The Wikipedia Commune

Anarchist Theory abhors the modern nation's monopoly on force. Today the public perception of Anarchism is often more of Molotov Cocktails and Carbombs than of liberty and social cooperation. Anarchism however intends to establish a system of absolute self-determination, under an anarchic system, individuals are free from enforced societal participation, and human progress is built upon collaboration on a voluntary basis.

This system, taken at face value seems excellent, though in the modern day, the control of the state over individuals is seen as a necessary evil, Anarchists however, hold that this system is not a requirement in order to create a functioning 'society'. The issue with the establishment of a functional Anarchist commune is the question of wether the individual in incentivised to uphold cooperation, without a disincentive in the form of the power of the state, do individuals actively participate in a society, or even not participate, can a collective, without the threat of overwhelming force, prevent individuals from acting to the detriment of the community, this is the ultimate, nigh unsolvable, issue with the modern vision of the Anarchist collective. 

 It has been said that the beneficial nature of Anarchist theory has already been proven in an unlikely place, Wikipedia, not in its many pages on Anarchist theorists and thinkers, but in the structure of Wikipedia itself. Since its foundation in 2001, Wikipedia has become perhaps one of the largest repositories of shared human knowledge, primarily due to its collaborative nature, almost anyone can contribute their knowledge to Wikipedia. Compared to other libraries or encyclopedias, who rigorously vet writers and curators, Wikipedia has an incredibly loose system for allowing editing. It is because of this comparative freedom that Wikipedia has become such a comparatively vast source of information, though the Wikipedia system does have moderation, the vast majority of malicious or incorrect information is simply changed by another editor, the sheer quantity of editors committed to improving Wikipedia as a whole.

It could be derived therefore that this is the model for an effective Anarchic system, if a large majority is committed to the cooperative function of the commune, any destructive agents are thwarted by the sheer revertive power of the community at large. In this case, could a community achieve development on the scale of Wikipedia using a similar system?

The question that is posed is, can the collaborative system of Wikipedia function in terms of an entire society? It has always been doubted whether such large scale community collaboration was possible, clearly, to some degree it is, without extensive moderation, a system can be established in which a group, without any personal incentive works towards a common good, i.e. the collection of vast quantities of knwoledge.

The true point that is being argued is, are humans fundamentally capable of operating within a communal system without a set social contact with consequences for its breaking. This, of course, is not the only factor in proving the possibility of an Anarchic community such as has been described. If, however, proven correct, it may show that an authoritative system is not necessary for a functional human society.