Anarchism asserts centralized coercion is neither justified nor a precondition for social life.

Evidence

It may help initially to contrast this claim with a range of other understandings of the character of politics with which it is clearly incompatible. One such understanding is given by a common version of anarchism. We may take this to assert: firstly, that centralized coercive power can never be justified; secondly, that it is never a precondition for organized social life; thirdly, that it never (or at least seldom) on balance has consequences more desirable than those which would follow from its absence; fourthly, that human beings who belong to a single community potentially have both the will and the capacity to cooperate with each other to whatever degree such cooperation will be necessary to serve their several (real?) interests; and fifthly, that individual communities in their turn have both the potential will and the potential capacity to cooperate with each other to the same degree. The serious case in favour of anarchism is, as Michael Taylor has well argued, a case in favour of the efficacy of community (Taylor 1982). — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1076

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the five tenets of a common anarchist position, anchored in Taylor’s thesis that the real case for anarchism rests on the efficacy of community.
• XREF: This anarchist claim that community (reputation, mutual monitoring) can replace coercive power is a direct test case for Hardin’s and Milgrom’s argument that community alone cannot sustain trust without higher-order institutions.