Why isn't there an anarchist state somewhere in the world?

Within minutes, they would be conquered by the countries neighboring them.

Because Anarchy as a state (of being) is by definition self-chatastrophic, and therefore whenever a society falls into anarchy (eg after a war or some natural disaster), there is either some new power that takes over, or the whole system self-destructs. You see it in Florida after every hurricane, or when the Mississippi burst its banks a few years back. It’s been like that in almost every civil war, in Bosnia, Afghanistan, even Vietnam.

Peacful anarchic communities have existed, but they still needed some sort of basic rules. Christiania (a small village in the middle of Copenhagen) is such a notable exception. Even though it’s more of a “flower power” state with its whole economy based on selling soft drugs and souvenirs made of hemp, it’s left alone by the cops outside and they run their own business without hurting anyone. There are several such communities around the world, but even they base their existance on the tolerance of their neighbours.

Because they’d never get anything done, other than collecting military intelligence and eating jumbo shrimp.

What’s up with Somalia? Isn’t that near anarchist?

Hakim Bey wrote some great stuff about such “Autonomous Zones”- he did a lot of research into pirate utopias like Tortuga and Port-Au-Prince.

“Anarchist state” is an oxymoron. You can have anarchy, or you can have a state, but you can’t have both.

there is.
it is called somalia, the libertarian and antigovernment nuts’ paradise

spain briefly went anarchist (as in the political system) in 1936 during the civil war.

Freetown Christiniana in Denmark counts as effectively an autonomonous city-state for a while until the law stepped in to crack down on it, though it still does exist even now.

Slab City in the u.s. might count as an anarchist city-town (I don’t enough about it to say).

we do live in a big planet with many people and anarchists don’t always want to advertise. so a couple such communities (and I do know you meant nation-states rather than small states) might exist.

Anarchists don’t build states. Anarchy is the absence (a-) of structures (-archy). Anarchists aren’t freedom maximizers – most freedom maximizers concede there needs to be some agreements to reduce conflict between different people’s freedoms.

Organized thugs would come in and wipe away anarchy soon enough.
Anarchy is only a temporary state. It cannot be sustained for any significant period of time.

you mean like “anarchy anarchy” or like, “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” anarchy?

@The_Compassionate_Heretic: there you have one of my main arguments against anarchists who seriously hope for “the revolution”. (they must have gotten this one from Marxism.) as well, societies involve. anarchism would inevitably change into something else.

Could my house be considered a “state”?

Anarchy is about a stateless society. “Anarchist state” is an absurd phrase.

As you may all recall from your European history, Anarchist movements were popular on the Far Left in countries that had hereditary monarchies. The Anarchists believed that if the coercive apparatus of the monarchical state could be overthrown, people would spontaneously band together to do what is necessary to sustain society. In this respect, Anarchists were anti-authoritarian, Utopian, and communitarian. Like the communists with which they were often allied, they believed that the state would whither away over time.

In one very limited sense nearly all states that have abolished hereditary monarchies and aristocracies are “anarchist” states; however, in place of the old aristocracy we have an emergent corporate state, driven by the boom and bust cycles of capitalism and the opportunistic tendency of capitalists to consolidate their wealth and power during crisis in an almost inexorable march toward oligarchy.

Anarchists are all Libertarians today. That is to say, they pay lip service to minimalist government in exchange for certain rather limited “freedoms”;i.e., to do what they wish on what is left of their private property. But, I think they are being duped. While they are focused on “government” the corporate/capitalist class is gutting and privatizing government, creating a river of privatized wealth that flows to a more or less permanent aristocracy, and which only “trickles down” in under the heavy hand of their control over the levers of political power. For example, the masses may need and want something like health care, but corporate elites are able to block it because they are so rich and powerful that they are able to buy off Congress.

There are some communitarian societies, such as the Basques, who have made Anarchy work. You don’t hear much about them because their territory spans the borders of France, Spain and Portugal. They don’t need a state per se, because they have been granted a degree of separatist autonomy.

The Internet is also run on anarchist principles, and you can see the relentless assaults on it by corporations, working through the Bush Administration and the FCC, seeking to carve out some privatized advantage that will give them some non-competitive advantage. To the extent that we are all in favor of Net Neutrality, and resist those efforts, we are all Anarchists.

There are a few communities which exist without government. One is called “Freetown” Christiana. Though, they’re regarded as a bunch of hippie squatters that have taken over an old military base in Denmark, but I guess that’s how new colonies are born- by take over. That’s how America came to be.

There’s also the Whiteway Colony, which is the oldest existing anarchist community.

not anachist any more though, according to the ever-reliable (sometimes) Wikipedia.