Anarchist by Design: Technology and Human Nature

Anarchist by Design makes the bold claim that anarchy—society founded on organic and direct relations with others, unmediated by artificial systems of power and authority—is the natural and preferred social state for human beings. There is a dramatic mismatch between global civilization, with its expanding technology and bureaucratic systems of forced participation, and our evolutionary preparation for life in small communities of near equals where participation is voluntary. Technology lies at the heart of the issue. Anarchist by Design promotes the dismantling of technological society, not merely to provide relief from the corrosive effects it has on individual freedom, and not to be replaced by something else, but in order to allow natural modes of social organization—underwritten by evolved psychological systems that continue to limp along beneath the surface, deformed, repressed, and misdirected—to have healthy and unfettered expression.