I’m anti-civ postie Egoist and im having a hard time grasping what exactly you mean by “an economy”

If goods move from person to person, that’s an economy

If you simply mean “no markets” I could get it, but “no economy” means no communal resources or anything.

You can’t do mutual-aid if the only aid being produced consists of nothing plus fancy speeches.

“At The Cafe” by Errico Malasta and the documentary “Living In Utopia” which is on Zoe Baker’s youtube channel were what made me hop the fence from being a council communist to an anarcho-communist. It was my starting point, so maybe it would be a good starting point for you. Pyotr Kropotkin is also a great source for anarchist theory, like “Conquest of Bread” and “Mutual Aid.” If you want someone more recent then I hear Murray Bookchin is pretty good, although I haven’t gotten around to reading anything by him yet. And as someone else mentioned, Anarchist Library is a great place to look for pretty much anything anarchist related. You’ll likely find any of the books I mentioned there for free.

IMO the most important thing is to read theory, read the history of leftist movements, and use good research practices. Just keep reading critically, try to follow the authors’ arguments, and internalize the things you understand and like. Also, it’s more important to build up a coherent worldview than it is to fall into a specific ideological box.

For anarchist literature, The Anarchist Library is an incredibly diverse resource of often contradicting viewpoints, whereas the Anarchist FAQ is (in my view) an excellent first place to look for detailed explanations for commonly asked questions. In my view, the Anarchist Library is an excellent example of how it is important to develop your own worldview. Because the most anarchist/communist/socialist/leftist thing anyone could possibly do is loudly and vehemently disagree about something with someone who otherwise agrees with you 99.99%.

IMO, this is legitimately how progress is made, by exploring the space of ideas. And that means that every once in a while, there’s going to be some ridiculous take from someone who is otherwise on your team who’s trying to explore that space of anarchist possibilities. So even when drawing from resources you typically agree with, it is so important to think and read critically.

For Marxist and state-socialist literature I’m honestly a lot less informed since…well…I’m an anarchist and I’m going to disagree with statist Marxists on a lot of issues. But when I do need to look up some non-anarchist literature, Marxists.org usually has what I need.

If you don’t mind, I’d love to chime in with my own perspective :)

My path to anarchist ideas was pretty organic. I grew up in a rural area, lots of farmers, my school was just a short walk away, and most of our food was locally grown or raised. It struck me that even if the government had suddenly disappeared, our community probably would have been okay. We already relied so much on each other.

I’m not here to tell you what to believe or what label to adopt. Over the past four years, I’ve done a lot of reading and reflecting myself, and what helped me the most was trying to apply different leftist ideas to the place I knew best, my own hometown. That process helped me figure out what might actually work for the people there and for me, that led to anarchism.

So I’d suggest doing something similar: take the ideas you’ve encountered from socialists, communists, anarchists, or whereever and ask yourself “If we did this and this, could this work?” “If we stopped using money in these areas and these areas, could that work?” Even just exploring things like reducing reliance on money in certain areas can be revealing. (It’s worth noting that many anarchist ideas hinge on an optimistic view of human nature, but that’s a whole other conversation.)

At the end of the day, if you’re trying to identify both an ideal society and a realistic path toward it, I think the key is understanding that socialism, whatever shape it takes, requires a culture built on cooperation. That has to come first.

Don’t.

Leftists get bogged down in being a fourth wave posadist and reading theory over doing praxis and working towards the change. You can work out the minor details if and when it happens.

Don’t pigeonhole and label yourself. Ask yourself questions, “What do I think is a problem? What do I think is a solution? How can I work towards it?”