If absolute power corrupts, is voting someone into such a position futile? We might not think that heads of states are running things as it were, but the point is, the power concentrated within the edifices of the establishment must corrupt by default. What does a coup wish to achieve? The easiest and most cost effective way to co-opt the military, the police, the justice system and the means of taxation (and then the media and so on). What if there is no centre from which to dictate to all of these arms of government? What if these services are made up of multiple autonomous agencies loyal only to themselves and their voluntary patrons? Anarchism proposes to smash the state altogether. One of the many arguments for this is that it removes the capacity for state sponsored war. How do you wage a full-scale and unpopular war without taxes? The great thing about the power of taxation is that it removes the costs and risks of military action which are always huge, because they are borne by the tax payer rather than the war monger. Imagine if a private company said 'we want to go to war, we're going to use your money to do it, whether you like it or not, and we might call upon you to fight in it, again whether you like it or not'. If they instead had to say, 'we're going to use our own money, and odds are we're going to lose billions'... it's not so sweet a deal. Do you think the Anarchist argument for it being the end, or at least the significant reduction of war holds weight?
I think that trying to justify anarchism in terms of what's good for society is a mistake. It's a personal ethical philosophy governing your conduct with others, including politics. Its purpose is not to make everyone happy or provide them with free stuff. I also think it's naive to think anarchism will rid the world of coercion. Anarchism is (among other things) a response to coercion assuming it exists. It's true that in the absence of states, private criminals would have an extremely tough job initiating a similar amount of force - but they would most definitely give it a decent shot. Politics = the sum of ambitions/preferences of each individual + their ability to realize these ambitions. Singling out particular ambitions as desirable beyond your own subjective preference is wishful thinking indeed.
Didn't mention anything about making 'everyone happy' or 'providing free stuff' so not sure where that's come from. Of course it doesn't. All forms of social organisation must include forms of coercion. One of the most powerful forms of social order derives from social norms which are tacit and cultural and not necessarily codified. The incentive to play by the rules is social acceptance as opposed to ostracism. I guess, in theory. But not really in practice. If politics really was the sum of each individuals preferences there wouldn't be such a vast dichotomy between the actions of the state and the will of the people.
I was hoping to see an article around how anarchism (literally meaning "no leader") could just be a direct democracy system like Switzerland and similarly give the president or whatnot merely ceremonial powers, and no actual power over how they govern the country, just giving a few laws and a referendum for each law, like in Switzerland, but still allow civilians to bring up their own laws to vote on as well. I am getting ahead of myself here, but the anarchism that I would most likely advocate and the popular depiction of it drastically differs from one another. I also realize that there is a severe logistical disadvantage for direct democracy (it costs $$$ to host a referendum!) and citizen's militia system akin to the Swiss (not those gun-toting anti-background-check freaks in the States) and therefore, in my opinion, would not be a favorable form of government on larger countries, nor would it be countries that I would like to live in, because, high taxes. In other words, I was disappointed with what I went and used a few watts of energy to waste time looking at a manifesto that I don't want to be a part of. I also favor green politics outside of socialist policies.
