Communism then defines a society in which there are communal forms for dealing with resources. Many communal forms exist where there are not communist governments. The Mondragon cooperatives in Spain and the thousands of worker-owned cooperatives in the United States, are viable alternatives to capitalism.

We see ourselves as inhabiting a complex social world that has some capitalist things going on in it as well as some socialist ones, some communist ones, and many where economics are not separated out of the broader fabric of life (such as sharing and gift giving, and mutual support).

The main argument is that capitalism is constituted by a varied of different practices, and so challenging capitalism needs to be about a variety of struggles. I draw on the important work of J.K. Gibson-Graham, who argues that we should model anti-capitalist struggle on feminist struggles.

We need to hold in our hearts the possibility of a better world, not because we have candy-coated the problems or lied about what we can accomplish, but because we know that we do often win and make a difference, and that all the good things we have in the world are the results of those who have had the courage and commitment to have done this work before us.

There is a cultural norm on the left of being afraid to declare victory, which is related to the binary of reform/revolution. Whereas reformists are winning small gains, revolutionaries don't want people to be satisfied with those small victories because they worry this will lead to acceptance of the bigger picture of capitalism domination, and so they find a way to turn every victory into a defeat. In the book, I call for a culture of declaring victory wherever we can.

Things like water and sewage systems require states in a large-scale society, but states are also a good mechanism for dealing with health care, education, public transportation, and infrastructure.

Anarchism as the name for an ideal total social form is a really complicated question. I have never found satisfying answers from anarchists about the definition of the state they are opposed to. Most are opposed to coercive forms of state power. Questions about large scale systems of organization and how they will be funded - those are questions it's hard to get anarchists to give good answers to.