Institutions under anarchist society

Question

Respecting a society to be created through fulfilling objectives identified by (left-wing) anarchists, in what sense, if any, would such a society include institutions, and how would institutions, in practice or in concept, be similar or different from institutions in historic and present societies?

It may be granted that there is no universal or absolute understanding of the concept of institutions, and thus, in asking the question, it must also be conceded that the application of the term is fluid and contextual.

Under liberal capitalist societies, in addition to the state, institutions have included schools, hospitals, medical societies, religious congregations, journalism outlets, research centers, think tanks, policy advocates, museums, and so on.

Answer 1

My knowledge of anarchism is based on decades old readings of mostly Proudhon, Bakounine and Ivan Illich. Sorry I can't give you precise references. Note also that none of the following implicates endorsement.

Actually reading anarchists thinkers it is obvious that institutions would still exist in the world as they envision it. No one advocates for the disappearance of humans gathering their effort into collective projects, just radically changing the organization of those, including anarcho capitalists, who are the only type of right wing anarchists I know of. The difference is left wing anarchists seek to diffuse as much as possible the distribution of power in those associations, while anarcho capitalists rely purely on individual property (so schematically, in one case the workers rule the factory, hospital, school etc, and in the other it is the owner(s)).

Left anarchists, notably Proudhon, propose associations that could be comparable in size to the nations states we have today, but organized along three main principles:

• subsidiarity, it is to say that authority on decisions is distributed bottom up and not top down. Instead of the topmost government authority (president, congres, etc...) deciding what lower echelons (city councils, neighboor associations, etc) can figure on their own, the lower freely decides what topics need to be decided by upper levels. For exemple, the city council decides that roads would be better managed by a federation of cities in the area and send delegates to figure it out, what Proudhon called a federation of communes. It is somewhat similar to the states right VS federal power controversy in the US.
• self-management: Nobody holds a position of power unless they have been specifically approved by the whole community to fit this role. Important decisions are taken during general assembly gathering all members of the community. Since some decisions need to be taken timely (what surgery to perform on this wounded person?) or whould be overwhelming to decide collegially (is there pasta on the menu today ?) delegates are designated to handle those. In order to avoid abuse of this power they receive specific mandates (they can't take decisions they were not expressly authorized to take), are revocable, and must be strictly transparent. This could include institutions usually considered antithetic with anarchism, like police or the army. A community might need people trained to handle misbehaviour or repel aggression. Simply, an anarchist policeman is bound to be elected to their role and to be transparent about it (for exemple, interrogated after any violent act to make sure it was necessary and proportional).
• free association: nobody is bound to a community like a citizen to a state. If one does not like the rules in a place - although they participated to their making just as much as any other member - they can leave. This has obviously difficult implications when it comes to a neighborhood or a town, rather than a factory or a farm. I dont know how anarchists solve those contradictions.

So under those principles one can imagine how a factory, a school or an hospital could be organized. A school, for exemple, would be run by its teachers and students (provided it is practical, toddlers ruling themselves seems an overstretch). Self managed schools do exist where students can freely chose to attend classes, programs are debated during assemblies and menial tasks like cleaning or cooking are shared. Programs could be delegated to the federation level if the members of the school think it can be beneficial (standardizing education has merit after all). The main point being that students are taught autonomy as a group rather than obedience to rules decided by others who are not submitted to them like in most schools. Ivan Illich, specifically, worked on the subject of autonomous schools.

An hospital would be run by every member of the staff, from surgeons to orderlies, and possibly patients (who are a part of the community after all). Life or death decisions that need to be taken in a split second would be delegated to surgeons, when the total amount of material and drugs they can be allocated would be decided during the assembly.

Worker cooperatives are also an actual exemple of institutions based on anarchist principles.

Answer 2

That probably depends on how you define institutions and whom you ask. I mean Anarchists apparently reject social power structures, coercion and social hierarchies. But that can still include a whole spectrum from a hypothetical radical isolationism where each person is an island of their own to a hypothetical global community where people are deeply connected with each other.

Though realistically the formation of groups and societies is unavoidable and even Individualists and Egoists usually agree that collectives of people get more done, making them potentially interesting to the individual even if they are otherwise not fond of socializing.

Also if you consider that not everybody can build and maintain a hospital while applying medical procedure upon themselves,it probably makes sense to have a centralized hub of medical support, that you might as well call a hospital.

So the question is not so much about groups or not groups, but about how groups are organized. Are they temporary or permanent? Are they entities of their own or just the sum of their members? Is membership open or closed?

Like if a person or group sits on a resource that is vital for other people and has the power to grant or deny access, then that means you've got a power structure that is incompatible with anarchism. So any anarchist society would need to find a way to get around that problem. So if it's a small problem each one could get their own, if it's a larger structure it could be owned by everyone/no one and/or be open to everyone. You could form open user collectives where those who use it can customize it to their needs, without excluding those who'd also want to use it.

And you can probably take ideological standpoints on that (all decentralized, everything for the commune) or you could decide that on a case by case basis.

In terms of journalism, think tanks, political advocacy groups you probably also should take into account that you might have a different status quo. Like anarchism isn't supposed to have a small group of people who act as government, but to be more direct and participatory which ideally goes hand in hand with more intrinsic transparency.