I'm a left-anarchist, but I wanted to copy the questions of a bio-primitivist here who thinks the only hope for humanity is an anti-tech revolution. I'll link this post to them so they can see any answers people give and they might reply themselves or I could potentially quote some of their replies for them. And obviously if you sympathise more with them, then I can offer my two cents too.

Their ideology is essentially just burn everything down to try and get as close to hunter-gatherer life as possible, 'hiding between the cracks' of the feudal war-lords that would rise up. They accept the history of some tribes keeping slaves and like the idea of the able-bodied male dominance hierarchies that would likely occur:

It’s true that pre industrial societies did significant damage to the environment, but the damage they did was nothing compared to the damage that industrial societies do to nature. An anti tech revolution would be a great leap forwards for nature. Overtime nature would recover from the damage industrialism has done to it. It is true that in certain places authoritarian systems such as feudalism will be set up. But by means will we be limited to Feudalism, the potential for freedom will have sparked. True Freedom will be possible, and even in these authoritarian systems there will be far more freedom then exists in modern society. And if you want to bad enough you could escape, but in industrial society there is nowhere to run.

Anyway, they think all social anarchists are either council ancom dreamers where every step a person takes in any direction will need to first be deliberated on by a 100 councils, or mutualists, but in both scenarios they think the society would descend into feudal-capitalist hell-holes.

I've abbreviated some of their questions for clarity and to save time reading, but I'll quote their messages in full at the end also:

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How would you hope to bring down current governments like the US?

With violent revolution, all historical precedent suggests that you will fail at this. The ELZN has stopped trying to do so.

With peaceful revolution, you wouldn't be able to get hundreds of millions to go on strike, especially with all the pressure the government would put on them and the rewards they would receive for being scabs.

As for gradual reform and dragging the Overton window leading to reform, I don’t think there is any historical prescient suggesting that this is possible.

This certainly is not happening when it comes to economic issues, and it’s highly unlikely that anything a left anarchist movement could change this. Even in the realm of social issues where this was happening for a while pushback from the right has subverted it. Less people support transgenderism now then did a few years ago. The culture and politics of a society is something that is influenced by far to many factors for it to be simply dragged consistently in one direction for decades and decades.

This plan relies on far left political parties maintaining consistent power. Given the dominance of one political party has never shown itself to be insurmountable over long periods of time, it is highly unlikely that this is a realistic goal. People are different and will always vote for different ideas, this is a fact of life and cannot be changed. Whenever a left wing party were to lose power, their polices could be revoked.

The idea that the united state’s government, or any government for that matter has the power to eliminate capitalism let alone achieve left anarchism is beyond asinine. Even the most skilled American politicians with the largest majorities haven’t been able to achieve universal healthcare. The prospect of the entire elimination of capitalism through democratic government is completely unimaginable. Combine this with the fact you will have to be competing with other parties with contradicting views who will stifle your plans every step of the way.

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How would you ensure these communes stay true to left anarchist principles?

How do you expect to successfully organize a society as complex as the united states (let alone the world of 8 billion) into autonomous communes of 150 people that make all decisions through voting? Historical examples of left-anarchist societies far less populous and complex then the united states have already failed to do anything of the sort. The CNT-FAI was a totalitarian state that sent it's political opponents to labor camps. The free territory of Ukraine didn't even collectivize it's land. All Historical precedent suggests that you will fail at this.

If centrally planned economies tend to be less efficient than market ones, wouldn't de-centrally planned societies that are planned by everyone voting on everything in a nation as advanced and populous as the united states be even less efficient and utter chaos?

If the anarchist revolution was achieved in one country, but not anywhere else, how would you deal with people wanting to buy from corporations outside of the country if they're cheaper and more efficient than the locally run anarchist coop. There is nothing stopping people from shopping/working from coops rather then large corporations. Yet basically everyone including most socialists chose to shop from amazon, and not their local coop.

How would you prevent worker coops that are most successful growing to be larger then other coops? The larger these coops grow the less patience they will have for democratization and other such socialistic methods as they will continuously get in the way of the success of the business. We've already seen this with coops such as Mondragon, which are essentially run as a regular cutthroat corporation. We'd see this far more in a society where only coops are allowed. Some businesses are simply to large to be run democratically. Large businesses would be necessary for providing the needs of a nation of hundreds of millions, so corporations like Mondragon would inevitably form.

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Finally, here's the full context of their comments, though obviously I don't think they were accurately describing my positions, like I'm not a pacifist or solely in favour of reform through elections.

Lets go down the list of all of the hoops we would have to jump through to make Left-Anarchism a reality shall we? First of all, you'd have to somehow overthrough the most powerful government in the world without using violence. That's a pretty extraordinary task, and we've never seen any historical examples of such a thing being done. The only arguments i've heard from you guys about how you'd do such is by "striking when they're weak". I assume your strategy would be a general strike if your not using violence, but this would hardly bring down the US government. first of all you wouldn't be able to get hundreds of millions to go on strike, especially with all the pressure the government would put on them and the rewards they would receive for being scabs. So it's extremely left anarchists would successfully take out the US, or any other nation for that matter. It's worth noting that left anarchists (even those who were willing to use violence) have never successfully taken out any government, and that the ELZN has stopped trying to do so. All Historical precedent suggests that you will fail at this.

How do you expect successfully organize a society as complex as the united states (let alone the world of 8 billion) into autonomous communes of 150 people that make all decisions through voting? How will you ensure that these communes will stay true to left anarchist princibles, historical examples of left-anarchist societies far less populus and complex then the united states have already failed to do anything of the sort. The CNT-FAI was a totalitarian state that sent it's political opponents to labor camps. The free territory of Ukraine didn't even collectivize it's land. All Historical precedent suggests that you will fail at this.

But lets be extremely generous and assume that you've succeeded in both taking out the united states government without the use of violence, establishing a left anarchist society, and keeping it true to it's princibles with a population of hundreds of millions. Well, there are still more problems. History has shown us that centrally planned economies tend to be less efficent then market ones, decentrally planned societies that are planned by everyone voting on everything in a nation as advanced and populus as the united states would be utter chaos. So lets assume that you went with the Worker-Co-opt model. If left-anarchists were able to take over a nation as large as the united states then in all likelyhood corporations would be interested in trading with a nation as large as this. These corporations could offer far more then any worker co opt could dream of. If given the choice between worker co opts and corporations, people chose corporations. Corporations have proven themselves to be far more economically efficient then coopts are. There is nothing stopping people from shopping/working from coopts rather then large corporations. Yet basically everyone including most socialists chose to shop from amazon, and not their local coopt. When given the choice between direct material wealth and abstract political ideals people chose the former. There's no reason to belive people will act differently in a left anarchist society, so in all likelyhood corporations will take over. So, even in the absurdly unlikely event of the successful establishment of a left-anarchist society the most likely outcome is a corporate feudalist hellhole.

Even if you've somehow managed to get over all of these hurdles, you aren't out of the clear yet. The worker coopts that are most successful will grow to be larger then other coopts. The larger these coopts grow the less patience they will have for democratization and other such socialistic methods as they will continuously get in the way of the success of the business. We've already seen this with coopts such as Mondragon, which are essentially run as a regular cutthroat corporation. We'd see this far more in a society where only coopts are allowed. Some businesses are simply to large to be run democratically. Large businesses would be necessary for providing the needs of a nation of hundreds of millions, so corporations like Mondragon would inevitably form. Through this the left-anarchist society would crumble into a capitalist hell hole. Historical precedent suggests that this would happen.

As for your plan of gradual reform and dragging the Overton window leading to left anarchism or even socialism. I don’t think there is any historical prescient suggesting that this is possible and it is certainly not plausible in North America or Western Europe. There are many problems with this, but I’ll just name a few.

The idea that you can consistently drag the Overton Window in one direction is asinine. This certainly is not happening when it comes to economic issues, and it’s highly unlikely that anything a left anarchist movement could change this. Even in the relm of social issues where this was happening for a while pushback from the right has subverted it. Less people support transgenderism now then did a few years ago. The culture and politics of a society is something that is influenced by far to many factors for it to be simply dragged consistently in one direction for decades and decades.

This plan relies on far left political parties maintaining consistent power. Given the dominance of one political party has never shown itself to be insurmountable over long periods of time, it is highly unlikely that this is a realistic goal. People are different and will always vote for different ideas, this is a fact of life and cannot be changed. Whenever a left wing party were to lose power, their polices could be revoked.

The idea that the united state’s government, or any government for that matter has the power to eliminate capitalism let alone achieve left anarchism is beyond asinine. Even the most skilled American politicians with the largest majorities haven’t been able to achieve universal healthcare. The prospect of the entire elimination of capitalism through democratic government is completely unimaginable. Combine this with the fact you will have to be competing with other parties with contradicting views who will stifle your plans every step of the way and the prospects of achieving any of your goals through democracy is nil