Does Anarchy Need Leaders?

From Anarchy Tube

Ripped from Andrewism YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYVWbj8naBM

When you think of anarchism, leaders probably don’t spring to mind. Anarchism is known for its rejection of authority. But what exactly is leadership, and how does it relate to the tension between authority and anarchy?

 

Comments

anarchist (not verified) Fri, 06/13/2025 - 18:03

doesn't "archy" refer to "leader" originally?

anon (not verified) Fri, 06/13/2025 - 19:14

In reply to by anarchist (not verified)

This is basically a problem that herd animals or species which exist in communal clans have. Not the breeding season with the largest bulls jousting with rivals for territory (property/assets) and rank (status and breeding dominance). Humans are animals if left to the herd or to the dominant collective rule; they conform to an innate tendency to either follow the leader or challenge, OR, voluntarily exile themselves from the whole sheepish crude business of being sheepish. On the grand scale with nations, we see rival democratic jousting and wars and the grand aspiration to gain status and power. NO, anarchists DO NOT WANT OR NEED LEADERS!!

I am (banned) Makhno (not verified) Sat, 06/14/2025 - 06:26

This is a perennial debate among those who identify as anarchists, and can never be definitively answered, because it is really about fundamental conceptions of what anarchism is. For those who identify with the Left, who believe in formal organizations, the answer is obvious : of course anarchists need leaders, of course they need a vanguard. They will prattle on (and on) about accountability, informal hierarchies, leadership by example, and so forth, but leadership - in one form or another - is absolutely central to their value systems.

There are those who consciously reject Leftist values and organizational priorities, but still have some vision of grand social change or counter-institutions, which necessarily involves organizational structure, political representation, and "consensus" (a.k.a. - submitting to the group will).

The only consistent position that anarchists have ever taken on leadership comes from the post-left analysis of writers like Lawrence Jarach, Jason McQuinn, and Bob Black. For the post-left anarchists, it is not about jumping on the latest issue bandwagon or building coalitions, but about thinking and acting as if confronting hierarchy and coercion in all its forms is essential to our daily lives.

anon (not verified) Sat, 06/14/2025 - 11:03

In reply to by I am (banned) Makhno (not verified)

Why do all the cringe edgelords seem to always worship the same postie men? Is it because they see themselves in these more successful elderly white men who complain from their soapboxes and, like them, do nothing? Makes you think.

To the op: Wikipedia is free as are numerous dictionaries of etymology. Learning is fun.

anon (not verified) Sat, 06/14/2025 - 18:20

In reply to by I am (banned) Makhno (not verified)

> The only consistent position that anarchists have ever taken ...

Proceeds to list three old white American men of zero consequence to anarchy.

LOL you 'muricans are a trip.

anon (not verified) Mon, 06/16/2025 - 13:17

In reply to by I am (banned) Makhno (not verified)

Thank you for remembering me!

-- Bob Black (pigffffucker and Ru Paul impersonator)

anon (not verified) Sun, 06/15/2025 - 15:26

We Primitivists NEED a LEADER desperately! A hulking alpha-male warrior type! (sorry John Z). Someone who will charge with a sharpened spike at a raging angry mother grizzly bear! someone who can haul a heavily-loaded sled through waist-deep powder snow up a 33 degree mountain slope! Someone who can make gunpowder out of charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter for a bamboo gun loaded with smooth river pebbles!

anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 16:26

"All autonomous zones are temporary, even in a world full of autonomous zones"

Leaders exist, inequality exists. Task based affinity groups will share overlapping memberships for the foreseeable future so long as activist types are such a tiny minority in any given city/territory, so their rate of dissolution and recomposition will feature the same personalities, same skillsets etc. There has to be a great degree of self conscious, explicit anti authoritarianism, enacted constantly through both formal & informal leveling mechanisms.

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