What most of the replies are missing is that there are several different conceptions of what anarchy and anarchism is, even between so-called anarchists.

Anarchy, when boiled down to most basic component, is the rejection of hierarchy. What constitutes a hierarchy is also a big matter of debate. Every political system is about the guy with the bigger stick making the rules. The difference is who holds the stick (and why). Anarchy is the rejection of the stick. I think it is a disservice to look at anarchy through the same terms as those political systems, because anarchy is not a political system. Anarchy is the rejection of political systems. Anarchy is about the possibility of change. The possibility of freedom.

I can assure you that any so-called anarchists who claim to have a plan for how society will function after the revolution are lying to both you and themselves. There will be no anarchist society after the revolution. A revolution is a fight over the stick. Somebody will be holding it when the dust clears. Anarchy, in truth, is not about the future. It is about the now. It’s about the real, existing struggle for a better present instead of the dream of a better future.

It’s important to recognize our place in the world. I live in America. My country, right now, is committing genocide. Everybody in this country is responsible for that genocide. Anarchy is about doing something to stop the genocide because I want no responsibility in what is happening. Anarchy is about doing something about the police murdering innocent people on a daily basis because there can be no justification for what is happening. It’s about providing food for people who can’t feed themselves because people don’t have to starve. Anarchy is about doing all of those things even when faced with legal consequences. Anarchy is about protecting people from the guy with the stick. That’s why it’s not a political system.

Because if it is true that for anarchists there is no difference between theory and action, as soon as the idea of social justice lights up in us, illuminates our brain even for a split second, it will never be able to extinguish itself again. Because no matter what we think we will feel guilty, will feel we are accomplices, accomplices to a process of discrimination, repression, genocide, death, a process we will never be able to feel detached from again. How could we define ourselves revolutionaries and anarchists otherwise? What freedom would we be supporting if we were to give our complicity to the assassins in power?

You see how different and critical the situation is for whoever succeeds, through deep analysis of reality or simply by chance or misfortune, in letting an idea as clear as the idea of justice penetrate their brain? There are many such ideas. For example, the idea of freedom is similar. Anyone who thinks about what freedom actually is even for a moment will never again be able to content themselves by simply doing something to slightly extend the freedom of the situations they are living in. From that moment on they will feel guilty and will try to do something to alleviate their sense of suffering. They will fear they have done wrong by not having done anything till now, and from that moment on their lives will change completely.

(Alfredo M. Bonanno, The Anarchist Tension)