On the internet I don't see too many Anarchists give arguments past "communism doesn't work because communists are doomed to repeat the same exploitative power structures of the capitalist state" and "we dont know what an anarchist society will look like we gotta wait til we get there!" Which like...is not convincing to me at all. I've engaged in what was supposed to be consensus based decision making systems and there were a ton of flaws, though that's purely anecdotal.
So, I'd really like to have some suggestions on what to read that you think might really challenge where I stand/take anarchism more seriously. It might take me 5 years to get to them bc executive dysfunction but I really want to see if my mind can be changed on if it would be a better system from the get go than communism.
I think it would be super interesting to hear from anyone who shifted into anarchism from Marxism on why it made more sense to you
This is a valuable insight.
Formal power discrepancies do not spring into being out of nowhere; it usually emerges organically from informal power discrepancies. The main focus of anarchists has been to decry the formal sort, but they are largely silent or inept or even complicit when it comes to the informal sort.
Any anarchist praxis, which does not include mechanisms of preventing or narrowing informal power gaps, is going to be crucially deficient.