Prepping has often been politically associated with right-wing libertarians or the extreme right. The individualist tendency to prepare for extreme scenarios has often been based on a naive interpretation of the black swan theory. The individualist wants to save himself (most of them are men), their family and maybe some friends. Right-wing Libertarian preppers project the idea that people become savages when a crisis hits. For example, war often makes the defenders more organised, building ad-hoc systems and using previously learned skills and helping the weak survive—everything else that the primitive idea preppers project onto other people and society.

From Dawn of everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow:

Hobbes’s Leviathan, published in 1651, is in many ways the founding text of modern political theory. It held that, humans being the selfish creatures they are, life in an original State of Nature was in no sense innocent; it must instead have been ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ – basically, a state of war, with everybody fighting against everybody else. Insofar as there has been any progress from this benighted state of affairs, a Hobbesian would argue, it has been largely due to exactly those repressive mechanisms that Rousseau was complaining about: governments, courts, bureaucracies, police. This view of things has been around for a very long time as well. There’s a reason why, in English, the words ‘politics’ ‘polite’ and ‘police’ all sound the same – they’re all derived from the Greek word polis, or city, the Latin equivalent of which is civitas, which also gives us ‘civility,’ ‘civic’ and a certain modern understanding of ‘civilization’. Human society, in this view, is founded on the collective repression of our baser instincts, which becomes all the more necessary when humans are living in large numbers in the same place. The modern-day Hobbesian, then, would argue that, yes, we did live most of our evolutionary history in tiny bands, who could get along mainly because they shared a common interest in the survival of their offspring (‘parental investment’, as evolutionary biologists call it). But even these were in no sense founded on equality. There was always, in this version, some ‘alpha-male’ leader. Hierarchy and domination, and cynical self-interest, have always been the basis of human society. It’s just that, collectively, we have learned it’s to our advantage to prioritize our longterm interests over our short-term instincts; or, better, to create laws that force us to confine our worst impulses to socially useful areas like the economy, while forbidding them everywhere else.

Right-wing libertarian preppers reflect a neo-liberal capitalist society where pursuing individual freedom based on Hobbesian ideas is the final destination. Right-wing libertarian preppers consider themselves opposed to power and often do not trust the government, while their foundational concepts are based on a narrative shaped by those in power. The masculinity of libertarian preppers is based on a petro-masculine identity which is kept intact to fuel capitalist consumption. It often becomes a fantasy-driven pursuit of freedom which requires a lot of consumption to maintain the bug-out backpack, the custom-built bunker etc.

The ecology of freedom

From Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom:

In the end, however, we must escape from the debris with whatever booty we can rescue, and recast our technics entirely in the light of an ecological ethics whose concept of “good” takes its point of departure from our concepts of diversity, wholeness, and a nature rendered selfconscious-an ethics whose “evil” is rooted in homogeneity, hierarchy, and a society whose sensibilities have been deadened beyond resurrection. Insofar as we hope to resurrect ourselves, we are obliged to use technics to bring the vitality of nature back into our atrophied senses. Having lost sight of our roots in natural history, we must be all the more careful in dealing with the means of life as forms of nature: to discern our roots in the sun and wind, in minerals and gases, as well as in soil, plants, and animals. It is a challenge not to be evaded-notably, to see the sun as part of our umbilical cord to power just as we discern its role in the photosynthetic activities of plants.

With the continuous degradation of our environment and the present climate crisis, it’s essential to recognise that the state and the ruling class are not on most people’s side. With record profits for oil companies and several new licenses for oil and gas, it’s clear that governments are seeking profit over solving climate change. This requires another type of mindset that hasn’t been explored much in writing. 

An anarchist prepper is a leftist approach to educating, helping, building networks and building infrastructure when the state does not provide what is needed to face climate change, war or any other black swan event that most likely will be a result of climate change.

Degrowth is short-term, perfectly aligned with the anarchist prepper, and requires creative solutions and skillsets to use existing materials and infrastructure in new ways. While Degrowth is built around a different type of state, it also allows for self-organising to a large degree. 

Let the prepping begin …

Prepping from a leftist anarchist perspective would mean:

Helping people become more self-sufficient through education and sharing knowledge in self-organised groups.
Starting a local open group and helping to share information on how to build infrastructure, grow your food, live more sustainably, and save seeds and food for black swan events are just a few examples of how it can operate.

Building out infrastructure to help communities become more self-sufficient facing climate change and its effects.
Becoming skilled in building infrastructure and creating alternative spaces where it’s needed will be helpful in many scenarios. 

Building international networks and sharing information regarding the most efficient ways to create a degrowth or anarchist society.
Sharing information and methods can be one of the most important ways to build a better society. So let’s start here; contact me on social media or by email to join the group or create your own.

Seek out the right sources of information
In a chaotic information landscape, it’s hard to know what are good sources and information. For prepping, gathering old and new knowledge and sharing it is an important skill worth pursuing. Helping others to find the correct sources of information is also essential.

Consider the differences in (a global) society and help those with fewer resources first. 
If any acute scenario occurs, helping the most precarious individuals in our society should be a priority regardless of their political or religious leaning.

Actively advocate for degrowth and try to influence politics
While many anarchists are opposed to politics and the state, it can be efficient to find the most adaptable political solution and advocate for that next to your anarchist leaning. Degrowth offers many solutions that an anarchist can find useful, and it’s more likely to attract the general citizen towards degrowth than a fully-fledged anarchist society. 

Focus on solutions, not conflict and utopia
While civil resistance is essential, it can be as effective to focus on building out solutions (not capitalist growth solutions, of course). It’s easy to dream up an anarchist utopia, but the actual work lies in the practical, often dull work required to create a more anarchist society. This does not mean starting a startup, but it means starting local initiatives and building scalable solutions that other groups can quickly adopt worldwide. There are plenty of examples of this, and gathering a list of possible solutions and how-to guides would be a good starting point. 

Create the necessary aesthetics
Aesthetics around movements often end up becoming unrealistic and utopian (see Solarpunk). While it’s important to dream up a new political reality, we are in need of immediate solutions. That means embracing ad-hoc solutions as aesthetics. Artists, designers and architects can have an important role in shaping this imagination based on today’s society.

The goal of the anarchist prepper is to create a new political reality, enjoy the process of becoming more self-sufficient together and help fight climate inaction. Anarchism has often been defined in direct opposition to the state (and it still is, of course), but climate change needs a different approach. Opposing corporations and undemocratic governmental action is essential and should be continued. What is also needed is to create the society we need to live in to survive.