How Many Anarchists Out There?

[palotin]

This is a really basic question I've had on my mind for a while. Are there any even rough statistical estimates out there on how many 'anarchists' are in Western countries? I don't even know the methodology one would use to generate numbers. Just a long standing curiosity of mine.

[Nachie]

That's like asking how many juggalos are out there

[Joe Payne]

Well statistics I heard about a decade ago was in the United States, and it was like maybe about 10,000+ insurrectionary informally organized anarchists and about 300+ formally organized anarchists, and a couple thousand members in the IWW.

Worldwide though? That number is probably somewhere in the millions. The Syndicalist unions cover and represent millions of workers even today, so the movement is still substantial, adding to that number informally organized insurrectionary groups, especifist/platformist groups, syndicalist orgs (not unions) and other anarchist groups and federations, the numbers are up there.

[meow]

there are no anarchist. we all just pretend to throw bad opinion on socialists of all sort. we are actually all right wing statist.

no seriously. i dont know. no one could tell honestly. there is no way to estimate. we can count how many turn up to protest in black bloc. but we know not all of them are anarchist. we can count how many in "anarchist" organization. but we know many anarchist dont join them. we also know that many dont even keep formal membership (raan muthafucker!).

any guess is just a guess. good luck with that.

[this is an invasion]

I think there are around 6 or 7.

Five on a bad day.

[IllicitPopsicle]

Really? I thought there were at least ten.

[fa2991]

If you got all the self-identified anarchists in the world together you'd probably have enough people for a medium sized city, though that city would probably split up into a bunch of tiny communes within a week over ideological disputes and the question of whether or not all the restaurants in the city should be vegan organic.

[this is an invasion]

If you got all the self-identified anarchists in the world together you'd probably have enough people for a medium sized city, though that city would probably split up into a bunch of tiny communes within a week over ideological disputes and the question of whether or not all the restaurants in the city should be vegan organic.

So there would be like, neighborhoods and shit?

[ContrarianLemming]

I wouldn't say we're in the millions, though I think the amount of workers who would actively support anarchist revolution would be in the millions, not to much though. For example I don't think most members of the CNT actually considered themselves anarchists.

[NGNM85]

Not nearly enough.

[JacobVardy]

http://www.anarchistsurvey.com/ got 2,472 responses. Not sure what this means as it includes only anarchists who speak English, are willing to post information over the net and heard about the survey.

[ContrarianLemming]

http://www.anarchistsurvey.com/ got 2,472 responses. Not sure what this means as it includes only anarchists who speak English, are willing to post information over the net and heard about the survey.

I dyin to see the results!

[AK]

http://www.anarchistsurvey.com/ got 2,472 responses. Not sure what this means as it includes only anarchists who speak English, are willing to post information over the net and heard about the survey.
I think I filled this out when I was a Trotskyist :blink:

[ContrarianLemming]

I think I filled this out when I was a Trotskyist :blink:

You've come a long way.

[AK]

You've come a long way.
Actually, on becoming an anarchist, I found that I had agreed with anarchist principles for as long as I had been political. I just didn't wanna sound like an angsty teenager looking to riot. A lot of the Trotskyism was just mainly for the anti-Stalinism, anyway.

[ContrarianLemming]

I just didn't wanna sound like an angsty teenager looking to riot.

The number one cause of self hating leftism.

[AK]

The number one cause of self hating leftism.
Haha, yeah. That far-leftist disease thing was funny.

But to get back to the topic: this is quite a silly question. Even an approximate figure could be hundreds of thousands off. You must also remember that the figure can fluctuate wildly - and many workers could consider themselves to be anarchists or they sympathise with anarchists after seeing our propaganda at any time. Also, the approximate number could in fact be much lower due to the tons of "rebellious teens" who consider themselves anarchists without having read any theory whatsoever.

Also, anti-civ anarchists and primmies aren't anarchists. They are dickheads.