The promotion of anarchism within capitalist media, coupled with the suppression of Marxist thought, is damning evidence against anarchism as viable opposition to capitalist hegemony. In fact, the two happen to be perfectly compatible. Meanwhile, history demonstrates time and again that revolutions require centralized authority to dismantle oppressive systems. Capitalism tolerates anarchism precisely because it poses no systemic threat, while revolutionary movements succeed only by embracing disciplined, organized force.
Capitalist media platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime glorify anarchist individualism with shows like Money Heist and The Umbrella Academy while demonizing Marxist collectivism. The narratives in the media fetishize lone rebels "fighting the system" through symbolic acts such as heists or sabotage that never threaten the core machinery of the system. By contrast, media vilifies Marxist movements as "authoritarian" as seen in The Hunger Games' critique of collective resistance vs. glorification of individual heroism. Anarchism's rejection of centralized power also neatly aligns with neoliberalism's war on institutional solidarity. Capitalist elites amplify anarchism precisely because it atomizes dissent into spectacle, ensuring resistance remains fragmented and impotent. If anarchism actually threatened capital, it would be censored as fiercely as Marxism.
The reality of the situation is that every effective society of meaningful scale, be it capitalist or socialist, relies on centralized power. Capitalist states enforce property rights, monetary policy, and corporate monopolies through institutions like central banks, militaries, police, and courts. Amazon''s logistics empire, the Federal Reserve's control over currency, and NATO's geopolitical dominance all depend on rigid hierarchies. On the other hand, anarchists refuse to acknowledge that dismantling capitalism requires confronting its centralized power structures with equal organizational force.
What anarchists fail to acknowledge is that revolutions are authoritarian by their very nature. To overthrow a ruling class, the oppressed must organize into a cohesive force capable of seizing and wielding power. The Bolsheviks built a vanguard party to crush counterrevolutionaries and nationalize industry in order to dismantle the Tsarist regime. Mao's Red Army imposed discipline to expel bourgeoisie and landlords. Engels acknowledged this reality saying that a revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, and cannon.
Rejecting this authority ensures that a movement becomes irrelevant in the long run. The Spanish anarchists of 1936, despite initial successes, were crushed by fascists because they lacked centralized coordination. Modern "autonomous zones" such as CHAZ dissolve quickly, as they cannot defend against state violence or organize production.
Anarchism's fatal flaw is its lack of a cohesive vision. It splinters into countless factions such as eco-anarchists, insurrectionists, anprims, mutualists, and so on. Each one prioritizes disparate goals of degrowth, anti-work, anti-civ, etc., that are often at odds with one another. Movements like Occupy with their "leaderless" structure are effortlessly dispersed by the state. By contrast, capitalist states execute power with singular purpose of ensuring profit accumulation in the hands of the oligarchs. Marxist movements, too, succeed through unified strategy as articulated by Lenin in What Is to Be Done? where he prioritized a centralized party precisely to avoid anarchist-style disarray. The capitalist ruling class understands perfectly well that it is easier to crush a hundred squabbling collectives than a single disciplined force. Hence why anarchism becomes a sanctioned form of dissent that never coalesces into material threat.
Meanwhile, revolutions demand the use of authority as a tool for the oppressed to defeat capitalism. Serious movements must embrace the discipline capitalists fear most. The kind of discipline that builds states, expropriates billionaires, and silences reactionaries.
