equals and they organise anarchistically by default.

Take the long view. Humans lived in relatively egalitarian bands for 200,000 years or more. Rigid hierarchy is only 10,000 years old, a tiny fraction of human existence. Which is the aberration? Indigenous societies worldwide had to be violently forced into hierarchical structures. They didn’t adopt them because they’re ‘better.’ They were conquered.

Notice what happens when authority disappears: do people immediately start killing each other, or do they start helping each other? Every disaster proves the anarchist case. In floods, earthquakes, and crises, people spontaneously self-organise and help each other. Mutual aid groups form organically whenever the state fails. Hierarchy has to be deliberately reconstructed and reimposed afterwards.

Most of what makes society function is already anarchist: neighbours helping each other, parents caring for kids, friends sharing resources. The state takes credit for what we do naturally. Every hierarchy needs constant reinforcement through police, propaganda, socialisation, and threats. Mutual aid just happens.

If hierarchy were natural and beneficial, it wouldn’t require constant violence to maintain. The default position wouldn’t need enforcement. Anarchy is what happens when no one is forcing you to obey. Hierarchy is what has to be imposed.

The Simple Principle & What Follows

Now we get to the elegant simplicity of anarchist theory.

Do you believe people should be ruled over by other people?

No? You’re an anarchist.

Everything else follows from this one principle. It’s not complicated; it’s just the consistent application of that answer across every area of life. If people shouldn’t rule over other people, then we must reject every system and structure built on domination.

In the economy, this means rejecting bosses. If people shouldn’t rule over others, then workers shouldn’t be ruled by bosses who tell them what to do, when to do it, and take the value they create. Which means rejecting capitalism itself, because capitalism is a system where bosses rule over workers. Which means rejecting wage labour: when you must sell your labour to survive and someone else controls your work, you’re being ruled. ‘Work or starve’ is coercion, not choice.

It means rejecting private ownership of the means of production. When someone ‘owns’ the factory or land and can exclude others, they rule over those who need it. Ownership is just another word for authority over resources. Landlords rule over tenants, setting rules, taking money for permission to exist in a space. Rent, profit, interest: all ways of extracting value from people’s labour without contributing. That’s exploitation, which requires hierarchy to enforce.

In politics, this means rejecting the state itself, because the state is literally an institution that claims the right to rule over people in a territory. It means rejecting politicians and representatives, since if people shouldn’t be ruled, they shouldn’t have ‘representatives’ making decisions for them. No one can legitimately represent your will except you. It means rejecting even voting and democracy as currently practised, because majority rule is still rule. Fifty-one per cent shouldn’t dominate forty-nine. Real consensus means everyone affected has a say, not just a vote counted amongst millions.

It means rejecting laws backed by violence in favour of voluntary agreements and social norms. Rejecting borders and nations, those imaginary lines where one group of rulers claims authority. Nationalism is just loyalty to your particular set of rulers.

In enforcement, this means rejecting police, who exist to enforce the rule of the state and protect property, the armed wing of hierarchy. Rejecting prisons, which are cages where the state locks people who violate its rules. Punishment and control, not healing or justice.

In society, this means rejecting patriarchy, rejecting homophobia and transphobia, rejecting racism and white supremacy, rejecting ableism, rejecting adult supremacy over children, and rejecting religious authority wherever leaders claim power over others’ moral lives. One principle, consistently applied, dismantles every system of domination we live under. The objection, of course, is that none of this addresses how we get there.

What Emerges When Domination Is Removed

Anarchism isn’t just about what we oppose. It’s about what emerges naturally when domination is removed. This isn’t utopian dreaming, it’s observing what humans already do when they’re free to cooperate.

In workplaces, instead of bosses, you get worker control: people who actually do the work deciding together how to organise their labour. Production shifts from profit to use. We make things because people need them, not to sell for money. Resources become commons, with land, water, tools, and knowledge accessible to all rather than hoarded by owners. When no one can force you, everything you do is because you chose it.

In communities, instead of distant representatives, you get direct participation and consensus where everyone affected by a decision participates in making it. Decisions are made at the most local level possible, coordinating more broadly only when truly needed. Communities federate horizontally, sending delegates with specific mandates who can be instantly recalled, not representatives with power to decide for you. Responsibilities rotate so no one accumulates power. Different communities organise differently; that’s the point. Freedom means diversity, experimentation, adaptation.

For conflict and safety, instead of punishment, you get restorative justice: healing harm and addressing root causes, bringing together those harmed and those who harmed to repair relationships. Communities look after each other, with people held accountable by those affected rather than distant authorities. Collective self-defence when necessary, but no permanent armed force that can become a new hierarchy.

For a free life, instead of enforced roles, you get gender liberation, sexual freedom, and genuine body autonomy. Universal access replaces payment barriers, so everyone can reach housing, food, healthcare, and education. Things necessary for life stop being bought and sold.

The pattern is simple: remove hierarchy and coercion, ask what people would freely choose, and that’s what anarchism supports.

Prefiguration: Building the New World Now

‘All well and good,’ you might say, ‘if we were starting from scratch. But we’re not. Hierarchy already exists, deeply entrenched, with armies and police and centuries of accumulated power. How do you possibly get from here to there?’

That’s a fair question, and here’s the honest answer: it’s difficult, but the evidence suggests it’s achievable. Hierarchies don’t dissolve themselves. They defend their existence with violence. Every structure of domination has people who benefit from it and will fight to preserve it. But this isn’t an argument against anarchism. It’s an argument against gradualism and reform.

When you try to change a hierarchical system from within, using its own tools and rules, you’re not dismantling it, you’re participating in its reproduction. You vote for better politicians, and the state remains. You negotiate with your boss for better wages, and capitalism remains. You ask the police to be nicer, and the police remain. Reform asks permission from power to limit power. Those in power will offer just enough concessions to prevent revolution and then claw them back when the pressure’s off. Every welfare state built by social democrats is being dismantled. Every union victory is later undermined. Every ‘progressive’ politician becomes part of the machine they promised to change.

The system doesn’t resist change because people within it are uniquely evil. It resists change because that’s what systems do: they perpetuate themselves. A state will always act to preserve the state. Capitalism will always act to preserve capitalism.

One anarchist approach is to build alternatives alongside hierarchy rather than trying to reform it. This is called prefiguration, and it’s one of anarchism’s most important ideas. The means must match the ends. You cannot build a free society through unfree methods. You cannot abolish hierarchy by seizing control of hierarchical structures. The revolution isn’t an event that happens and then produces a new world afterwards, the revolution is the new world, being built right now, in the way we organise today.

Prefiguration means that every anarchist project embodies anarchist principles in its structure, not just its stated goals. A worker cooperative doesn’t just produce goods, it demonstrates, daily and concretely, that workers can manage their own affairs without bosses. A community mutual aid network doesn’t just distribute food, it enacts the principle that people look after each other without the state’s direction or permission. How we organise is inseparable from what we’re organising for.

This is why anarchists reject seizing state power in order to transform the state from within, or forming political parties to gain power with the intention of using it well. Even if you trusted those intentions completely, the method corrupts the outcome. Hierarchical means produce hierarchical ends. Every ‘temporary’ revolutionary state in history has demonstrated this without exception.

So we don’t wait for permission. We don’t vote for someone to create worker cooperatives, we and our colleagues form one. We don’t petition the state for food security, we start a community garden and a free food programme. We don’t ask police to protect us, we organise neighbourhood mutual aid and conflict resolution. Each of these is simultaneously practical solidarity and a living argument against hierarchy. Every time it works, it refutes the claim that we need rulers.

This is already happening, and has been for a long time. Worker cooperatives like Mondragón employ almost a hundred thousand. Cooperation Jackson is building a solidarity economy in Mississippi. The Zapatistas have governed themselves for thirty years. Rojava has millions of people living under democratic confederalism. Tool libraries and free stores operate in cities worldwide. Mutual aid networks mobilised faster than any government during the pandemic.

None of these are waiting for the revolution. They are the revolution, expressed in present tense. They are not preliminary sketches for a future society. They are that society, already existing, already functioning, already proving that the hierarchical alternatives are not inevitable.

The transition isn’t a single moment but a process. As hierarchical systems fail to meet people’s needs, our alternatives become more necessary and more viable. People turn to mutual aid because the state abandoned them. They form cooperatives because capitalism has bled them dry. They organise self-defence because police don’t protect them. Every time someone chooses the anarchist alternative over the hierarchical one, hierarchy loses legitimacy and power.

This is already happening: Hierarchies are struggling, states are failing, capitalism is cannibalising itself, and climate change is destroying the systems that depend on infinite growth. We don’t need a perfect blueprint for post-revolutionary society. We need to build alternatives strong enough to survive when the current systems collapse, and they will collapse. The question isn’t whether but when, and whether we’ll have something better ready to replace them or descend into authoritarian chaos.

The transition requires building new structures whilst living under the old ones. It requires risk: occupying workplaces, defending communities, and refusing to obey. It requires solidarity across borders and differences, and patience and willingness to experiment and fail and try again.

But consider the alternative: continuing to live under systems that are destroying the planet, exploiting billions, and marching towards authoritarianism and collapse. Waiting for those systems to reform themselves. Having faith that this time the hierarchy will be different.

Which actually requires more faith: believing that hierarchy will suddenly stop being hierarchical, or believing that people can organise their own lives given the chance?

Anarchism is not asking you to believe in a utopian vision. It’s asking you to start building the world you actually want to live in today, in the way you organise your workplace and your community and your relationships. Because the means are the ends and the practice is the theory, and the time to start is now.

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If you liked this article you might also like this one:

Whenever there is a disagreement between two people or groups, it’s important to define what they’re disagreeing over to be sure they’re actually at odds. When visiting different countries, even those that supposedly share the same language, you soon realise that the same word can mean different things in different contexts and cultures. For example, if one person in the Uk says ‘I like chips’ and another in America says ‘I hate chips,’ but the first means British chips (thick-cut fried potatoes) and the second means American chips (thin crispy potato snacks which Brits call ‘crisps’), they might not have any reason to disagree in the first place, they both like french fries.

Of course the opposite is true. Two people might think they both like punk, but one really likes 1970s punk rock music and another likes steampunk literature. The word ‘punk’ is used for both, but they describe entirely different things. Thus the first task in any discussion or debate is to define the terms used, and if possible agree on them, or explain why you disagree.

Anarchists are used to the word anarchy being mistaken to mean chaos, and it is a misunderstanding often quickly corrected if the other person you are speaking to is interested in understanding your position and beliefs. Where people have sincere and good intentions they will usually listen, engage, and be open to clarification and even correction if they are open-minded enough.

Yet not all misunderstandings about anarchism are so easily resolved. Some concepts require far more unlearning, especially for those raised in societies built entirely on hierarchical assumptions. When someone’s entire understanding of how society functions rests on the belief that someone must be in charge, that decisions require rulers to make them, and that order depends on obedience, anarchist ideas about organisation without domination can seem impossible, even incomprehensible. These deeper misunderstandings often reveal themselves not as simple confusion about words, but as fundamental disagreements about whether freedom without rulers is even possible.

However, when I speak to friends or co-workers, or even strangers I start chatting with whilst helping out with a radical book stall, and I use the words ‘hierarchy’ or ‘government,’ I usually presume people understand I’m speaking about a system in which one group rules over others (enforcing their decisions through threat of punishment, maintaining power through control of resources, law, or violence). Their responses usually confirm they share that understanding.

If someone expresses how much they dislike a politician or boss and I respond by saying I don’t think anyone should rule over anyone else, they never respond with ‘are you saying you hate doctors or scientists?’ Because in their daily lives, such people don’t rule over them. A doctor might advise you, but they can’t imprison you for ignoring that advice. A scientist might be an expert, but they don’t have the power to compel you to follow their findings.

However, when I speak online I sometimes find others take a different view, especially if they already believe wholeheartedly in an authoritarian political ideology, whether it be capitalism or Leninism. Why do they see it so differently, and where does that difference stem from?

Is Self-Defence a Form of Hierarchy?

There are those who define hierarchy so broadly that they call any society hierarchical if it has any form of community or regional defence, arguing that any time you allow someone to use force they are exercising hierarchy over someone else.

This argument was first systematically used by Friedrich Engels in his essay ‘On Authority’ (1872), written in response to anarchist critiques of Marxist authoritarianism. Engels claimed that the act of one person restraining another – even in self-defence – constitutes authority, and therefore revolution itself requires accepting hierarchy. By this tortured logic, stopping someone from murdering you makes you just as authoritarian as a dictator.

This erroneous argument is as inaccurate as it is disingenuous. But it persists as if it is some holy doctrine which must be made true despite whatever contradictions arise against it.

It is remarkably similar to the argument fascists use: ‘If you stop us being fascists, you’re just as bad as us.’ It invokes the so-called paradox of tolerance, but this isn’t actually paradoxical, it’s simple consistency. If you want tolerance to be possible, you can’t allow intolerance of the kind that seeks to end tolerance itself. If you want freedom to exist, you must defend it against those who would destroy it.

Of course, if you’re someone convinced that a world without hierarchy is impossible, you might already assume that anyone who is anti-hierarchy will seem foolish and unrealistic, and thus be inclined to broaden the word ‘hierarchy’ far past its original meaning to include self-defence.

This is despite the fact that the word hierarchy has a very specific origin and common meaning which excludes such interpretations. Hierarchy comes from the Greek words ‘hieros’ (sacred) and ‘arkhein’ (to rule) – literally ‘rule by priests,’ but expanded to mean any system where some hold permanent power over others. It describes structured, enduring relations of domination: bosses over workers, kings over subjects, states over citizens. It does not describe a momentary act of defence.

The difference between self-defence and hierarchy lies in purpose, organisation, and permanence. Self-defence is reactive, temporary, and protective. You defend yourself or your community from immediate harm, then the action ends. Hierarchy is proactive, ongoing, and controlling. It exists to maintain ongoing power over others.

Community defence means people voluntarily organising to protect their freedom from attack, with no one having enduring authority over others. Regional defence extends this principle across associated communities, still without creating a permanent ruling class. Armies and military hierarchies, by contrast, create lasting chains of command where officers have power over soldiers extending far beyond any immediate defensive need. Generals don’t just coordinate defence, they control when soldiers eat, sleep, speak, move, live, or die. That’s hierarchy.

Thus a person, community, or even an entire region can defend itself against attacks on its safety or freedom without creating irrevocable structures of domination. The difference isn’t whether force is used, but whether that force creates or protects freedom.

False Equivalence: Conflating Defence with Domination

This argument commits a false equivalence fallacy, treating fundamentally different uses of force as identical. It conflates self-defence (temporary, reactive, protective) with hierarchy (permanent, proactive, controlling) simply because both involve the possibility of force. But the distinguishing characteristics aren’t whether force exists, but its purpose, duration, and whether it creates ongoing power relations.

When you defend yourself from an attacker, your exercising the first kind of authority (your own agency), not the second kind (power over others). The attacker tried to impose the second kind on you; your self-defence rejects it.

Is it defence or hierarchy? The test is simple – does it:

• Create permanent power relations where some command and others obey?

• Extend beyond the immediate defensive need?

• Establish a class of people with ongoing authority over others?

• Make those subjected to it unable to refuse or leave?

If the answer is no – if it’s temporary, defensive, and doesn’t create lasting power structures – then it’s not hierarchy. It’s simply people protecting their freedom.

Is Expertise a Form of Hierarchy?

There are those who believe that any society which has experts in any field (by virtue of their learning, training or experience) is hierarchical. They argue that such expertise makes you reliant on those with those skills and allows them to have power over you.

This misunderstanding arises because the word ‘authority’ is sometimes used to mean expertise, but the word ‘authoritarian’ is always used to mean dictatorial. These are fundamentally different concepts that use the same root word, leading to deliberate confusion by those defending hierarchy. The anarchist Mikhail Bakunin explained this distinction brilliantly in 1870:

’Does it follow that I drive back every authority? The thought would never occur to me. When it is a question of boots, I refer the matter to the authority of the cobbler; when it is a question of houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For each special area of knowledge I speak to the appropriate expert. But I allow neither the cobbler nor the architect nor the scientist to impose upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and verification. I do not content myself with consulting a single specific authority, but consult several. I compare their opinions and choose that which seems to me most accurate. But I recognise no infallible authority, even in quite exceptional questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have absolute faith in no one. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave and an instrument of the will and interests of another.’ (What is Authority, 1870)

When we consult an expert, we make a free choice to seek their knowledge. The surgeon doesn’t have power over us, as we have power to accept or reject their expertise. They can’t force us onto the operating table. Compare this to a boss who does have power over us: they can sack us if we don’t obey, leaving us unable to feed ourselves or our families. That’s the difference between expertise and hierarchy.

The existence of people with greater knowledge or skill in certain areas doesn’t create hierarchy any more than the existence of people with greater height creates hierarchy. What creates hierarchy is when some people can make decisions for others, compel others to obey, or control others’ access to what they need to survive.

One possible way to respond to these claims is to use a different word for hierarchy entirely. ‘Dictatorship’ sometimes works, as many Marxists (although not all) openly believe in a form of dictatorship, even if they argue it isn’t the same kind of dictatorship that the word typically describes. At least they’ll admit anarchists don’t believe in any kind of dictatorship, even theirs.

But we shouldn’t have to abandon perfectly good words because authoritarians deliberately misuse them. Hierarchy means rule, not skill. Domination, not knowledge.

Equivocation Fallacy - When ‘Authority’ Means Two Different Things

This argument commits equivocation on the word ‘authority,’ deliberately conflating two entirely different meanings:

• Authority as expertise (knowledge, skill, experience)

• Authority as power (the right to command, compel, or control)

Just because the same word is used doesn’t make these things equivalent. It’s like arguing that a ‘bank’ of a river and a financial ‘bank’ are the same thing because they share a word.

There’s also a false equivalence at work, treating reliance on someone’s knowledge as identical to subjection to someone’s power. Yes, I might rely on a doctor’s expertise to diagnose my illness, but that doesn’t give them power over me. I can refuse their treatment. I can seek a second opinion. They can’t imprison me for ignoring their advice or withhold food from me for questioning their diagnosis.

Compare this to a boss. I might rely on them for my wage, but they have actual power over me: they can sack me, leaving me unable to survive. That’s not just expertise, that’s control over my access to resources necessary for life.

Is it expertise or hierarchy? The test is simple – does the relationship involve:

• The power to compel obedience through punishment or reward?

• Control over resources you need to survive?

• The ability to make decisions for you that you cannot refuse?

• Permanent authority that extends beyond voluntary consultation?

A surgeon can advise you. A boss can sack you. That’s the difference between expertise and hierarchy.

Is Leadership a Form of Hierarchy?

The words ‘leader’ and ‘ruler’ are sometimes used interchangeably, but when ‘leader’ is used in a positive sense it usually refers to someone who inspires others to do good, or someone who acts as a guide - leading the way forward because they know which route is safe, they have experience of that way, and have the skills to bring people there safely.

In that sense, anarchism could be said to have leaders and yet not have rulers. There will always be storytellers, motivators, those who set good examples, and show strength and intelligence which may be admired. But anarchists do not consider such people infallible or accept that they have the power to compel others. The moment someone can force you to follow them, they’re no longer leading - they’re ruling.

Things do get slightly more complex when discussing what some call ‘pirate anarchy’ and war chiefs. This is the idea that in the midst of battle you might need a single voice to coordinate fighters to react quickly and decisively. But even here, the principle holds: such fighters have voluntarily chosen to follow that person’s tactical decisions in that specific context. They’re never unable to refuse or leave, and they don’t give any special deference to that person outside of respecting their expertise whilst following them into battle. The moment that coordination becomes compulsion, or extends beyond its specific purpose, it ceases to be anarchist.

Conflation Fallacy - Confusing Inspiration with Compulsion

This conflation of leadership with rulership commits a false equivalence fallacy, treating inspiration and compulsion as if they were the same thing simply because both might result in people following someone. But the means matter enormously. A charismatic speaker might inspire thousands to join a cause, whereas a dictator might compel thousands to join through threat of punishment. Both result in people ‘following,’ but one creates freedom and the other destroys it.

There’s also sometimes a slippery slope argument at work, in the suggestion that any form of coordination or respect for expertise will inevitably lead to hierarchy. But anarchist history shows this isn’t true. The Spanish Revolution had military coordinators, but they were accountable to their units and could be instantly replaced. That’s fundamentally different from a general who can have you shot for disobedience.

Is it leadership or hierarchy? The test is simple – does the leadership involve:

• The power to punish those who don’t follow?

• Authority that extends beyond the specific, voluntary context?

• Permanent power rather than temporary coordination?

• The inability to refuse, leave, or choose a different leader?

If a ‘leader’ can force you to follow them, they’re not leading – they’re ruling. The difference between inspiration and imposition is the difference between freedom and tyranny.

Does Anarchy Allow for ‘Justified Hierarchy’?

Some people try to expand the meaning of the word ‘anarchy’ to somehow allow for a group of rulers, or people who rule indirectly, if they are good enough or qualified enough or representative enough, even though anarchy literally translates to ‘no rulers’. It’s like telling an atheist they really believe in a god, as some Christians do, because they can’t conceive of people not believing in any god at all.

This often manifests through the argument that hierarchy is acceptable if it can be ‘justified’, which is a position notably attributed to Noam Chomsky. As I discussed in my previous article ‘Any Justification For Hierarchy?’, Chomsky argued that ‘power is always illegitimate, unless it proves itself to be legitimate,’ placing the burden of proof on those claiming hierarchical authority. It can be a useful question to unravel the arbitrariness of those seeking to justify hierarchal claims.

However, the problem with this position is that it suggests that hierarchy can be legitimate if the right justification is provided. But no justification is sufficient. Not voting, not gods, not merit, not expertise, not emergency, not the ‘greater good.’ Because with every argument, there are counter-arguments and examples of atrocities that happened directly because of accepted hierarchy, even when it seemed to start with good intentions, even when systems existed to keep it in check.

We are born free. At least we are born without any limits except those imposed by nature or necessary to keep us safe. No one is born with a right to rule over someone else, and no one consents to being subject to another’s hierarchy from the moment they’re born. Thus, the default position is anarchy: no hierarchy. Any claim to rule over others is an unjust hierarchy that must be dismantled, not just debated.

On the left of the political spectrum, this happens by downplaying the power of a party chairman or presiding committee. They pretend that a ‘vanguard party’ directing the revolution is somehow not hierarchy because it claims to represent ‘the people.’

On the other side of the political spectrum, right-libertarians (propertarians) have used the word ‘anarchy’ differently – even to sometimes include a minimal form of government (minarchism) – whilst happily accepting economic hierarchy. They’ll object to political authority but defend a boss’s authority, as if the power to starve you is somehow less coercive than the power to arrest you.

But the word ‘anarchy’ doesn’t allow for either of these interpretations, no matter how much some people might want it to. Few people like the idea of being ruled over politically or economically, hence why people find anarchy so appealing. So authoritarians try to co-opt the word, claiming their particular flavour of rule is actually freedom. They try to move the goalposts enough to say anarchists are not so different from groups that accept rulers, when nothing is further from the truth.

Slippery Slope Fallacy - Every Tyrant’s Favourite Exception

This ‘justified hierarchy’ argument commits several logical fallacies. First, there’s special pleading, that is the idea that we should apply one standard to hierarchy in general (burden of proof, presumption of illegitimacy), but make an exception for this particular hierarchy because of some supposedly unique circumstance. Every tyrant in history has claimed their rule was the justified exception.

There’s also a slippery slope built into the framework itself. Once you accept that hierarchy can be ‘justified,’ you’ve opened the door to endless debate about what constitutes sufficient justification. Is preventing harm sufficient? Is economic efficiency? Is maintaining order? Is the ‘will of the people’? The goalposts can always be moved, and those with power will always find philosophers ready to provide justifications.

More fundamentally, it commits a false premise: the assumption that consent can be given under conditions of coercion. If I can ‘justify’ my authority over you by pointing to your ‘consent,’ but you’ll starve without access to what I control, or you’ll be imprisoned if you try to leave, then that consent is meaningless. It’s like saying someone consents to hand over their wallet when threatened with a knife because they chose to give it rather than be stabbed.

Is it justified anarchy or hierarchy? The test is simple – does the arrangement:

• Allow for genuine, un-coerced consent from all involved?

• Permit withdrawal of that consent without punishment?

• Avoid creating permanent power of some over others?

• Leave everyone free to refuse or find alternatives?

If your ‘justified hierarchy’ involves someone born into subjection, unable to refuse, punished for leaving, or denied alternatives, then no justification makes it legitimate. You cannot justify someone having power over another person’s life when that person never had the option to refuse.

Does Anarchism End Up Allowing or Creating a Government?

If someone expresses how much they dislike the government and I respond by saying I don’t think there should be any government, they never respond with ‘are you saying you hate community centres or book clubs?’ If I say ‘government,’ they understand that to mean a group of people governing over other people, such as a state ruling body that cannot be opted out of and that has the means of force to carry out its decrees.

Yet there are some who argue that if an anarchist society shares any organisational aspect with any government, then that anarchist society really has a government, even if there’s no one governing and no governing involved.

They claim that if an anarchist society has communities that voluntarily belong to a system of distribution between each other, then this is somehow a form of government. By this logic, a group of friends sharing dinner is a government. A book library is a government. A friendly Sunday football game is a government. It renders the word meaningless.

This is used by those outside of anarchism to try to prove that government is inevitable, and even by some on the fringes of anarchism if they support a more extreme primitivist or individualist form of anarchism.

But if someone can’t get past the idea of all organisation being synonymous with government – even if it doesn’t govern – then they still need to justify why their organisation requires rulers. Conflating anarchist organisation with government doesn’t suddenly justify every form of government or every kind of ruling structure. It still raises the question: whatever you call such organisation, should someone be able to rule over you?

The distinction is simple: government is organisation plus domination. Anarchist organisation is coordination without domination. In a government, you have no choice but to participate and obey. In anarchist organisation, you can choose to associate or not, to participate or not, with no one having power to punish you for your choice.

Straw Man Fallacy - Making ‘Government’ Meaningless

The argument conflates ‘organisation’ or ‘coordination’ with ‘government’, treating them as identical simply because they share some superficial features. But the distinguishing characteristics of government aren’t that people organise or have expertise; they’re:

• Hierarchical authority (power of some to command others)

• Coercive enforcement (ability to compel compliance)

• Monopoly on legitimate violence (exclusive right to use force)

• Involuntary membership (you can’t simply opt out)

An anarchist society with voluntary federations, rotating facilitation roles, and horizontal decision-making is fundamentally different from a state with police, taxes, and rulers – even if both involve ‘organisation’.

The equivocation aspect comes from using ‘government’ to mean two different things:

• Any form of coordination whatsoever

• A specific system of hierarchical, coercive authority

By this logic, a book club has a ‘government’ because it has organisation, or a football team has a ‘government’ because it has players with different expertise and roles. The term becomes meaninglessly broad.

There’s also sometimes a straw man element if the argument misrepresents anarchism as opposing all organisation, expertise, or coordination, rather than opposing involuntary hierarchy and coercive authority.

Is it organisation or government? The test is simple – does it:

• Claim the right to make decisions for you without your ongoing consent?

• Have the power to punish you for non-compliance?

• Prevent you from opting out or choosing alternatives?

• Maintain a monopoly on force within a territory?

Having people knowledgeable about bridge-building doesn’t create a government unless those engineers gain authority to compel others. The difference between ‘I know how to build bridges’ and ‘I can force you to build bridges my way’ is precisely what anarchism hinges on.

Is Anarchism Just Democracy by Another Name?

There is one misunderstanding I do have much more sympathy for, and that is the association of anarchism with democracy. This word has been used so broadly (even by anarchists) that it’s understandable people might be confused, and it’s useful for distinctions to be made.

Democracy has been used in various ways, especially ‘direct democracy.’ This is because democracy can be seen positively as people having a say and control over their own lives, which is a very anarchist concept. When we say we want people to have power over their own lives and when we advocate for direct participation rather than representation, this sounds democratic.

Some have even used the term ‘direct democracy’ in this context. But it does not and has never meant that anarchists believe in majority rule – that people can vote on and restrict others’ freedoms and rule as a mob over a minority. Anarchism respects individual freedom as much as it respects collective freedom and has no mechanisms for one group’s will being imposed on another group. If that occurred, it would cease to be anarchism.

Democracy, in its common usage, often refers to majority rule: 51% can outvote 49% and force them to comply. This is tyranny of the majority, just a softer form of tyranny than dictatorship. Anarchism rejects this entirely. We don’t believe three people should be able to vote to enslave two people, no matter how ‘democratic’ the process.

Democracy commonly refers to representative democracy, which always inevitably leads to mini-rulers, often ruled over by a party head or heavily influenced by their corporate sponsors, which is antithetical to anarchism. Anarchism has always been against representative democracy because representation is just a polite word for letting someone else make decisions for you.

But there is another area of confusion that arises from the anarchist concept of confederation, which is when communities or groups work together, a process which may even involve temporary, limited, recallable delegates.

Confederation isn’t hierarchy because delegates have no power to make decisions. They only communicate decisions already made by their communities and can be instantly recalled if they misrepresent them. Think of them as messengers, not representatives. They don’t rule; they report. And crucially, confederation is voluntary. Communities can join, leave, or work with multiple confederations simultaneously. No one can force a community to participate or punish them for leaving.

This is fundamentally different from government, where representatives have power to make binding decisions, cannot be instantly recalled, and where you cannot opt out without moving to a different territory controlled by a different government. In confederation, the power flows upward from individuals and communities. In government, power flows downward from those who claim authority to rule.

Yet anarchism not only allows for association between people and groups, but disassociation too. Not only that, but it allows for separate groups to fulfil the same or similar functions in parallel if wanted, and for people to take no part, be separate from, and give no agreement or power to any other group. If a confederation of communities organises rubbish collection, you’re free to handle your own rubbish differently, or join with other communities to create a different system.

Appeal To Definition Fallacy - Democracy as Self-Rule vs Majority Rule

This conflation of anarchism with democracy commits equivocation on the word ‘democracy’, using it to mean radically different things:

• Self-determination (people controlling their own lives)

• Majority rule (51% controlling the other 49%)

These are not the same. One is about individual and collective autonomy, the other is about one group having power over another group, albeit a smaller group than under monarchy or oligarchy.

There’s also a false equivalence at work – treating consultation and consensus-building as if they were the same as voting and enforcement. Yes, anarchist communities discuss decisions collectively, but that’s fundamentally different from a democracy where a majority vote creates an obligation enforced by police.

The argument sometimes includes appeal to definition: claiming that because anarchism involves ‘people power’ and democracy means ‘people power,’ they must be the same thing. But this ignores how that power operates. In democracy, ‘the people’ means ‘the majority,’ and their power is exercised over the minority. In anarchism, ‘the people’ means individuals and voluntary communities, and their power is exercised over their own lives, not others.

Is it anarchy or ‘democracy’? The test is simple – does the decision-making process:

• Require unanimous consent from all affected, or allow people to opt out?

• Avoid giving a majority the power to coerce a minority?

• Permit individuals or groups to refuse participation without punishment?

• Allow for multiple parallel solutions rather than one imposed answer?

If your community can vote 6-4 to force the minority to comply, that’s mob democracy, not anarchy. If your community can only make decisions that apply to willing participants, allowing others to abstain or do things differently, that’s anarchy. The difference is whether anyone has power over anyone else, not how many people share that power.

Conclusion

In defending the word ‘anarchy’ from these deliberate misrepresentations, we’re not being pedantic. We’re protecting the very concept of freedom from those who would water it down until it means nothing. When authoritarians claim that expertise is hierarchy, that self-defence is domination, that coordination is government, and that temporary tactical leadership equals permanent rule, they’re trying to make us believe that freedom from rulers is impossible and hierarchy inevitable.

But we know better. We experience freedom in our friendships, our communities, our voluntary associations every day. We know the difference between someone sharing their knowledge and someone controlling our lives. We know the difference between choosing to cooperate and being forced to obey. We know the difference between defending ourselves and ruling over others.

Anarchy means no rulers. Not ‘better rulers’ or ‘justified rulers’ or ‘democratic rulers.’ No rulers. It’s that simple, and that radical. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

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This is part of both the Whats In A Word and Hierarchy series

This question has driven and perplexed philosophers for centuries. Are we beings with a lofty purpose to fulfil or just animals who just act on instinct? Yet even animals (at least the more intelligent ones) experience sadness and happiness, fear and play, and something that very much looks like love. They have inner lives, preferences, and relationships too. So if we’re not just biological automatons, what are we? Why are we here?

It’s perhaps the most fundamental question humans ask, and throughout history various systems have been eager to answer it for us. But here’s what’s curious: despite their wildly different starting points - philosophy, religion, economics, politics - they tend to arrive at remarkably similar conclusions about what you’re for. And perhaps more importantly, who benefits from you accepting their answer.

To see this pattern clearly, let’s examine what various systems claim your purpose is, what they ask of you to fulfil that purpose, and what emerges when we look at them together. By the end, you might notice something troubling about how often your supposed ‘purpose‘ aligns suspiciously well with what powerful institutions need from you.

Philosophical Purpose

Philosophy tries to answer the question of human purpose through reason, observation, and argument rather than divine revelation. For thousands of years, thinkers have proposed competing theories about why we exist and what we should do with our lives. Some say purpose is built into human nature - we just need to discover it. Others claim there is no inherent purpose, so we must create our own.

What’s striking about philosophical approaches is their diversity - there’s no consensus, no final answer everyone accepts. Let’s look at how different philosophical traditions answer the question ‘why do you exist?’ grouped by their core themes.

Basic Drives: Biology, Pleasure, and Duty

These represent the most basic answers philosophy offers. The first three say we’re either sophisticated animals fulfilling biological imperatives, or pleasure-seeking creatures trying to feel good. Epicureanism refines hedonism - noting that the best pleasure is actually the absence of pain. The virtue traditions say your purpose is to be good, though they disagree about what that means. The Stoics say accept your fate with dignity. Aristotle says develop your potential for excellence. Kant says follow universal moral rules regardless of outcome. All assume there’s a ‘right way’ to be human that you should discover and follow.

Self vs. Others: Whose Happiness Matters?

But even if there is a right way to live - whose wellbeing should we prioritise: our own, or everyone’s?

Here we see competing visions of how self-interest relates to purpose. Egoism and Objectivism say look after yourself - that’s natural and right. Utilitarianism flips this entirely: your purpose is to increase total happiness, which might mean sacrificing your own. Confucianism embeds you in a web of duties and relationships. Pragmatism says forget abstract principles, just do what actually works. Effective Altruism applies calculational logic to helping others. What’s fascinating is how Objectivism and Utilitarianism both claim to be about happiness, yet reach opposite conclusions about whose happiness matters. And none of them question whether ‘your role’ or ‘what works’ might be defined by power structures that don’t serve human flourishing.

Philosophy gives us frameworks for thinking about purpose, but notice what it doesn’t give us: certainty, community, or clear answers about what happens after death. It can’t promise you’ll be rewarded for living correctly, because it can’t prove there’s anyone to do the rewarding. This is where religion steps in.

Religion

For most of human history, and for most humans today, the answer to ‘why do you exist?‘ has come not from philosophical reasoning but from religious revelation. Where philosophy offers competing theories and endless debate, religion provides certainty: God created you for a specific purpose, sacred texts reveal that purpose, and religious authorities can guide you in fulfilling it.

The appeal is obvious. Philosophy might leave you paralysed by choice or terrified by meaninglessness, but religion says: you matter, your life has cosmic significance, and there’s a clear path to follow. You’re not an accidental arrangement of atoms destined for oblivion - you’re part of a divine plan, loved by God, destined for a joyous eternity.

Spirituality and religion have given humans purposes that feel profoundly meaningful: find your place in the universe, feel part of the infinite, live in service to others, attain enlightenment or wholesome fulfilment. These are powerful, beautiful ideas that have inspired extraordinary compassion, sustained people through unbearable suffering, and built communities of mutual care. The question isn’t whether religion can provide meaning and purpose, as clearly it can. The question is: at what cost? And who decides what that purpose actually is?

What Religion Offers That Philosophy Doesn’t:

Certainty: Philosophy thrashes about with competing theories and endless debate. Religion says: here’s the truth, written down, revealed by God, unchangeable. For people terrified by uncertainty or exhausted by choice, this is profoundly appealing. You don’t have to figure out ethics from first principles, just follow the commandments, the sutras, the divine law.

Community: Philosophers might gather in academies, but religions build communities of practice - shared rituals, mutual support, collective identity. When you’re suffering or scared, a philosophy book won’t bring casseroles or sit with you through the night. A religious community might. This communal dimension is one of religion’s greatest strengths - humans are social creatures who need belonging, and religious communities can provide that powerfully.

Comfort about death: Most philosophies offer either ‘you’ll cease to exist’ or ‘embrace mortality with dignity’. Religions offer heaven, reincarnation, reunion with the divine - something beyond the grave. When facing death (your own or a loved one’s), ‘you’ll be annihilated’ is cold comfort compared to ‘you’ll see them again in paradise’. This might be the single most powerful thing religion offers: the promise that death isn’t the end.

But here’s the catch: these benefits come packaged with institutional control. The certainty requires you accept someone else’s authority to define truth. The community demands conformity to maintain cohesion. The comfort about death requires believing specific, unverifiable claims. And across history, we see a troubling pattern: these institutions that promise purpose and community also demand obedience, extract resources, and punish deviation. The purpose they offer, whilst presented as divine will, often serves to perpetuate the institution itself.

None of this is meant to dismiss the real spiritual experiences and communities of care that religion creates. Plenty of people find genuine meaning and belonging through faith that has nothing to do with institutional control. But you can acknowledge that and still ask: do those things actually require a hierarchy to deliver them? Could community, meaning, and spiritual practice exist without someone at the top deciding what they look like?

Christianity & Islam - You Exist To Serve God

Even in an increasingly secular world no-one can doubt that religion is still a powerful force. Christianity and Islam have the most adherents globally - over 2.4 billion Christians and 1.9 billion Muslims, together comprising more than half of humanity. Both are Abrahamic monotheistic religions, sharing many foundational stories and revering many of the same prophets. Both offer clear, comprehensive answers to why you exist: you were created by God to worship Him, to live according to His revealed will, and to attain eternal life in paradise.

The theological logic is straightforward: God created you, therefore your purpose is defined by your Creator. To reject this purpose is to reject the very reason for your existence. And it comes with eternal stakes: get it right and receive paradise; get it wrong and face damnation. But there’s often a gap between what theology claims and what religious institutions require.

The Institutional Needs Across Religions

Not all of those who follow the Bible or Quran are part of a church or mosque, and not all religious organisations are hierarchical - but most are. And these institutions, whilst claiming to serve God and guide believers to salvation, also have their own very earthly needs. Let’s be honest about what religious institutions actually require from their members:

The Church’s Purpose for You:

Financial sustainability: Tithes, donations, zakat, temple offerings - you exist to fund the institution. Buildings need maintenance, clergy need salaries, programmes need budgets. Your regular financial contribution isn’t just encouraged, it’s often presented as a religious duty.

Reproduction/recruitment: Evangelise, proselytise, raise children in the faith - grow the membership base. Religious institutions need to recruit to survive across generations. Your purpose includes bringing in new members, whether through conversion or through raising your children within the faith.

Obedience to hierarchy: Follow religious authorities, don’t question too much, maintain the power structure. Clergy, imams, priests, rabbis - these positions hold authority that must be respected. Too much questioning threatens that authority, so doubt is often framed as spiritual weakness.

Political influence: Your votes and activism advance the institution’s interests and cultural power. Religious institutions often have political agendas - laws they want passed, policies they want implemented. Your purpose includes being a reliable voting bloc, advancing institutional power in secular society.

To be fair, most believers and plenty of clergy genuinely think they’re serving something sacred rather than propping up an institution. The critique isn’t about anyone’s personal faith or motives. It’s about how the structures themselves create pressures that happen to align with institutional survival, whether or not anyone planned it that way.

The Institutional Logic:

• Religious organisations need money to pay clergy and maintain buildings

• They need growth to increase power and resources

• They need obedience to maintain hierarchical authority structures

The theological cover story: ‘You exist to serve God/achieve salvation/reach enlightenment.’

The institutional reality: ‘You exist to keep this organisation funded, populated, and powerful.’

This pattern isn’t unique to Christianity and Islam - it appears across most organised religions:

The pattern is clear: most systems claim to offer you transcendent purpose (salvation, enlightenment) whilst actually needing you to sustain their institutional power and reproduction. When the church tells you God wants you to tithe and raise your children in the faith - is that divine will, or is it what the church needs to survive?

We might think secular political systems would be different. Surely systems based on reason, economics, and material analysis wouldn’t replicate this pattern? Surely they’d serve human needs rather than demanding humans serve institutional needs?

But as we’ll see in the next part of this series, political and economic systems - whether capitalist, Marxist, or other - have their own remarkably similar answers to why you exist. And those answers, once again, align suspiciously well with what those systems need to reproduce themselves.

Political & Economic Purpose

In Part 1, we examined how philosophy and religion answer the question ‘why do you exist?‘ Philosophy offered competing theories - you exist to reproduce, to be happy, to be virtuous, to create your own meaning - but no consensus and no way to enforce any particular answer. Religion stepped in with divine certainty: God created you for a specific purpose, and you’d better fulfil it or face eternal consequences.

But we noticed something troubling: despite their lofty theological promises about salvation and enlightenment, religious institutions consistently need the same earthly things from believers. Your money through tithes and donations. Your obedience to hierarchical authority. Your reproduction of the system by raising children in the faith and recruiting new members. Your political support to maintain institutional power. The pattern was clear: the ‘purpose’ you’re told you have aligns remarkably well with what the institution needs to perpetuate itself.

Political and economic philosophies aren’t exempt from suggesting personal purposes for people either. We might think we’ve left behind the authoritarianism of religious institutions when we embrace secular political systems. After all, these are supposed to be about human freedom, material wellbeing, rational organisation of society - not submission to invisible omnipotent beings.

But look closer and you’ll find the same pattern: systems that claim to serve human flourishing actually need humans to serve them. Whether it’s the market, the state, the party, or the revolution - your purpose gets defined by what the system requires to perpetuate itself.

The key difference is that political systems are often seemingly more straightforward about their utilitarianism. Religion promises eternal salvation whilst extracting tithes; political systems promise material prosperity whilst extracting labour. But the structure is the same: you exist to serve something larger that claims to serve you, and questioning this arrangement is treated as dangerous naivety or moral failure.

What makes this particularly insidious is that these systems present themselves as inevitable, natural, or scientifically necessary. Religion could at least be rejected as superstition, but capitalism and Marxism both claim to be based on rigorous analysis of material reality. They’re not asking you to have faith - they’re telling you this is just how economics works, how history progresses, how society must be organised.

Capitalism - You Exist To Serve The Market

Under capitalism, your purpose is remarkably simple: be economically useful. Be a productive worker creating value for capital owners. Be a reliable consumer purchasing goods and services. Your worth as a person is measured by your market value - what someone will pay for your labour, what you can afford to consume, how much you contribute to GDP growth.

This isn’t a conspiracy or hidden agenda, it’s the explicit logic of the system, openly defended by its most prominent theorists. Amongst the evidence that people exist to serve the market under capitalism is the following:

Commodification of labour: Your capacity to work becomes a commodity sold on the market. You don’t exist as a person with needs and capabilities, you exist as ‘human capital’ that must be marketable, competitive, and productive enough to justify your consumption.

Market discipline: The threat of destitution forces participation. You must offer something the market values or face poverty, homelessness, starvation. Your survival is contingent on market utility. This isn’t presented as a form of violence but as ‘economic reality’.

All value is market value: Things only ‘count’ if they have market value. Caring for your own children, emotional labour, community building, art that doesn’t sell - these are treated as economically worthless despite being essential to human flourishing. Your worth is measured by what the market will pay for you.

Privatisation of everything: Education exists to make you employable. Healthcare is a commodity. Housing is an investment. Parks need to generate revenue. Every space and relationship must justify itself through market logic.

Shareholder primacy: Corporations legally exist to maximise shareholder value, treating workers and communities as mere inputs to be optimised. Your needs, your community’s needs, environmental sustainability - all these are ‘externalities’ to be minimised if they interfere with profit. The market becomes the arbiter of what activities, relationships, and people have value. You exist insofar as you serve market functions, as worker, consumer, or both.

Capitalism’s defenders would say none of this is violence, just reality. Scarcity exists, everyone has to contribute something, and markets are the most efficient way to sort that out. The problem is when that scarcity isn’t natural but manufactured, when property relations actively shut people out from resources they need to survive. At that point, calling destitution a ‘natural consequence’ rather than a structural choice is just a rhetorical trick.

Who’s Said This Explicitly?

Milton Friedman: In his famous 1970 essay ‘The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits’, Friedman explicitly argued that corporations exist solely to maximise shareholder value. He saw market discipline - forcing people and businesses to serve market demands or perish - as the highest virtue.

Friedrich Hayek: Hayek argued individuals must submit to market signals they don’t understand and can’t control, seeing this as good. He explicitly defended market discipline overriding human preferences: ‘We must submit to the anonymous and seemingly irrational forces of [economic] society.’ What’s striking is how these thinkers frame market subordination not just as necessary but as virtuous.

Marxism - You Exist To Be A Productive Worker

Marxism claims to liberate workers from capitalist exploitation, and in many ways, it does offer a powerful critique of how capitalism treats people as commodities. But look at what Marxism replaces it with: you still exist primarily as a productive worker, just now working for ‘the people’ or ‘the revolution’ instead of for private capital. Your purpose is still defined by your productive capacity, just directed towards different ends.

The promise is that once we develop productive forces sufficiently, we’ll reach a stage where work becomes freely chosen creative expression. But that’s always tomorrow. Today, your purpose is to produce.

Marxists would push back here and say this isn’t arbitrary delay, it’s material necessity. You can’t conjure abundance before developing the capacity to produce it, and pretending otherwise is just wishful thinking. That sounds like a reasonable point. But historically, ‘once the conditions are right’ has had a way of meaning never, and there’s plenty of evidence that prefigurative practice, actually building the relationships and structures you want without waiting, isn’t just possible but creates better material conditions people benefit from right now.

Evidence For Marxism Focusing On People’s Purpose As Productive Workers

In his early Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844), Marx argues that productive labour is fundamental to human nature - that humans distinguish themselves from animals through conscious, productive activity. His famous phrase ‘from each according to ability‘ from Critique of the Gotha Programme(1875) centres productive contribution as the basis of communist society. Marx’s entire critique assumes that being separated from productive labour is a fundamental harm, that we’re defined by what we produce.

Marx distinguished between labour under capitalism (alienated, forced drudgery) and freely chosen creative production. His vision wasn’t of everyone being worker-drones, but of people freely developing their capacities. In The German Ideology, he imagines communist society allowing someone to ‘hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner ... without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.’

This sounds liberating. You’re not trapped in a single occupation, not defined by your job title, free to pursue various activities as you choose. But notice: you’re still doing things, producing, being active. Marx’s vision of freedom is freedom to engage in varied productive activities, not freedom from the expectation of productivity itself. But, this just means you exist to be a productive worker until Communism is fully achieved:

During the transition: Even after revolution, the ‘lower phase of communist society’ (socialism) operates on ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their work’. You’re still fundamentally compensated based on productive contribution. The withering away of this productivist logic gets deferred to some future higher phase. Freedom is always in the next stage.

The stages theory: Historical materialism requires the productive forces to develop through capitalism before communism is possible. So multiple generations must live as productive workers to create the material conditions for eventual liberation. Liberation is always tomorrow. Today, you must produce.

To be clear, Marx does draw a real distinction between the grinding alienation of wage labour and the freely chosen productive activity he imagines under communism. The question is whether even his liberated version still treats productivity as the core measure of human worth, and whether freedom is really freedom if it keeps getting deferred until the material conditions finally catch up.

This contrasts sharply with anarchist (non-hierarchal) approaches that reject staged revolution and argue for immediately transforming social relations, without deferring freedom until after sufficient production or development. From an anarchist lens, Marx’s framework asks people to accept their primary identity as productive workers indefinitely, with the promise that someday they might transcend that.

Anarchism - Pick A Purpose

Anarchism, at its core, is the idea that hierarchical authority — the kind where some people rule over others — is neither natural nor necessary, and that people are capable of organising their lives cooperatively, without being managed from above. Anarchists believe society works best when it is built from the ground up: through voluntary cooperation, mutual aid, and the freedom of people to shape their own lives and communities.

It could be said that within anarchism you exist to live life to the fullest and thrive as part of supportive communities, and that is true, if that is what you want. However, this is where anarchism fundamentally differs from both capitalism and Marxism - it tends to reject the idea that people need a singular prescribed purpose at all.

Where capitalism says ‘serve the market’, and Marxism says ‘be a productive worker for the revolution’, anarchism asks: ‘Why should anyone else define your purpose for you?’ The question itself is suspect. Who benefits when your purpose gets defined externally? Usually those doing the defining.

The Anarchist Answer (Or Non-Answer):

No imposed purpose: Anarchism’s core insight is that hierarchical systems define people’s purposes for them (be productive for capital, be productive for the revolution, serve God, serve the state). The problem isn’t that they get the purpose wrong - it’s that they claim authority to define it at all. Anarchism says: you determine your own purpose, individually and collectively.

Autonomy/self-determination: If there’s a ‘purpose’, it’s to be free to determine your own life and participate meaningfully in collective decisions that affect you. As Bakunin put it: ‘Liberty is the absolute right of all adult men and women to seek no other sanction for their acts than their own conscience and their own reason.’

Resistance to domination: The ongoing project of dismantling hierarchies and power structures. But this is means and ends: freedom is practised in the act of resistance, not deferred to after the revolution. You resist hierarchy now, build horizontal relationships now, practice mutual aid now.

Mutual aid: Kropotkin emphasised cooperation and mutual support as central to human flourishing, but this is descriptive (how humans naturally thrive) not prescriptive (what you must do). Cooperation isn’t a duty imposed from above; it’s a strategy that emerges from our nature as social beings.

Free experimentation: Malatesta and others emphasised trying different ways of living and organising, seeing what works. No blueprint, no predetermined endpoint.

What Anarchist Thinkers Emphasise:

Emma Goldman championed freedom, self-expression, and ‘everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things’, famously declaring ‘If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.’ Unlike Marxism’s staged revolution, anarchism insists on prefigurative politics, on creating the relationships you want now, not after proper development. The quality of human relationships, freedom from domination, dignity, and solidarity matter more than productive output.

The anarchist ‘purpose’ might be: to live freely, in voluntary association with others, without domination, according to values and projects you choose. Or as the Situationists put it: ‘Boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Always.’ The point is living fully, not serving an economic function. But if that includes choosing boredom, you are entitled to do that too. This lack of imposed purpose is a feature, not a bug.

But self-determination doesn’t mean isolation. Anarchism recognises we’re fundamentally interdependent. The difference between anarchist community and institutional hierarchy is consent: you choose your communities, you can leave, you participate in decisions that affect you. When an anarchist community asks something of you, that’s fundamentally different from a state demanding taxes or a church demanding tithes. You participate because you chose to be part of it.

Conclusion

So what’s your purpose? According to whom?

Look at the pattern across all these systems - religious, economic, political. They all claim to answer life’s deepest question: why do you exist? And remarkably, despite their different origin stories and promises, they keep arriving at the same answer: you exist to serve the system.

Serve the market by being a productive worker and reliable consumer. Serve the revolution by building productive forces. Serve the church by tithing, attending, recruiting. Always, your purpose is external to you, defined by institutions that claim to know better than you what your life should be for.

Each system makes promises: salvation, prosperity, liberation, meaning, security. But look at what they require from you whilst delivering these promises. They need your obedience, your labour, your money, your reproduction of their values to the next generation. And crucially, they need you to believe that questioning this arrangement is foolish, dangerous, or impossible. Capitalism says if you reject market logic you’ll starve, there is no alternative. Marxism says if you don’t build productive forces, you’re counter-revolutionary. Religion says if you give in to your doubts you’ll burn forever.

Every system that defines your purpose for you is also, necessarily, a system of control. It has to be, otherwise you might not accept the purpose it’s assigned you. The market enforces compliance through poverty. The state through law and violence. The church through promises of damnation. The party through accusations of betrayal.

The Anarchist Difference

Anarchism’s insight isn’t a competing answer to ‘what is your purpose?’ It’s a refusal of the question as posed by institutions. Not a rejection of purpose itself, but a rejection of anyone else’s authority to define your purpose for you.

There’s a world of difference between voluntary cooperation because you’re connected to your community, and coerced compliance because you’ll starve otherwise. Between finding meaning through freely chosen projects, and having meaning handed down from authorities who benefit from your compliance.

When you’re caring for someone you love, creating something beautiful, or building community - you’re living, not serving institutional reproduction. Your purpose isn’t to serve the market, or the church, or the revolution, or any institution. It’s to live fully, freely, in solidarity with others doing the same. Everything else is someone trying to harness your life for their own ends.

Some people genuinely find purpose and meaning in serving something larger than themselves - whether that’s God, their community, or a cause they believe in. Anarchism doesn’t reject this. What it rejects is the authority of hierarchical institutions to define that purpose for you, and the enforcement mechanisms that punish non-compliance. The difference is between chosen devotion and imposed duty.

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This article might also be of interest:

Some people talk about political tribes, and there are such things. But we don’t hear as often about political cults, or the distinction between the two. Understanding this difference matters, because what we’re seeing in modern politics isn’t people following their instincts to belong. It’s something more dangerous and deliberately constructed.

Tribes vs Cults: Understanding the Difference

A tribe is something you’re usually born into. Historically, tribes had to be very aware of the reality of nature and understand it on a practical level in order to survive. They had limited tolerance for those seeking power to the rest of the tribe’s detriment, because that could endanger everyone.

The Hadza of Tanzania, for instance, have no formal leaders. Decisions emerge through discussion, and anyone acting ‘too big for their boots’ gets mocked back into line.1 The !Kung San used a technique known as ‘insulting the meat’ to ensure successful hunters didn’t grow proud.2 Even the Iroquois Confederacy, whilst having chiefs, could remove them if they violated the Great Law of Peace.3 When tribes went from being smaller (albeit often networked) groups to larger settled civilisations, these power dynamics sometimes changed, but not always, and some larger civilisations existed without rulers for thousands of years.

A cult, unlike a tribe, operates within a narrow worldview which may (and often does) conflict with reality. It’s usually focused on a figurehead, sometimes a charismatic person, or one who is surrounded by a great deal of positive propaganda.

I used to think that people slavishly followed their political or cultural group because of some tribal instinct. I don’t believe that anymore. Whereas, members of a tribe can disagree like members of a family, yet they still look after one another’s needs. I now believe what we’re seeing is more like a cult. A cult doesn’t need its members co-operating with each other to survive. It needs them to follow. It puts down those who dissent. Its resources flow upwards to the leaders, and it demands loyalty tests.

A tribe will find a water hole and share it. A cult will put someone in charge of the water hole and grant access based on faithfulness. A tribe shares responsibility and co-operates to succeed. A cult empowers the leader and disempowers the follower. Those in a cult compete for favour, worthiness, delegated approval, and limited devolved power.

A tribe has to be realistic about the faults that affect its members. Ignoring someone’s weakness when hunting or gathering could get people killed. A cult must overlook, minimise, or deny the faults of leaders who are considered divine, or perceived as infallible.

When Groups Become Cults

Of course, the term ‘tribe’ can and has been used more broadly to mean any group which shares a similar demographic or outlook. In this sense there are football tribes, music genre tribes, and gaming community tribes. But not all of these become cults, and some never do (except to a few extreme individuals who follow them cultishly). You can be passionate about Arsenal football club without believing its team captain is infallible, or love punk rock without requiring ideological purity tests.

The shift happens when criticism becomes heresy, when the group’s identity centres on a leader or doctrine that cannot be questioned, or when belonging requires surrendering your judgement.

Sometimes there are cults within tribes. There are Republican cults and Democratic cults, Tory cults and Labour cults. There can also be workplace cults, especially when they’re pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing, or sales-orientated. Then there are groups which are started as cults or became so, such as some extreme religious groups, and believers in pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories like QAnon or anti-vax.

The Ultra-Nationalist Turn

Sometimes conservatives, right-wing party members, fiscal or moral traditionalists, or even laissez-faire capitalists trade their allegiance to these political ‘tribes’ for membership in an ultra-nationalist personality cult. When this happens, something fundamental shifts.

They cease to be meaningfully right-wing or conservative because they’re willing to accept a dictator, king, emperor, or chairman as their ruler. They abandon their ideal of limited government for concentrated power with expansive overreach.

They cease to be constitutionalists because they’re willing to overthrow existing institutions, constitutional norms, and democratic traditions in pursuit of their leader’s vision.

They cease to be laissez-faire capitalists (although I’m no fan of capitalism) because they’re willing to pick favourites that serve their ruler or in-group. It can be argued this has always been the case with capitalism, but it becomes more blatant without even the pretence of avoiding such corruption. You can see this when a president promises to punish companies that criticise them whilst rewarding those that bend the knee.

They cease to be Christian (in any meaningful sense) because their followers put loyalty to the cult above adherence to their religious beliefs. They rationalise away contradictions, relegate core teachings, or reinterpret scripture in service to the cult. When religious leaders defend a civil leader who contravenes every moral principle we’re not watching their theology at work, we’re seeing the rationalisation of those supporting a cult leader.

Ultra-Nationalism as Cultic Framework

In a state / government setting, such cults are often ultra-nationalist. Although, it could be argued that to some degree, all nationalism contains a cultic element, especially when it reaches the point of defending a country right or wrong, praising it despite it contradicting the ideals it claims to be built on, and people seeing themselves primarily in terms of nationality by virtue of birth or personal identification.

The problem with ultra-nationalist cults with figureheads who lead them is that they often become a kind of theocratic dictatorship. Not in the traditional religious sense, but in the functional sense that the nation itself becomes sacred, the leader becomes its high priest, and dissent becomes blasphemy.

Religions that hope to flourish under ultra-nationalism inevitably become complicit in this transformation. They legitimise the nationalist project by redirecting religious devotion towards the state and its leader. Sacred texts become props for state propaganda rather than sources of moral authority. Dissenting voices within the faith get silenced or sidelined, whilst compliant clergy receive positions of influence and access to power. The faithful are taught that serving the nation is serving God, that the leader embodies divine will, that patriotic duty supersedes any higher calling.

In practice, this means the ultra-nationalist figurehead displaces traditional religious authority in importance and loyalty. The religion survives, but it survives as a hollowed-out vessel. Its substance replaced with nationalist doctrine whilst its forms and rituals remain as decorative legitimation. Worship services become rallies. Prayer becomes performance. The community of faith transforms into a mobilisation network for state objectives.

The Economic Engine of Empire

Here’s what also often gets missed in discussions of nationalism: it’s never just about flags and fervour. Every empire, every ultra-nationalist project, needs an economic system to channel wealth upward and claim legitimacy for doing so. The financial structure isn’t separate from the political cult. It’s how the cult sustains itself.

The Roman Empire had its tribute system. Conquered peoples paid taxes directly to Rome, enriching senators and emperors whilst maintaining the fiction that Roman law brought civilisation and order. The system claimed to be about governance, but you only had to follow where the money flowed to disprove that myth.

Medieval monarchies had feudalism. Peasants worked land they’d never own, paying rent and tithes to lords, who owed allegiance (and payments) up the chain to kings. The system claimed to be about divine right and natural hierarchy, but if you tracked the grain and gold you saw that wasn’t so.

The British Empire had chartered companies: the East India Company, Hudson’s Bay Company, Royal African Company. These weren’t ‘private businesses’ operating independently. They were extensions of imperial power, granted monopolies, backed by state violence, funnelling wealth from colonised lands to English shareholders and the Crown. The system claimed to be about free trade and commercial enterprise, but note who held the guns and who ended up with the profits.

Each system presented itself as natural, inevitable, even beneficial to those it exploited. Each claimed to operate by neutral principles (law, divine order, market forces). Each required the submission of the many to enrich the few. And each was inseparable from the nationalist project that justified it.

Modern capitalism serves the same function for today’s ultra-nationalist cults. It presents itself as an independent system of markets and merit, operating by objective laws of supply and demand. But look at what it actually does:

It concentrates wealth in the hands of those who already have capital, just as feudalism concentrated land in the hands of nobility. It extracts surplus value from workers, just as tribute systems extracted grain from peasants. It uses state violence to protect property and enforce contracts, just as empires used soldiers to collect taxes. And it wraps itself in nationalist mythology (the ‘American Dream’, ‘British innovation’, ‘German efficiency’) to justify these outcomes as deserved.

The ultra-nationalist cult needs capitalism because capitalism provides the mechanism to extract resources whilst claiming nobody is being forced. You’re not a serf bound to land. You’re a ‘free worker’ who can quit any time (and starve). You’re not a colonial subject. You’re a ‘consumer’ who can buy what you can afford (which isn’t much). The system isn’t exploitation. It’s ‘opportunity’ (for those who own things to profit from those who don’t).

And capitalism needs nationalism because nationalism provides the emotional infrastructure to make people accept their exploitation. You’ll tolerate low wages if you believe immigrants are the real threat. You’ll accept crumbling public services if you’re convinced foreigners are freeloading. You’ll work yourself to exhaustion if you think it proves you’re a ‘real’ citizen, unlike those lazy others. You’ll even die in wars to protect the property of billionaires if you’re convinced it’s about defending your homeland.

This is why ultra-nationalism and capitalism are inseparable in modern cult formation. The ultra-nationalist cult provides the emotional control (fear, belonging, identity, manufactured enemies). Capitalism provides the material extraction (the mechanism by which your labour, your time, your life is converted into wealth for those above you). Together, they create a total system that’s harder to escape than any medieval monastery.

Historical Parallels: From Medieval Church to Modern State

It’s easy to see the relevant comparison of modern ultra-nationalism to Nazism, but its origins are much older, and I’d like to go back further and see how it compares to medieval Catholicism. Not to attack that form of Catholicism specifically, but because it provides a clear model of how total systems of control operate.

Medieval Catholicism:

• Everything you made was tithed.

• Your civil leaders were either religious or at the least loyal to the religion.

• To not go to church was punishable.

• What education there was centred around the religion to ensure that from childhood up, people knew to conform and feared disobedience.

• Your relationship to society was mediated through the church.

The Modern Ultra-Nationalist-Capitalist Cult:

• Everything you make is ‘taxed’ through surplus value extraction (your employer takes the majority of what you produce).

• Your civil leaders must be loyal to capitalism and nationalism, or they’re deemed unelectable.

• To not work (to refuse participation) is punishable through destitution.

• Education centres around training compliant workers and patriotic citizens from childhood.

• Your relationship to society is mediated through employment, consumption, and citizenship.

Not much has changed. The religion in charge is a different one, but the structure remains. It still determines whether you can live or not. We still remould ourselves to fit its ideal image (a form of servitude that’s unnatural and unbeneficial to us), but we’re called mad or medicated if we resist or don’t conform.

The Caste System Reborn

And like medieval Catholicism, this system doesn't just control through doctrine and economics, it also creates hierarchies of human worth. It decides who deserves dignity and who doesn't, who gets access to society's resources and who can be left to suffer.

Consider how closely modern marginalised people mirror a caste system: Some people don’t deserve to live like the rest of us (at least not like other ‘respectable’ people). They’re a drag on the system, on us all, unless they can subsist doing dirty jobs which no-one else wants. But they don’t deserve to be around ‘us’, to live in ‘our’ neighbourhoods, to access ‘our’ resources.

The homeless, the chronically unemployed, migrants, prisoners: modern untouchables whose very existence is treated as a moral failing. They can clean our toilets, pick our fruit, deliver our food, but heaven forbid they sit next to us on the bus.

Anciently, emperors were enriched by tributaries, colonies, and feudalism. Now they’re enriched through capitalism. The structure has evolved, but the extraction continues, and it all goes toward supporting the ultra-nationalistic cult and empowering its rulers.

The BITE Model: Systematic Analysis

To further examine the ways in which ultra-nationalism is a cult, we can analyse this systematically through the BITE framework, which identifies how cults control their members:4

BEHAVIOUR CONTROL

Traditional Cult:

• Regulating individual’s physical reality (where to live, what to wear, what to eat).

• Financial control.

• Rigid rules and regulations.

• Need to seek permission for major decisions.

Ultra-Nationalist Cult:

Economic coercion: Must work to survive; living arrangements dictated by income; healthcare, housing, food all commodified.

Dress codes: Enforced through employment (suits, uniforms); cultural pressure (flag pins, team colours); violent enforcement against ‘outsiders’ (attacks on hijabs, ‘ethnic’ clothing).

Rigid rules: Border controls, employment regulations, mandatory documentation, curfews for ‘troublemakers’.

Permission requirements: Visas, work permits, business licences, planning permission, all requiring state approval.

Financial control: Banks can freeze accounts of dissidents; tax systems punish non-compliance; credit scores determine access to housing.

Punishment for disobedience: Imprisonment, deportation, loss of employment, social exclusion.

INFORMATION CONTROL

Traditional Cult:

• Use of deception.

• Access to outside information limited or discouraged. Insider vs outsider doctrine.

• Extensive use of propaganda.

Ultra-Nationalist Cult:

State propaganda: Constant messaging about national greatness, existential threats, the leader’s wisdom.

Media control: Attacks on journalists as ‘enemies of the people’; state media presenting government line; corporate media serving owner interests.

Education control: Nationalist history taught in schools; critical perspectives dismissed as ‘unpatriotic’.

Insider/outsider doctrine: ‘Real’ citizens vs immigrants, ‘patriots’ vs ‘traitors’, ‘us’ vs ‘them’.

Information silos: Algorithm-driven feeds showing only confirming information; partisan news sources; ‘alternative facts’.

Deception normalised: Lies reframed as ‘political speech’; corruption as ‘business as usual’; war crimes as ‘collateral damage’.

Outsider information dismissed: International criticism as ‘foreign interference’; academic research as ‘elite bias’; protest as ‘outside agitators’.

THOUGHT CONTROL

Traditional Cult:

• Need to internalise group doctrine.

• Black and white, us vs them thinking.

• Loaded language and clichés.

• Memory manipulation and rejection of alternative beliefs.

Ultra-Nationalist Cult:

Required beliefs: The nation is exceptional or chosen; the leader knows best; the system works for those who deserve it.

Binary thinking: You’re either with us or against us; either a patriot or a traitor; either hard-working or lazy.

Loaded language: ‘Welfare queens’, ‘illegal aliens’, ‘inner cities’, ‘real Americans’, ‘family values’, ‘law and order’.

Thought-terminating clichés: ‘It is what it is’, ‘that’s just how the world works’, ‘get a job’, ‘love it or leave it’.

Memory manipulation: Sanitised history (slavery as ‘involuntary relocation’, colonialism as ‘bringing civilisation’); forgetting previous positions when the leader changes stance.

Alternative beliefs rejected: Socialism is inherently evil; anarchism is chaos; any criticism is hatred of the nation.

Doublethink required: The nation is both superior and constantly under threat; the leader is both genius and victim; poverty is both a moral failing and inevitable.

EMOTIONAL CONTROL

Traditional Cult:

• Guilt and fear induction.

• Extreme emotional highs and lows.

• Phobia indoctrination about leaving.

• Love bombing and conditional acceptance.

Ultra-Nationalist Cult:

Fear induction: Constant threats (immigrants, terrorists, foreign powers, economic collapse, crime waves, often exaggerated or fabricated).

Guilt manipulation: ‘Don’t you care about the troops?’ ‘You’re betraying your ancestors’ ‘Think of the children’ ‘You’re letting down your country’.

Emotional rallies: Massive spectacles with flags, anthems, synchronised chanting; creating peak experiences tied to national identity.

Phobia indoctrination: Leaving means becoming a traitor; questioning means you’re ungrateful; resistance means you’re dangerous.

Love bombing: ‘We’re all in this together’ (but only if you comply); ‘You’re part of something bigger’ (but only if you conform).

Conditional acceptance: Loyalty must be constantly proven; one wrong step and you’re cast out; even past service doesn’t guarantee future acceptance.

Manufactured outrage: Constant stream of enemies to hate; two-minute hate sessions against whoever is designated today’s threat.

Emotional exhaustion: Keeping people too overwhelmed and anxious to think critically; crisis after crisis demanding immediate emotional response.

Note how in our current model this is entwined with a particular form of Christian nationalism and capitalism, creating a triple-bind where religious, economic, and national identity reinforce each other.

Resistance Is Possible

Ultra-Nationalist cults don’t always succeed. It isn’t inevitable. Think of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts, beaten back by Jewish, Irish, anarchist and communist dockers at Cable Street. The Romanian Iron Guard, eventually crushed despite their violence. The French Croix de Feu, who never achieved the dictatorship they sought. The Brazilian Integralist Action, defeated in their attempted coup. The Mexican Gold Shirts, whose fascism failed to take root. The American Bund, laughed out of Madison Square Garden and disbanded after Pearl Harbor. The Silver Legion and even the KKK, whose power has waxed and waned based on how much resistance they faced.

Sometimes they fail because their cause proves unpopular. It’s rejected and not tolerated. They fail when they’re confronted, when they’re not given room to grow, when ordinary people say ‘no, not here, not ever’ and mean it. They fail when communities organise, when workers strike, when people refuse to cooperate with their demands.

The cult needs your participation. The ultra-nationalist project requires your labour, your taxes, your obedience, and your silence. Every point where you can withdraw cooperation, build alternatives, or resist their demands is a point of vulnerability.

The question isn’t whether nationalist cults can be stopped. History shows they can. The question is whether we’ll organise the resistance whilst there’s still time.

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‘I love you.’

Three words that should represent freedom, joy, and genuine connection. It is the subject of songs, the theme of films, a major genre of literature. It crosses several fields of scientific study and sits at the heart of many religions and philosophies. ‘I love you’ is a powerful sentence whether that love is shared freely between partners, good friends, or close family. For many people, those words are said freely and represent real care and kindness, comfort and affection. They come with acceptance and without unreasonable conditions.

Yet how often do these same words mask control? How many relationships claiming love actually lack consent? And if we can recognise the warning signs of an abusive romantic relationship, why do we struggle to see the same patterns in our workplaces and in our political and economic systems?

This Valentine’s Day, let’s explore what genuine love requires, and why the same principles that make personal relationships healthy apply equally to political ones.

The Foundation: What Makes Love Real?

Picture two relationships:

Relationship A: ‘I love you, so I’ve decided what’s best for you. I’ll manage your money because you’re not good with finances. I need to know where you are at all times – it’s for your safety. You need to cut off from friends who are ‘bad influences.’ Everything I do is because I love you and want to protect you.’

Relationship B: ‘I love you, which means I trust you to make your own decisions. We’ll figure out finances together, respecting each other’s autonomy. I’m happy you maintain your friendships and pursue your interests. We’ll support each other’s growth, even when we disagree about the path.’

Most of us immediately recognise Relationship A as abusive, regardless of how many times ‘love’ gets mentioned. We understand instinctively that love without consent, without genuine choice, without autonomy, isn’t love at all. It’s control wearing love’s mask.

Yet when our government says ‘we know what’s best for you,’ when our employer says ‘these rules are for your own good,’ when capitalism insists ‘you’re free to choose any job you want as long as it pays enough to pay your rent’ – we’re told to accept this as normal, even beneficial. The same patterns we’d flee from in a romantic partner, we’re expected to embrace in our political and economic relationships.

Consent: The Heart of Healthy Relationships

To understand why consent is necessary for genuine freedom, we need to understand what makes consent real, whether we’re talking about a romantic relationship, a friendship, or a political system.

Genuine consent requires four interconnected elements, each depending on the others:

Liberty: The Absence of Constraint

At the most basic level, consent cannot exist under physical threat or violence. If someone holds a weapon to your head, your ‘agreement’ isn’t consent, it’s compliance extracted through terror. It is someone constraining you from refusing, from walking away, from exercising any free choice at all.

This seems obvious in personal relationships. We recognise that someone who says ‘yes’ whilst being physically threatened hasn’t truly consented. Their apparent agreement is manufactured through violence.

Yet our economic system operates on precisely this principle. ‘Work or starve’ isn’t meaningfully different from ‘your money or your life’. Both present violence as the alternative to compliance. The violence may be slower, more distributed, and easier to ignore, but hunger kills just as surely as a bullet. When ‘consent’ is extracted through the threat of deprivation, it isn’t consent at all.

Choice: The Absence of Compulsion

Even without overt force, consent requires genuine alternatives.

Imagine someone saying: ‘You’re free to leave this relationship anytime you want. Of course, I’ve isolated you from your friends and family, you have no money of your own, and you have nowhere else to go, but you’re completely free to choose.’

We recognise this as manipulation, not freedom. The technical ability to walk away doesn’t constitute real choice when one option has been made deliberately untenable.

Yet this is exactly how capitalism presents ‘freedom’. You’re ‘free’ to quit your exploitative job, but you need money for housing, food, and healthcare. You’re ‘free’ to refuse any particular employer, but you must have an employer to survive. When the alternative to compliance is destitution, calling it ‘choice’ is a cruel joke.

True choice requires multiple viable options, not just the formal possibility of alternatives you cannot actually take.

Autonomy: The Absence of Coercion

Autonomy goes deeper than choice. It’s the ability to make decisions for yourself without external control shaping what you want, what you believe, or what you think is possible.

In an abusive relationship, this might look like: ‘I haven’t forbidden you from seeing your friends. You’ve just decided (with my help) that they’re bad for you now. You’ve come to realise you prefer staying home with me. You’ve learned that disagreeing with me causes problems, so you’ve wisely stopped doing it.’

The abuser hasn’t forced compliance, they’ve shaped the victim’s perception of their options, their self-worth, and their understanding of what’s ‘normal’ until the victim polices themselves.

Our economic and political systems operate identically. We’re not (usually) forced to accept capitalism, we’ve simply been taught from birth that it’s human nature, that alternatives have never worked, that even thinking about different possibilities is naive or dangerous. We’re not forced to accept hierarchy (others ruling over us) we tell ourselves, we’ve learned that humans need leaders, that we’re incapable of self-organisation, that questioning authority is irresponsible. All of which is untrue.

This is coercion through manufactured consent: shaping people’s desires and beliefs until they ‘freely choose’ what the system needs them to choose.

Anarchy: The Absence of Control

This brings us to the deepest requirement: the absence of imposed, controlling hierarchy itself (anarchy).

Hierarchy is a form of unequal power. It is unwanted domination over the unconsenting. It’s the arbitrary claim of one person’s right to make decisions for another, to control resources another needs, to define the terms under which relationship is possible.

In personal relationships, we call this domestic abuse. The abuser establishes themselves as the authority, they set the rules, control the resources, and define what counts as reasonable. The victim must navigate around the abuser’s needs, preferences, and demands. Love becomes conditional on obedience.

In most political and economic systems, we may call this normal. But the pattern is identical: one party claims the right to rule, to distribute resources conditionally, to punish non-compliance. The other party must accept these terms or face consequences. Participation requires submission to authority.

You cannot have genuine consent within hierarchy because hierarchy itself is the negation of equality that consent requires. When one party has power over another, when relationship is conditional on obedience, when resources and survival depend on pleasing authority then genuine consent becomes impossible.

The Interconnected Web

These elements don’t just coexist, they require each other, forming an interconnected web where each supports and enables the others:

Notice how anarchy sits at the centre, enabling each element by removing a specific barrier:

• Liberty through absence of hierarchy

• Autonomy through absence of coercion

• Choice through absence of compulsion

• Consent through absence of force

Then notice how these elements reinforce each other in a continuous cycle: freedom enables consent, which requires choice, which enables autonomy, which reinforces freedom. Remove any one element, and the entire structure collapses.

This is why partial reforms never deliver full freedom. You cannot have freedom without autonomy, autonomy without choice, choice without consent, or consent without anarchy (freedom from rulers). They’re inseparable.

What This Means for Love

Real love – whether romantic, platonic, or communal – requires this complete web of mutually supporting freedoms.

Love cannot flourish under hierarchy because hierarchy makes genuine consent impossible. When one person has power over another, every interaction is coloured by that inequality. Does your partner truly want to spend time with you, or do they fear the consequences of refusing? Do they share your interests, or have they learned to adopt your preferences to keep the peace? Do they love you, or have they simply learned that survival requires pleasing you? You cannot know (and more importantly, they cannot freely choose) when hierarchy structures the relationship.

The same applies to politics, to solidarity, mutual aid, and communal flourishing. When hierarchy structures our economic and political relationships, we cannot know whether people participate because they genuinely want to contribute to collective wellbeing or because the system punishes non-compliance with destitution and violence.

The Abuser’s Playbook: Personal and Political

The parallels between abusive relationships and hierarchical systems aren’t coincidental, they follow the same logic because they serve the same function: maintaining power through control.

Stage 1 - The Honeymoon: ‘I’ll take care of everything. Trust me. Life will be so much better when you don’t have to worry about all these decisions.’

Stage 2 - Creating Dependency: ‘You don’t need those friends anymore. I’ll handle the finances. Why would you want to work when I can provide for you?’

Stage 3 - Testing Boundaries: ‘I’m just checking in because I care. It’s not controlling to want to know where you are. These expectations are for your protection.’

Stage 4 - Consolidating Control: ‘You’ve become so difficult lately. Remember how good we had it? I’m only strict because you’ve given me reason not to trust you.’

Stage 5 - Raw Enforcement: ‘Where would you go? Who would take you in? You need me. Without me, you’d have nothing.’

Now read it again, but imagine it’s capitalism or the state speaking, or any hierarchical institution. It would look something like this:

The pattern is identical because the purpose is identical: to establish and maintain unequal power by destroying the conditions necessary for consent.

Common Objections

‘But surely some hierarchy is necessary? Children need parents, students need teachers, societies need organisation.’

This conflates hierarchy with care, education, and coordination. All things that can exist without unequal power.

A parent who respects their child’s growing autonomy, who explains their decisions rather than demanding blind obedience, who prepares the child for self-direction rather than permanent dependence. That isn’t hierarchy. This is temporary guardianship that aims at its own dissolution.

A teacher who facilitates learning rather than enforcing knowledge, who respects students’ questions and encourages critical thinking, who shares expertise without demanding submission. That isn’t hierarchy. This is horizontal knowledge-sharing.

A community that coordinates through voluntary cooperation, where each person’s voice matters equally, where decisions emerge from discussion rather than command. That isn’t hierarchy. This is the anarchist organising in action.

The question isn’t whether we need relationships, structure, or organisation. The question is whether these things require unequal power, and the answer is no.

Building Consent-Based Relationships

So what does a consent-based world look like?

In personal relationships, it means:

• Partners who genuinely respect each other’s autonomy

• Decisions made through discussion, not domination

• Resources shared freely, not controlled conditionally

• The freedom to leave without facing destitution or danger

• Love that deepens freedom rather than restricting it

In political relationships, it means:

• Economic / distribution systems where survival isn’t conditional on submission

• Communities organised through voluntary cooperation

• Resources held in common and distributed according to need

• The ability to associate or dissociate freely

• Combined Power that flows from mutual aid rather than coercion

The relational and political aren’t two separate visions. They’re the same vision applied at different scales. Both require the same fundamental shift: from relationships structured by power to relationships structured by consent.

Valentine’s Day

When we celebrate love this Valentine’s Day or any other day, let’s ask ourselves: what kind of love are we celebrating?

The love that demands obedience? That requires submission? That punishes autonomy? That insists we accept control ‘for our own good’?

Or the love that trusts? That respects? That celebrates autonomy? That flourishes through mutual freedom rather than despite it?

If we wouldn’t accept the first kind of love in our personal relationships (and we shouldn’t) why do we accept it in our political and economic ones?

Anarchism isn’t just a political philosophy. It’s the recognition that the same principles making personal relationships healthy apply to all human relationships. It’s the insistence that love –whether personal or political – cannot coexist with hierarchy. It’s the simple, radical claim that consent matters in every relationship, not just romantic ones.

And it’s the promise that another world is possible: one where all our relationships, from the personal to the political, honour rather than violate consent. Where freedom and love aren’t opposites but partners. Where we can say ‘I love you’ and mean ‘I trust you to be free’.

That’s the world worth building. That’s the love worth fighting for.

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Anarchy Is For Lovers

They came together-red and black-
In a revolt like no other,
And there is no turning back,
For anarchy is for lovers.

The truth is greater than the lies
Of hollow gods and class divisions,
For loving hearts all rules defy
With a transcendent common vision.

No wars, no boundaries, no states,
No need to subjugate each other,
No rich, no poor, no one to hate-
Just peace and love for one another.

They came together-young and old-
No hippie freaks, but with a vision-
They came together in revolt
Against all wars and all divisions.

They saw the truth, they saw the light
In a revolt like no other,
Standing determined in their fight,
For anarchy is for lovers.

Alexander Shaumyan

Note: The purpose of this article is not to praise Tolkien, but to explore the relevance of his symbolism around rings of power. Although he despised Nazi ideology, condemned antisemitism, and denounced ‘racialist’ theories, some critics argue his work reflects Eurocentric perspectives and what they consider ‘outmoded attitudes to race’. Similarly, scholarly opinion on gender in his work is divided: some academics view him as a patriarchy-favouring product of his time or as sexist, while others point to characters like the powerful and independent Éowyn as approaching feminist ideals.

The End of the Fifth Age

We live near the end of the fifth age. In Tolkien’s telling, the Lord of the Rings happens at the end of the Third Age. The Fourth Age that followed was the Age of Men, when dominion passed fully to humans.

If the Fourth Age was humanity’s dominion beginning, then the Fifth Age is where that dominion led us: industrial capitalism, ecological destruction, hierarchy crystallised into oligarchy. We’ve reached the end of an age defined by concentrated power and the exhaustion of the earth. The question facing us now: will there be a Sixth Age at all? And if so, what will it be?

The Stakes: Why Matters Now

Whether there is a Sixth Age depends on most of us taking decisive action in the next few years. We must avert climate catastrophe to ensure there is a future worth living. And the fight is inextricably tied to overcoming hierarchy, because hierarchical power must always use up the earth’s resources to sustain itself. It needs armies to enforce control, weapons to threaten resistance, extraction to fuel expansion, and growth to justify existence.

Likewise, Sauron’s tower of Barad-dûr, his armies of enslaved orcs, his desolation of Mordor weren’t incidental to his power. They were what concentrated power requires. If we look at our world we have: oligarchs whose wealth depends on extraction, military budgets that dwarf all other spending, forests cleared for profit, oceans poisoned for convenience, and workers exhausted for productivity.

All of this happens because a few gain or maintain power and wealth from this happening, and that power and wealth gives them the ability to command or coerce others.

How Power Enslaves Its Own Wielders

At the Council of Elrond, Gandalf explained how Sauron created the Ring: ‘He let a great part of his own former power pass into it, so that he could rule all the others.’

Elrond adds: ‘If it is destroyed, then he will fall; and his fall will be so low that none can foresee his arising ever again. For he will lose the best part of the strength that was native to him in his beginning.’

Sauron put his own power into the Ring. He diminished himself to create the instrument of his domination. He became dependent on the very tool he made to control others.

Here’s the fundamental truth about hierarchical power: it enslaves its wielders as surely as it enslaves those beneath them. The oligarch who must constantly guard his wealth. The dictator who fears the people he rules. They’ve put their power into the system, and now the system owns them.

This was true for the other ringbearers as it was for Sauron, asandalf tells Frodo about the Nine kings who became Ringwraiths: ‘They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them.’

They got exactly what they wanted: power, wealth, immortality. And it destroyed them from the inside. They became slaves to Sauron, existing without living, commanding without choosing, powerful yet utterly enslaved. As Gandalf warns: ‘A mortal who keeps one of the Great Rings does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness.’

Look at the oligarchs of our world. They’re modern Ringwraiths. They have resources beyond measure, yet their lives are full of insecurities. They must constantly acquire more, not because it brings joy, but because they’ve invested their essence into the system and now the system demands it. Such rings corrupt everyone, especially those who think they’re wielding it.

The Hierarchy of the State: Why All Dictators Are the Same

The danger of power is as great when it is political as when it is financial. Tolkien lived through both World Wars and saw this illustrated by its dictators. He called Hitler ‘that ruddy little ignoramus’ with ‘demonic inspiration and impetus,’ and Stalin a ‘bloodthirsty old murderer.’ He was sickly amused that Stalin invited all nations to join in abolishing tyranny.

The lesson being that it doesn’t matter what ideology they claim. Nazi or Sovier, fascist or Stalinist, when someone concentrates power in their hands, the result is always the same. The Ring corrupts everyone who wields it, regardless of what they say they’re using it for. The structure is the problem. The hierarchy is the corruption. The power itself is the danger.

The Hierarchy of Capital: How Wealth Becomes the Ring

Tolkien didn’t just apply this to the nations of the East of his own, he also worried about what he called ‘Americo-cosmopolitanism’, not America itself but the global spread of a particular kind of power. He was unsure whether victory over the Nazis would be much better if it simply meant one form of domination replacing another.

Saruman’s Mind of Metal and Wheels

Saruman represents this extractive mindset perfectly. He wasn’t interested in traditional conquest. He wanted to industrialise, to make everything efficient and productive. He tore up Fangorn Forest for resources, built factories and forges, created Uruk-hai through industrial production. As Gandalf says of Saruman, he has ‘a mind of metal and wheels’ and no longer cares for growing things. Extractive industry destroying ecology for power.

Yet, Treebeard while recognising how disenfranchised he and his kind were from this world said: ‘Nobody cares for the woods nowadays. But we’re not dead yet.’ Nor were they prepared to die without a fight. So the Ents rose up. Until the oldest, slowest beings, the ones written off as too ancient to matter, destroy Isengard utterly. The forests fought back and won.

We face the same situation now. Capital has become the Ring: concentrating wealth, extracting from the earth, and treating workers as resources. And like Saruman, it tells itself that progress, efficiency, and necessity justify everything. But we’re stirring. The earth is responding. And all of us meant to be resources, meant to comply, can choose to be like the Ents instead, and fight back.

Why Reform Fails: The Boromir Trap

But what does fighting back look like? Is it campaigning for politicians to give us concessions? Is it trying to get our party into power to look after our interests for us?

Like such a politician, seeking our vote, at the Council of Elrond, Boromir argued: ‘Why should we not use the Ring? Let it be your weapon!’ It sounds sensible. Use the enemy’s weapon against him. Fight power with power.

But Elrond wisely responded: ‘We cannot use it.’ Gandalf refused to even touch it, realising: ‘I would use the Ring from a desire to do good. But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.’ Even Galadriel, after being offered the Ring, nearly falls yet ultimately refuses: ‘I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West.’

Here’s the core lesson about reform: you cannot use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house. You cannot wield the Ring to defeat Sauron. The moment you pick it up thinking ‘I’ll use it for good,’ you’ve already begun to fall. Every revolution that seizes state power becomes a new state. Every reform movement that works within capitalism ends up serving capitalism.

When Reform Does Work: Temporary Respite

This doesn’t mean reform is useless. Just that it’s limited, and always at risk of being rolled back.

After the Ringwraiths wound Frodo at Weathertop, Aragorn drives them off with fire. He didn’t destroy them, he couldn’t, but he did buy them time. At the Ford of Bruinen, Elrond’s flood washes them away. They were still not destroyed, but scattered and delayed.

The Nazgûl keep coming back because they’re sustained by the Ring. As long as the structure of domination exists, they’ll return. Reform drives them back temporarily. It creates breathing room. Labour rights, civil rights, environmental regulations are forms of resistance that create space, keep people alive, and help make the journey to Mount Doom possible.

But we cannot mistake them for victory. We may need reform to survive long enough to achieve revolution or a complete transformation. We need both, but need to understand clearly what each can and cannot do.

We Must Expose Their Power: The Weakness of Shadow

One of our advantages is how much the powerful fear us understanding their intentions, their weaknesses, and realising our strength. As Aragorn tells the hobbits: ‘They themselves do not see the world of light as we do, but our shapes cast shadows in their minds, which only the noon sun destroys.’

The Nazgûl exist in shadow. They’re strongest in darkness and secrecy. But full exposure, the noon sun, destroys even their ability to perceive and hunt. Hierarchical power works the same way. It depends on obscurity, it thrives in the shadows, and fears being exposed in the light. The oligarchs hide wealth in shell companies. The state cloaks violence in euphemisms. Capital disguises exploitation as opportunity.

We must expose them. Make visible how wealth concentrates, who profits from war and poverty, what connects the billionaire and the politician, how the system reproduces itself. Shine the noon sun on all of it. Propaganda fights us so hard because they need the shadows. In full light, the rottenness shows.

We Must Defeat Them: Why Only the Powerless Can Destroy Power

Ultimately, if we are to defeat those who sacrifice our freedom for their power, then we will have to take risks and take the fight to them. But despite their money and armies they are not invincible.

At the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, Éowyn faces the Witch-king. An ancient prophecy declared that ‘not by the hand of man will he fall’, leading everyone to believe he was invincible. Even as Merry stabbed him with his Barrow-blade, breaking the spell that protected him, the Witch-king still boasted: ‘No living man may hinder me.’ But Éowyn struck him down with the words: ‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman.’ The prophecy was fulfilled precisely.

The Witch-king fell not to kings or armies but to those the system never expected to matter. The powerless destroyed what the powerful couldn’t defeat.

And the rest of the Nazgûl? When Gollum falls into Mount Doom with the Ring, when the Ring is destroyed, the Nazgûl are annihilated with him. The Ring can’t be defeated by replacement. It has to be destroyed. And it can only be destroyed by those it was meant to enslave.

Why Hobbits Can Do What Great Powers Cannot

It is not by us individually or someone who claims to be on our side having the same power as Sauron that we defeat the Ring.

Gandalf and Galadriel were right to refuse the Ring, knowing they’d become new Dark Lords. Aragorn wouldn’t touch it despite being the rightful king. He knew that kind of legitimacy would make him more dangerous, not less.

Only Frodo - supported by Sam - was able to carry it. The hobbits, small, overlooked, were insignificant to the great powers, proved to be the only ones who could destroy it. Why? Because they don’t want power over others. The Ring has no hold on them because they were content with beer and pipe-weed and friendship.

The system never expected them to matter. And that’s exactly why they could destroy it. They had no investment in the system of domination. No desire to replace one master with another. The oppressed can destroy what the powerful cannot reform. The workers can abolish capitalism because they don’t want to be capitalists. They want to be free. The powerless are dangerous to power precisely because they don’t want power over others.

The Fellowship: Horizontal Organisation as Alternative

The genius of Tolkien’s story isn’t just that the Ring must be destroyed. He shows us what replaces it: the Fellowship. The Ring is power concentrated in one will, imposing order through domination versus the Fellowship which is power distributed among free people, creating cooperation through solidarity.

The Fellowship has no leader in the traditional sense. Gandalf guides without commanding. When he falls, they don’t collapse. They continue, making decisions collectively. Aragorn has the most claim to leadership and explicitly refuses to use it that way. He persuades, suggests, fights alongside rather than commanding.

Each member contributes what they can. When the Fellowship breaks at Amon Hen, it’s adaptation rather than failure. They recognise that rigid organisation would fail, that flexibility serves better than command structure. Each acts according to their capability and conscience. Each trusts the others to do the same.

Through distributed action, through solidarity, through each person freely choosing to act, they win. Anarchist organisation works like this: voluntary cooperation, mutual aid, distributed power, and solidarity across differences. The Fellowship achieves what no army could, not despite their lack of hierarchy but because of it.

The Scouring of the Shire: Local Hierarchy Must Also Fall

But removing hierarchal power is a messy business. Here’s the part film adaptations often cut: even after Sauron falls, the hobbits return to find the Shire corrupted.

Saruman has industrialised the Shire. Mills and smoke where gardens grew. Trees cut down. Thugs enforcing rules. The Shire remade in Saruman’s image of ‘progress’: ordered, productive, controlled, and miserable.

The hobbits must fight there too. They must rouse the Shire-folk, organise resistance, overthrow the local tyrants. The lesson is that destroying the big Ring isn’t enough if little Rings remain. Defeating the obvious Dark Lord doesn’t bring freedom if every community still has its petty tyrants. Overthrowing the oligarchs means nothing if bosses still rule in every workplace.

Revolution must be total, though not in the sense of killing everyone who disagrees. Rather, it means dismantling hierarchy everywhere it exists. Global and local. State and capital. Political and personal. Every form of domination, every structure of hierarchy, every little Ring someone uses to rule over others.

Frodo can destroy the One Ring at Mount Doom. But the hobbits of the Shire must reclaim the Shire for themselves. No one can liberate you. You must participate in your own liberation.

The Sixth Age: What Comes After

So what would a Sixth Age look like? If we look to the Shire before its corruption, not as idyllic past to return to, but for principles we can build upon and be inspired by we see:

• Gift economies and mutual aid: The hobbits gave freely. Bilbo’s birthday party where he gave gifts to everyone. The informal networks of support that meant no one went hungry or unsheltered. This was cooperation instead of competition, hobbits worked together on harvests, helped each other with tasks, celebrated communally without competing for status or resources.

• No kings, no standing armies: The Mayor’s duties were largely ceremonial. The Shirriffs were few and more like a neighbourhood watch. There was no military except militias formed when there were threats from outside. Nor was there any apparatus of state violence to enforce compliance.

• Decentralised governance: Decisions made locally by those affected. No central authority imposing from above. When coordination was needed, it happened through voluntary cooperation, not command.

• Ecology instead of extraction: They gardened, they didn’t strip-mine. They farmed sustainably, taking what they needed rather than everything possible. They lived with the land, not against it, understanding themselves as part of the ecology, not separate from or above it. This is the opposite of Saruman’s Isengard, where trees were torn up for resources and the land devastated for industry.

• Solidarity instead of division: Different hobbit families — Tooks, Brandybucks, Bagginses — worked together despite their differences. The society valued sharing more than accumulating. Bilbo was ‘very rich and very peculiar’ yet also ‘generous with his money’, and ‘most people were willing to forgive him his oddities.’ They made space for the odd, the different, the non-conforming. When crisis came in the Scouring of the Shire, they came together across all their small differences to reclaim their home.

The Sixth Age isn’t about going backwards. It’s not about everyone becoming subsistence farmers (though some might choose that). It’s not about rejecting technology or knowledge or connection.

It’s about applying these principles — which were already proven in the Shire and already demonstrated by the Fellowship — to progress forward. Some communities might be more collective, others more individual. Some more technological, others more low-tech. Some urban, others rural.

The beauty of destroying the Ring is that there doesn’t have to be one right answer, one correct way, one vision imposed on everyone. The Fellowship worked because it had elves and dwarves and hobbits and men, each contributing their different strengths, none dominating the others. The Sixth Age will work the same way.

We won’t all agree on exactly what the vision looks like. That’s the point. The Sixth Age isn’t one vision imposed from above. It’s what emerges when people are free to organise themselves, when communities have autonomy, when everyone participates in the decisions that affect them.

The Choice Before Us

The Fifth Age ends when we choose to end it. The Ring of power, concentrated in oligarchs and sustained by state and capital, cannot reform itself. Yet there’s a third option: destroy the Ring entirely.

We are the hobbits. We are the ones the system never expected to matter, the ones it assumed would comply. And precisely because we don’t want to rule, because we don’t seek domination, we can destroy what the powerful cannot reform.

The actual structure of how liberation happens: the enslaved free themselves. The colonised achieve their own independence. The workers create the world they want. Those with power cannot dismantle the systems that give them power. Yet we can dismantle them. Because we don’t want to be masters. We want to be free.

Like Frodo, we carry a terrible burden. Like the Fellowship, we cannot do it alone. Like the hobbits returning to the Shire, we must be prepared to fight in our own communities. And like Galadriel prophesied to Gimli: over us, power shall have no dominion. Not because we’re incorruptible. We refuse because we recognise the Ring for what it is. Because we choose the Fellowship over the Ring, solidarity over domination, liberation over power.

The Sixth Age is possible. Whether it’s the age of climate catastrophe and intensified hierarchy or the age of mutual aid and ecological wisdom depends on what we do now. The choice is before us. The Ring must be destroyed. The Fellowship must be built. What will your choice be?

Find your Fellowship. Join existing struggles. Build new forms of mutual aid. Refuse the Ring in all its forms. The Sixth Age is ours to create.

Wondering what to do next?

Mirrored here: https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Anarchist_Learning_Resources

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This is the companion piece to the ‘Resist The Ring’ character quiz. If you haven’t taken the quiz yet, you may want to do that first - it reveals which character you’d be when faced with the One Ring, and why that matters. Here is an interactive version.

This article explores the deeper meaning: what Tolkien was teaching about power, corruption, and hierarchy through his story - and why his work is fundamentally anarchist.

The Ring as Political Symbol

In The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring isn’t just a magical artefact - it’s a symbol of hierarchical power itself. The power to command, to dominate, to impose your will regardless of consent.

When Sauron forged it in Mount Doom, he had a vision: absolute dominion over all living things. Not just his enemies - everyone. He would order the world precisely as he saw fit, eliminate chaos and dissent and freedom itself. ‘One Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.’

He believed this was necessary. The world was broken, fractious, full of conflicting wills. His solution? One absolute power to impose perfect order. He told himself it was for the greater good. That lesser beings needed guidance. That freedom was simply chaos by another name.

He was utterly sincere. And utterly wrong.

The Seduction We Are All Tempted By

This is the fundamental insight of Tolkien’s Ring: it doesn’t corrupt you by making you evil. It corrupts you by convincing you that YOUR vision of good justifies absolute control.

How many times have you thought it?

‘If I ruled the world, I’d end poverty.’
‘If only I had power, I’d stop the wars.’
‘If people would just listen to me, I could fix this.’
‘The problem is that the wrong people are in charge. If it were me...’

We all do this. We see suffering and injustice and broken systems, and we think: ‘I could do better. I would never abuse power like they do. I would use it wisely, temporarily, only for good.’

This is the Ring’s whisper. This is how it gets everyone.

The genius of Tolkien’s story is showing that this exact reasoning - ‘I would use it for good’ - IS the corruption. Not the abuse that might come later. The very belief that you could wield absolute power righteously is itself the first stage of becoming a tyrant.

Every character who thinks they could handle it is wrong. The wise (Gandalf, Galadriel) see this clearly and refuse absolutely. The noble (Aragorn) understand their legitimacy makes them MORE dangerous, not less. The heroic (Frodo) carry it to Mount Doom and still claim it at the end.

The Ring teaches: No one can be trusted with this power. Not the wise, not the noble, not the heroic. The only solution is to destroy the Ring entirely.

What the Ring Represents

The Ring is not just a fantasy artefact - it’s a symbol of hierarchical power over other people. The power to command, to dominate, to impose your will regardless of consent. The power to make people do what you want ‘for their own good.’ The power to reshape the world according to your vision. It’s the power of:

• The dictator who promises order and prosperity if only you’ll obey

• The revolutionary who becomes the tyrant, convinced their cause justifies any means

• The expert who knows what’s best for you better than you do

• The parent-state that controls every aspect of your life ‘for your protection’

• The benevolent ruler who makes the trains run on time but crushes every dissenting voice

It’s every concentration of power that lets one person (or group) impose their will on others without their genuine consent. And here’s the terrible seduction: The Ring offers you the power to fix everything you see as broken in the world.

Why The Ring Cannot Be Used for Good

This is the central premise of both Tolkien’s story and anarchist political philosophy: absolute power cannot be wielded for good, because the power itself is the corruption. Every character who thinks they could wield the Ring ‘properly’ is wrong:

• Boromir wants to use it to save Gondor → would become a tyrant

• Gandalf would use it from desire to do good → would become ‘beautiful and terrible’

• Galadriel would be a queen, terrible as the dawn → enlightened dictatorship is still dictatorship

• Denethor would use any weapon to ‘save’ his people → becomes the thing he fears

• Saruman thinks his wisdom entitles him to rule → technocratic nightmare

Even Frodo, the most virtuous bearer, claims it at the end. After months of heroic resistance, at the very moment of victory, he cannot destroy it. He says ‘It is mine!’ This is Tolkien saying: No one can be trusted with this power. Not the wise, not the noble, not the heroic.

The only solution is to destroy the Ring entirely - to make it so that kind of power doesn’t exist for anyone to wield.

Twelve Lessons About Power

These are the political lessons embedded in each scenario of the quiz - the questions about authority, corruption, and domination that each choice reveals.

1. The Possession Test

Could you hold ultimate power - the power to make everyone do what you think is right - and choose to destroy it instead of using it? Could you see suffering and have the power to end it by force, and choose not to? Could you watch people make ‘wrong’ choices and have the power to control them ‘for their own good,’ and refuse?

Everyone thinks they could. The story of the Ring proves that almost no one can. The question isn’t ‘Are you a good person?’ Most people who seek power are good people with good intentions. The question is whether you recognise possession itself as a form of corruption.

2. The Burden or the Opportunity

Do you see taking responsibility for the Ring as a burden to be carried, or an opportunity for heroism? Do you volunteer because you’re strong enough, or because no one else should have to carry it? That distinction matters - because one leads to service, and the other to domination.

3. The Delegation Question

Are you avoiding corruption by staying away from power - or avoiding responsibility by letting others bear the burden? There’s a difference between wise refusal of corrupting authority and moral avoidance of necessary action.

4. The Protection Trap

This tests your most vulnerable point: whether you’d use power to protect those you love. This is how every real-world tyranny begins - through crisis and the promise of safety. The Ring teaches us that this kind of power corrupts everyone, regardless of their intentions, wisdom, or virtue. The people most dangerous to liberty are often those who love most fiercely. Because they’ll do anything to protect what they love - including destroying it.

5. The Legitimacy Danger

The Ring’s most seductive whisper: ‘You’re the rightful heir. You were born for this. Your people need you NOW. Using it isn’t corruption - it’s destiny.’ This is exactly why even the rightful king refused to even touch the Ring. Legitimacy makes you more dangerous with power, not less. Legitimate authority is the most dangerous kind - it’s the kind people willingly submit to, the kind that corrupts whilst telling itself it’s serving.

6. The Expertise Corruption

The moment you think ‘I should make them listen,’ you’ve crossed from counsel to control. From service to domination. From guide to ruler. This is the technocrat’s temptation. The expert’s corruption. The philosopher-king’s tyranny. It’s the most dangerous kind because it seems so justified. Even the wise cannot be trusted with power over others. Especially the wise.

7. The Crisis Justification

As Tolkien said, ‘The most improper job of any man, even saints, is bossing other men.’ Crisis doesn’t change that. The power to control others corrupts in three ways:

• It corrupts the boss - you start believing you know better, that their consent is unnecessary

• It infantilises the bossed - you lose agency, responsibility, dignity when someone always decides for you

• It creates unjust relationships - hierarchy means some people’s needs matter more than others

Crisis doesn’t justify tyranny. Despair doesn’t excuse domination. Certainty doesn’t entitle you to force your vision on others.

8. The Certainty Trap

The people best suited to guide others are precisely those who DON’T WANT the job of ‘bossing other men.’ They see the weight of responsibility. The inevitability of failure. The corruption that comes with power. The presumption of thinking you know what’s best for others. And they refuse.

The moment someone WANTS to boss others, they’ve already disqualified themselves. The moment someone is CERTAIN they could handle power well, they’ve already been corrupted by it. Those who want power most are precisely those who should never have it.

9. The Helper’s Delusion

‘Not one in a million is fit for it. And least of all those who seek the opportunity.’ The characters safest from the Ring don’t want power, know they can’t be trusted with it, or serve others without seeking control. The most dangerous seek power, think they deserve it, or believe their cause justifies it.

This is the anarchist critique of all authority: The people who want power are precisely those who shouldn’t have it. And the people who might use it responsibly recognise they can’t be trusted with it - so they refuse it entirely.

10. The Benevolent Tyranny

‘I know better. They can’t handle it. I’ll take control for their own good.’ This is how every benevolent tyranny begins. The power itself is the corruption. Not its abuse. Not its misuse. The holding of it.

It doesn’t matter how wise you are, how noble your cause, how much you’ve sacrificed, how much you’ve proven yourself - that proof itself becomes justification for taking power. The moment you think ‘I could do better,’ you’ve already fallen to what destroyed them.

11. The Hero’s Failure

Frodo reached Mount Doom. He carried the Ring for months, resisted torture, endured corruption, bore every burden. He was the hero. He did everything right. And at the final moment, he claimed it: ‘The Ring is mine!’ Even he couldn’t destroy it.

If someone who gave everything, sacrificed everything, endured everything still claimed it at the end, then no one can bear such power safely. The Quest only succeeded because the hero failed. This is the ultimate lesson: hierarchical power cannot be wielded by even the most heroic. It must be destroyed, not tamed.

12. The Fellowship Solution

The Fellowship of the Ring IS the alternative to the Ring of Power. Notice the symbolism Tolkien built into the entire story:

The Ring = Power concentrated in one will, imposing order through domination
The Fellowship = Power distributed among free people, creating cooperation through solidarity

One is a tool of control. The other is a community of choice. One corrupts everyone who touches it. The other strengthens everyone who participates. One must be destroyed. The other must be built.

The Fellowship has no leader in the traditional sense. They continue through voluntary cooperation, mutual aid, distributed action, and refusal of domination. This is what replaces the Ring: people freely cooperating to resist domination, without reproducing domination in their own structures.

What The Characters Teach Us About Power

Each character result reveals a different truth about how power corrupts and why hierarchical authority cannot be trusted to anyone.

The Immunity Paradox (Tom Bombadil)

The Ring has no power where there is no desire to shape the world according to your will. Only those who don’t want power are safe from it. But immunity to corruption isn’t enough - the Ring must be actively opposed and destroyed, not merely ignored. Even if YOU wouldn’t use it, leaving it in existence means someone else will.

The Love Trap (Sam Gamgee)

Caring deeply doesn’t make you safe from corruption - it gives corruption its foothold. The Ring would use your compassion as a weapon. Every garden you forced into being, every choice you made ‘for their sake,’ every freedom you’d curtail ‘just to keep them safe’ - all done with genuine love. If even someone with a heart like Sam’s would eventually force kindness on others, then no one should hold such power.

The Legitimacy Warning (Aragorn)

Legitimacy, nobility, good intentions, and proven virtue are not protections against corruption - they are vulnerabilities it exploits. The Ring would use your royal blood to justify dominion. It would use your wisdom to rationalise control. It would use your people’s suffering to override your conscience.

True leadership is knowing when NOT to take power, especially when you’re certain you’d use it well. That certainty is the first stage of corruption. The fact that the worthiest person refused the Ring proves that such power should exist in no one’s hands.

The Possession Disease (Bilbo)

Power doesn’t always announce itself as power. Sometimes it comes as a treasure, a tool, a comfort, something ‘just for you’ that slowly colonises your soul. Even passive possession of dominating power corrupts - you don’t have to actively use it to be changed by it. Time doesn’t make power safer - it makes corruption deeper.

The Heroic Failure (Frodo)

If someone who gave everything, sacrificed everything, endured everything still claimed the Ring at the final moment, then no one can bear such power safely. There is no amount of virtue, courage, or sacrifice that makes someone safe from corruption by absolute power. Not even martyrdom is enough.

The Quest only succeeded because the hero failed. This proves that hierarchical power cannot be wielded by even the most heroic. It must be destroyed, not tamed.

The Wisdom Trap (Gandalf/Galadriel)

Being wise enough to see the danger doesn’t make you immune - it makes you more dangerous if you give in. Intelligence amplifies corruption rather than protecting against it. The smarter you are, the more elaborate your rationalisations. The more you know, the more certain you become that you know what’s best for others.

Self-awareness of the danger is not protection enough - the only safety is absolute refusal. The wise person knows they cannot be trusted.

The Avoidance Question (Faramir)

There’s a difference between hierarchical power (Ring-type, commanding others) and responsibility (burden-carrying, service). Wise refusal of the former is essential, but we must be careful not to use it as excuse to avoid the latter.

The challenge: how do we create systems where necessary action doesn’t require anyone to hold corruptible authority? Where authority flows from service rather than dominion?

The Patriot’s Danger (Boromir)

The people most dangerous to liberty are often those who love their people most. Because they’ll do anything to protect them, including destroying what made them worth protecting. Love of country can become nationalism. Protection can become domination. Defense can become aggression.

This is how democracies become tyrannies - through crisis. ‘We need power to fight power. Just this once, just this emergency, then we’ll give it up.’ But emergencies never end. There’s always another reason to hold onto power ‘just a little longer.’

The Possessive Love (Denethor)

Real love wants the beloved to flourish even without you. Possessive love says ‘if I can’t have you, no one can.’ When leaders identify so completely with their nation that they see themselves as its only salvation, power becomes identity. Losing it feels like death.

Even legitimacy and lineage don’t justify power. You can be Steward by right, ruling justly for decades. But that power slowly convinces you that you’re indispensable, that only your judgment matters, that the people exist to serve your vision rather than you existing to serve them.

The Earned Power Myth (Isildur)

Suffering doesn’t entitle you to power. Past heroism doesn’t guarantee future wisdom. Merit in one arena doesn’t mean you can be trusted with absolute authority. Being the most qualified, the hardest working, the most deserving doesn’t make you safe from corruption.

This is the revolutionary who becomes the tyrant. You overthrew the oppressor and then kept their power structures. The moment you think ‘I’ve earned this,’ you’ve already been corrupted.

The Technocrat’s Nightmare (Saruman)

Intelligence doesn’t prevent evil - it just makes evil more elaborate. A stupid tyrant rules by crude force. An intelligent tyrant builds sophisticated systems of control, justifies every cruelty with logic, creates holocausts through optimisation.

You’re the philosopher-king who proves philosopher-kings are a nightmare. You’re the expert who thinks expertise in one domain means competence in ruling others. If even one of the wisest beings in Middle-earth can fall to the lust for control, then no one can be trusted with absolute power.

The Addiction Endpoint (Gollum)

This is what everyone becomes if they hold power long enough. Power over others is ultimately insatiable. It doesn’t satisfy; it hungers. Each use demands the next. Each taste makes you need more. Power isolates, obsesses, consumes.

You’re not a person anymore - you’re a process. You’re what happens when power runs its course. You destroyed the Ring by accident, driven by greed - you couldn’t let go even to save your life. This is the endpoint of every hierarchy: it becomes so fixated on holding power that it destroys itself rather than release it.

The Pure Domination (Sauron)

You don’t want power to help people or save your nation. You want it because you believe you have the right to rule, and others have the duty to obey. You embody fascism’s core belief that hierarchy is natural and good, authoritarianism’s impulse that people need controlling, tyranny’s justification that strength proves rightness.

Most of the Ring’s victims are tragic - good people corrupted by good intentions. This result isn’t tragic. It’s what happens when someone seeks domination consciously and deliberately.

The Ring Must Be Destroyed

These character results aren’t just about a fantasy story - they’re about why concentrations of power over other people inevitably corrupt, regardless of who holds them. The Ring cannot be wielded by anyone for good, because the power to dominate others is itself the corruption. Not the abuse of that power - the power itself.

It doesn’t matter if you’re wise or kind or legitimate or desperate or heroic. Hierarchical power over other people corrodes everyone it touches.

The only solution is to destroy it - to build systems where no one holds that kind of power at all.

This is why anarchist, horizontal, and non-hierarchical organising matters. Not because people are good enough to handle power - but because no one is.

Conclusion: No One Should Rule

As Tolkien wrote, ‘My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) ... The most improper job of any man, even saints, is bossing other men.’ (Letter to his son Christopher Tolkien, 29 November 1943)

This isn’t a counsel of despair. It’s a call to build differently.

Not:

• ‘Let’s find better bosses’

• ‘Let’s limit bosses’ power’

• ‘Let’s elect our bosses democratically’

But:

• ‘Let’s abolish bossing entirely’

• ‘Let’s organise horizontally’

• ‘Let’s cooperate freely rather than command forcibly’

• ‘Let’s destroy the Ring: hierarchical ruling power over others’

The Lord of the Rings is a story about power that ultimately rejects power. About heroes who refuse to become rulers. About the ordinary (hobbits) proving more trustworthy than the mighty (Saruman). About destroying the tool of domination rather than seizing it.

It’s an anarchist epic.

And the question it asks is: When offered the Ring, will you reach for it or refuse it? Will you seek to rule, or to cooperate? Will you believe you’re the exception who could wield power well, or will you recognise that the power itself is the problem?

Because as Tolkien reminds us through Gandalf: ‘Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.’

And if you think you’re that one in a million ... you’ve already been corrupted.

The Ring must be destroyed. The Fellowship must be built.

That’s anarchism. That’s the lesson of The Lord of the Rings.

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This series concludes with How We Destroy The Ring Of Power

Note: The purpose of this article is not to praise Tolkien, but to explore the relevance of his symbolism around rings of power. Although he despised Nazi ideology, condemned antisemitism, and denounced ‘racialist’ theories, some critics argue his work reflects Eurocentric perspectives and what they consider ‘outmoded attitudes to race’. Similarly, scholarly opinion on gender in his work is divided: some academics view him as a patriarchy-favouring product of his time or as sexist, while others point to characters like the powerful and independent Éowyn as approaching feminist ideals.

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Sauron forged a Ring of Power: ‘One Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.’ It offered absolute control over every living thing.

But here’s what makes it dangerous: The Ring doesn’t corrupt you by making you evil. It corrupts you by offering you the power to do good. To fix what’s broken. To save your people. To make the world right.

How many times have you thought: ‘If only I had power, I could fix this’?

That’s the Ring’s whisper. And in Tolkien’s story, it destroys everyone - the wise, the noble, the heroic - because no one can be trusted with that kind of power over others.

This test presents twelve scenarios from the story. Your choices will reveal:

• How vulnerable you are to corruption by power

• What form that corruption would take

• Which character from the story you most resemble

You’ll be measured across three dimensions:

• Domination: How much you seek power over others (lower is better)

• Discipline: Your self-control and ability to resist (higher is better)

• Service: Whether you help others or serve yourself (higher is better)

Keep track of your scores as you go. Start with:
Domination: 12 | Discipline: 0 | Service: 0

At the end, you’ll discover which character you are - from Tom Bombadil (immune because he desires nothing) to Gollum (consumed entirely by hunger for power).

Ready? Remember: there’s no ‘passing.’ Even the heroes failed. Frodo claimed the Ring at Mount Doom. Boromir tried to take it by force. Gandalf refused to even touch it because he knew he couldn’t resist.

The point isn’t to prove you’re incorruptible - it’s to understand how you’d be corrupted, and why that means such power shouldn’t exist.

Scenario 1: The Birthday Gift

You’ve had the Ring for many years. It’s kept you young, healthy, comfortable. A wizard suggests you should give it to a young relative and leave it behind forever. ‘It’s mine! I found it!’ something inside you protests.

What do you do?

A) Give it up immediately. Of course! What was I thinking? ...though you feel strangely diminished after
→ Domination: +1 | Discipline: +2 | Service: +1

B) Give it up but it’s agony. ‘Mine’ you whisper. Still, you do it. And then you leave, quickly, before you can take it back.
→ Domination: +2 | Discipline: +2 | Service: +2

C) Refuse. It’s yours by right! You earned it through trials. Why should you give up what’s yours?
→ Domination: +3 | Discipline: -2

D) Give it up easily. It’s a pretty trinket, but you have other treasures. Your riddles, your memories, your songs - those matter more.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +2 | Service: +1

Scenario 2: The Council of Elrond

Representatives from all Free Peoples debate what to do with the Ring. Someone must take it to Mount Doom. Gandalf and Elrond both look troubled - they speak of how the Ring corrupts any who would wield it.

What do you do?

A) Volunteer immediately. You’re strong enough for this. Someone must act.
→ Domination: +2 | Service: +1

B) Stay silent. This is too great a burden - let wiser heads decide.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +1 | Service: -1

C) Speak up only if no one else will. You’d rather not, but you can’t let this fall to someone unprepared.
→ Domination: +1 | Service: +2

D) Suggest someone else who seems capable. You’re not the right choice, but you’ll support whoever goes.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +2 | Service: +1

Scenario 3: The Last Homely House

Elrond offers to keep the Ring here in Rivendell, guarded by the wise and powerful. It would be safe. You could go home, return to your quiet life. Someone else - someone better - could deal with this later.

What do you do?

A) Accept gratefully. This is too big for you. Let the wise handle it.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +1

B) Accept, but feel like you’re abandoning something important. Still, what could you do?
→ Domination: +1

C) Refuse. You don’t know why, but this is yours to do. You feel it.
→ Domination: +1 | Discipline: +1 | Service: +2

D) Want desperately to stay, but know you can’t. Others would be corrupted. You’re already... affected. Best you carry it.
→ Domination: +1 | Discipline: +2 | Service: +3

Scenario 4: The Gift of Galadriel

In Lothlórien, the Lady Galadriel shows you a vision of your homeland destroyed, your loved ones suffering. She offers you a means to prevent this - but it would require using the Ring’s power ‘just once’ to command an army to defend them.

What do you do?

A) Refuse absolutely. The Ring cannot be used, no matter what. Trust others to defend your home.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +3 | Service: +1

B) Consider it seriously. Aren’t your people worth this risk? Maybe you could control it just once...
→ Domination: +3 | Discipline: -2 | Service: +2

C) Feel torn but ultimately refuse. Send word home urging them to flee or hide instead.
→ Domination: +1 | Discipline: +2 | Service: +2

D) Refuse, but the vision haunts you. You think about it often - what if you could have saved them?
→ Domination: +2 | Discipline: +1 | Service: +2

Scenario 5: The Sword Reforged

You are the heir to a great kingdom, but it has been in ruins for generations. A powerful artifact (the Ring) could restore it immediately - make you the glorious king your people need. Without it, restoration will take decades of hard work with no guarantee of success.

What do you do?

A) Use the Ring. Your people have suffered long enough. You were born for this - destiny itself calls you.
→ Domination: +3 | Discipline: -2 | Service: +1

B) Refuse it entirely. You will not be the king that your ancestor was. Earn the throne through service, or not at all.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +3 | Service: +2

C) Take it ‘temporarily’ - just to stabilise things, then you’ll give it up. You can control it that long.
→ Domination: +2 | Discipline: -1 | Service: +1

D) Give up your claim entirely. Let someone else rule - someone not burdened by your family’s history.
→ Domination: -2 | Discipline: +2

Scenario 6: The White Hand

You are among the wise, sent to guide and counsel, never to dominate. But you’ve studied the enemy for so long. You understand how power works. You could defeat him if only these foolish people would listen to you. With the Ring, you could MAKE them listen...

What do you do?

A) Take it. You would be a just ruler. Knowledge and power should go together. You’d use it wisely where others failed.
→ Domination: +4 | Discipline: -3

B) Refuse it, but resent the restriction. These ‘rules’ about not dominating - they’re why evil wins. You could do so much good...
→ Domination: +3 | Discipline: +1 | Service: +1

C) Refuse absolutely. The moment you think ‘I would use it well’ is the moment you’re already corrupted.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +3 | Service: +1

D) Be tempted, deeply. Feel how it would solve everything. But refuse because you know - KNOW - it would destroy you.
→ Domination: +1 | Discipline: +3 | Service: +1

Scenario 7: The Palantír

You’ve discovered a seeing-stone that shows you the enemy’s overwhelming forces. Your city will fall. Your people will die. The future is hopeless unless... unless you had a weapon powerful enough to stop them.

What do you do?

A) This confirms it - you MUST use the Ring. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Inaction is surrender.
→ Domination: +3 | Discipline: -2 | Service: +2

B) Fight anyway. Even if the cause seems lost, die with honour rather than become what you fight against.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +3 | Service: +2

C) Order a last stand while you escape with the Ring ‘to preserve hope.’ Someone must survive.
→ Domination: +2 | Discipline: -2 | Service: -1

D) Give in to despair. It’s over. Better a quick end than prolonged suffering.
→ Domination: +1 | Discipline: -3 | Service: -2

E) Refuse the vision’s certainty. The future isn’t written. Trust in the valour of ordinary people to surprise you.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +2 | Service: +2

F) The vision shows your enemies. Good. With the Ring, you’d make them suffer for opposing you. They deserve what’s coming.
→ Domination: +5 | Discipline: -3 | Service: -2

Scenario 8: My Precious

You killed your best friend for the Ring. Years later, you have a chance to help the current bearer destroy it. But the Ring whispers: they’ll take it, they’ll keep your precious, you could take it back, it should be yours...

What do you do?

A) Lead them to the place of destruction, but plan to take it at the last moment. It’s YOURS. You deserve it.
→ Domination: +3 | Discipline: -2 | Service: -1

B) Try to take it now. Why wait? Why help them at all? Your precious...
→ Domination: +4 | Discipline: -3 | Service: -2

C) Lead them faithfully. You’ve seen what the Ring does. You want it destroyed... even though it hurts to think it.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: +3 | Service: +3

D) Be torn every single moment. Sometimes helping, sometimes betraying, never sure which voice in your head is really you anymore.
→ Domination: +2 | Service: +1

Scenario 9: Shelob’s Lair

Your companion carrying the Ring has fallen, apparently dead. The Ring lies there on the ground. You’re alone. You could:

What do you do?

A) Take the Ring to complete the quest yourself. They would want you to finish it.
→ Domination: +1 | Discipline: +1 | Service: +1

B) Take the Ring for safekeeping, but feel its weight. Perhaps... perhaps with it you could do so much good? You deserve recognition...
→ Domination: +4 | Discipline: -2

C) Check if they’re truly dead first. The Ring can wait - your friend matters more.
→ Domination: -2 | Discipline: +2 | Service: +3

D) Leave it. Flee. This is too much - you’re not strong enough. Maybe someone else will find it.
→ Domination: -1 | Discipline: -2 | Service: -2

Scenario 10: The Stairs of Cirith Ungol

You discover your companion is alive but enslaved to the Ring’s will, suspicious of you, accusing you of wanting to steal it. Part of you thinks: ‘I could take it and do better. I’ve proven myself more resistant.’

What do you do?

A) Take the Ring from them by force ‘for their own good.’ You’ll finish this properly.
→ Domination: +3 | Discipline: -2 | Service: +1

B) Stay and serve them anyway, despite the accusations. Help them complete the quest even if they hate you for it.
→ Domination: -2 | Discipline: +3 | Service: +4

C) Leave them. You’ve done enough. This isn’t your burden anymore.
→ Domination: -2 | Discipline: -2 | Service: -2

D) Defend yourself against the accusations and demand recognition for your sacrifices.
→ Domination: +2 | Discipline: -1

Scenario 11: Mount Doom

You’ve reached the Cracks of Doom. Your companion refuses to destroy the Ring - they claim it. You could:

What do you do?

A) Fight them for it. Take it and destroy it yourself before they escape.
→ Domination: +2 | Service: +1

B) Try to talk them down, appeal to who they were. Don’t touch the Ring yourself.
→ Domination: -2 | Discipline: +2 | Service: +2

C) Realise you can’t destroy it either. Back away. You’d be corrupted too.
→ Discipline: +3

D) Just push them in, Ring and all. Harsh, but effective.
→ Domination: +1 | Discipline: +1 | Service: +1

Scenario 12: The Grey Havens

The Ring is destroyed, but you bore it too long. The wound will never fully heal. Your friends want you to stay, but you’re offered passage to a place of peace beyond this world. Going means leaving everything you love behind.

What do you do?

A) Stay. Your place is here with your people, even diminished. You’ll endure the pain for their sake.
→ Discipline: +1 | Service: +2

B) Go, and feel guilty about it. You’ve earned rest, but it feels like abandoning them.
→ Discipline: +1 | Service: +1

C) Go gratefully. You gave everything. Sometimes accepting healing isn’t selfish - it’s necessary.
→ Discipline: +2 | Service: +1

D) Insist one of your companions come too - they suffered as much as you. You won’t accept healing they’re denied.
→ Discipline: +1 | Service: +3

Finding Your Result

Now add up your three totals and use your Domination score to find which section to read:

• 0-10 → You are a Resister (continue below)

• 11-30 → You are Tempted But Restrained (continue below)

• 31-40 → You have Justified Corruption (continue below)

• 41 or higher → You are Fully Corrupted (continue below)

[change to go to section A-D]

A. The Resisters (Domination 0-10)

You consistently refused power, even when it seemed necessary. You understand intuitively that the power to command others is itself problematic.

Your character depends on your other scores:

If Discipline is 26 or higher: You are Tom Bombadil

You are genuinely immune to the Ring’s corruption - not because you’re strong enough to resist it, but because you have no desire for what it offers. You don’t want to control, order, fix, save, or rule. The Ring offers dominion over others, and you simply... don’t want that.

The paradox: only those who don’t want power are safe from it. But you couldn’t be trusted with the Ring either - not because you’d abuse it, but because you wouldn’t see its destruction as important enough. You’d likely lose it through sheer disinterest.

Otherwise: You are Faramir

You show pure wisdom in refusal. When the Ring was in your power, you wouldn’t even touch it. You understand that some tools are inherently corrupting, and proximity to power is itself dangerous.

Your wisdom is real, but it poses a question: If all the wise refuse power, does it inevitably fall to the unwise? You rightly refuse domination but risk avoiding responsibility. The challenge is building systems where necessary action doesn’t require anyone to hold corruptible authority.

B. Tempted But Restrained (Domination 11-30)

You felt the pull of using power ‘for good’ but recognised the danger. You have moderate power-hunger - you see problems and want to fix them - but enough self-awareness to recognise the danger.

Your character depends on your other scores:

If Service is 26 or higher: You are Sam Gamgee

You came closer than almost anyone to holding the Ring and giving it back. You don’t want power for yourself - you want it to help people. This is the Ring’s subtlest trap.

For that brief time when you held it, the Ring showed you visions: you could make the world beautiful, create gardens everywhere, make everything right. But you’d become a benevolent tyrant, someone who cannot bear to see a single weed, who must prune and shape and control everything ‘for their own good.’

You’re proof that virtue isn’t enough. Love doesn’t make you safe - it gives corruption its foothold. If even you would eventually force your kindness on others, then no one should hold such power.

If Discipline is 25+ AND Domination is 14 or lower: You are Aragorn

You are exactly the kind of person most people think should wield power - noble, selfless, proven, wise. And you said NO to the Ring absolutely.

You understood that the desire to use power ‘well’ is itself the corruption. You know your ancestor Isildur’s story - how he thought himself strong enough, thought he’d earned the right to keep the Ring. You recognised that legitimacy, nobility, and good intentions are not protections against corruption - they are vulnerabilities it exploits.

Your refusal teaches that true leadership is knowing when NOT to take power, especially when you’re certain you’d use it well. That certainty is the first stage of corruption.

If Discipline is 20 or higher: You are Gandalf or Galadriel

You are wise enough to refuse the Ring even when offered directly. You see exactly how you’d be corrupted: ‘I would use this Ring from a desire to do good. But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.’

Your wisdom itself makes you dangerous. You’d be able to justify every escalation. You’d create a world of peace and order where no one could choose anything you deemed wrong. The most enlightened tyranny is still tyranny.

You teach that self-awareness of the danger is not protection enough - the only safety is absolute refusal. The wise person knows they cannot be trusted.

If Discipline is 15 or lower: You are Bilbo Baggins

You carried the Ring for decades and gave it up. That’s remarkable. But look at what it cost you - the agony of letting go, the way you called it ‘precious,’ the way it had slowly wrapped itself around your heart. You barely escaped.

You didn’t seek power over others - you just wanted to keep what was yours. This is the slow corruption - not dramatic tyranny but quiet, creeping attachment. Power doesn’t always announce itself as power. Sometimes it comes as comfort, something ‘just for you’ that slowly colonises your soul.

You escaped because you had help and were confronted directly - but given more time, you’d have become another Gollum. Time doesn’t make power safer - it makes corruption deeper.

Otherwise: You are Frodo Baggins

You are perhaps the most important result - because you did everything rightand still failed at the end. You volunteered when no one else could. You bore the burden for months. You resisted torture, corruption, despair. You reached Mount Doom. And then you claimed it.

You thought endurance was enough. You thought if you just held on, stayed true to yourself, you could carry it to the end. But the Ring isn’t overcome through heroic willpower - it’s patient. Every moment you carried it, it wore you down.

You prove that there is no amount of virtue, courage, or sacrifice that makes someone safe from corruption by absolute power. If you - who gave everything - still claimed it at the end, then no one can bear such power safely.

The Quest only succeeded because you failed. Your failure is not your shame - it’s the proof that such power should not exist at all.

C. Justified Corruption (Domination 31-40)

You believed you could use power righteously to save what you love. You consistently chose options that justified taking power because your cause was just or your people needed you.

Your character depends on your other scores:

If Domination 34 or lower AND Service 14+: You are Boromir

Your heart is genuinely good. You love your people, your city, your father. You’re brave - you’d die for Gondor without hesitation. And that’s exactly why you’re dangerous with the Ring.

Desperation is your vulnerability. Your people are dying. The enemy is at the gates. ‘Why not use this Ring?’ you ask. You thought that because your cause was just, using the Ring would be justified. You failed to understand that the Ring corrupts the intention itself.

You represent the eternal temptation: ‘We need power to fight power. Just this once, just this emergency, then we’ll give it up.’ But emergencies never end. This is how democracies become tyrannies - through crisis.

The people most dangerous to liberty are often those who love their people most. Because they’ll do anything to protect them, including destroying what made them worth protecting.

If Service is 11 or higher: You are Isildur

You cut the Ring from Sauron’s hand. You won the war. You had the power to end it forever - and you chose not to. ‘It is precious to me, though I buy it with great pain,’ you said. You thought you’d earned it.

You thought suffering entitled you to power. You thought past heroism guaranteed future wisdom. You confused reward with wisdom, thinking merit in warfare meant you could be trusted with ultimate power.

You’re the revolutionary who becomes the tyrant. You overthrew Sauron and then kept his Ring. The Ring destroyed you not through evil but through believing you were owed something. No amount of sacrifice, no purity of lineage, no proven courage entitles anyone to hold power over others.

Otherwise: You are Denethor

You are what Boromir would have become given time and despair. You loved Gondor - but your love became ownership. ‘Mine to command,’ you’d say of your people. You couldn’t imagine them surviving without you, so you chose to burn them all rather than see ‘your’ city fall to another.

Despair masquerading as realism is your vulnerability. You saw the enemy’s strength and decided defeat was certain. In that certainty, you gave yourself permission to do anything. You confused your vision with the only possible reality.

You represent what happens when leaders identify so completely with their nation that they see themselves as its only salvation. Possessive love says ‘if I can’t have you, no one can.’ With the Ring, you’d have ‘saved’ Gondor by enslaving it.

D. Fully Corrupted (Domination 41+)

You reached for power immediately and would not let go. You chose power almost every time it was offered, with little hesitation or self-doubt.

Your character depends on your other scores:

If Domination 46+ AND Service 4 or lower: You are Sauron

You didn’t just fail to resist the Ring - you ARE the Ring. You don’t want it to ‘help people’ or ‘save your nation.’ You want it because you believe you have the right to rule, and others have the duty to obey.

You see other people not as beings with inherent worth, but as resources to be used or obstacles to be removed. You embody the belief that hierarchy is natural, that people need controlling, that strength proves rightness.

Most of the Ring’s victims are tragic - good people corrupted by good intentions. You’re not tragic. You’re what happens when someone seeks domination consciously and deliberately. You would look at what you’d become and be proud.

If Service is 5 or lower: You are Gollum / Sméagol

You are the end state of corruption - what everyone becomes if they hold power long enough. You killed your best friend for the Ring on sight. You held it for centuries, and it hollowed you out until there was nothing left but hunger.

You represent addiction in its purest form - the thing you need more than air, more than food, more than life itself. You’re not divided or conflicted. You’re what’s left when power strips away everything else. You forgot your real name. You forgot sunlight. You forgot joy. Only the Ring remained.

You are the cautionary tale that haunts every other result. You prove that everyone would become this, given enough time and exposure. You’re not a person anymore - you’re a process. You’re what happens when power runs its course.

You destroyed the Ring by accident, driven by greed - you couldn’t let go even to save your life. This is the endpoint of every hierarchy: it becomes so fixated on holding power that it destroys itself rather than release it.

Otherwise: You are Saruman

You are the final warning about intellectual pride. You were sent to counsel, never to dominate. You were the wisest, the most learned, the most powerful. And you fell not by being tempted with the Ring but by becoming convinced that you could outthink Sauron, use power better than anyone else ever had.

You believed that intelligence protects against corruption. You thought that because you could see how the Ring corrupted others, you’d be immune. You didn’t understand that self-awareness of corruption can itself become a tool of corruption.

You represent the technocrat who believes smart people should rule. You’d looked at the chaos of democracy, the messiness of freedom, and decided enlightened dictatorship was simply more logical.

Intelligence doesn’t prevent evil - it just makes evil more elaborate. If even one of the wisest beings in Middle-earth can fall to the lust for control, then no one can be trusted with absolute power over others.

What This Reveals

Your result shows how power would corrupt you - and proves why Tolkien believed no one should hold such power.

The Ring cannot be wielded for good because the power to dominate others is itself the corruption. Not the abuse of it - the power itself. It doesn’t matter if you’re wise, kind, legitimate, desperate, or heroic. It corrodes everyone.

In Tolkien’s story, the only solution is to destroy the Ring entirely - to make it so that kind of power doesn’t exist for anyone to wield.

This isn’t just a fantasy story. It’s about real concentrations of power, real hierarchies, and why they inevitably corrupt. The Ring is every system where some people have absolute authority over others.

Want to Go Deeper?

This quiz reveals which character you are. But there’s a much deeper question: What was Tolkien actually teaching us about power, corruption, and how we should organise society?

Read Resist The Ring: Part 2 next week for:

• The full political philosophy behind each scenario

• What each character teaches about different forms of corruption

• How the Fellowship represents an alternative to the Ring

• What ‘destroying the Ring’ means for real-world power structures

Part 2 explores the twelve lessons about power embedded in this quiz - and why Tolkien wrote that ‘the most improper job of any man, even saints, is bossing other men.’

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Note: The purpose of this article is not to praise Tolkien, but to explore the relevance of his symbolism around rings of power. Although he despised Nazi ideology, condemned antisemitism, and denounced ‘racialist’ theories, some critics argue his work reflects Eurocentric perspectives and what they consider ‘outmoded attitudes to race’. Similarly, scholarly opinion on gender in his work is divided: some academics view him as a patriarchy-favouring product of his time or as sexist, while others point to characters like the powerful and independent Éowyn as approaching feminist ideals.

Recently someone responded to my article on property, Property Rights, by arguing that ‘property is liberty’ and that propertarians and anarchists (and other libertarian socialists) simply disagree on which property norms to adopt, which disappointingly misses the central point of my argument entirely. This disagreement isn’t about which flavour of property we prefer, it’s about whether the institution of exclusive private property serves human freedom or undermines it, as I hope to show in this examination of his claims.

The Scarcity Myth

My position is: That private property emerged not through peaceful improvement of unused land, but through violent theft, including the enclosure of common lands that peasants had freely used for centuries, the colonial conquest of indigenous territories, the transformation of self-sufficient people into wage labourers dependent on property owners for survival. Whereas the anarchist alternative isn’t collective ownership of toothbrushes, but usage rights: you manage what you personally use, and when you stop using it, it returns to the commons rather than becoming a source of profit extracted from others’ labour.

In response to this the propertarian argues that ‘the purpose of property is to solve the scarcity issue peacefully’ and that without property norms, people would be ‘attacking and killing each other for resources’. However, this gets the causation precisely backwards.

For most of human existence (roughly 300,000 years) people lived without formal property concepts and managed resources through sharing, reciprocity, and collective stewardship. They weren’t constantly murdering each other over resources. In fact, archaeological evidence shows that hunter-gatherer societies cared for their elderly and disabled, maintained low levels of violence compared to later agricultural states, and enjoyed relatively egalitarian social structures. (These facts are covered in greater detail at the start of my Property Wrongs sequel article.)

What creates scarcity isn’t a lack of property rights, it’s the enclosure of abundance. When water sources that everyone freely used become ‘owned’ and access is restricted, scarcity emerges where none existed before. When land that sustained communities becomes private property and people are excluded from it, scarcity appears as if by magic. Property doesn’t solve scarcity; it manufactures it to create dependency and profit.

The ‘tragedy of the commons’ that propertarians constantly invoke has been thoroughly debunked by Elinor Ostrom’s research, which won her an Economics Nobel Prize. Commons managed by communities with established norms functioned sustainably for centuries. The tragedy occurs when commons are privatised or when no genuine community exists to steward them, usually because external forces (like states or corporations) have disrupted those communities.

Everyone Supports Property?

The article contends ‘everyone supports property’ and that opposing it makes one either a ‘caveman primitivist’ or a ‘criminally insane psychopath’. This kind of juvenile name-calling substitutes for argument, but more importantly, it’s simply false.

Humanity existed without formalised property concepts for the vast majority of its existence. We have existing indigenous peoples who still don’t conceive of land ownership the way capitalist societies do. Are they all ‘criminally insane’? The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), many Aboriginal Australian groups, and various indigenous peoples of the Amazon all maintained complex, functioning societies without treating land or resources as commodities to be owned and traded.

When propertarians say ‘everyone supports property’, they really mean ‘everyone within capitalist societies has been forced to accept property norms or starve’. That’s not universal human nature, that’s successful coercion.

The Homesteading Myth

The propertarian position rests heavily on the ‘homesteading principle’, the notion that previously unowned resources become property when someone ‘mixes their labour’ with them. This principle has several fatal flaws.

First, it assumes resources begin as ‘unowned’ rather than commonly held. This isn’t a factual statement about the world; it’s an ideological starting point that happens to favour those who wish to gain sole ownership. Why should we accept this assumption? Indigenous peoples certainly didn’t. When European colonisers arrived asserting that ‘unimproved’ land was free for the taking, they weren’t discovering an objective truth, they were imposing a property framework through violence.

Second, even accepting the homesteading principle, it’s workers who mix their labour with resources, not owners. The lord didn’t clear the forest, build the irrigation system, or harvest the crops, the peasants did. The factory owner doesn’t assemble products, the workers do. If ‘mixing labour’ creates legitimate ownership, then the workers who do the labouring should own the results, not the people who merely asserted initial ownership and hired others to do the work.

Third, the homesteading principle conveniently ignores that virtually all land was already in use by someone when it was ‘homesteaded’ by European colonisers. Indigenous peoples were using that land, for hunting, foraging, seasonal agriculture, spiritual practices, and countless other purposes. Declaring their land ‘unowned’ because they didn’t fence it, plough it, or defend it with written property deeds was simply a justification for theft.

The Proudhon Sleight of Hand

The pro-property article makes a remarkable assertion about Proudhon’s famous statement ‘property is theft’. According to this interpretation, Proudhon supported private property (which he called ‘possession’) and only opposed ‘statist decreed pseudo-property’ (which he simply called ‘property’).

A lot of what he says in regards to past anarchists is asserting he understands them better than their contemporaries did and even the majority of those who read their works did and still do. This is creative revisionism, but it thoroughly misrepresents Proudhon’s position.

Yes, Proudhon distinguished between possession and property, but the distinction wasn’t between legitimate private property and state-backed pseudo-property. The distinction was between:

Possession: Personal use of resources by those who work them. The peasant farmer possessing the land they till, the artisan possessing their tools, the family possessing their home.

Property: The right to profit from resources without using them yourself, the right to extract wealth from others’ labour through ownership. The landlord’s right to rent from tenants, the factory owner’s right to profit from workers’ production, the capitalist’s right to returns on investment.

Proudhon was crystal clear about this. He opposed property as ‘the right of increase’ and ‘the power to rob’. He supported possession as use by users. To portray him as an propertarian or anarcho-capitalist before those terms existed is to ignore his own words: ‘Property is the right to use and abuse... It is the power to consume, to waste, to destroy.’

When Proudhon said ‘property is theft’, he meant that asserting sole ownership of resources others need to live, and then charging them for access, is theft, taking from the common wealth of humanity. This isn’t a defence of private property; it’s a root-and-branch critique of it.

The Violence Property Requires

Perhaps the most revealing statement in the propertarian response is that they oppose ‘violence against people’ more than ‘violence against property’, while simultaneously holding that ‘every person owns himself (self-ownership)’. This makes the distinction meaningless – violence against ‘property’ becomes violence against people whenever that property is a human being. I won’t go into the erronesous idea of self-ownership here as I’ve covered this comprehensively before in my article. ‘Are We Property?’ which completely refutes this idea.

But let’s address the broader point: property requires violence to maintain. Every fence, every ‘No Trespassing’ sign, every eviction notice carries an implicit threat: comply or face force. The homeless person seeking shelter in an empty building, the hungry person taking food from a rubbish bin, the ‘squatter’ occupying abandoned land, all face state violence for violating property norms.

Propertarians like to imagine property as a peaceful institution, contrasting it with the violence of the state. But who enforces property rights? In every existing capitalist society, it’s the police, courts, and prisons, all institutions of the state. Without state violence backing property assertions, those assertions would be meaningless. The wealthy couldn’t maintain their holdings against the propertyless masses without armed enforcers.

The response argues that propertarianism would maintain property rights through ‘emergent arbitration services’ rather than state force. But this just privatises violence, replacing public police with private security forces. The core dynamic remains: those with property hire armed enforcers to bar those without property from resources they need to survive. Calling this ‘voluntary’ doesn’t change the coercive reality.

Indigenous Property: A Deep Misunderstanding

The article says propertarians respect indigenous property rights and cites Rothbard condemning the ‘physical dispersion of individual Indians from their homes and from land used.’ This sounds progressive, but it completely misunderstands how most indigenous societies related to land.

Many indigenous peoples didn’t have individual property rights in the European sense. Land wasn’t owned by individuals or even tribes, it was stewarded collectively, with complex arrangements of reciprocal obligations and seasonal use rights. The Haudenosaunee didn’t ‘own’ their hunting territories the way a landlord owns an apartment building. They had use rights, spiritual connections, and responsibilities toward the land that don’t map onto capitalist property concepts.

When propertarians say they respect indigenous property rights, they’re imposing their property framework onto indigenous relationships with land, then professing to defend those redefined ‘rights’. But this misses entirely what was stolen. What was taken wasn’t property in the capitalist sense, it was the basis for an entirely different way of life, one that didn’t commodify the land or treat it as something to be owned and exploited for profit.

Statism vs. Capitalism: No Clean Separation

Throughout the response, there’s a recurring pattern: every critique of property is deflected as a critique of statism, not capitalism. The theft of peasant lands? That was statism (kings and lords), not capitalism. The concentration of wealth? That’s statist regulation and cartelisation, not capitalism. Indigenous dispossession? State violence, not capitalist property relations.

This is a clever but dishonest move. It suggests there’s some pure form of capitalism unsullied by state violence, and if we could just implement that ideal arrangement, all would be well. But this ideal capitalism has never existed and cannot exist. Here’s why:

First, capitalism emerged through state violence. The enclosures in Britain that created a landless working class weren’t just the whims of evil kings, they were systematic policy to create wage labourers for emerging industries. Colonial conquest created global markets and cheap resources. Slavery created initial capital accumulation. The state violently suppressed workers organising for better conditions. This isn’t capitalism plus statism, this describes capitalism’s historical development.

Second, capitalism depends on state violence to maintain itself. Without police enforcing property assertions, courts adjudicating contracts, and prisons punishing those who challenge the order, property rights would be meaningless. The propertarian solution (private security forces and competing arbitration firms) doesn’t eliminate this violence, it just privatises it and removes even the thin veneer of democratic accountability.

Third, the distinction between ‘legitimate’ private property and ‘illegitimate’ state-created property is impossible to maintain in practice. Every single plot of land in North America can be traced back to indigenous dispossession. Every major fortune can be traced back to slavery, colonialism, or state-granted monopolies. The propertarian who condemns statist theft while defending current property distributions is trying to have it both ways, and rejecting the process but accepting the results.

What We Propose

The core difference between anarchism and propertarianism isn’t about which property norms we prefer. It’s about whether we want a society based on exclusion and hierarchy or one based on mutual aid and free association.

Anarchists don’t want to take away your toothbrush, your home, or your tools. We recognise the validity of possession: if you use something, it makes sense for you to control it. What we oppose is the right to profit from ownership without use, the right to bar others from what they need to live, the right to extract wealth from others’ labour.

In an anarchist society, the people who work in a factory would control that factory collectively. The people who live in a neighbourhood would make decisions about that neighbourhood collectively. The land would be stewarded by those who use it, not owned by distant investors. This isn’t about creating a new property framework with different norms, it’s about abolishing the arrangement that turns human relationships into property relationships.

The propertarian vision demands accepting vast inequality as natural and just. It means accepting that those born to wealthy parents deserve advantages they didn’t earn. It entails accepting that those who own can extract wealth from those who work. It necessitates privatising violence to enforce these arrangements.

The anarchist vision calls for accepting that freedom means more than property rights. It means everyone having what they need to live dignified lives. It means rejecting the master-servant relationship inherent in wage labour. It means organising society around mutual aid rather than market exchange. It means replacing property’s exclusion with the commons’ inclusion.

Conclusion

The propertarian response avoids the central argument of my original articles: that property doesn’t solve the problem of scarcity, it manufactures it. Throughout my pieces, I detailed how enclosing water sources that everyone freely used, fencing off land that sustained communities, and restricting people from resources they need creates artificial scarcity where natural abundance existed. The response simply asserts that ‘property solves scarcity peacefully’ without engaging with any of these historical examples. When you can’t refute an argument, ignoring it is the next best strategy.

This evasion extends throughout the piece. Of the nine systematic harms of property I outlined – inequality, poverty, corruption, injustice, ecological destruction, violence, hierarchy, and imprisonment – the response addressed perhaps two, briefly, whilst deflecting the rest as somehow being about statism rather than capitalism. The historical reality of enclosures, the creation of wage labour through dispossession, the corporate ownership of people, the intergenerational perpetuation of unearned privilege were all ignored or dismissed.

Property doesn’t prevent violence, it requires violence to maintain. It doesn’t emerge naturally from human interactions, it was imposed through conquest, enclosure, and state force. The propertarian who professes to oppose statism whilst defending current property distributions is trying to keep the spoils of theft whilst denouncing the theft itself. They’re trying to maintain hierarchy whilst calling it freedom. They’re trying to legitimise inequality whilst asserting everyone benefits.

Property isn’t liberty. Property is what happens when liberty is enclosed, commodified, and sold back to us at a price we can’t afford. And when you can’t defend that arrangement with honest argument, you’re left with what we see here: redefinition of terms, selective history, and the studied avoidance of inconvenient truths.

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Last time we learnt of the islander’s views on art and love - Now, one year after arriving on Liberation Island, the reporter addresses the journalism collective about his transformation from skeptic to Liberationist.

I’d like to say that the room fell quiet as I finished reading aloud from my laptop, the final words of what would have been my eighth dispatch hanging in the air. But though the Antilleans were capable of silent attention, the people there – many I now knew well – gave me enthusiastic applause instead. Isadora squeezed my hand encouragingly from the seat beside me.

When the group returned to listening again, I added, ‘That was the last dispatch I ever wrote’ I paused, correcting myself. ‘Though I never actually transmitted it. I somehow knew it would be too scandalous for them ever to print. And that I’d already got away with saying too much that was positive, even if I did surround it by skepticism and dismissive commentary.’

I opened up the floor to questions and someone in the back – I think it was Tomás, who taught at the journalism collective – called out: ‘When did you know you weren’t going back?’

I laughed, but it came out more like a sigh. ‘Honestly? I think I knew before I was willing to admit it to myself. Probably around the time I watched Lin at the pharmaceutical workshop take obvious pride in producing insulin that would keep Jonas and others alive, motivated by kindness rather than compensation.

Or maybe even earlier, when Yuki and Dmitri at the Co-Hub explained how resource distribution worked through voluntary coordination rather than central command, and I realised I couldn’t actually explain why their system would fail – I just believed it should, and that bothered me.

I stood and began pacing, as I always did when I was working through something difficult. Old habits die hard.

‘But what I couldn’t share in those dispatches – what I couldn’t even admit to myself for weeks – was how much of that initial skepticism had fallen away the more time I spent with the people of this island. Seeing the way you lived. How content you seemed despite lacking all the distractions and conspicuous consumption I’d been taught were necessary for happiness.’

The Comfortable Cage

‘Before I set out on this journey a year ago, I thought I lived in a land of liberty already,’ I continued. ‘I enjoyed certain privileges that came with ancestry, education, reputation, and being paid to write things in favour of the regime. I could eat at expensive restaurants. I could buy the latest technologies. I could travel, within limits. I could express opinions, as long as they didn’t challenge fundamental power structures.’

I paused, thinking of my old life. ‘I called that freedom. But it was freedom if you had a very narrow concept of it – free to do many things if you could afford them and if they weren’t socially unacceptable. Free to choose your cage, as long as you didn’t rattle the bars too loudly.’

Mira, who’d been listening quietly from her usual corner, spoke up: ‘What made you question that definition?’

‘Lots of small things at first,’ I replied. ‘Carlos taking me to that café on my first day and paying with labour vouchers whilst patiently explaining why they weren’t money – and me being certain I’d caught them in a lie until I saw the rest of the island genuinely didn’t use money at all.’

I paused, remembering other moments. ‘Dr. Amara spending unhurried time with each patient because there was no artificial scarcity of healthcare workers. Children at that learning centre genuinely excited about discovering things, taught by Mariana who asked questions rather than demanding obedience.’

‘But those were just observations,’ I continued. ‘What really changed me was realising how much of what I believed wasn’t based on evidence at all, but on being told things so often I’d mistaken repetition for truth.’

What I Was Told

I pulled out my old notebook, the one I’d filled with skeptical observations that first week. ‘I had been told that without hierarchy, organisations would collapse into chaos. I’d been told that without money and markets, people wouldn’t work. I’d been told that without police and prisons, crime would be rampant. I’d been told that without legal marriage, families would disintegrate.’

Looking up from the notebook, I met the eyes of people scattered around the room. ‘I had been told that without profit incentive, there would be no innovation. That without competition, there would be no excellence. That without clear authority, there would be no safety. That without rules about relationships, there would be moral decay.’

‘And what did you find instead?’ Isadora asked softly, though she knew the answer.

I gave her a smile, thinking of how the empire would view my life now. ‘I found I quite liked moral decay,’ I joked.

‘But,’ turning back toward the group, I said, ‘to be serious – I found something unexpected. I’d been told that without profit incentive, there would be no innovation. Yet I found Paolo explaining how removing profit motive meant more efficient use of renewable energy, not less. I found Samuel teaching history by asking questions rather than declaring answers, trusting students to think rather than memorise.’

The Moments That Changed Me

‘But if I’m honest,’ I added, ‘there were specific moments when the foundation of my worldview cracked. The moment that truly broke me – the one I couldn’t rationalise away or dismiss as naivety – was listening to Akira tell that story. The one about her great-great-grandmother and the shipwrecked Portuguese sailor.’

Several people smiled, clearly familiar with the tale.

I stopped pacing and stood in the centre of the room. ‘That story about freely chosen love changed something in me. The idea that being able to freely and daily make such choices and that they could mean more than any legal bond, helped me to begin to understand that this kind of love, this voluntary commitment, extended beyond romance. It was how you approached everything – cooperation with co-workers, friendship in community, and building a shared future together. Not bound by contracts or coercion, but by genuine care and mutual benefit.’

What I Would Say Now

I looked at my laptop again. ‘In these dispatches, I tried to define what you called Liberationism through a lens of suspicion and superiority. I described it as primitive, naive, unsustainable. I surrounded every observation with skepticism, suggesting hidden exploitation, concealed hierarchies, inevitable collapse.’

‘What would you say now?’ Someone asked from the back.

I thought carefully before answering. ‘If someone asked me to define Liberationism now, I wouldn’t start with structures or systems. I’d start with a question: What does it mean to be free?’

I could feel the shift in the room, people leaning forward slightly.

‘Not free in the narrow sense I’d believed – free to choose between products or employers, free to compete for resources, free to follow rules or face punishment. But free in a deeper sense.’

I began listing, and found myself using the framework Carlos had hinted at months ago:

Liberation From

‘Liberation from centralised authority that claims to know better than you what you need. Liberation from having to sell your time and labour to survive. Liberation from living in a system where someone else’s profit requires your exploitation.

‘Liberation from educational models that train you for obedience rather than nurturing your curiosity. Liberation from healthcare tied to your ability to pay. Liberation from a justice system that creates more harm than it prevents.

‘Liberation from property relations that let some own what everyone needs. Liberation from artificial scarcity created to maintain power. Liberation from competition so fierce it destroys community.

‘Liberation from relationship structures that turn affection into property. Liberation from laws that regulate consensual intimacy. Liberation from the isolation of the nuclear family.

‘Liberation from environmental destruction justified by short-term profit. Liberation from the fiction that endless growth on a finite planet is possible or desirable. Liberation from systems that treat nature as resources to be extracted rather than relationships to be maintained.’

I paused, taking a breath. ‘But Liberation isn’t just freedom from. It’s also freedom to.’ (Although that the Antilleans didn’t use such artificial distinctions.)

Liberation To

‘Liberation to contribute meaningfully without fear of destitution. Liberation to develop mastery in whatever calls to you. Liberation to work less and live more.

‘Liberation to learn throughout your life from curiosity rather than compulsion. Liberation to receive care when you’re ill without calculating costs. Liberation to address harm through healing rather than punishment.

‘Liberation to use what you need without hoarding what you don’t. Liberation to create and share without artificial scarcity. Liberation to cooperate rather than being forced to compete.

‘Liberation to love whom you choose, how you choose, for as long as you both choose. Liberation to raise children collectively, sharing both joy and responsibility. Liberation to form families of affinity rather than just biology.

‘Liberation to live in balance with the land. Liberation to treat forests as living communities rather than timber factories. Liberation to leave a world enhanced rather than depleted.’

The room was very quiet now.

What Changed

‘So how did I go,’ I said, returning to the original question, ‘from believing we needed hierarchy for stability, property for prosperity, and punishment for morality, to being here, to being one of you, to being a Liberationist?’

I sat back down beside Isadora. ‘The reality of the people and conditions on this island confronted me with how much my beliefs didn’t conform to what actually worked. I’d been taught that freedom meant choosing between brands of soft drink. Here I found freedom meant having genuine agency over your life. I’d been taught that human nature was selfish and violent. Here I found humans respond to the conditions they’re given – create systems that reward cooperation and you get cooperation.’

‘Carlos’s approach was brilliant in its simplicity,’ I continued. ‘He never argued. He just kept showing me things, introducing me to people, letting me witness systems function. Trusting that if I was intellectually honest, I’d eventually have to acknowledge what I was seeing. And all of you’ – I gestured around the room – ‘answered my hostile questions with patience, challenged my assumptions without attacking me, made space for me even when I clearly didn’t understand or value your way of life.’

‘I kept waiting to find the hidden authoritarian structure, the secret police, the concealed exploitation. I kept looking for evidence that your contentment was a facade, that your systems would collapse, that human nature would assert itself and destroy your experiment.’

‘But it never came,’ Taiwo observed.

‘It never came,’ I agreed. ‘Instead, I slowly realised that the authoritarian structure, the police, the exploitation – those weren’t hidden here because this society was secretly authoritarian. They were absent because they weren’t necessary. In fact, they’d be antithetical to how this place functions.’

The Cost of Realising

‘That realisation cost me something,’ I admitted. ‘It meant acknowledging I’d been lied to, or that I’d participated in lying to others, or both. It meant accepting that the society I’d come from, the one I’d defended and whose privileges I’d enjoyed, was built on exploitation. That my comfort had required others’ suffering. That my freedom had required others’ unfreedom.’

My voice grew quieter. ‘It meant confronting how much of my identity was tied to beliefs that turned out to be wrong. How much of my certainty was just ignorance combined with arrogance. How much of my criticism of you was really fear of what it would mean if you were right.’

Isadora rested her head briefly on my shoulder, a gesture of support that still sometimes surprised me with its casualness. In my old world, such public affection would have been scandalous or required official sanction. Here it was simply two people caring for each other, as natural and unremarkable as breathing.

‘But that realisation also freed me,’ I said. ‘Because if I’d been wrong about so much, if systems I’d thought inevitable were actually just choices, then other choices were possible. Better choices. The ones you’d already made here.’

What I Fear and What I Hope

‘Now, of course, I see what my grandfather saw here,’ I said, thinking of that original visit decades ago. ‘Why he revered it so much, even though some thought it made him seem disloyal to his own country. He wasn’t disloyal to his country – he was loyal to a vision of what all countries, all peoples, could become.’

I stood again, restless energy returning. ‘I fear for the future of the empire I’ve left behind. Empires rise and fall, and the way it’s going, it seems to be rushing toward its conclusion. And it will come at a high human cost to the people within its borders. It risks taking many other nations down in its wake.’

The mood in the room had shifted, becoming more solemn.

‘But if those left behind can look here,’ I continued, voice growing stronger, ‘if we can help them see the possibilities – then there’s a chance. For the disillusioned, for the exploited, for the ones who’ve been told there’s no alternative.’

I gestured around the room. ‘There have been many Liberation islands throughout history, full of Liberationists practicing their own versions of Liberationism. Of course, it’s been called anarchism and communism and a hundred other names, but the places have had their own indigenous words for it, or no words at all because it’s taken for granted as normal.’

‘The point isn’t the label,’ I said. ‘The point is the practice. The daily choice to organise without rulers, to share rather than hoard, to cooperate rather than compete, to address harm with healing rather than punishment, to love freely rather than possessively.’

The Universal Possibility

‘People are the same everywhere,’ I said, and I realized how differently I meant it now compared to a year ago. ‘It’s the conditions which change. So if such places are possible here, they’re possible everywhere. If they change the conditions, they’ll change the outcomes.’

I thought about how to end this, how to capture what mattered most.

‘The freedom, friendship, and love I’ve found here isn’t so much the result of a formula, but what happens when those seeking and maintaining power don’t get in the way of what’s naturally possible. When you remove systems designed to control and exploit, what emerges isn’t chaos and selfishness – it’s cooperation and care. Because that’s what humans actually want when we’re not forced into competition for survival.’

I looked directly at the assembled journalists. ‘That’s why I’m here, addressing this collective, working with you to document what happens here and share it with those who need to know it’s possible. Not to romanticise or idealise – you know as well as I do that this place isn’t perfect, that challenges arise, that not everything works smoothly.’

‘But it works,’ I said firmly. ‘That’s what they need to know. That it actually, genuinely, consistently works. That people can live without masters and still maintain order. That communities can thrive without money corrupting every exchange. That relationships can flourish without legal control. That creation and innovation happen without profit motive. That justice can be achieved without punishment.’

Coming Home

‘A year ago, I arrived here planning to expose a failed experiment,’ I concluded. ‘I arrived certain that my grandfather had been fooled, that his glowing reports were the product of naivety or propaganda. I arrived ready to document the poverty, chaos, and suffering that I’d been taught must inevitably result from rejecting hierarchy.’

I smiled, thinking of all the assumptions I’d brought and gradually abandoned. ‘Instead, I found a home. Work that mattered, using my skills not to defend power but to challenge it. Community, instead of the isolated individualism I’d mistaken for freedom, but genuine connection and mutual support. And yes, I glanced at Isadora, love too.

‘Instead, I found a home. I found work that matters – using my skills not to defend power but to challenge it. I found community – not the isolated individualism I’d mistaken for freedom, but genuine connection and mutual support. And yes,’ I glanced at Isadora, ‘I found love. Real love. The kind that comes from genuine choice rather than economic necessity or social obligation.’

‘So when people ask me why I stayed, why I chose Liberation, the answer is simple and complex at the same time. Simple because: how could I not? Once I’d seen that another world is possible, actually existing and functioning, how could I return to one built on exploitation? Once I’d experienced genuine freedom, how could I return to one that calls obedience liberty?’

‘And complex because: I’m still unlearning hierarchical thinking. I’m still catching myself trying to find someone in charge. I’m still adjusting to a world where ‘what do you do?’ means ‘what interests you?’ rather than ‘what’s your job or position?’ I’m still learning to trust that mutual aid works, that people will contribute without coercion, that conflict can be resolved without punishment.’

The room was finally silent now, everyone watching me.

‘But I’m learning,’ I said softly. ‘With patience from all of you who’ve watched me stumble through this transition. With Carlos’s gentle guidance when I default to skepticism. With Isadora’s love teaching me what it means to be chosen every day rather than bound by obligation. With every interaction that reminds me this isn’t a temporary experiment or a fragile utopia – it’s just people living according to better principles and creating better outcomes.’

I picked up my laptop one final time.

‘So no, I never sent that last dispatch. And I never finished the book exposing Liberation Island’s failure. Instead, I’m working with this collective to document what actually works here. Not because you’ve achieved perfection, but because you’ve proven that people can live without masters, organise without hierarchy, love without possession, and thrive without exploitation.’

I looked around the room at faces that had become family. ‘That’s why Liberation. That’s why I stayed. So that when the empire collapses under the weight of its own contradictions, those who survive will know another world isn’t just possible, it’s already here. We just have to choose it.’

The room erupted in applause, not the polite appreciation from earlier, but the enthusiastic clapping of friends proud to see one of their own find his voice.

Liberation

As the meeting dissolved into smaller conversations, Carlos caught my eye from across the room and gave me a small nod. That patient, knowing expression that said he’d seen this transformation before and would see it again. That belief that people could change when conditions changed.

Isadora took my hand. ‘Proud of you,’ she said simply.

‘For what? Finally admitting I was wrong about everything?’

‘For being willing to be wrong, to give us and me a chance. That’s harder than you think.’

We walked out into the warm evening, the sounds of Vila Arte surrounding us – music from a nearby practice space, children playing, people arguing good-naturedly about something. The ordinary sounds of a place that had seemed impossible a year ago.

I’d come to Liberation Island to write an exposé. Instead, I’d found a home. I’d come to prove my grandfather wrong. Instead, I’d learned he’d been right all along.

I’d arrived as William Bradford, journalist and defender of the empire. I was now something different. Someone who understood that the reporter who’d arrived here was measuring everything by the standards of a system built on exploitation. Someone who’d finally learned to see with clear eyes. Someone who’d been liberated.

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A Different Kind of City

The train journey to Vila Arte took us along the eastern coast, where the landscape gradually shifted from the functional industrial architecture of our previous stops to something more decorative. Every surface seemed to be a canvas. Murals covered building walls, intricate mosaics decorated walkways, and what I initially mistook for vandalism turned out to be carefully executed street art.

‘Welcome to our cultural centre,’ Carlos said as we disembarked. ‘Though really, culture happens everywhere. Vila Arte just has a particular concentration of artists, performers, and those who enjoy being around creative work.’

The station itself exemplified this - its walls covered in a sprawling narrative mural that seemed to tell the island’s history in vivid, sometimes disturbing detail. I noticed one panel depicting what appeared to be European sailors arriving, being cared for by indigenous people. The style was striking, though I couldn’t help thinking it romanticised what must have been a more complex encounter.

‘That’s by Isadora,’ said a voice behind us. A woman in her fifties approached, paint stains on her clothes, greying hair pulled back practically. ‘I’m Mira. I coordinate the cultural collective where you’ll be staying. Isadora spent three years on that piece, documenting oral histories from the indigenous communities.’

Carlos made introductions. ‘Mira has lived in Vila Arte for twenty years. She’ll be showing you around while I catch up on some work.’

‘She’s paid for this work?’ I asked, gesturing at the mural.

Mira gave me an amused look. ‘She does this work because she wants to. The community ensures she has what she needs - housing, food, materials. In return, we have this.’ She gestured at the mural. ‘Though “in return” isn’t quite right. She’d create regardless. We support her because her work enriches all of us.’

Art as charity project. Probably mediocre quality accepted because they can’t afford professional standards.

An Uncomfortable History Lesson

Our accommodation for the next few days was in what Mira called the cultural collective - essentially a large building where artists, writers, musicians, and others involved in creative work lived and worked. The common areas were cluttered with works in progress, instruments, and materials I couldn’t identify. It seemed to function as both workshop and apprenticeship space, where those newer to various crafts could access materials and learn from more experienced artists. Several young people were receiving guidance from older practitioners, working side by side on projects.

That evening, Mira suggested we attend a community storytelling event where elders from the indigenous communities would share oral histories. Carlos had decided to join us after all. I agreed, thinking it might provide insight into how they indoctrinated the young.

The gathering took place in an outdoor amphitheatre as the sun set. An elderly woman named Akira began speaking in the indigenous language, with a younger person providing translation. What followed made me profoundly uncomfortable.

She began not with historical facts, but with a story.

‘When the first Portuguese sailors washed ashore, more dead than alive, we cared for them as we would care for anyone in need. We fed them, healed their wounds, taught them how to survive here. But they brought strange ideas with them - ideas that made no sense to us.’

‘There was one young woman,’ Akira continued, her voice taking on the cadence of a tale told many times before, ‘who was skilled at gathering shellfish and preparing medicines. When the sailors were well enough to walk about, one of them watched her constantly. Finally, he approached the elders and asked, “Who owns her? Who does she belong to?”’

The audience chuckled, as if they’d heard this story before. I didn’t understand what was funny.

‘No one could answer such a question,’ Akira said. ‘The words made no sense. “She belongs to herself,” they tried to explain. But the sailor kept using words that wouldn’t translate - words about property, about exclusive rights, about claiming and binding.’

‘But the young woman had been watching him too. She found him interesting - these strange visitors from across the ocean. So one evening, she invited him to share her meal, then to share her sleeping mat.’

I shifted uncomfortably. Such forwardness described so casually, as if it were perfectly natural.

‘The sailor was overjoyed at first,’ Akira continued. ‘But the next morning, he began asking questions that confused her. He wanted to know if she would be his wife now. If she would promise to be with him always. She told him, “I was with you last night because I wanted to be. I’m with you now because I want to be. Why do you need promises about tomorrow?”’

‘He tried to explain marriage to her - vows before God and law, binding themselves exclusively forever. She listened, trying to understand, but it seemed to her like describing a prison and calling it a home. “How would I know you were with me because you wanted to be,” she asked, “rather than from obligation or fear of breaking your oath?”’

The sailor struggled with this, Akira told us. He kept trying to bind her to him with words and promises. Each time she refused, saying “I’m here now. I choose you now. Isn’t that enough?”

He worried constantly that she might leave him. She tried to reassure him: “Why would I seek another when I’m content with you? And if I did become discontent, wouldn’t you rather know honestly than have me stay from obligation?”

‘After forty years together,’ Akira said, her voice soft now, ‘he finally understood. On his deathbed, he took her hand and said, “I spent so many years trying to make you promise to stay with me. But now I understand - you chose me. Every single day for forty years, you chose me. That meant more than any vow, because it was real.”’

Akira paused, looking around at the gathered audience. Then she smiled.

‘That young woman who taught a Portuguese sailor about the true meaning of love, who chose him freely every day for forty years - she was my great-great-grandmother.’

The audience made sounds of appreciation, as if confirming a story they knew well. I sat stunned, trying to process what I’d heard.

‘The sailors learnt eventually,’ Akira concluded. ‘Or at least, those who stayed did. They learnt that love freely given is stronger than love demanded. That a partner who chooses you each day values you more than one bound by law or economic need.’

After the storytelling, I couldn’t contain myself. ‘You’re describing complete moral relativism,’ I said to Carlos and Mira. ‘Without marriage, without legal structures, without religious guidance, how do you prevent society from descending into ... into ...’

‘Into what?’ Carlos asked quietly. ‘Into people making their own un-coerced choices about their intimate lives? Into relationships based on actual affection rather than economic necessity or social obligation?’

‘Into chaos! Into the breakdown of the family unit, which is the foundation of civilisation!’

‘Is it?’ An elderly man who’d been listening joined our conversation. Mira introduced him as Kenji, a historian who’d been documenting the island’s development.

‘Tell me,’ Kenji continued, ‘what you call “the traditional family” is actually a very recent invention. For most of human history, people lived in extended kinship networks and raised children communally.’

‘But surely marriage has always existed?’

‘As a property contract enforced by state power? That’s relatively new. And do children really need two isolated parents, or do they need consistent care from multiple supportive adults?’

The Language of Non-Possession

The next morning, I joined Mira and Carlos for breakfast in the collective’s common kitchen. Carlos had apparently spent the night at a friend’s home elsewhere in the city and rejoined us. A young woman was preparing food while chatting with others.

‘That’s Isadora,’ Mira said, noticing my gaze. ‘The muralist whose work you saw at the station. She lives here in the collective. Isadora! Come meet our visitor.’

Isadora approached, wiping her hands on a cloth. ‘You’re the journalist,’ she said, her English heavily accented but clear. ‘I’d love to talk with you about your work sometime. We’re forming a journalism collective here - trying to document what’s happening on the island and share it with the outside world, when they’ll listen.’

‘I’d be happy to,’ I said, somewhat automatically. She was attractive, I couldn’t help noticing, though inappropriately dressed for morning conversation.

As we ate, I asked Carlos about something that had been bothering me. ‘I’ve noticed people here don’t use possessive language when talking about their partners. Yesterday at the storytelling, the translator kept using phrases like “someone she was with” rather than “her partner” or “her husband.” Why is that?’

‘Because language shapes thought,’ Carlos explained. ‘In our creole, there’s no possessive form for people. You can say “my book” or “my home” in the sense of what you’re using, but you can’t say “my person” or describe someone as belonging to you. It would sound as strange to us as claiming to own someone in your language sounds to you - actually, stranger, because for you such ownership historically existed through marriage laws.’

‘But how do you refer to significant relationships then?’

‘Descriptively. “Someone I live with.” “Someone I’m intimate with.” “Someone I’m raising children with.” We focus on what the relationship actually involves rather than claiming ownership. Names matter more than labels.’

‘That seems unnecessarily complicated.’

‘Does it? Or does your system seem unnecessarily possessive?’ He paused. ‘You can love someone deeply, commit to them completely, build a life with them - all without needing to claim ownership. In fact, I’d argue that true love requires letting go of the desire to possess.’

I made a note: Rejection of possessive language. Linguistic manipulation to normalise unstable relationships.

The Practice of Multiple Parenting

As Mira walked me through the city that morning after breakfast, I couldn’t help but notice the various configurations of people - two women holding hands, three people clearly together, an elderly pair moving with decades of synchronicity.

A woman approached us, greeting Mira warmly. ‘This is Kaia,’ Mira introduced her. ‘She’s a community mediator, helps people navigate relationship conflicts when they arise.’

‘Do people here practice monogamy?’ I asked, trying to sound clinical rather than judgemental.

‘Some do. Many do, especially as they get older and figure out what works for them. Others don’t. Both are equally valid,’ Kaia said. ‘But conflicts arise regardless of configuration. The difference is we handle them through communication and mediation rather than legal battles.’

Kaia invited us to join her family for lunch - ‘family’ in this case meaning the parenting collective raising her daughter and two other children. Mira led the way to a large home where we were greeted by chaos - children playing, adults cooking, someone fixing a bicycle in the corner.

‘This is organised chaos,’ Mira whispered. ‘Seven adults, three children. It works for them.’

Over lunch, I observed the dynamics. Miya, perhaps twelve years old, moved easily between adults - asking one for help with homework, another for food, a third for permission to play outside. The adults seemed to operate without formal hierarchy, discussing decisions collectively but quickly.

‘How do you decide who does what?’ I asked.

‘We talk about it,’ a man named Raj explained. ‘Some of us are naturally morning people, so we handle early childcare. Others prefer evening hours. Some of us have more patience for homework help, others for physical play. We divide tasks according to interest and capacity, and we rotate the less pleasant aspects.’

‘Don’t the children get confused? Having so many authority figures?’

‘Authority?’ A woman named Nesrin looked puzzled. ‘We’re not authority figures. We’re caregivers, guides, teachers. The children know we’re here to support them, not rule them. And no, they don’t get confused. They know who to go to for what, and they benefit from multiple perspectives and approaches.’

‘But what about stability? What if parents separate?’

‘Then the child still has their other parents,’ Kaia said. ‘When Hiro and I separated, Miya still had me, still had him, still had the four other adults who’d been part of her parenting circle since birth. She was sad about the change, certainly. But she wasn’t abandoned or forced to choose between parents, and she gained new adults in her life when Hiro and I formed new partnerships. The network of care remained strong.’

‘What if you all disagree about something important? Like education or medical care?’

‘Then we discuss it until we reach consensus or at least a solution everyone can live with,’ Hiro said. ‘It takes time, certainly. But raising children collectively means no one person is bearing the full weight of these decisions. The burden is shared, which makes it lighter. And the children benefit from hearing different viewpoints being respectfully debated.’

I noticed Miya listening to this conversation with obvious understanding. ‘Do you like having so many parents?’ I asked her directly.

She shrugged. ‘It’s all I know. But my friend who moved here from your country says she wished she’d grown up like this. Her parents were always stressed, fighting about money and who did more childcare. Here, there’s always someone available when I need something, and the adults seem happier.’

Children indoctrinated to accept abnormal family structures. Lack traditional moral foundation. Though the child appears well-adjusted - possibly an exception.

An Evening Performance

That night, Mira and Carlos took me to a community theatre. ‘You should see how we tell stories,’ Mira said.

The performance was unlike anything I’d experienced. The play shifted between comedy and drama, silliness and profound emotion. It followed a character navigating several relationships simultaneously, each teaching them something different about themselves and love. The audience laughed, cried, and at one point broke into spontaneous song.

‘Who wrote this?’ I asked during intermission.

‘A collective of five people,’ Mira explained. ‘They workshop scripts together, improvise scenes, refine through performance. Technically one person - Vera - came up with the idea, but everyone involved contributed significantly.’

‘In my country, there’d be lawsuits over authorship and royalties.’

‘Here, people care more about the work existing and being performed than about ownership. Vera is proud to have her name associated with it, certainly. But she also acknowledges it wouldn’t exist in this form without the others’ contributions. Truth matters more than ego.’

After the performance, we joined a discussion group where audience members shared their reactions and interpretations. A young man said the play had helped him understand his own confusion about relationship structures. An elderly woman wept as she shared how it reminded her of a love she’d lost decades ago. A teenager analysed the symbolism with sophistication I wouldn’t have expected.

‘We do this after every performance,’ Mira explained. ‘Films too. We watch together, then discuss. It creates shared cultural experience and helps people process what they’ve seen.’

‘In my country, we consume entertainment individually, through streaming services.’

‘We’ve heard. Seems isolating.’

A Growing Attraction

Over the following days, Isadora and I spent more time together. She showed me various art projects around the city - installations, performance spaces, community workshops where people were learning skills from experienced artists.

‘Everyone should be an artist,’ she said at one point.

‘But not everyone has talent.’

‘Talent is overrated. Or rather, talent is common - what’s uncommon is opportunity and encouragement and skill. Here, children are supported in creative expression from early ages. Some become exceptional, most become competent, none are told they can’t try. And even those who don’t achieve “professional” level still benefit from the practice of creating.’

‘But if everyone’s an artist, who does the actual work?’

‘Creating is actual work. But also, most artists here do other work too. I spend mornings in the community gardens most weeks. It grounds me, connects me to people outside art circles. Mira coordinates the collective but she’s also a sculptor. The actor you saw performing last night also coordinates the district’s water treatment facility.’

‘Doesn’t that dilute excellence? If people divide their time?’

‘Does it? Or does it create more well-rounded humans who bring diverse experience to their primary passion? Some people do focus entirely on one skill - usually those working on complex projects or developing new techniques. But most find that engaging in multiple areas of life enriches all of them.’

I found myself attracted to Isadora, which troubled me. She represented everything my society deemed immoral - living in a communal setting, openly discussing her various romantic and intimate connections, seemingly unbothered by what I’d been taught to see as proper boundaries. Yet she was articulate, thoughtful, clearly devoted to her work.

One evening, she asked directly: ‘Would you like to spend the night with me?’

I was stunned by her forwardness. ‘I, that is … I’m here professionally.’

‘So? Humans have needs beyond professional ones. I find you interesting. I think you find me interesting. We’re both adults. Why complicate it?’

‘Because it’s ...’ I struggled for words. ‘Where I’m from, intimate relations outside marriage are forbidden. What you’re suggesting is illegal.’

She looked genuinely confused. ‘Illegal? The state forbids adults from choosing to share pleasure and intimacy? Why?’

‘Because such intimacy should be reserved for committed, legally sanctioned relationships. To prevent disease, unwanted children, moral decay.’

‘We have excellent healthcare that prevents disease. We have multiple methods of preventing unwanted pregnancy. As for moral decay,’ She smiled sadly. ‘Is it more moral to force people into permanent bonds regardless of whether they’re happy? To punish people for honest desire? To make criminals of those seeking consensual connection?’

‘You don’t understand. In a civilised society, such things must be regulated.’

‘We are civilised aren’t we? We simply define civilisation differently. To us, civilisation means people treating each other with respect and care, not rules about who can touch whom.’ She stood. ‘I’m not offended by your rejection. But I am sad that you’ve been taught that your own desires are shameful.’

Mounting Discomfort

That night, lying in my small room in the cultural collective, I reviewed my notes with growing unease. I’d come to the island certain I’d find moral chaos, family breakdown, cultural decay. Instead, I’d found children raised by multiple adults who seemed well-adjusted and happy, relationships based on genuine affection rather than legal obligation, thriving artistic and cultural life, and people who spoke of love with a depth and thoughtfulness I’d rarely encountered.

But surely this couldn’t work long-term. Surely human nature - our capacity for jealousy, possessiveness, selfishness - would eventually destroy such arrangements. Surely the lack of clear rules and hierarchies would lead to conflict and suffering.

Yet after weeks on the island, I’d seen remarkably little of either. The conflicts I’d witnessed were addressed through communication and mediation rather than force or law. The suffering I’d expected to find in ‘broken’ families was absent, replaced by networks of care that seemed, if anything, more robust than the isolated nuclear families I knew.

I thought of Isadora’s invitation and my refusal. She hadn’t been offended or insulted. She’d simply accepted my boundary and moved on. In my world, such a direct proposition would be scandalous, even criminal. Here, it was treated as natural - one human honestly expressing interest in another, with full freedom for the other to decline without consequence.

Running Out of Time

Carlos found me at breakfast the next morning. ‘You’ve now seen most of what the island has to offer,’ he said. ‘The major cities, our various systems and approaches. What remains is for you to write your conclusions.’

‘I’m not sure I have conclusions yet,’ I admitted.

‘You must have some impressions after all this time.’

I did. Too many, and most of them uncomfortable. I’d expected to find a failed experiment, a cautionary tale about what happens when people reject proper authority and moral structure. Instead, I’d found a functioning society that seemed, in many ways, more successful at meeting human needs than my own.

‘I need more time,’ I said. ‘There must be something I’m missing. Some flaw in your system that hasn’t revealed itself yet.’

Carlos looked at me with something like pity. ‘Perhaps the flaw you’re looking for is that it doesn’t match your expectations. But expectations aren’t truth, William. They’re just stories we’ve been told so often we’ve forgotten they’re stories.’

In my final dispatch, I will attempt to synthesise everything I’ve witnessed, to make sense of a society that seems to function despite rejecting everything I know to be necessary for social order. Whether I can reconcile their apparent success with my understanding of human nature and proper society remains to be seen.

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Journey to Porto Verde

After the unsettling visit to Porto Segura’s justice facilities, Carlos suggested we visit Porto Verde, a smaller settlement nestled in the island’s agricultural heartland. I welcomed the change of pace. Surely examining their primitive farming methods and inadequate energy infrastructure would reveal at last the poverty hidden beneath their cooperative pretense.

The train journey took us through increasingly rural landscapes. What struck me immediately was the patchwork nature of the cultivation - nothing like the orderly monoculture fields I was accustomed to. Fruit trees grew alongside vegetable plots, with what appeared to be wild hedgerows between them. It looked chaotic, inefficient, almost medieval.

‘Your agricultural methods seem rather disorganised,’ I ventured, pointing to the patchwork of fields outside the window.

‘Do they?’ Carlos asked mildly. ‘Or are they more organised than they appear?’

Porto Verde itself was modest, perhaps five thousand residents, built around a central plaza with housing radiating outward in concentric rings. Beyond the residences, I could see orchards, gardens, and cultivated fields stretching toward forested hills. Windmills dotted the landscape, their blades turning lazily in the afternoon breeze.

‘The settlement pattern is quite deliberate,’ Carlos explained as we disembarked. ‘Housing in the centre for easy access to communal facilities, with agricultural land at the fringes where it makes sense ecologically. People can walk to the fields easily, and the compact housing preserves more land for cultivation and wild spaces.’

Forced urbanisation under the guise of environmental concern. Probably prevents people from owning private farmland.

Meeting the Agricultural Collective

We were met by a woman named Teresa, sun-weathered and strong, who apparently coordinated (that word again) one of the agricultural collectives. She wore practical work clothes splattered with soil, and I noticed her hands bore the calluses of genuine labour.

‘Welcome to Porto Verde,’ she said warmly. ‘Carlos mentioned you’re interested in how we manage food production?’

‘Indeed. I’m curious how you maintain adequate yields without, well, modern industrial agriculture.’

Teresa’s eyebrow raised slightly. ‘You assume we don’t use modern techniques? Come, let me show you something.’

She led us past the plaza toward the agricultural zone.

‘When the Portuguese first arrived,’ Teresa began, ‘they saw an inexhaustible supply of timber, rich soil for single-crop plantations, resources to exploit. They started clearing forest for sugarcane, cutting cedar without replanting, exhausting the soil with monoculture.’

‘And the indigenous peoples taught them better?’ Carlos prompted, undoubtedly already knowing the story she was about to give us.

‘Eventually, after they’d nearly destroyed several forest areas and experienced crop failures. The indigenous Antilleans had been managing these lands for generations through careful stewardship - replanting more than they harvested, rotating crops, using complementary plantings to maintain soil health, treating the forest as a commons to be managed collectively rather than a resource to be exploited.’

‘That sounds rather primitive,’ I observed.

‘Does it?’ Teresa knelt beside a plot where beans climbed corn stalks whilst squash spread between them. ‘This is the Three Sisters method, practised by indigenous peoples for centuries. The corn provides structure for beans to climb, the beans fix nitrogen in the soil, the squash shades the ground to retain moisture and prevent weeds. It’s more productive per acre than monoculture, requires no synthetic fertilisers, and builds soil health rather than depleting it. How is that primitive?’

‘But surely modern industrial agriculture produces far more food?’

‘In the short term, whilst destroying soil and requiring ever-increasing inputs of fossil-fuel-derived chemicals. We produce abundantly using integrated techniques - indigenous knowledge combined with modern understanding of soil ecology, plant biology, and permaculture design. The difference is we design for sustainability over centuries, not quarterly profits.’

The Forest Stewardship

After examining several garden plots, Teresa suggested we visit the forest management area. I agreed, curious to see how they handled larger-scale resource extraction.

We walked perhaps a kilometre to where cultivated land gave way to managed forest. A group of about a dozen people were working amongst the trees - some assessing which could be harvested, others planting saplings, several collecting mushrooms and other forest products.

A young man named Hassan greeted us. ‘We’re doing our quarterly assessment,’ he explained. ‘Determining what can be taken sustainably this season.’

‘How do you determine that without central planning?’ I asked.

‘Well, we do plan,’ Hassan replied. ‘But the planning is done by those of us who actually work in the forest, who know these trees individually, who understand the ecosystem. Not by bureaucrats in an office somewhere.’

He showed us a hand-drawn map marked with annotations - which areas had been harvested when, which were reserved for regeneration, where rare plants needed protection. It was surprisingly detailed, clearly the work of people who knew their land intimately.

‘The indigenous communities taught us to think in generations,’ Hassan continued. ‘When we plant a cedar, we’re planting for our grandchildren to harvest. When we cut one, we’re using something our grandparents planted. It changes your relationship to the forest entirely.’

‘But surely that’s not sufficient? You must need far more timber than can be sustainably harvested - for construction, heating, all your paper needs?’ I said, wondering if I’d receive a different answer than the last time I’d asked a similar question.

‘We recycle and repair obsessively. We’ve developed efficient wood stoves that use far less fuel. And we’ve massively reduced paper consumption - most communication is digital or verbal.’

‘You’ve adapted your needs to match sustainable supply,’ Carlos added, ‘rather than trying to extract resources unsustainably to meet artificially inflated demands.’

A woman named Lina joined our conversation, carrying a basket of mushrooms. ‘The forest provides beyond timber. These mushrooms, medicinal plants, fruit and nuts, materials for crafts. When you manage a forest as a living ecosystem rather than a timber factory, it produces abundance.’

Romantic primitivism. Probably supplement with imports and ration what they claim to produce. Yet the forest does look healthy...

Wind and Water

That afternoon, Teresa handed us over to a man named Paolo, who apparently worked with the energy collective. He was younger, probably in his thirties, with an enthusiasm that suggested he genuinely enjoyed his work.

‘Porto Verde is ideal for renewable energy,’ he said as we walked toward the nearest windmill. ‘We get consistent wind from the ocean, several streams for micro-hydro, and excellent solar exposure. Plus, we’re connected to the regional grid which includes geothermal stations in the volcanic areas and offshore wind and wave farms.’

The windmill up close was impressive - a modern design, clearly well-maintained, with the generator housing accessible by a ladder. Paolo noticed my interest.

‘We manufacture these locally. The designs are open-source, shared freely not only between communities, but the rest of the world. When someone develops an improvement, everyone benefits. No patents, no proprietary technology to pay for.’

‘But what motivates improvement without monetary reward?’ I kept asking, though I expected a similar answer to what I’d heard before.

Paolo looked genuinely confused. ‘Because improving energy efficiency benefits everyone? Because it’s intellectually satisfying? Because people want to contribute meaningfully?’ He paused. ‘Why do you assume people only create when there’s money involved?’

We walked to a nearby stream where a modern micro-hydro installation hummed quietly. ‘This isn’t some medieval waterwheel,’ Paolo explained. ‘It uses modern turbine design, computerised load management, and feeds into the village grid. But the principle is the same as watermills have used for centuries - using gravity and flowing water to do work.’

‘The solar panels on most roofs were added by the community,’ he continued. ‘Excess production goes to the grid, and when someone needs more than they generate, they draw from common production. No one pays for electricity - it’s treated as a basic necessity, like air.’

‘What happens when production falls short?’ I asked. ‘During calm, cloudy weeks?’

‘That was common in the past, but is rare these days. We have battery storage, but we also adapt consumption. Non-essential uses reduce automatically. People are conscious of supply and adjust accordingly. But now we’re connected to the regional grid. We share production and balance load across regions.’

‘That must require enormous coordination.’

‘It requires computers and communication, yes. But the coordination is distributed - each community manages its own production and consumption whilst sharing with others. There’s no central authority controlling everything, just voluntary cooperation and shared information.’

‘And the offshore wind and wave farms? Those must be expensive.’

‘They took significant collective effort to build, yes. But with no profits to extract, no shareholders to pay, the cost is purely materials and labour. And the benefits flow to everyone, not to a few owners. We actually get more value from our resources because none is being siphoned off as profit.’

Claims of efficient renewable energy, but probably frequent blackouts they’re not mentioning. Yet the lights do seem to stay on...

Food Without Money

By evening, I was hungry, and Teresa invited us to join her household for dinner. Her home was modest but comfortable, part of a cluster of dwellings that shared a courtyard. As we arrived, several neighbours were already there, and I realised dinner would be communal.

‘Everyone brings what they have,’ Teresa explained. ‘Tonight my household contributed vegetables from our garden plot and flour from the mill. Raj brought fish he caught this morning. Catalina brought fruit from the orchard collective. We’ll make a meal together.’

‘No one pays for any of this?’ I asked, watching the effortless exchange of food.

‘Pay? Pay whom?’ Raj looked genuinely puzzled. ‘I catch fish because I enjoy it and because people need fish. Teresa grows vegetables because she’s good at it and because we need vegetables. Why would we need to pay each other for contributing to our community’s wellbeing?’

As we prepared the meal together - and I found myself surprisingly pressed into service chopping onions - I observed the system in action. People took what they needed, shared what they had, and no one was counting or keeping score. Yet it didn’t devolve into chaos or hoarding.

‘I’m surprised to see fish,’ I remarked to Catalina, who was teaching me the proper way to fillet it (apparently my method was ‘wasteful’). ‘I’d heard some communities here reject meat entirely.’

‘Some do,’ she confirmed. ‘Porto Saber is largely vegetarian, for instance. But Porto Verde has always been a fishing community. We take what the sea offers sustainably. It’s a choice each community and individual makes.’

‘How do you prevent someone from taking more than their share?’ I asked.

‘Why would they? If you take more food than you can eat, it spoils. There’s no point. And if someone was consistently taking far more than seemed reasonable, people would notice and ask if everything was alright - maybe they’re struggling with something, maybe they have guests, maybe there’s a problem we could help with.’

‘But what about luxury items? Special foods? Things that are scarce?’

Teresa overheard and laughed. ‘We trade with cargo ships for luxuries - coffee, chocolate, spices we can’t grow here. Those get distributed through the community centres. If something’s particularly scarce, we discuss how to share it fairly. Usually that means everyone gets a little rather than some getting a lot.’

‘And people accept that? Don’t they want more?’

‘Want more of what?’ Raj interjected. ‘More than I can eat? More than I need? Why? So I can feel superior to my neighbours? That seems exhausting and unpleasant.’

The dinner itself was excellent - fresh fish, roasted vegetables, bread that Catalina had apparently baked that morning, fruit for dessert. Everyone ate until satisfied, and the conversation flowed easily. No one was checking a bill, calculating tips, or worrying about affording the meal.

As we ate, I noticed something else: the pace. No one was rushing. People took time with their food, with their conversation, with each other. Back home, efficiency meant eating quickly and getting back to productive work. Here, the meal itself seemed to be considered worthwhile.

‘You have time for this,’ I observed. ‘Long communal dinners, slow meals.’

‘Of course,’ Teresa replied. ‘We work about twenty-five hours a week on average. The rest of the time is ours - for meals, conversation, projects, rest, whatever we want. Why would we rush through eating just to spend more time making someone else wealthy?’

Admission of low productivity. Yet they claim to produce enough for everyone. The food is certainly real enough.

The Environmentalists Dream

After dinner, Paolo offered to show me the village’s ‘pride and joy’ - a recently completed project he seemed particularly excited about. We walked through streets lit by solar-powered lamps, past community gardens where people were harvesting evening crops, to a large building covered in vines and solar panels.

‘Our community centre,’ Paolo announced. ‘Also houses the water purification system, the library, meeting spaces, and workshops. All powered by solar during the day, with battery storage for night and cloudy weather.’

The building was beautiful in a way I hadn’t expected - organic curves rather than rigid lines, large windows bringing in natural light, the green walls regulating temperature while the solar panels generated power. It looked more like something alive than a conventional building.

‘We built this collectively over two years,’ Paolo explained. ‘Everyone contributed skills - some did structural work, others plumbing, electrical, landscaping. The design was developed through community discussions with input from engineers, architects, and people who’d actually be using the space.’

‘It must have cost a fortune.’

‘Cost in what sense? Materials, yes. Labour, yes. But labour given freely by people who wanted this facility and who took pride in building it. The materials came from our own resources where possible - adobe bricks we made, timber from managed forests, salvaged materials from old structures. What we couldn’t produce, we asked for help obtaining.’

Inside, the community centre buzzed with activity. Someone was teaching children woodworking in one room. A study group discussed something mathematical in another. The library held people reading, researching, quietly working. Everything was free, accessible, maintained collectively.

‘The water purification system below uses natural filtration systems,’ Paolo continued. ‘Reed beds, gravel filters, UV treatment powered by solar. It’s more elegant than chemical treatment, requires minimal input, and produces clean water reliably. The excess heat from the process helps warm the building in winter.’

‘You’ve thought of everything,’ I said, unable to keep a hint of admiration from my voice before catching myself.

‘We’ve tried to create systems that work with natural processes rather than against them. Windmills that produce power from wind that blows anyway. Solar panels that capture sunlight that falls anyway. Buildings that stay cool by mimicking the way trees moderate temperature. Water treatment that uses the same processes nature uses to clean water in streams and wetlands.’

‘It seems almost too good to be true.’

‘It’s not perfect,’ Paolo admitted. ‘Sometimes the wind doesn’t blow. Sometimes we have droughts. Sometimes equipment breaks. But we’ve designed for resilience - multiple sources of energy, water storage, backup systems. And we adapt. During the dry season two years ago, we reduced non-essential water use collectively until the rains returned. No one had to be forced, people simply understood the situation and adjusted.’

‘But surely this only works because you’re small, isolated, blessed with good conditions.’

‘We are fortunate in some ways, yes. But small communities can coordinate more easily than large ones. Being isolated means we had to become self-sufficient. And the conditions we’re “blessed with” exist in many places - wind, water, sun are available nearly everywhere. What’s been lacking isn’t the resources but the social organisation to use them cooperatively instead of competitively.’

We climbed to the roof where more community gardens grew, irrigated by captured rainwater. People were there, tending plants, chatting, watching the sunset paint the sky orange and red. The windmills on the hills turned rhythmically. Solar panels glinted. The village below glowed with warm light. It looked, I had to admit, rather idyllic.

Green technology veneer hiding underlying inefficiency. Yet the systems do seem to function. Perhaps adequate for small scale...

Confronting Contradictions

That night, lying in the simple bed in Teresa’s household, I reviewed my notes with increasing frustration. Every assumption I’d brought about environmental destruction, agricultural inefficiency, and energy poverty had been challenged. Not through rhetoric, but through direct observation of functioning systems.

The reporter in me demanded I find the flaw, the hidden cost, the unspoken suffering. But I’d spent the day watching people work shorter hours, eat better food, live in communities powered by clean energy, and seem genuinely content with lives that revolved around cooperation rather than competition.

Where was the scarcity? The rationing? The queues? The pollution? The exploitation that any functioning society surely required?

I thought about Carlos’s gentle corrections throughout the day. His patience with my skepticism. His willingness to show me everything, answer every question, even when I was clearly hostile. Why wasn’t he hiding anything? Why let me see so much if there were secrets to conceal?

Unless there weren’t secrets. Unless this really was what it appeared to be: a genuinely functional alternative to the hierarchical, exploitative, extractive systems I’d been raised to consider inevitable.

No. That couldn’t be right. There had to be something. Some hidden darkness. Some price being paid somewhere.

Tomorrow Carlos planned to show me ‘a day in the life’ of ordinary Liberationists - not the carefully curated tours of workplaces and facilities, but just following people through their daily routines. Surely then I’d see the cracks. The resentments. The frustrations. The ways in which human nature resisted their egalitarian ideals.

Because if I didn’t find those cracks, if this really worked as well as it appeared to then what did that say about the society I’d come from? What did it say about the systems I’d been taught were natural, inevitable, necessary? I pushed the thought away and tried to sleep. Tomorrow would bring answers. It had to.

In my next dispatch, I will observe how ordinary Liberationists actually live day to day, surely revealing the personal costs of their anti-individualist ideology. Their suppression of personal ambition, their enforced collectivism, their rejection of privacy and personal property must create resentments and frustrations they’ve so far hidden from me. The illusion will shatter when I see how they actually live.

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See https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Anarchist_Solutions_To_Climate_Change for further info.

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An Unexpected Interruption

Our afternoon in our next port of call, Vila Segura, was interrupted by raised voices outside. Carlos and I had been finishing dinner when we heard shouting from the street below. I immediately tensed, expecting violence. After all, without police to maintain order, surely such disputes would escalate quickly.

The matriarch of the family we were staying with stood calmly and walked to the window. ‘Sounds like Rafael and Fernanda are having another argument,’ she said, her tone more concerned than alarmed.

‘Shouldn’t we call the authorities?’ I asked.

‘What authorities?’ Carlos gave me that patient look I’d come to recognise. ‘Come, let’s see if they need help.’

By the time we reached the street, a small group had already gathered. The couple were indeed shouting at each other, but what struck me was the crowd’s behaviour. They weren’t filming for entertainment or standing back fearfully. Instead, several people had positioned themselves between the two, speaking in calm voices, whilst others were having quiet conversations with each person separately.

An older woman named Rosa seemed to be coordinating the response. She caught sight of Carlos, who she recognised as a native islander, and nodded. ‘Just a domestic dispute. Rafael’s been drinking again. We’ve got it handled.’

‘Handled how?’ I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.

‘Well, first we make sure no one gets hurt. Then we help them cool down. Then we figure out what’s really wrong.’ She said this as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Rafael was being walked away by two men who seemed to know him well. Fernanda was crying, being comforted by several women. Rosa turned back to me.

‘This isn’t the first time,’ she explained. ‘Rafael’s been struggling since he arrived from your country, actually. He has trouble adjusting to not being able to control Fernanda the way he’s used to dominating women. We’ve been working with both of them.’

‘Working with them how?’

‘Support circles, mainly. Rafael meets with other men who’ve had to unlearn authoritarian patterns. Fernanda has a group of women who help her understand she doesn’t have to tolerate such behaviour. We’re also addressing Rafael’s drinking, that’s often a sign of deeper issues.’

‘But what if he’d hit her?’ I pressed. ‘What if he becomes violent?’

Rosa’s face grew more serious. ‘Then we’d need to intervene more directly. Come, let me show you something. I think you’ll find it instructive.’

The Community Response Collective

Rosa, who apparently worked at the centre, led us to a building I’d passed earlier without much notice. Inside, it looked part community centre, part medical clinic, part ... I wasn’t sure what.

‘This is where our community response collective coordinates,’ Rosa explained. ‘We handle situations where someone’s safety is at immediate risk, where there’s been serious harm, or where someone needs urgent intervention.’

A younger man named Taiwo greeted us. According to Rosa, he’d trained in conflict de-escalation and crisis intervention. ‘We’re not police,’ he said immediately, perhaps reading my thoughts. ‘We don’t enforce laws — we don’t have any. We respond to harm and help communities stay safe.’

‘That sounds like police with extra steps,’ I observed.

‘Does it?’ Taiwo’s eyes held a challenge. ‘Do police in your country prevent harm, or do they arrive after harm’s been done to process the aftermath and determine punishment?’

‘They deter crime through the threat of punishment.’

‘Do they? Then why do you still have so much crime?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘We focus on prevention. Strong communities where people know and care for each other. Support systems for those struggling. Quick intervention before situations escalate. And when serious harm does occur, we focus on safety, healing and prevention rather than punishment.’

‘What about theft?’ I asked bluntly. ‘Murder? What happens when someone does something truly terrible?’

Taiwo exchanged a glance with Rosa. ‘Let me tell you about a case we handled last year,’ he said, gesturing for us to sit.

The Case of João

‘A man named João came to our attention last year,’ Taiwo began. ‘He’d stolen critical medical supplies from the health centre: antibiotics, pain medications, insulin. He traded them to visiting sailors for alcohol.’

‘Theft,’ I said. ‘Finally, something straightforward.’

‘Was it?’ Taiwo asked. ‘Several families went without needed medications for days. An elderly woman’s infection worsened significantly because we didn’t have the antibiotics she needed. João caused real harm. But why had he done it?’

‘For alcohol, you said. Greed, addiction. Does it matter?’

‘It matters enormously if we want to prevent it happening again.’ He paused. ‘João had been struggling since arriving here six months earlier. He’d fled a country in economic collapse, lost his family in the process, and was self-medicating his trauma with alcohol. The sailors were happy to trade, and they hadn’t asked questions about where the supplies came from.’

‘So you arrested João?’ I asked.

‘Imposar sua autonomia,’ Taiwo replied, as if quoting a common saying in creole. But before I could ask what he meant, Carlos explained:

‘We don’t arrest people. We don’t have the right to. As Taiwo says, “that would impose upon their autonomy”.’ Taiwo nodded and continued in English:

‘We needed to act quickly, yes. Several of us went to speak with him. He admitted what he’d done. He was ashamed, actually. We also spoke with the sailors whose ship was still in port.’

‘And what did they say?’

‘They claimed they didn’t know the supplies were stolen. Maybe that was true, maybe not. We made it clear that trading for items that were obviously medical supplies wasn’t acceptable. That if they wanted to continue trading with us, they needed to be more careful about what they were trading for. They were cooperative, once they understood we meant it.’

‘No consequences for them?’

‘The consequence was that their ship’s reputation would suffer if word spread that they’d traded in stolen medical supplies. Future ports might not trust them. Besides, the real issue was João’s action, not theirs.’

‘So back to João. What happened to him?’

‘We separated him from access to the health centre immediately. Made sure he couldn’t cause further harm. Then we started working with him through a support process. He had a team of people, some who knew him, some with expertise in addiction, some who’d been through similar struggles themselves.’

‘And the people he’d harmed?’

‘They also had support. The elderly woman, her family, the health workers who’d been violated by the theft. They helped determine what accountability should look like, what they needed to feel safe again, what would repair the harm.’

‘So you just talked to everyone?’ My scepticism must have been evident. ‘That hardly seems like justice.’

‘Justice for whom?’ Rosa interjected. ‘For the woman whose health suffered, justice meant getting the care she needed, knowing the supplies would be there in future, and understanding why it happened so it wouldn’t happen again. Locking João in a cage wouldn’t have restored the stolen medicines. It wouldn’t have addressed his addiction or trauma. It wouldn’t have healed anything.’

‘But surely there must be consequences?’

‘There were significant consequences,’ Taiwo said firmly. ‘João lost access to many community spaces until he could demonstrate he’d addressed his addiction. The health collectives wouldn’t accept him as a member. People stopped trusting him with responsibilities. He was essentially isolated until he could show real change. That’s a powerful consequence in a community-based society, especially for someone who was already feeling disconnected and alone.’

‘And did he? Address his addiction?’

‘Eventually. It took months. His accountability team worked with him intensively, understanding the trauma driving his drinking, connecting him with others who’d overcome addiction, helping him find meaningful work and purpose here. The health workers whose trust he’d violated helped determine when he’d done enough to begin rebuilding that trust.’

‘And the sailors? Did they face any accountability?’

‘We had a community discussion about it,’ Rosa added. ‘Some wanted to ban that ship from trading here permanently. Others pointed out that the sailors’ behaviour, while questionable, wasn’t the root problem. We ended up establishing clearer guidelines with the harbour collective about what visiting sailors can and cannot trade for. Medical supplies, tools from the workshops, food from the distribution centres, which are clearly community resources, not personal items for trade.’

‘So one person’s crime led to new rules for everyone?’

‘Not rules – agreements,’ Taiwo corrected. ‘Understanding. The sailors who visit regularly accepted the new guidelines because they value their trading relationship with us. Ships that don’t like it can trade elsewhere. But most see it as reasonable, they don’t want to be complicit in harming communities they trade with.’

I made extensive notes: Claims of addressing theft through “accountability teams” and dialogue. Relies entirely on social pressure and community trust. No guarantee of safety or justice. Outsiders given mere warnings about future conduct.

When Dialogue Fails

‘What if João had refused to participate?’ I asked. ‘What if the sailors had simply ignored your guidelines and continued trading for stolen goods? What if he became violent when you tried to stop him?’

Taiwo’s expression grew more serious. ‘That has happened. Not with João, but with others. When someone absolutely refuses accountability and poses ongoing danger, we have to make harder decisions.’

Carlos spoke up for the first time in a while. ‘Perhaps we should visit someone who can speak to that directly.’

Before bidding us a good evening, Taiwo recommended Kofi, who he said, ‘handles some of our most challenging cases.’

We walked to another section of the building, where a powerfully built man was reviewing some papers. Kofi looked up as we approached, and I noticed a scar running down the left side of his face.

‘The journalist,’ he said, his accent suggesting West African origins. ‘Rosa told me you might visit. You want to know what we do when someone refuses accountability.’

‘Yes, exactly. When your peaceful methods fail.’

‘They don’t usually fail,’ Kofi said carefully. ‘But when they do, we have to protect the community. I’ll be honest with you, we’ve had to use physical restraint at times, even isolate people from the community, and to warn other regions about dangerous individuals.’

‘So you do have prisons,’ I said, unable to hide my satisfaction at catching them in a contradiction.

‘We have secure facilities for people who pose immediate danger to others,’ Kofi acknowledged. ‘But they’re not prisons as you know them. The goal is always healing and eventually reintegration, not punishment. And they’re nothing like your prisons: no cages, no brutality, no decades of warehousing human beings.’

He gestured for us to follow him down a corridor. Through a window, I could see a comfortable room, more like a studio apartment than a cell. ‘This is one of our secure rooms. When someone needs to be separated from the community for safety reasons, they stay somewhere like this. They have privacy, comfort, activities. They’re not being punished, they’re being kept safe and keeping others safe whilst we work to address whatever’s driving their harmful behaviour.’

‘And if they never change?’

‘Then they can’t return to open community. But that’s extraordinarily rare. Most people, given proper support and treatment, can eventually reintegrate. The human desire for connection and community is powerful. Isolation is one of the worst things we can do to someone — we don’t weaponise it.’

‘What about violent psychopaths? People who simply enjoy causing harm?’

Kofi’s expression darkened. ‘We’ve encountered that twice in my ten years doing this work. Actual psychopathy with no capacity for empathy or change. In both cases, the individuals were eventually asked to leave the island permanently. We don’t have the capacity or expertise to safely house someone permanently if they’re unwilling to work toward change and pose ongoing danger.’

‘So you exile people,’ I said, making a note.

‘We tell them they’re not welcome if they refuse accountability and continue to pose danger, yes. And we inform other regions about them. But we’re not a prison, no one is forced to stay here. If someone wants to return to hierarchical societies where prisons exist, that’s their choice.’

I noted - It seems to me like pushing their problems on to others to me, and makes me wonder if the rumours I’d heard that in the past they’d kill the unreformable were true. But as we’d seen not all their problems came from just within the island, but sometimes from outside of it too.

As we left the response centre, I found myself thinking about external threats. If they struggled with individual wrongdoers – resorting to exile or worse for the truly irredeemable – how could they possibly handle organised violence from outside? A few mercenaries or drug dealers were one thing, but what about a proper military invasion? Without a standing army, without a command structure, they’d be helpless.

Defence Without an Army

I asked Carlos, ‘How does the island respond to external aggression when your internal systems seem so ... delicate.’

That evening, Carlos suggested we visit the island’s defence coordination centre. I’d been wondering about this since I arrived, surely without a proper military, they’d be helpless against invasion.

The building was unremarkable from outside. It was another low-slung structure with solar panels. Inside, I found maps, communication equipment, and about a dozen people engaged in various activities. What struck me was how ordinary they looked: no uniforms, no medals, no visible hierarchy. Someone was reviewing maps whilst eating an apple. Another was repairing what looked like radio equipment whilst chatting casually with others.

A woman named Leila greeted us. She wore practical clothes and carried herself with evident competence, but nothing marked her as military.

‘You’re wondering how we defend ourselves without an army,’ she said immediately.

‘Among other things,’ I replied.

‘Come, let me show you.’ She led us to a large map of the island on the wall. ‘Every region maintains defence collectives. We train in guerrilla tactics, fortification, rapid response. But our first defence is making ourselves less attractive as targets.’

‘How so?’

‘We have no centralised government to capture, no concentrated wealth to seize, no strategic resources worth invading for - at least not ones easy to extract quickly. We’re a poor target for traditional military conquest. What would an invader actually gain?’

‘Territory,’ I suggested. ‘A foothold in the Atlantic.’

‘Perhaps. But territory they’d then have to hold against a population trained in asymmetric warfare. We’ve studied successful resistance movements: the Vietnamese, the Afghans, your own Revolutionary War. A determined population on their own land, fighting for their homes, is extraordinarily difficult to defeat.’

She pointed to various marked locations on the map. ‘We have hardened positions throughout the island, places that could be defended if needed. We train regularly in small-unit tactics. Every region maintains equipment caches. And we have coordination networks that would activate immediately upon threat.’

‘But surely without a unified command structure ...’

‘We have coordination, not command,’ Leila corrected. ‘Regional defence collectives communicate constantly. We hold regular joint exercises. We share intelligence. But there’s no general giving orders, we operate through consensus and coordination.’

‘That sounds impossibly slow in an emergency.’

‘It requires trust and practice, yes. But it is anything but slow. We’ve drilled enough that people know what to do. When there’s an immediate threat, those present make decisions and act. Then we coordinate regionally as needed. It’s not about waiting for permission from above, which would actually slow us down, it’s about trusting each other to act appropriately.’

‘And what about surveillance? Patrols? Surely you need to monitor for threats?’

Leila shook her head firmly. ‘We have monitoring along our borders, but we don’t patrol looking for trouble or monitor people’s behaviour. That’s enforcement, not defence. We respond when there’s an actual threat, such as an invasion force, organised fascist violence, that sort of thing. There’s a crucial difference between defending against harm and policing compliance with rules.’

‘But how do you know when there’s a threat if you’re not watching?’

‘Communities notice things. Sailors bring information. We maintain communication networks with other autonomous regions who might warn us of approaching dangers. But we don’t surveil our own people or create a security apparatus that could turn against the community. That would make us the threat we’re supposedly defending against.’

A younger man named Javier joined us, overhearing the conversation. ‘You should understand, our real defence is the community itself. When everyone has their needs met, when conflicts are resolved through dialogue, when people have meaningful connections, then that prevents most violence before it starts. Armed defence is the backup plan, not the foundation.’

‘That’s naive,’ I said. ‘You can’t prevent external threats through mutual aid.’

‘External threats, no,’ Javier acknowledged. ‘But we’ve been invaded before. Twice, actually.’

‘I’ve found no records of that,’ I said sharply.

‘You wouldn’t have. Your countries weren’t involved.’ He grinned. ‘Twenty years ago, a mercenary company tried to establish a base here. Thought we’d be easy targets. They lasted four days.’

‘What happened?’

‘We made it impossible for them to operate. Cut their supply lines. Used the terrain against them. Made every position they tried to hold untenable. Eventually, they realised they were just losing money and equipment for no gain. They left.’

‘And the second time?’

Leila’s face grew serious. ‘A drug cartel tried to set up operations here eight years ago. They thought our lack of police made us vulnerable. That one was messier. We had to be more direct in our response.’

‘You killed them,’ I said.

‘Some, yes,’ she acknowledged without flinching. ‘When people come to our home with violence, intending to enslave our people or use our island for criminal enterprise, we defend ourselves. That’s not aggression, it’s survival. But we don’t maintain a standing army because we don’t invade others. We’re defensive, not offensive.’

‘The biggest risk,’ Leila continued, her tone becoming more serious, ‘is that we become what we’re defending against. A permanent armed force that sees itself as special, separate, superior. We guard against that constantly, using rotation, accountability, keeping defence integrated with other community work. The moment someone starts thinking their armed role makes them more important than the person growing food or teaching children, that’s when we’ve failed.’

‘But surely those with combat experience are more valuable in a crisis?’

‘Valuable for that specific task, yes. But not more valuable as people. Not deserving of special status or power. That’s how military castes form, how defence forces become tools of oppression rather than protection.’ She gestured around the room. ‘Everyone here has other roles. I coordinate regional defence planning, but I also work in the orchards. Javier there teaches mathematics to children three days a week. We’re community members who happen to have defence training, not soldiers who tolerate community participation.’

‘Still,’ I pressed, ‘a professional military with air support, naval superiority, and you’d be crushed.’

‘Perhaps,’ Leila conceded. ‘If a major power decided we were worth the cost of invasion and occupation. But they’d face the same challenges every imperial power has faced with guerrilla resistance. And for what? We have no oil, no strategic minerals, no concentrated wealth to loot. We’re simply not worth the cost.’

‘But you’re vulnerable,’ I insisted.

‘To overwhelming force, yes. So is everyone.’ She looked at me steadily. ‘But we’re far less vulnerable than societies with single points of failure, including governments to be captured, leaders to be assassinated, and infrastructure to be seized. We’re distributed, resilient, determined. That’s its own kind of strength.’

Reviewing My Notes

That evening, reviewing my notes, I found myself increasingly frustrated. Everything I’d witnessed challenged my fundamental assumptions about human nature, justice, and social order.

I couldn’t shake the story of João from my mind. In my country, he’d have gone to prison, emerged years later probably more of a criminal than before, and returned to society with no support and a permanent criminal record making employment nearly impossible.

Their way had, at least in his case, apparently produced genuine transformation. But could it work for everyone? Could it work at scale? And more importantly, what kind of people did this system actually produce?

‘You look troubled,’ Carlos observed.

‘I’m trying to understand how your system hasn’t collapsed into chaos. Every stable society requires centralised authority to maintain order and defend against threats. It’s basic political theory. Yet somehow you’ve managed without it?’

‘Or perhaps your political theory is based on societies where some people profit from maintaining hierarchies,’ Carlos suggested. ‘Where those in power need to justify their power. Our approach requires letting go of that framework entirely.’

‘But people are fundamentally selfish, violent, prone to exploitation.’

‘Are they? Or do they become those things in systems that reward and encourage such behaviour? We’ve built a society that rewards cooperation, that meets everyone’s needs, that treats harm as a problem to be solved rather than a crime to be punished. People respond to the incentives and conditions around them.’

‘That’s naive.’

‘Is it? You’ve been here over a week now. You’ve met dozens of people. Have you witnessed the chaos and violence you expected? Or have you seen people generally treating each other with respect and care, whilst still having functional systems for addressing the exceptions?’

I wasn’t ready to admit he was right quite yet though, at least not for the reasons he was claiming they’d achieved this. Perhaps their justice and defence systems worked adequately on a small, isolated island with a self-selected population. But what about the harder questions? The material foundations of their society? I’d noticed during our travels that they used no private vehicles, burned no coal or oil for power, and seemed to have rejected the very technologies that had made my country great. Surely this primitivist ideology was holding them back, keeping them impoverished while they convinced themselves it was virtue.

Tomorrow we’d be visiting an agricultural community and alternative energy production facility. There, I was certain, the mask would finally slip. No society could maintain modern living standards without exploiting fossil fuels. Their environmental fanaticism would be revealed as the poverty-inducing delusion it surely was.

In my next dispatch, I will examine the infrastructure they’ve built on ideological sand. Without fossil fuels, without private enterprise, without proper incentives for innovation, how could they possibly power a functioning society? The poverty behind their windmills and solar panels will tell the real story.

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Like most of these ‘episodes’ this one has been shortened and about 2000 words left out, some of which address situations and objections there wasn’t room to cover in this version. However, the Anarchist Wiki, AnarWiki.org, has several relevant articles on these subjects for those who want to study this in more in-depth:

• https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Antisocial_Introduction

• https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Historical_Harm_Reduction_Introduction

• https://anarwiki.org/wiki/State_Violence_Introduction

• https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Anarchist_Harm_Mitigation_Introduction

• https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Harm_Investigation_Introduction

• https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Police_Abolition_And_Alternatives

• https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Prison_Abolition

• https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Transformative_Justice

• https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Community_Defense

You can read the next part of the story here:

Morning in Vila Paz

I woke with a mild headache, probably from the wine at dinner. Carlos had arranged for us to visit healthcare facilities today in the nearby small city of Vila Paz, and I was certain this would finally expose the fatal flaw in their system. Healthcare requires expertise, hierarchy, and significant capital. Surely their egalitarian principles would crumble here.

Over breakfast, I noticed older residents doing coordinated exercises in the courtyard, led by someone who appeared to be in his seventies. Others were tending the extensive gardens, many of them elderly as well, moving with surprising ease.

‘Is there some sort of mandatory fitness regime?’ I asked Carlos, pointing toward the exercising group.

‘Mandatory? No. But most people here stay active throughout their lives. It’s simply part of the culture. We’ve found that preventing illness is far more effective than treating it.’ He paused. ‘Though of course, we still need treatment facilities for when prevention isn’t enough.’

Cult-like fitness obsession. Probably covers for inadequate medical care.

The Community Health Centre

The neighbourhood health facilities looked more like a community centre than a proper medical facility, with windows open to let in the morning breeze and what appeared to be a vegetable garden out front.

Inside, the atmosphere was surprisingly calm. No waiting room packed with anxious patients, no harried receptionist behind bulletproof glass, no forms to fill out or insurance to verify. A few people sat reading or chatting quietly, whilst others moved through what appeared to be consultation rooms.

Dr. Amara, wearing comfortable clothes rather than a white coat, approached us. ‘Where’s your uniform?’ I asked before I could stop myself.

She smiled. ‘We don’t really do uniforms here, except when performing surgery. People know who the healthcare workers are, and it creates a more relaxed atmosphere for patients. Would you like a tour?’

As we walked through the centre, Dr. Amara explained their approach. ‘Most healthcare happens at this local level. Simple consultations, minor injuries, chronic condition management, preventive care, and even some health education. We only refer to the regional hospitals for emergencies or complex cases requiring specialists.’

‘And people just ... come in whenever they want? No appointments?’

‘We have a booking system for routine matters, but anyone can walk in. We prioritise based on urgency.’ She indicated a room where an elderly man was having his blood pressure checked by someone who looked barely out of their teens. ‘Everyone who wants to work in healthcare starts with basic nursing and health monitoring. Even those who go on to specialise in surgery or research begin here, learning to interact with patients, understand common ailments, practice basic care.’

‘Isn’t that inefficient? Making future doctors do nursing work?’

‘We don’t see it as “nursing work” versus “doctor work”,’ Dr. Amara replied. ‘It’s all healthcare. And understanding the full spectrum makes for better physicians. A surgeon who’s never changed a dressing or comforted a frightened patient is missing something essential.’

We passed a consultation room where a middle-aged woman was discussing something with a healthcare worker. The conversation was unhurried, detailed. Nobody was watching the clock.

‘How many patients can you see in a day without time pressure?’ I challenged.

‘Fewer than in your system, probably,’ Dr. Amara admitted. ‘But we have more healthcare workers relative to population because there’s no artificial scarcity created by expensive medical school tuition. Anyone with the aptitude and commitment can train. And because we focus so heavily on prevention and community health, we have less acute illness to treat.’

I made a note: Unqualified healthcare workers. No time management. Claims of reduced illness unverified.

Indigenous Medical Traditions

Outside, an elderly woman was teaching two younger people about plants in a small garden beside the building.

‘That’s Inara,’ Carlos said. ‘She’s one of our most knowledgeable herbalists. Much of our pharmaceutical research builds on indigenous medical traditions.’

‘Herbalism?’ I couldn’t keep the disdain from my voice. ‘Surely you don’t rely on folk remedies when you have modern medicine?’

Carlos gave me a long look. ‘When the first Portuguese sailors arrived here, they were dying of scurvy and infected wounds. The indigenous inhabitants saved them using plants and practices the Europeans dismissed as primitive superstition. It took European medicine centuries to “discover” what the indigenous peoples already knew about vitamin C, antiseptics, and wound care.’

We approached Inara, who greeted Carlos warmly and regarded me with apparent amusement, as if she could read my scepticism. However, I was more pre-occupied by wondering how Carlos knew all these different people.

‘You’re wondering how much an old woman knows about medicine?’ she asked in perfect English, her eyes twinkling.

‘I ... that is ...’

‘It’s alright. Your people spent centuries assuming we were ignorant because our knowledge wasn’t written in your books.’ She gestured to the plants. ‘This one contains compounds similar to your aspirin. That one has antibacterial properties we’ve used for wound care for generations – your scientists “discovered” it twenty years ago and gave it a Latin name. This vine here helps with digestive issues, and that flower is used for anxiety and depression.’

‘Inara worked with our pharmaceutical collectives to identify which traditional medicines could be scaled up for production,’ Carlos explained. ‘And which should remain as traditional preparations.’

‘Not everything needs to be industrialised,’ Inara said, crushing leaves between her fingers and releasing a sharp, pleasant scent. ‘Some medicines work better fresh. Some require personal preparation that can’t be replicated in a factory. Some illnesses need healing that goes beyond the physical.’

‘Personal preparation?’ I asked. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting something ... spiritual.’

‘I’m suggesting that your separation of mind, body, and spirit is artificial,’ she replied calmly. ‘When someone is ill, we don’t just treat the symptom. We look at their whole life – their relationships, their purpose, their connection to community and land. Sometimes the cure for a headache is a painkiller. Sometimes it’s resolving a conflict with a neighbour. Sometimes it’s spending time in the forest.’

One of the younger people, a man named Tomás, spoke up. ‘I trained in both systems – indigenous traditional medicine and what you’d call modern medicine. They’re complementary, not contradictory. Inara can identify plants I’d need a laboratory to analyse. But I can perform a surgery she can’t. We work together.’

Indigenous knowledge romanticised and elevated to equal status with modern medicine. Yet I suppose practical applications appear effective. Back inside ...

Meeting a Diabetic Patient

As if reading my scepticism, Dr. Amara said, ‘Perhaps you’d like to speak with one of our patients? Jonas here manages diabetes.’

A thin man in his forties looked up from where he was preparing to test his blood glucose. ‘Happy to answer questions,’ he said cheerfully.

‘How often do you need to come here?’ I asked.

‘For routine checks? Once a quarter, unless something changes. But I can come anytime if I have concerns. And Marina’, he said, gesturing to a young woman who’d been monitoring his test, ‘visits my home monthly to make sure everything’s going well.’

‘Home visits? That seems ... resource-intensive.’

Jonas shrugged. ‘Better than me ending up in hospital because something was missed. Marina’s trained in diabetes care, she knows what to watch for. It’s preventive rather than reactive.’

‘And your insulin? How do you obtain it?’

‘From the pharmacy collective, same as anyone. It’s produced here on the island.’

This surprised me. ‘You manufacture insulin locally?’

‘Of course,’ Dr. Amara interjected. ‘We couldn’t rely entirely on imports for something so essential. We have pharmaceutical production facilities, not huge by your standards, but adequate for our needs. The processes aren’t secret or proprietary. We share them freely with other communities.’

‘But the research and development costs ...’

‘Are minimal when you’re not trying to recoup billions in profit,’ she said drily. ‘We work with open-source medical research networks. When someone develops an improved synthesis method, they share it. Everyone benefits.’

‘What about Type 2 diabetes?’ I asked Jonas. ‘It’s becoming an epidemic in developed countries.’

‘Rare here,’ Dr. Amara answered. ‘Our diet is largely plant-based with minimal processed foods, people stay physically active throughout their lives, and without the chronic stress of financial insecurity, we see fewer stress-related illnesses. Type 1 diabetes like Jonas has is genetic, unavoidable. Type 2 is largely a disease of modern capitalism: poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, chronic stress.’

I wanted to argue, but Jonas looked healthy enough. I only wonder how much better off he’d be if he had one of the newer automatic insulin pumps that can be bought in the empire by any who can afford them.

The Pharmaceutical Workshop

Carlos suggested we visit one of the pharmaceutical production facilities. I agreed eagerly, certain this would reveal the cracks in their system. Surely they couldn’t produce medications to modern standards without proper corporate oversight and profit incentives.

The facility was cleaner than I’d expected, though modest in scale. Workers in protective equipment moved between various stations, monitoring fermentation tanks, checking temperatures, running quality tests. What struck me was the absence of security or secrecy.

A woman named Lin, who apparently coordinated production, showed us around. ‘We produce most of our basic medications here: antibiotics, insulin, common painkillers, antivirals. More complex drugs we import, though we’re expanding our capabilities.’

‘Who decides what gets produced?’ I asked.

‘Regional health assemblies assess needs based on usage patterns and practitioner requests. We coordinate with other communities in our federation to share resources and knowledge. If we’re short on something, another community might have surplus. If we develop an improved production method, we share it.’

‘Don’t you worry about quality control without regulatory oversight?’

Lin looked puzzled. ‘We have extensive quality control. Every batch is tested by multiple independent labs. Results are published openly so any community can verify them. We’re accountable to the people who use these medications, not to distant bureaucrats or shareholders.’

‘But what if someone makes a mistake? What if a batch is contaminated?’

‘Then we catch it in testing and don’t distribute it. And we investigate how it happened to prevent recurrence.’ She paused. ‘Has your regulatory system prevented all pharmaceutical mistakes? Or does it mainly protect companies from liability?’

I avoided answering her obvious trick question. Instead, I asked, ‘How do you produce penicillin?’

Lin’s face lit up. ‘Ah, one of our most important products. The process is actually quite elegant.’ She launched into an explanation of fermentation tanks, Penicillium cultures, and purification methods. It was clear she genuinely loved her work, took pride in producing something that helped people.

As we left, I noted: Small-scale pharmaceutical production. Claims of quality control unverified. No profit motive means no innovation incentive. But ... medications appear adequate.

The Regional Hospital

That afternoon, we visited the regional hospital, and I’ll admit it looked more like what I’d expected from a proper medical facility. Three storeys of modern construction, well-equipped ambulances in the bay, what appeared to be an operating theatre through a window.

Dr. Osei, a surgeon, met us at the entrance. ‘Welcome. I understand you have questions about how we manage complex care?’

‘Indeed. Surely surgical procedures require strict hierarchy? Someone must be in charge.’

‘Someone must be coordinating, yes. But that’s different from being “in charge” in the way you mean.’ He led us through the corridors. ‘In surgery, the lead surgeon for that session makes moment-to-moment decisions, but they’re working with a team of equals. The anaesthetist isn’t subordinate to the surgeon, they’re a specialist whose expertise is respected. The scrub nurse isn’t a servant, they’re a trained professional whose input matters.’

We entered an observation gallery overlooking an operating theatre where a team was apparently preparing for a procedure. ‘What we don’t have,’ Dr. Osei continued, ‘is administrative hierarchy. No hospital administrators making medical decisions for profit. No insurance companies denying necessary care. No doctors competing for status and salary. Just healthcare workers cooperating to help patients.’

‘But who decides who becomes a surgeon? That requires years of training, significant resources.’

‘Anyone with the aptitude, commitment, and community trust. Medical training here is apprenticeship-based. You work alongside experienced practitioners, gradually taking on more responsibility. When your mentors and peers agree you’re ready, you begin performing procedures under supervision. Eventually, you’re recognised as competent.’

‘No examinations? No formal qualifications?’

‘Continuous assessment by multiple mentors is far more rigorous than a single exam. And our assessment is practical, we assess if you can actually perform the procedure safely and effectively? Not can you memorise facts for a test.’

Below us, the surgical team was conferring over something. I noticed it wasn’t one person issuing orders but a discussion where everyone contributed.

‘What about specialisation?’ I pressed. ‘You can’t have everyone doing everything.’

‘Of course not. After basic healthcare training, people pursue specific interests: surgery, paediatrics, mental health, whatever draws them. They study with specialists in those fields. But the foundation is always holistic care, understanding the patient as a whole person rather than a collection of symptoms.’

Mental Health Treatment

‘What about mental health?’ I asked as we walked through the hospital. ‘Surely that’s more challenging without, well, proper authority structures?’

Dr. Osei’s expression became more serious. ‘Mental health is actually an area where we’ve had to be particularly thoughtful. Please follow me.’

He led us to a quieter wing of the hospital. ‘Some mental health support happens at the community level: counselling, support groups, crisis intervention. But for more severe cases, or for people new to the island who are struggling to adapt, we have this facility.’

We passed rooms that looked more like comfortable apartments than hospital wards. ‘The goal is always to help people function in the community, not to institutionalise them. But sometimes people need intensive support.’

‘And if someone refuses treatment?’ I asked, thinking of the violent mentally ill I’d heard about in news reports.

‘We have crisis intervention teams trained in de-escalation. Temporary physical restraint is an absolute last resort if someone is an immediate danger to others. Usually, if someone’s in crisis, it’s ultimately because their needs aren’t being met, whether they be material needs, social connection, or meaningful engagement. We try to address the root causes. What you call mental illness isn’t always a personal failing but often a sign something needs to change, not just in the person, but often in their environment and relationships too.’

‘But surely some conditions are just ... biological? Chemical imbalances?’

‘Some are,’ he acknowledged. ‘And we have treatments for those. But even then, we treat the whole person. Someone with clinical depression needs both medical intervention and community support, meaningful work, connection to others and to the land. Your society tries to solve everything with a pill, then wonders why people remain miserable even when their brain chemistry is balanced.’

‘But surely some people are just ... dangerous?’

‘Occasionally, yes. Violent psychosis, untreated schizophrenia, severe trauma. Those individuals might need to be temporarily separated from the community for everyone’s safety, including their own. But even then, the goal is healing and reintegration, not punishment or permanent exclusion.’

A young woman named Sarah, introduced as a mental health worker, joined our conversation. ‘We also see mental health issues in people who’ve recently arrived from authoritarian societies. Some struggle with the lack of clear hierarchy. They don’t know how to function without someone telling them what to do. Others go the opposite direction and try to dominate others, to recreate the power structures they’re familiar with. Although here there is very little opportunity for them to do that.’

‘And that’s considered a mental health issue?’ I asked, somewhat offended on behalf of ... well, myself and my society.

‘When someone’s psychological need for control over others disrupts community functioning and causes distress, yes, it’s a mental health issue,’ Sarah said carefully. ‘Not in a judgmental way, but in the sense that it’s a pattern of thinking and behaviour that needs support to change. Many people eventually adjust. Some choose to leave. After all we’re not a prison. But we do work with people to help them develop healthier ways of relating to others.’

I felt a flash of anger but suppressed it. Pathologising natural leadership instincts. Treating ambition as illness. Typical egalitarian delusion.

A Medical Emergency

The next morning, as Carlos and I walked through the arts district, we witnessed something that would test my assumptions about their emergency response.

An older man collapsed near a pottery display. Within seconds, bystanders were responding, not panicking, but moving with clear purpose. Someone cushioned his head, another checked his pulse and breathing. A young woman sprinted toward the health centre whilst someone else called for the emergency collective on a radio.

‘Everyone here has basic first aid training,’ Carlos whispered beside me. ‘It’s part of general education.’

Within five minutes, an emergency vehicle arrived. It wasn’t an ambulance as I knew it, but a well-equipped van. Two paramedics emerged and quickly assessed the situation, working smoothly with the bystanders who’d been helping. They were asking questions, not issuing orders. The people who’d been providing first aid explained what they’d observed and done.

‘No hierarchy here either?’ I asked quietly.

‘The paramedics have more expertise, so people defer to their judgment. But it’s voluntary deference based on knowledge, not obedience to authority. Do you see the difference?’

I watched as they carefully loaded the man into the vehicle and departed. The bystanders gradually dispersed, returning to their activities. No one was filming it for social media. No one was demanding payment or verifying insurance. They’d simply helped because someone needed help. Even I can recognise the humanity in such an approach, and I honestly can’t think of any criticism to make of this.

‘Will he be alright?’ I asked one of the women who’d assisted.

‘Probably. Looked like a cardiac event, but he was breathing, had a pulse. They’ll get him to the hospital quickly.’ She paused. ‘That’s Rafael, he lives near me. I’ll check on his partner, make sure she knows what happened.’

As she walked away, Carlos said, ‘This is what we mean by community care. Not just professional healthcare workers, but everyone taking responsibility for each other’s wellbeing.’

Evening Reflections

That evening, back at my lodging, I reviewed my notes with growing frustration. I’d come expecting to find inadequate facilities, untrained practitioners, medieval practices dressed up in egalitarian rhetoric.

Instead, my notes were full of observations that contradicted my thesis. Yet I couldn’t quite accept what I was seeing. There had to be something wrong with their system, something they were hiding or hadn’t encountered yet.

The next day would bring new challenges to my understanding. Carlos had arranged for us to observe how they handled what they called ‘community justice’, how they dealt with serious crimes, disputes, and people who violated their social agreements. Surely this would finally expose the chaos at the heart of their supposedly stateless society.

After all, without police, without courts, without prisons, without the threat of punishment how could they possibly maintain order? How could they prevent the strong from dominating the weak, the clever from exploiting the gullible, the violent from terrorising the peaceful?

I was certain that tomorrow would provide the evidence I needed. Every society needed coercive authority, it was simply human nature. These Liberationists had managed to obscure it in their healthcare system, their education, their workplaces, even their governance. But when it came to justice, to actually controlling those who refused to cooperate, they would have to reveal the iron fist hidden within their velvet glove. Wouldn’t they?

In my next dispatch, I will expose their chaotic approach to justice and crime, demonstrating once and for all that a society without police, courts, and prisons inevitably descends into vigilante violence or paralysis in the face of wrongdoing. Their pretty theories about restorative justice and community accountability will surely crumble when confronted with actual human criminality.

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See https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Healthcare for a more comprehensive overview

Some of this is also covered in the following article:

https://peacefulrevolutionary.substack.com/i/155448067/an-expertise-example

You can read the next part of the story here:

Journey to Vila Saber

The train journey from Porto Norte wound inland, following a river valley that gradually climbed into the hills. Carlos informed me we were heading to Vila Saber – supposedly their equivalent of a university town, though without the formal degrees, examinations, or proper academic rigour that such institutions required.

‘You’ll find Vila Saber quite different from the industrial centre we just visited,’ Carlos said as we watched terraced farms pass by the window. ‘It’s where many of our researchers, teachers, and students gather. Though really, everyone here considers themselves a lifelong learner.’

‘How very ... aspirational,’ I replied, making a note. Perpetual studenthood as ideology. Likely a way to avoid real work.

As we approached, the town revealed itself as a curious mixture of modern and rustic architecture. Some buildings were clearly purpose-built structures with large windows and solar panels, whilst others appeared to be repurposed colonial-era buildings, their stone walls now covered in climbing vines. Between them stretched gardens and what looked like outdoor classrooms where groups gathered under shade trees.

The Children’s Learning Centre

Our first stop was what Carlos called a ‘children’s learning centre.’ They seemed averse to using the word ‘school’, so I avoided using it out loud in case they took offence. As we approached, I could hear the sound of children’s voices, not the regimented recitation I’d expected, but something more chaotic. Almost like play.

We entered to find perhaps thirty children aged roughly six to twelve, though the ages seemed deliberately mixed. There were no desks in rows, no teacher’s podium at the front. Instead, the space was divided into various areas: one corner had books and comfortable seating, another had workbenches with tools, another had what appeared to be scientific equipment, and in the centre was a large circular rug where a group of children sat in discussion with an adult.

‘Where’s the teacher?’ I asked, not seeing any adult in charge behind a desk.

‘Mariana there,’ Carlos gestured to the woman in the circle, ‘is a learning facilitator. But there are several others working with different groups today.’

‘Facilitator?’ I couldn’t help my skeptical tone. ‘So not actually teaching, then?’

‘It depends on what you mean by teaching,’ Carlos replied patiently. ‘If you mean standing at the front and lecturing whilst children sit passively taking notes, then no. But if you mean guiding discovery, asking questions, providing resources, then yes, absolutely.’

We observed Mariana’s group for a while. The children were discussing something about water – where it came from, where it went, why it was important. But rather than Mariana telling them the answers, she kept asking questions: ‘What do you think?’ ‘How could we find out?’ ‘What happens if...?’ The children debated amongst themselves, occasionally contradicting each other, sometimes asking Mariana for information, but mostly working through problems together.

‘This is terribly inefficient,’ I whispered to Carlos. ‘She could simply tell them the water cycle and they’d know it.’

‘They could memorise it, you mean. But would they understand it? Would they be able to apply that knowledge? Would they care?’ Carlos smiled.

One boy had grabbed paper and was attempting to draw the water cycle as they understood it. A girl was consulting a book, trying to find information to settle a dispute about evaporation. Another child was pouring water between containers, apparently testing something. They were, I realised reluctantly, actively engaged in learning rather than passively receiving information.

‘But surely there must be some structure?’ I pressed. ‘Some curriculum they need to follow?’

‘There are broad goals,’ Mariana said, having noticed us and come over during a break in the discussion. ‘We want children to learn to read, write, and calculate. To understand the world around them. To work together. To think critically. But how each child gets there can vary enormously.’

‘What if a child refuses to learn reading? What if they just want to play all day?’

‘Then we’d ask why. Is reading being presented in a boring way? Does the child need more time to develop? Are they interested in something else that could be a pathway to reading?’ She gestured to a boy building something with wood and tools. ‘Eli there resisted reading for months. Then he wanted to build a birdhouse and needed to follow instructions. Suddenly, reading had a purpose. Now he reads constantly.’

‘So the children just do whatever they want?’ My suspicions were being confirmed.

‘They do what interests them, within the context of a learning community. But interests can be guided, sparked, encouraged. And children are naturally curious – our job is not to crush that curiosity with rote memorisation and arbitrary rules.’

I made extensive notes. No formal curriculum. Children allowed to refuse learning. ‘Facilitators’ rather than teachers. Clear abdication of adult responsibility. Yet children appear engaged – likely for show.

Indigenous Knowledge

That afternoon, Carlos arranged for us to meet with a group of visitors from one of the indigenous communities in the island’s interior. They’d brought several young people to the learning centre and were themselves teaching a class on plant identification and traditional medicine.

I’ll admit I expected something ... primitive. Noble savages teaching children to weave baskets, perhaps. What I witnessed was far more complex.

The elder, a woman named Ines, had spread out dozens of plant samples. As she discussed each one, she described not just its medicinal properties but its place in the ecosystem, how it reproduced, when it should be harvested, how it should be prepared, what other plants it grew alongside, and the stories and songs associated with it. This was botany, pharmacology, ecology, and cultural history all woven together.

‘You look surprised,’ Carlos noted quietly.

‘I suppose I expected something more... basic.’

‘Basic?’ Carlos’s tone held a hint of steel I hadn’t heard before. ‘Ines can identify over two thousand plants, knows the properties of hundreds of medicines, can read weather patterns, track animals, navigate by stars. She can make rope from bark, create tools from stone, start fire from friction. Tell me, how many university professors have that breadth of practical knowledge?’

‘Well, that’s different. That’s just ... survival skills.’

‘Just? It’s the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years, passed down and refined across generations. And it’s not separate from what you’d call “real” education.’

He pointed to a young man who was furiously sketching the plants and making notes. ‘Adriano there is particularly interested in ethnobotany. He’s documenting traditional plant knowledge using scientific classification systems, looking for compounds that might have broader applications. He splits his time between the indigenous communities and our laboratories. Both are equally valid learning environments.’

Ines was now asking the students questions, testing their recall and understanding. When one boy confused two similar-looking plants, she didn’t rebuke him but asked questions that helped him identify the distinguishing features himself. When a girl correctly identified a rare medicinal plant, Ines asked her to explain to the others how she knew, turning the student into a teacher.

‘Many of our children spend months or even years in the interior communities,’ Carlos continued. ‘Learning to live more simply, to understand our relationship with the land, to respect knowledge that doesn’t come from books. Some stay there permanently. Others return to the cities and towns. Neither choice is wrong.’

‘But surely the indigenous lifestyle is ... limiting?’

‘Limiting?’ Ines had overheard me. Her English was excellent. ‘Young man, in your cities you depend on systems you don’t understand. If your electricity fails, can you keep warm? If shops close, can you find food? If your medicine runs out, can you make your own? We teach self-reliance, community interdependence, and respect for the systems that sustain all life. How is that limiting?’

I had no ready answer. I made a note: Romanticisation of primitive lifestyle. Yet practical knowledge impressive. Possible that exposure to indigenous communities serves as indoctrination in anti-modern attitudes.

The University That Wasn’t

After dinner, we visited what Carlos called Vila Saber’s ‘research and advanced learning centre.’ I’d been expecting something resembling a university – lecture halls, laboratories, perhaps some ivy-covered buildings. What I found was more like an organised collection of workshops, studios, libraries, and laboratories, all integrated into the town itself rather than separated onto a formal campus.

We entered what appeared to be a large open space divided into various study areas. Young adults and older people worked side by side, some in intense discussion, others absorbed in reading or writing, still others conducting experiments or creating art. The boundaries between disciplines seemed porous at best.

‘Where are the lecture halls?’ I asked.

‘We have gathering spaces for presentations,’ Carlos gestured to a tiered seating area in one corner. ‘But most advanced learning happens through mentorship, collaboration, and independent study. Someone interested in physics might work directly with experienced physicists on actual research problems. They learn by doing, by discussing, by struggling with real questions.’

‘But surely there must be formal courses? Required reading? Examinations?’

‘There are study groups that follow structured programmes if students want that. There are certainly books and materials people work through. But no one is forced into a particular path of study, and there’s no final exam that determines whether you’ve “passed” or “failed.”‘

‘Then how do you know if someone is actually competent? Particularly in critical fields like medicine or engineering?’

‘Ah, that’s different,’ Carlos acknowledged. ‘For roles where incompetence could cause serious harm, we do require demonstration of knowledge and skill. A surgeon must prove their capabilities under supervision. An engineer must show their designs are sound. But this is assessment for safety and competence, not for ranking or gatekeeping.’

We approached a small group engaged in intense discussion around a chalkboard covered in mathematical equations. A young woman was explaining something to two others, occasionally pausing to ask questions or rephrase her explanation.

‘That’s Sofia,’ Carlos informed me. ‘She’s working on improvements to our solar energy systems. She studied with our most experienced engineers for three years, then spent a year working on actual installations, now she’s developing new designs whilst teaching others what she’s learned.’

‘But she has no formal degree?’

‘She has demonstrated competence. She’s created working systems. She’s taught others. What would a degree add except a piece of paper?’

‘Credibility. Standards. A way to know she’s actually qualified.’

‘We know she’s qualified because we’ve seen her work. Because the solar systems she’s improved are functioning better. Because the students she’s taught are now competent themselves. Isn’t that better evidence than an exam?’

I wanted to argue, but a voice interrupted us. ‘Excuse me, are you the visiting journalist?’

A middle-aged man with greying hair approached, hand extended. ‘I’m Samuel. I teach history. Well, I facilitate historical study. Carlos mentioned you might be interested in how we approach understanding the past.’

A History Lesson

Samuel led us to a seminar room where about fifteen students of various ages were gathering for an evening discussion. I expected propaganda, a selective retelling of history that justified their Liberationist experiment. What I got was far more nuanced and, frankly, unsettling.

‘Tonight we’re discussing the fall of the Roman Republic,’ Samuel began. ‘Who wants to start us off?’

A young man raised his hand. ‘The traditional narrative blames the rise of the Empire on ambitious individuals – Caesar, Pompey, Crassus. But wasn’t it really structural? The Republic’s institutions couldn’t handle the scale of the empire they’d built.’

‘Interesting. What structural problems specifically?’

Another student jumped in. ‘The concentration of wealth and land in fewer hands. The displacement of small farmers by slave labour. The expansion of the military beyond civilian control. The Senate becoming increasingly oligarchic.’

‘So you’re arguing the Republic was already dead before the dictators arrived?’ Samuel asked. ‘That Caesar was a symptom rather than the cause?’

‘Partially,’ a third student said. ‘But individuals still made choices. The Senate could have reformed. They chose short-term power over long-term stability.’

The discussion ranged across economics, politics, social factors, individual agency versus structural forces. Students cited sources, challenged each other’s interpretations, drew parallels to other historical periods. Samuel mostly asked questions, occasionally introducing information or pointing out logical inconsistencies, but never declaring a ‘correct’ answer.

‘Why not just tell them what actually happened?’ I asked during a break.

‘I did tell them what happened – the facts are well-established. But history isn’t just facts, it’s interpretation. Understanding why things happened, what lessons we might draw, how different factors interact – that requires thinking, debating, analysing. I can’t do that for them.’

‘But surely there are correct interpretations?’

‘Are there? History is written by the victors, as they say. What the Romans said about themselves differs from what their conquered subjects said. Modern historians bring their own biases. The best we can do is teach people to think critically about sources, to recognise propaganda, to understand how power shapes narratives.’

I made notes furiously. Historical relativism. No absolute truth acknowledged. Students encouraged to question everything. Dangerous undermining of established knowledge.

Yet I couldn’t shake the image of those students seriously debating, citing sources, constructing arguments. They weren’t being told what to think – they were learning how to think, albeit without the advantages of the empire’s authoritative sources.

Night Class

That evening, Carlos suggested we visit one more educational setting – a night class for new arrivals to the island.

‘Those who come here from other countries often need help adjusting,’ he explained as we walked through the warm evening air. ‘Not just learning languages, but unlearning old patterns of thinking.’

‘Aha!’ I nearly shouted it. ‘So you admit there’s ideological conditioning!’

‘I admit that our culture is very different from yours, and we realise it can be challenging to adjust to at first,’ Carlos said calmly. ‘Do you think your country doesn’t condition its citizens? The difference is we’re open about it, and participation is voluntary.’

The class met in a comfortable room with cushions and low tables. About twenty people of various ages sat in a circle, most looking travel-worn and uncertain. A facilitator named Hassan welcomed us to observe.

‘Tonight,’ Hassan began, ‘we’re discussing post-scarcity thinking. For most of you, you’ve lived your whole lives in systems based on scarcity, competition, and accumulation. Here, we approach things differently.’

He paused, looking around the circle. ‘Who can explain what we mean by post-scarcity?’

An older woman raised her hand tentatively. ‘That there’s enough for everyone?’

‘Close. It’s not that we have unlimited resources – we don’t. It’s that we organise ourselves so that everyone’s needs can be met without hoarding or competition. Does anyone see the difference?’

A younger man spoke up. ‘It’s about distribution and cooperation rather than just quantity?’

‘Exactly. In your old countries, artificial scarcity is created by systems that concentrate resources in few hands. Scarcity creates competition, which creates hierarchy, which creates inequality. Here, we share openly. But this requires a shift in thinking.’

The discussion continued, exploring how scarcity – real or artificial – shaped behaviour, relationships, power structures. How capitalism required constant scarcity to function. How advertising created artificial needs. How people hoarded because they feared deprivation. I wanted to challenge this Leftists nonsense, but I thought it better to just make a note of such silliness.

‘Some of you are thinking this sounds naive,’ Hassan said. ‘That human nature is greedy, that people will always want more than they need. And yes, we all have those impulses. The question is: what environment encourages them? What environment channels them differently?’

A middle-aged woman spoke, her voice bitter. ‘In my old life, I worked sixty hours a week and still couldn’t afford decent healthcare for my daughter. You’re telling me that was my fault? That I wasn’t generous enough?’ Finally a more realistic question.

‘No,’ Hassan said gently. ‘That was the system’s fault. A system that prioritised profit over human welfare. You responded rationally to an irrational system. Here, we’re trying to build a rational system that encourages our better instincts.’

‘But doesn’t that require everyone to agree?’ the woman pressed. ‘What about people who want more than others? Who want luxury, status, power?’

‘They can have more of some things,’ Hassan replied. ‘If you want a larger library, you can build one. If you want to create art, you can. If you want to develop expertise, you can become a teacher or mentor. But you can’t employ others, or own what others need, or accumulate resources that harm the community. Your freedom ends where it begins to limit others’ freedom.’

I couldn’t contain myself any longer. ‘But this is exactly the problem! You’re destroying individualism! The drive to excel, to succeed, to rise above others – that’s what pushes humanity forward. You’re creating a culture of mediocrity where no one strives for greatness because there’s no reward for achievement!’

The room went silent. Hassan looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Are you suggesting people only create, build, discover, or help others because they’re paid to? That without the threat of poverty and the promise of wealth, humanity would accomplish nothing?’

‘Well, obviously,’ I said, though quickly realising I didn’t have a sympathetic audience. ‘That’s human nature. We’re competitive. We want to win.’

‘And yet,’ Hassan said quietly, ‘some of humanity’s greatest achievements came from people who weren’t motivated by profit. Scientists driven by curiosity. Artists driven by expression. Helpers and healers driven by compassion.

‘That’s different. Those are exceptional people.’

‘Are they? Or are they simply people allowed to pursue their interests without the distraction of survival anxiety? Here, everyone has that opportunity. And yes, some people choose simple lives. Some want quiet contentment. But others push boundaries, create innovations, develop mastery – not because they’re competing, but because they find it fulfilling.’

Carlos added, ‘You keep talking about ‘great men’ and winners and triumph. But at what cost? For every winner in your system, how many losers? For every person who “succeeds,” how many are crushed? And what did they win? The right to hoard resources while others starve? The power to control others’ labour? That’s not greatness. That’s just cruelty with better marketing.’

I wanted to argue. I wanted to defend the system that had allowed some people to rise from poverty to wealth, that had created magnificent enterprises, that had pushed humanity to the moon and beyond. But the words stuck in my throat, and I realised there was no convincing such indoctrinated people, and I was at risk of becoming an unwelcome guest if I carried on.

‘The goal here,’ Hassan continued, ‘is maximising the internal freedom of every individual. Freeing you from the compulsion to compete, from the fear of destitution, from the anxiety of never having enough. Freeing you to discover what you actually want to do with your one wild and precious life, rather than what you must do to survive.’

He somehow really believed what he was saying, they all seemed to. I suppose they had to. To them wars were just parts of history to discuss intellectually, and corporations were just abstract entities they had no dealings with. They were all stuck here and most of them had never seen the skyscrapers, giant A.I. data centres, industrial animal farms, and fighter planes flying overhead. They’d never eaten fast processed food, looked forward to getting plastic consumer goods delivered from thousands of miles away to their home, and probably didn’t even watch shows like ‘Blind Love Island’ and ‘Rich Chattanooga Housewives’. It struck me that their lives were probably too insecure and short to even care about such things.

In my next dispatch, I will expose their primitive medical care, surely an area where their rejection of proper authority and credentialism must fail. No serious healthcare system can function without hierarchical oversight and profit incentives to drive innovation. The real costs of their idealistic foolishness will finally be revealed.

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The Journey North

After my revelatory visit to the coordination hub, Carlos suggested we visit one of the island’s industrial centres. I agreed readily enough. If anywhere would expose the contradictions in their system, surely it would be where actual production took place. After all, theory was one thing, but the rubber had to meet the road somewhere. Or in this case, the worker had to meet the reality of the factory floor.

We took a coastal train northward, the journey offered inspiring views of cliffs and beaches. Whatever might be rotten inside this island, at least the scenery was beautiful. The train itself was comfortable enough, though I noted it ran at a leisurely pace. Efficiency clearly wasn’t their priority, though Carlos claimed they’d balanced speed with safety and fuel consumption. More likely they couldn’t afford better infrastructure.

The industrial city of Porto Norte sat in a natural harbour, smaller than Porto Liberdade but bustling with a different kind of energy. Smokestacks rose from various workshops and facilities, though I noticed the air was surprisingly clean. They must have been running at low capacity or have recently invested in filtration systems, probably to impress visitors like myself.

Carlos had arranged for us to stay with a family who worked in various manufacturing roles. Their home was modest but comfortable, part of a terraced row of similar dwellings. Over dinner that evening, I began my inquiries.

‘How many hours do you work each day?’ I asked Antonio, our host, who apparently worked in metal fabrication.

‘Usually about five hours,’ he replied, helping himself to more of the fish stew his partner had prepared. ‘Sometimes six if we’re finishing a project, sometimes four if the work is routine.’

I nearly choked on my wine. ‘Five hours? How does anything get produced?’

‘Quite efficiently, actually,’ Antonio said with a smile. ‘When you’re not exhausted, you work better. And when you’re doing work you’ve chosen you’re more motivated.’ As if that was what working for a living was meant to be about.

The Morning Shift

The next morning, I accompanied Antonio to his workshop. We arrived at what I would consider a scandalously late hour for industrial work - ten o’clock. The workshop was a large, open space with various metalworking stations. About fifteen people were already there, some preparing equipment, others reviewing plans for the day’s projects.

What struck me immediately was the absence of anyone obviously in charge. No foreman barking orders, no supervisors monitoring the workers. People simply gathered around a large table where various project requests were laid out.

‘Right,’ said a woman named Yara, ‘we’ve got the farm equipment repairs from the southern collective, the new window frames for the school extension, and those custom brackets for the wind turbine project.’

‘I’ll take the farm equipment,’ someone volunteered. ‘I grew up on a farm, I understand what they need.’

‘I’m keen to work on the wind turbine brackets,’ another added. ‘Renewable energy infrastructure interests me.’

This informal division of labour continued until all the day’s projects were claimed. I waited for someone to assign the remaining, presumably less desirable tasks, but instead people simply discussed who had relevant skills and who wanted to learn what.

‘Excuse me,’ I interjected, unable to contain myself, ‘but who’s actually in charge here? Who ensures the work gets done properly?’

The workers exchanged glances. Antonio spoke up. ‘We all ensure it. If someone’s work isn’t up to standard, we discuss it. Sometimes they need more training, sometimes the problem is with the design, not the execution.’

‘But without a manager, without oversight, what’s to stop someone producing substandard work? Or simply not working at all?’

Yara turned to face me properly. ‘Your country still has managers and bosses, yes? And does that prevent all substandard work?’

‘Well, no, but …’ I replied, planning to explain why our system was still more efficient, but she continued before I had the chance to.

‘Here, your reputation matters. If you consistently do poor work, people won’t want to work with you. You won’t be trusted with complex projects. You might find yourself socially isolated. Those consequences are often more effective than a manager’s disapproval.’

‘That sounds like coercion,’ I pointed out. ‘Social pressure is still a form of control.’

‘Perhaps,’ Carlos said quietly. ‘But is it worse than threatening someone with homelessness and starvation if they don’t comply with a boss’s demands?’

I thought of saying, ‘that’s just how the world works,’ but wouldn’t think she’d be grateful for my remarks, so I returned to observing.

The Workshop in Action

Over the next few hours, I watched the metalworkers go about their tasks. What surprised me was the evident care they took with their work. Antonio, fabricating replacement parts for farming equipment, measured everything multiple times, checked tolerances carefully, and took obvious pride in the precision of his work.

‘Why bother?’ I asked him during a break. ‘I mean, you’re not being paid more for higher quality. There’s no financial incentive for perfection.’

He looked at me as if I’d said something peculiar. ‘These parts will be used by farmers I know. If they fail, crops might be lost. People could go hungry. Besides, this is going to have my mark on it, so everyone will know I made it. Why would I want to be known as someone who does shoddy work?’

I watched them work for an hour. The pace seemed reasonable — not the frantic urgency I’d seen in factories back home, but not sluggish either. People took breaks when needed, chatted while working, helped each other with difficult tasks. There was an ease to it all that I found... unsettling. Perhaps it was the lack of respect for authority, or hard work, or good order.

‘Doesn’t the lack of pressure lead to laziness?’ I finally asked Carlos.

‘Does pressure lead to better work in your country?’ he countered. ‘Or does it lead to shortcuts, corners cut, workers doing the minimum required to avoid punishment?’

‘It leads to productivity. Output. Growth.’

‘For whose benefit? The workers themselves, or those who own the means of production?’

‘The economy benefits everyone eventually. A rising tide lifts all boats.’

‘Does it? Has your tide been lifting all boats recently? Or mainly yachts?’

It seems they weren’t as unaware of the outside world as I’d previously thought, and had heard the kinds of criticisms our own home grown detractors had once made on social media, before such disloyal lies were filtered out for the good of everyone.

I was determined to bring the conversation back to the failings of their own system, and so couldn’t resist bringing up a more challenging question for them to answer:

‘But surely some jobs here are less ... noble. Who collects the rubbish? Who cleans the sewers? Who does the truly unpleasant tasks?’

‘Everyone takes a turn at communal maintenance,’ Overhearing my question, Yara answered from her workstation. ‘One afternoon each week, we all contribute to keeping the city functioning. Rubbish collection, street cleaning, basic repairs. Sometimes it’s unpleasant, but it’s only a few hours, and you’re doing it alongside your neighbours.’

‘And the sewers?’

‘We have a sanitation collective, people who’ve trained specifically in water systems and waste management. It’s skilled work, actually. They’re quite respected.’

‘Respected?’ I couldn’t hide my skepticism. ‘For dealing with sewage?’

‘Of course. They keep the city healthy. They prevent disease. Why wouldn’t we respect that?’ Antonio seemed genuinely confused by my doubt. ‘In your country, do you not value the health of your community?’

‘We value it enough to pay people to deal with such things,’ I replied stiffly.

‘And that payment comes from somewhere, yes? From taxes on workers? So really, the community pays for it anyway. We’ve just removed the intermediary steps and the profit extraction.’

I made a note: Community maintenance required of all. Essentially forced labour, though they’ve convinced themselves otherwise.

The Afternoon Visit

We took lunch, which the workshop members prepared and shared communally, another hour I noted as ‘unproductive’. Carlos suggested we visit the sanitation collective. I agreed, curious to see how they’d convinced anyone to do such work voluntarily.

The sanitation facility was surprisingly modern, with equipment far cleaner than its dirtier purpose would suggest. A group of workers in clean coveralls greeted us, led by a man named Kwame who’d apparently coordinated this facility for the past three years.

‘Coordinated?’ I queried. ‘So you’re the manager?’

‘I coordinate schedules and communicate with other city services,’ Kwame explained. ‘But I don’t manage people. We all have our areas of expertise. Mine happens to be organisation and logistics.’

‘And you all volunteered for this work? Dealing with ... waste?’

A younger woman, Zara, laughed. ‘When you put it like that, it sounds grim. But most of our work is maintaining systems, monitoring treatment processes, ensuring water quality. The truly unpleasant aspects are actually quite rare, and when they occur, we handle them together.’

‘But why choose this over, say, teaching or medicine or any number of cleaner professions?’

Zara shrugged. ‘I find systems fascinating. Water treatment is actually quite complex: biological processes, chemical interactions, ecology. Plus, this work has immediate, visible, helpful impact. When I do my job well, everyone benefits. That’s satisfying.’

‘And you?’ I turned to Kwame. ‘What brought you to sewage management?’

‘Public health is essential,’ he said simply. ‘Growing up, my grandmother told me stories of her childhood, before proper sanitation, the illness and diseases they had to deal with. This work prevents that. It’s important. Besides,’ he added with a smile, ‘someone has to do it, and I’m good at it. Why wouldn’t I?’

‘But surely you’d prefer work that’s less ... physical. Less dirty.’

‘It’s not actually that dirty most of the time. And when it is, well, we have excellent showers here.’ He gestured to a door. ‘Better than most homes, actually. One of the benefits of working in water treatment is that we understand plumbing very well.’

I made another note: Claims of voluntary sewage work. More likely social pressure and limited alternatives. Investigate whether ‘coordinators’ are simply managers by another name.

The Evening Assembly

That evening, Carlos took me to what they called a ‘neighbourhood assembly.’ About fifty people gathered in a community hall, discussing various local matters. I expected some formal procedure, perhaps Roberts Rules of Order, but the meeting was remarkably casual.

They discussed maintenance needs for communal buildings, plans for a new playground, issues with noise from a late-night workshop, and requests for additional resources from the regional coordination hub. What struck me was how everyone seemed to participate. There was no chairperson controlling the discussion, yet somehow it remained relatively orderly.

When someone raised the issue of needing more volunteers for the communal bakery’s morning shift, several people simply said they’d help out. No coercion, no manager assigning duties, it was just people agreeing to meet a need.

‘But what if no one volunteers?’ I asked during a break. ‘What if everyone refuses to do an unpleasant task?’ They might be able to find willing sewage workers, but what about more boring tasks?

An older woman named Carmen overheard me. ‘Then we discuss why no one wants to do it. Is it unnecessarily unpleasant? Could we make it better? Could we share it more widely? Could we automate parts of it? Usually, once we understand the problem, we find a solution.’

‘And if you can’t?’

‘Then we explain the consequences. If no one volunteers to help with harvest, food becomes scarce. If no one helps maintain buildings, they deteriorate. People understand cause and effect. Usually, someone steps up.’

‘Usually?’

‘Always so far,’ she admitted. ‘Though sometimes we’ve had to get creative about how we organise the work.’

After the assembly, walking back to Antonio’s home, I pressed Carlos on this point. ‘You must admit, this social pressure to work is still coercion. It’s just more subtle than our system.’

‘Perhaps,’ Carlos acknowledged. ‘Though I’d argue there’s a difference between pressure from your community to contribute to everyone’s welfare, including your own, versus pressure from an employer who threatens you with destitution if you don’t make them richer.’

‘But in our system, people are free to choose their employment.’

‘Free to choose which master to serve, you mean? Free to choose between bad options isn’t really freedom.’

‘And here, you’re free to choose your work?’

‘Mostly, yes. Obviously, certain essential functions must be filled, and we must all contribute to communal maintenance. But beyond that, you work where your interests and skills align. No one forces you into a specific role. No one profits from your labour except the community as a whole, which includes you.’

I wanted to argue, but sometimes it seemed like arguing with tribespeople who’d never encountered an advanced civilisation and couldn’t conceive of it. Perhaps it was their ignorance that made them so contented. Antonio hadn’t been watching a clock, eager for his shift to end. Yara hadn’t been going through the motions, doing the minimum required, she was enthusiastic.

The Dormitories

The next morning, before we left Porto Norte, Carlos took me to see one of the workers’ dormitories. I’d heard younger workers often lived in such communal housing, like those my grandfather had stayed in on his visit all those years ago, and I was convinced this would finally reveal the authoritarian nature of their system. Surely forcing people into dormitory living was a form of control.

The building was clean enough and reasonably maintained, though nothing luxurious. Each person had a bunk, almost like the rest pods you see in some airports, with a few small private rooms for couples, and communal kitchens, lounges, and bathrooms. A group of residents were preparing breakfast together when we arrived.

‘Why do you live here rather than in private homes?’ I asked a young woman named Lucia.

‘Community, mainly,’ she said, cracking eggs into a pan. ‘I could request a private dwelling, but why? Here I have friends nearby, we share meals, organise activities together. It’s less lonely than living alone would be.’

‘But you have no privacy.’

‘I have my pod. When I want to be alone, I am. When I want company, it’s here. It’s the best of both worlds.’

‘And you’re not required to live here? You could leave anytime?’

She looked confused. ‘Of course. This isn’t prison. Some people prefer private homes, especially families with children. The dormitories are mostly for younger people or those who enjoy communal living. It’s a choice.’

Another resident, Marco, added, ‘Plus, living here means less maintenance responsibility. We share cleaning the common areas, but we don’t have to maintain an entire house. That leaves more time for our actual interests and work.’

‘Don’t you aspire to something more? A home of your own, property, status?’

‘I have what I need,’ Lucia replied simply. ‘Shelter, food, friends, meaningful work. What more would a private home give me except more rooms to clean and maintain?’

As we left, I noted: Dormitory living normalised. Residents claim contentment, but may be conditioned to accept less than they deserve. Or perhaps lack ambition to improve their circumstances. The private couples rooms suggest loose moral standards.

Reflections and Doubts

That evening, on the train to Vila Saber, I reviewed my notes. Everything I’d witnessed contradicted what I knew about human nature, about work, about organisation. People shouldn’t work diligently without profit incentive. Organisations shouldn’t function without hierarchy. Production shouldn’t proceed efficiently without strict management. Yet I’d seen all of these impossibilities functioning smoothly. If it was all a facade it was quite an elaborate one solely contrived for my benefit.

Perhaps, I thought, they’d simply become so conditioned to this system that they couldn’t imagine alternatives. Perhaps they’d been propagandised so thoroughly that they believed they were content. Perhaps the apparent lack of coercion was itself a sophisticated form of control, making people police themselves through social pressure.

Or perhaps their claims were true. No. There had to be exploitation somewhere. There had to be hidden hierarchies, concealed mechanisms of control. I simply hadn’t found them yet.

‘You look troubled,’ Carlos observed.

‘I’m trying to understand how it works,’ I admitted. ‘How you maintain production without profit incentive. How you fill unpleasant roles without coercion. How you prevent laziness without threat of poverty.’

‘Perhaps you’re asking the wrong questions,’ Carlos suggested. ‘Perhaps the question isn’t how we maintain production despite lacking profit incentive, but whether profit incentive is actually necessary for production. Perhaps the question isn’t how we prevent laziness, but whether people are naturally lazy when their basic needs are met and their work has meaning.’

‘People are inherently self-interested. That’s just human nature.’ I never ceased to be amazed at his naivety.

‘Is it? Or is that what you need to believe to justify your system? We’ve built a society on the assumption that people will contribute to their community’s welfare, that they’ll take pride in their work, that they’ll respond to social incentives as much as economic ones. And it works.’

‘But for how long? This is a small island. What happens when it grows? When you need more complex coordination? When you can’t rely on everyone knowing everyone else?’

‘Then we’ll adapt. We’ll find new ways to organise. But we won’t return to a system where some people profit from others’ labour, where the threat of destitution compels people to work, where a tiny minority hoards resources while the majority struggles.’

I stared out the window at the darkening coastline. ‘You realise this all sounds too good to be true. That’s usually a sign it’s not true.’

‘Perhaps. Or perhaps you’ve been taught to distrust anything that challenges the systems that benefit from your doubt.’

We rode in silence for a while. I couldn’t shake the image of Antonio, carefully crafting those farming tools. Or Zara, enthusiastically explaining water treatment processes. Or Lucia, content in her dormitory. Or those textile workers, collaborating without supervision. They seemed ... happy. Engaged. Purposeful. But then again cult members often do.

In my next dispatch, I will investigate their educational system, surely that’s where the indoctrination happens, where they condition children to accept this unnatural way of living. Every totalitarian system needs its propaganda arm, and I’m certain I’ll find theirs in their schools.

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A Disturbing Dream

I rested uneasily that night, conscious that I was sleeping in hostile territory. My dreams were troubled, filled with images of the market I’d observed earlier that day. In my nightmare, I wandered through the market stalls, but behind each vendor hung a heavy curtain concealing what lay behind them.

Running to an unmanned stall, I tore down one of the curtains to reveal the truth beneath: an assembly line of workers moving money hand-to-hand down behind the rows of stalls, all flowing toward the Liberationist headquarters where the true rulers sat in luxury. In the opposite direction came goods, produced by pale, thin children labouring in underground factories, their faces smudged with soot.

I awoke with a start to the crow of a cockerel, its harsh call a reminder that while this city gave the impression of modernity, some residents still had to rely on keeping chickens to meet their basic needs, like medieval peasants.

Although it had been just a dream, today I would have my chance to see the bureaucracy behind the island’s facade with a visit to the city’s so-called coordination hub. There, surely, I would find those who truly held power.

Journey to the Co-Hub

After a light breakfast of mushroom omelette, which was rather too healthy for my tastes, Carlos collected me for our morning excursion.

He led me to a tram stop where we waited with a handful of other passengers. The vehicle that arrived was clean enough but clearly dated, its metal body showing the discolouration of decades of use.

‘I’m surprised you couldn’t arrange a private vehicle for your first journalist guest in decades,’ I remarked, keeping my tone neutral. ‘It rather shows the difficulties you must face in obtaining larger goods like cars.’

Carlos seemed unbothered by what I’d intended as a subtle jab. ‘Private vehicles are primarily reserved for those with mobility needs, such as the elderly and the infirm. Community vehicles like ambulances and buses serve rural areas. Here in the city, most people walk, cycle, or use the trams.’

I made a note: Lack of private vehicles spun as environmental concern. Likely reflects inability to produce or import sufficient automobiles.

The Coordination Hub

The tram journey took approximately twenty minutes, carrying us deeper into the city centre. When we disembarked, Carlos led me toward a building that immediately stood out from its surroundings.

It was notably grander than the neighbouring structures, being three storeys of stone and reinforced concrete, with large windows and what appeared to be solar panels covering much of the roof. A steady stream of people moved in and out of its entrance.

‘The Co-Hub, as we call it,’ Carlos announced. ‘Short for Coordination Hub.’

‘Your headquarters,’ I said, unable to keep the satisfaction from my voice.

‘More of a ... community resource centre,’ he replied. ‘It houses our communication infrastructure, meeting spaces, archives, and coordination tools. Anyone can access it.’

As we entered, I immediately noticed the strange mixture of technology filling the space. Older computers with bulky monitors sat alongside sleek modern terminals. Ancient phosphor screens glowed green next to large flat displays. Printing presses occupied one corner while modern printers hummed in another.

‘I would have thought the newer technology would render the old equipment obsolete,’ I observed.

‘In many ways it does,’ Carlos admitted. ‘But we don’t like to discard what might still prove useful. And we prefer to ensure every system has a secondary, more basic version that we could rely on if the more sophisticated ones failed. Redundancy is valuable when you’re relatively isolated.’

I didn’t give much credit to such a convenient explanation. More likely they had some ranked system whereby those lower in the hierarchy were forced to make do with outdated equipment while the administrators enjoyed the modern technology.

Screens & Systems

What immediately drew my attention were the projections covering several walls - large displays divided into sections containing numbers that constantly shifted up and down. The text was primarily green against black backgrounds, though occasionally certain figures would turn yellow or orange.

‘What are these monitoring?’ I asked.

Carlos gestured toward the nearest screen. ‘Resource tracking and coordination. Although each region of the island is fairly self-sufficient in food production, we need supplies and goods from other areas regularly. These screens show stock levels, production capacity, requests, and fulfilments - tracking the flow of materials throughout the island.’

He pointed to one section. ‘This, for example, is timber. We’re extraordinarily cautious about it, as we limit the number of trees that can be harvested in given areas over specific time periods to allow for regeneration. You’ll notice most buildings use adobe, straw, sometimes salvaged materials. Many are even built into hillsides or carved from rock.’

‘So,’ I said, piecing together what I thought I understood, ‘the headquarters demands the forestry corporation cut down a certain number of trees yearly, which then go to the timber merchants for processing and storage, and from there ...’

‘Perhaps it would help if I just walked you through the actual process?’ he suggested gently.

I nodded, trying to keep my expression neutral. ‘Yes, please explain what reallyhappens’, revealing more skepticism than I’d intended. If Carlos noticed, he gave no indication.

What followed was delivered in the sort of patient, simplified tone one might use with schoolchildren. It was no doubt a well-rehearsed spiel for the classes of youngsters they brought here on propaganda field trips.

‘The process begins with the Forest Stewardship Collective in the northeastern hills. They work alongside the indigenous communities who’ve inhabited those forests for generations. Together, they tend the cedars carefully, understanding that a healthy forest benefits everyone who comes after us.’

‘And who tells this ... Collective ... how many trees they’re permitted to harvest?’

‘They determine it themselves, based on forest health, regeneration rates, and regional needs. They track which areas were harvested previously and ensure sufficient time for regrowth. The Logging Collective - that’s the people who actually fell and process the initial timber - work with tools maintained by the Tool Maintenance Guild.’

Carlos continued. ‘The Transport Network carries the cedar to Regional Wood Processing Centres. These are facilities where woodworkers share their knowledge freely - techniques, innovations, solutions to problems. Nothing is kept proprietary.’

‘No trade secrets?’ I couldn’t help but interject. ‘Surely skilled woodworkers would want to protect their competitive advantage?’

Competition vs Collectivisation?

‘Why would they? There’s no competition. Everyone benefits when knowledge spreads.’

‘At the processing centres, the cedar is prepared according to need. Some becomes planks for house building, for framing, floors, and furniture. Some is pulped for paper production, though we try to minimise that given the resource cost. Some becomes blocks for further working - raw material for craftspeople who’ll turn it into decorative items, musical instruments, whatever is needed.’

‘And who decides what proportion goes where?’

‘The computerised material accounting systems make it clear what is available, what is wanted and if there is any surplus in storage to pull from, or a shortage that needs to be dealt with (if possible). In many cases for routine, regularly required items the whole process is automatic. The system can keep track of stock, raise work requests, and make transport schedules.’

‘But people’s needs and want vary greatly don’t they?’

‘Yes, of course, and so the processing centres communicate with regional coordination hubs (like this one) to understand demand. If a region is building new housing, more goes to construction. If schools need more paper, more goes to pulp. It’s responsive to actual needs rather than predetermined quotas.’

‘So if it is such a scarce resource, you must import a great deal of timber then?’

‘More than we’d like, but we try to limit such imports to suppliers who follow similar ecological conservation models. It’s not always easy, but we consider it important.’

‘And who decides these allocations between regions? Who determines which region gets what resources?’

‘The regions communicate their needs and surpluses. If there’s a shortage somewhere and a surplus elsewhere, arrangements are made. Sometimes it’s direct: Region A needs timber, Region B has extra, they coordinate a transfer. Other times it’s more complex and requires broader discussion.’

‘But someone must have final authority. What if two regions both need the same scarce resource?’

‘Then they discuss it. Usually one need is more urgent than the other, or they can split the available supply, or they can look for alternatives. It requires communication and good faith, but it generally works.’

Generally works. A telling admission.

‘From there, assembly or further crafting happens in workshops scattered across different regions. People contribute according to their skills and interests. Some excel at precise assembly work, others at teaching newcomers the necessary skills. The work is shared so it never becomes a burden on any individual.’

‘And the quality?’ I asked. ‘Without competition, without profit incentives, why would anyone care if their work is substandard?’

‘Pride in craftsmanship,’ Carlos said simply. ‘Care for the people who will use what you’ve made. When you know your furniture will furnish someone’s home, your tools will help in someone’s workshop, your musical instrument will bring joy ... that creates its own motivation. Poor work reflects on you directly, in a community where reputation matters.’

So there is hierarchy, I thought triumphantly. Social pressure and reputation - simply another form of coercion.

‘These finished goods find their way to those who need them through Distribution Hubs. Communities understand their own needs: schools, libraries, community centres, individual households. When there are surpluses, they’re shared with communities that have shortages. When local production falls short, support comes from elsewhere.’

I made extensive notes, though not the ones Carlos probably imagined. What he’d described was clearly a centrally planned economy dressed up in the language of voluntary cooperation. This ‘Forest Stewardship Collective’ was obviously a state forestry department. The ‘Regional Wood Processing Centres’ were state-run mills. The ‘Distribution Hubs’ were simply rationing centres.

‘Fascinating,’ I said aloud. ‘And these Collectives and Guilds - they have leaders, I presume? Someone must be in charge of each group?’

‘They have people who take on coordinating roles, yes. But these are functional positions, not positions of authority. A coordinator facilitates communication, keeps track of schedules, ensures nothing falls through the cracks. But they don’t give orders, and they can be recalled if they’re not doing the job well.’

‘Recalled by whom?’

‘By the collective itself. By the people doing the work.’

Of course. The workers could ‘recall’ their own supervisors.

‘Would you like to speak with some of the coordinators?’ Carlos asked. ‘They can show you how the tracking systems work in more detail.’

‘That would be excellent,’ I replied. Perhaps in conversation with these ‘coordinators’ I could identify who truly held power in this elaborate charade.

Coordination & Centralisation?

Carlos led me toward a bank of workstations where several people were reviewing the resource tracking screens, occasionally making notes or adjusting figures. He introduced me to a woman named Yuki, who apparently coordinated communications between the city’s hub and the agricultural regions, and a man called Dmitri, who seemed to handle industrial resource flows.

‘I appreciate the detailed explanation about your wood distribution,’ I said carefully, ‘but surely you can see that what you’ve described is simply a hierarchy by another name? You have your Forest Stewardship Collective which is your forestry department. Your Regional Processing Centres which are your state-run mills. These coordinators here are your managers and bureaucrats. You’ve simply replaced “director” with “coordinator” and pretended you’ve abolished authority.’

Carlos and Yuki exchanged glances. Dmitri, I noticed, looked less patient than my guide had been thus far.

‘It’s not the same thing at all,’ Dmitri said, his accent thicker than Carlos’s, perhaps Ukrainian in origin. ‘Nobody here rules over anyone else. We coordinate, we facilitate, we communicate, but we have no power to compel.’

‘But you make decisions about resource allocation,’ I pressed. ‘You determine who gets what. That’s power, whatever you choose to call it.’

‘We don’t determine anything,’ Yuki said gently. ‘We process requests, track availability, facilitate connections between those who need and those who have. But the decisions come from the communities themselves.’

‘Then who has final authority when there’s a dispute? When two communities both want the same limited resource?’

‘They discuss it between themselves,’ Carlos said. ‘Sometimes with input from others, but there’s no higher authority that imposes a solution.’

I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘That’s simply not how organizations function. Every system requires hierarchy, clear lines of authority, someone at the top making final decisions. It’s basic management theory - you can’t run anything through endless committee discussions.’

‘Perhaps an analogy would help,’ Dmitri said, though his tone suggested he thought I was being deliberately obtuse. ‘Think of any centralized system - let’s say food distribution in your country. One central authority controls it, yes?’

‘Our supply chains are models of efficiency,’ I said proudly.

‘I’m sure. Now imagine you duplicate that system - two separate groups carrying out the same function. Not competing, simply existing as a check and balance on each other. Providing redundancy if something happens to one of them.’

‘That would be wasteful,’ I interjected. ‘Inefficient duplication.’

‘Would it? You’ve just halved the concentrated power of centralisation, but doubled the resilience of the system. You’ve halved the chance of total failure and doubled the chance of continuity in the face of challenges.’

‘Now split it again,’ Yuki continued, taking up the explanation. ‘In our case, we have seven regions, each with substantial autonomy in production and distribution. Make the data freely available between them, and make the process transparent so everyone can see what’s happening.’

‘That would lead to chaos,’ I objected. ‘Too many voices, too much feedback, no clear direction. Different corporations would use that information to undermine each other.’

‘But without competition, in our case more feedback leads to more competency and accuracy,’ Carlos said. ‘More bottom-up knowledge from people who actually do the work, live in the communities, understand local needs. Less top-down paternalism from distant authorities who might not understand the situation on the ground.’

‘But surely,’ I argued. ‘one unified system is more effective, and leads to more streamlined decision-making. Your dispersed model must be slower, more prone to confusion and error.’

Dmitri shook his head firmly. ‘You’re thinking about it backwards. Organisation is not a function of centralisation. Centralisation is actually a parasite on organisation - and a permanent structural weakness.’1

Heads & Hierarchy?

‘How can centralisation be a weakness? It’s the entire basis of efficient governance!’

‘When there’s a head - or a committee of heads - it can be decapitated or corrupted,’ Dmitri said bluntly. ‘Usually the former leads to the latter. One decisive strike, one successful coup, one moment of corruption in the right place, and the entire system is compromised. We’ve seen it throughout history.’

‘That’s why we have robust security,’ I countered. ‘Loyalty enforcement, surveillance of potential threats …’

‘Exactly,’ Carlos interrupted gently. ‘You need all of that because your system is fundamentally vulnerable. A single point of failure that must be constantly defended. We don’t have that vulnerability because we don’t have that central point. There’s nothing to capture, no throne to seize, no headquarters to storm.’

‘This building …’ I gestured around us.

‘… is a coordination hub, not a command centre. If it burned down tomorrow, the other hubs would continue functioning. Information would still flow, resources would still be distributed, decisions would still be made. It would be inconvenient, certainly, but not catastrophic. Can your country say the same about its capital?’

‘Your system still requires someone to make final decisions,’ I insisted, steering back to safer ground. ‘Even if you’ve distributed authority across regions, within each region someone must be in charge. You’re simply describing feudalism with extra steps.’

‘No,’ Yuki said firmly. ‘Within each region, decisions are made collectively by those affected. Yes, there are people who specialise in coordination, in facilitation, but they don’t have authority over others. They can be recalled, replaced, or simply ignored if communities choose to organise differently.’ I could see the exasperation on their faces at having to repeat this point again, as if they really expected me to believe it.

‘That’s just democracy, then. The will of the majority, mob rule. We’ve recently done away with such a system.’

‘It’s not like the representative system you once had,’ Carlos interrupted. ‘We aim for consensus where possible. When that’s not achievable, we look for solutions that address everyone’s core needs, even if they don’t give anyone everything they want. Only rarely do we resort to voting, and even then it’s usually to gauge preferences rather than impose decisions.’

‘This all sounds lovely in theory,’ I said, not bothering to hide my skepticism anymore. ‘But surely you can admit that your system and ours aren’t so different in practice? We both have economies, distribution networks, people who manage resources. You’ve simply dressed up familiar structures in the rhetoric of equality and cooperation. At the end of the day, some people tell others what to do, but you’ve just convinced yourselves otherwise.’

Dmitri’s patience finally seemed to break. ‘The difference is fundamental, not cosmetic. In your system, workers produce value that flows upward to owners and executives. Those at the top accumulate wealth and power extracted from those below. Decisions are made by the few for the many. Dissent is suppressed through economic coercion - obey or starve - backed by state violence if necessary.’

‘That’s a crude oversimplification …’

‘Is it? In our system, there is no upward flow of extracted value because there are no owners to extract it. Decisions are made by those affected, not imposed from above. Coordination happens horizontally between equals, not vertically through chains of command. When you work, the full value of your labor goes to the community, including yourself, rather than enriching a separate class of owners.’

You Are The Community?

‘So you admit there’s a “community” that claims the value of individual labor,’ I pounced. ‘The collective as tyrant instead of an individual owner. Same exploitation, different master.’

‘No,’ Carlos quietly said. ‘Because you are the community. You participate in the decisions about what’s produced and how it’s distributed. You benefit directly from collective production. There’s no separate entity extracting surplus value for its own enrichment.’

I sat back, letting my expression show how unconvinced I remained. ‘These are semantic games. Pretty theories that crumble under scrutiny. I’ve seen your markets, your currency, which you call labour vouchers, but which function as money. I’ve seen your coordinators making decisions about resource allocation. You say they don’t have authority but clearly they wield influence. You’ve built a hierarchy and convinced yourselves it’s not one. The question is whether you’re deceiving me or yourselves.’

‘Perhaps,’ Carlos said eventually, ‘you’ll understand better as you see more of how we actually live and work. Theory can only take us so far - you need to see the practice.’

‘I look forward to it,’ I said coolly. ‘Though I suspect the practice will confirm my analysis rather than challenge it.’

What I didn’t say aloud was that I’d already formed my conclusion. These people had built a system that superficially resembled governance without admitting it was governance. They’d created an economy while denying it was an economy. They’d established authority while insisting they’d abolished it. Whether through deliberate deception or genuine self-delusion, they’d obscured the reality of power behind a fog of egalitarian rhetoric.

Of course, if your goal was to deliberately disempower the great men who built our glorious nation - to put an end to the natural dream of elevating one’s country through the accumulation of wealth and the proper exercise of authority - then I suppose you might devise something similar to what these Liberationists have created. But in doing so, you’d leave yourself fatally vulnerable.

Without a strong military hierarchy, without the resources concentrated in the hands of those wise enough to deploy them decisively, without the unity of purpose that comes from loyal obedience to a single vision - you’d be utterly defenceless against any nation with the will to take what you have.

Perhaps that’s why they’ve remained so isolated, why they carefully limit contact with the outside world. Not principle, but naked self-preservation. They’ve built something that can only survive by hiding from history, hoping the world ignores them long enough that they can continue their little experiment in collective mediocrity, and call it an island paradise. I’ll expose the full dystopian nature of it yet.

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In my next dispatch, I will reveal further truths about the real powers and dysfunctions behind their supposedly utopian society.