I've heard Anarchism argued as a higher form of evolution, along the same lines as what Christ's early followers practiced. Basically, nobody stops doing what they're doing, anyone who is interested in a specialized skillset can still develop that skill, but rather than exchange goods we would just give them away. All software would be open source, all music and art would be freely available, lots of people would work on farms or have gardens and they would feed their local communities, people would spread good will and function as peace-keepers because they would feel it in their nature to do so, people would clean up others' messes and such because they liked to make things look nice, etc. And without the stress of having to compete or worry about being told you can't do what you're doing people would be much less likely to become violent or hold negative feelings toward others.
Now, the argument goes, the reason this is so hard to imagine is because we have mistaken ideas about human nature. For one, we think humans are naturally competitive, and if there is no incentive to innovate (ie, being better than someone else), then people will get lazy and just try to live off other people. I think the real lesson of human nature is not that people are competitive, but that people like attention. They don't necessarily care if somebody else is getting attention too, so long as they're getting some. And what better attention but what you get from giving someone a gift? Secondly, there's the idea that people are selfish, or that certain people would become extremely exploitative if things functioned this way. I think that ignores the tremendous social pressure that would exist to contribute in some way. And that social pressure wouldn't be the negative, judgmental pressure that exists in our current lives (get a job, deadbeat!) but rather a positive, uplifting pull that would be more along the lines of "don't you want to express yourself too?!" That in fact, many if not most if not all of the problems we face from disenfranchised individuals are a result of the pressure of operating in a competitive system, which simply isn't natural.
If we truly believe that human nature is a social construct, then we should be all for the idea of a society based around the idea of "creative sharing." If, on the other hand, we believe that human nature is ingrained and selfish/sinful, then we will have to do some more debating, and figure out what exactly that means.
The more I made that argument the more I started to like it. All that really stands in our way is fear, and the belief that it just couldn't work, which isn't really grounded in anything except shame that we've never tried it.
Maybe if we could just put LSD in the water supply and convince everyone the world was ending...
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