Generally speaking, anarchy isn’t some lost golden age that anarchists want to return to, it’s something new that we want to create. Both past and present societies have anarchistic elements that we can draw inspiration from, but none of those societies really live up to our ideals.

There are some that characterize anarchism as equivalent to direct democracy. I disagree with that, but I do think it can be categorized as a further evolution of democracy. Autonomous democracy, if you will. It retains the idea that everyone is equal and that we don’t need monarchs to govern us. However, where democracy sets up a centralized apparatus for majoritarian, society-wide rule-making and enforcement, in anarchy the rules are created and applied in a decentralized fashion where they are needed, by mutual agreement.