If you haven’t already, do you mind explaining the major differences between anarchism and communism? They both seem really similar to me and it’s hard to tell them ideologically apart sometimes. Thank you…!!

daggers-drawn:

1. All communists are attempting to build a society without a State or ruling class, aka communism.

2. Some communists want to do this with a kind of transitional stage where class and the State will remain for a time while the conditions for communism are put into place. These are statist or non-anarchist communists.

3. All anarchists want to abolish every form of hierarchy. Some anarchists are communists, while others are not. Non-communist anarchists don’t necessarily reject a Stateless and Classless society, but it is not their explicit focus.

4. Anarcho-communists specifically want to achieve a Stateless and Classless society through the abolition of all hierarchy.

Why are some anarchists not communists? Often this is self-labeling based on the colloquel understanding of what communism is– basically they don’t want to be associated with statist communists.

Are the two similar? Yes, very. The difference between anarchist communists and non-anarchist communists is the question of how we’ll get there.