> Is there any real world society that you think leads the way to the
> anarchist future, the way social democrats can point to Sweden?
The short answer is "no." A really good answer would involve me writing a book in response to this question, which *is* on my to-do list.
Many anarchists answering your question would point to historical examples such as Republican Spain during the 1936 Spanish Revolution. There are other historical examples which illustrate how anarchism would work on a broad scale, but I prefer a more long-winded and boring explanation of how anarchism would work in practics. This is something that interests me, after all, I've published a magazine titled "Practical Anarchy" since 1991.
Kropotkin is somewhat famous for a book he wrote on the importance of mutual aid on the process of evolution. Mutual aid, cooperation, self-management and other anarchist concepts can be found all around us, even in this hyper-capitalist world. Many societies in the past, especially indigenous and pre-historic societies, were based on what can be called anarchist methods and principles. But there are plenty of examples around us of how anarchism works. One example is the food co-op movement, where people have worked cooperatively to create real-life community services. Another example is the free software movement, which is based on anarchist ideas such as cooperation, free sharing of information, and the public commons. There are also millions of community groups and associations and informal groups which a non-governmental, cooperative and often surprisingly non-hierarchical. There is the NGO movement and other social change movements which run on anarchist methods.
In answer to another sub-thread, I see anarchism as more of a process and methodology than a historical series of steps that lead to a date where anarchism has been accomplished. I think that it's very likely that we may see several anarchist revolutions, although these may be much different than people expect. I think that the anarchist focus on method and practice in the everyday is what will make significant changes happen. The projects we build now serve as examples of how things can be done differently, in addition to serving people and providing infrastructure for the movement. Lacny may diss our infoshop in Kansas City using right wing stereotypes about hippies, but we actually are really doing something about building a radical movement in the Midwest, which Lacny simply can't understand given his dedication to the Old Left. The focus on method and practice and process also means that we are engaged in the difficult process of educating people and shifting paradigms, which will lead to more long term change than a simplistic attempt to seize power in one state. The focus on process also teaches us humility, that empowering people is far more important work than creating a vanguard to seize power on behalf of the people. We've seen where that strategy leads, so a more process-oriented approach will hel guarantee that no one person or group of people can seize power and screw people over.
Chuck