I am not an anarchist, but I’m attracted to it because it is a political philosophy based on individual freedom and voluntary cooperation. I believe in these things to the degree that they’re possible.
It also happens that many of the writers and thinkers I admire the most – Noam Chomsky, David Graeber, Paul Goodman, C. Wright Mills and James C. Scott – are anarchists or anarchist sympathizers.

Murray Bookchin
Although I do not advocate revoIutionary violence, I respect the old-time anarchists of a century or so ago – Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill, Emma Goldman and Sacco and Vanzetti.
I think that the coming shortages of fossil fuels will cripple the globalized economy and force a devolution of authority onto local communities. Hopefully they will be democracies. If so, anarchist thought should have something to teach us.
Six or so years ago, I became interested in anarchist ideology and wrote a chapter-by-chapter review of Murray Bookchin‘s The Ecology of Freedom.
I found it very interesting, but one of my concerns was what I call the arms race problem. How do peaceful, democratic people protect themselves against violent, authoritarian people, without becoming violent and authoritarian themselves>
Earlier this week I received this thoughtful comment:
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Hi there, Phil! My name’s Harmony and I recently stumbled across your blog. I just read your series reviewing each chapter of Murray Bookchin’s The Ecology of Freedom and I want to thank you for writing it. I love how concisely and clearly you summarize each chapter, and I found this series interesting and very helpful.
I also want to address something you say at the end of your review of chapter 12:
That is my concern about anarchism in general—that it relies too much on the assumption of universal good will, and that anarchists are therefore unable to defend themselves without ceasing to be anarchists.
Regarding the first issue, that anarchism relies on assumptions of universal goodwill, I highly recommend reading the essay “Are We Good Enough?” by the 19th century anarchist Peter Kropotkin. His thesis is that, even if human nature is mostly selfish, greedy, corrupt, and just downright bad, that this is all the more reason why anarchism is a superior political/economic system.
The essay is quite short, btw: 1,931 words.
Regarding the second issue, that anarchists are unable to defend themselves without ceasing to be anarchists, recently someone raised exactly this exact concern in a comment on one of my videos (I have a small youtube channel; LuckyBlackCat, if you’re interested). I hope you don’t mind if I just copy/paste the answer I gave them.
In my opinion, one way to address the military dilemma you bring up, can be roughly as follows. Have voluntary, democratic militias — voluntary in that nobody is forced to join, democratic in that soldiers/members elect their own officers. However, these militias can be coordinated by a small committee of people who have good comprehension of military strategy. The members of this committee wouldn’t behave as delegates normally do; they wouldn’t take their guidance and direction from below, but would come up with their own ideas for how things should proceed, and would send the instructions (or you could even say “orders”) down to the militias. Decisions in the committee could be made swiftly by calling a majority vote after deliberation. (Even military generals will usually consult advisors and deliberate on what to do; allowing decisions by vote of a small committee doesn’t add extra time to decision making.) The anarchist group Amigos de Durruti / Friends of Durruti recommended something like this in their pamphlet “Towards a Fresh Revolution.”