Back

Next we're going to meet a monster and do our best to kill it. This monster is the ghost of the man John Locke, a philosopher known as "the father of liberalism". We're going to spend some time dragging Locke through the mud because his ideas became a linchpin in our whole system of property, justifying atrocities that continue even as we read this together now. It's not that Locke was single-handedly responsible for our plight, but he does serve as an example of the kind of men who used high-sounding words and "moral" arguments to draw us all into a nightmare that enables *them* to "live the dream".

We'll start with this excerpt from an article by political economist @blair_fix "Can the World Get Along Without Natural Resources?" (by all means read the entire excellent article, but for now this excerpt serves our purposes):

"The original sin

From its outset, the field of political economy was not designed, in any meaningful sense, to understand resource flows. Instead, it was designed to explain *class relations*. The goal of early political economists was to justify the income of different classes (workers, landowners and capitalists). They chose to do so by rooting this income in the ‘production of wealth’. What followed from this original sin was centuries of conflating income with ‘production’. This conflation is what allowed Robert Solow to proclaim that the world could “get along without natural resources”.

Let’s retrace this flawed thinking. It starts with a failure to understand property rights. Political economists largely understand property as a productive asset — a way of thinking that dates to the 17th-century work of John Locke (or perhaps earlier). Locke proclaimed that property rights stemmed from ‘natural law’. A man, Locke argued, has a natural right to own what he ‘produces’:
_____

...every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. For this Labour being the unquestionable Property of the Labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.
_____

Locke’s thinking became known as the ‘labor theory of property’. This theory (and its derivatives) is why political economists misunderstand the role of natural resources. Here’s what happens. If we accept Locke’s argument that you have a right to own what you produce, it follows that your wealth should stem from your output.

Most political economists after Locke accepted this reasoning (at least in part). That meant that the debate was not about whether wealth was ‘produced’, but rather, about *which* ‘factors of production’ were ‘productive’. The physiocrats thought land alone was productive. Marx insisted that only labor was productive. Neoclassical economists proclaimed that, alongside labor, capital too was productive. The debate between these schools played out over centuries. The problem, though, is that it’s based on a flawed premise. The debate assumes that value is ‘produced’. (It’s not.)

To see the flaw, let’s go back to Locke’s theory of property rights. Notice that it’s not really a ‘theory’ in the scientific sense. It doesn’t explain *why* property rights exist. It explains why they *ought* to exist. Locke proclaimed that a man ought to own what he produces. That is his ‘natural right’.

This change from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ is important. It means that we’re not dealing with a scientific theory. We’re dealing with a system of *morality*. The philosopher David Hume was perhaps the first to understand this moral sleight of hand. He noticed that moral philosophers made their arguments more convincing by framing what ‘ought’ to be in terms of what ‘is’. Here’s Hume reflecting on this trick:
_____

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence.
_____

With David Hume’s observation in mind, let’s return to Locke’s ‘theory’ of property. It’s not a ‘theory’ at all — it’s a moral treatise. According to Locke, we *ought* to own what we produce. But that doesn’t mean that we *do*.

To see the consequences of this mistake, we need an actual scientific theory of property rights — a theory that explains why property exists, not why it ‘ought’ to exist. The most convincing theory of private property, in my opinion, comes from the work of Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler. To understand property, Nitzan and Bichler argue that we should turn Locke’s idea on its head. Property isn’t a ‘natural right’. It’s an act of *power*.

Property, Nitzan and Bichler observe, is an act of exclusion. If I own something, that means that I have the right to exclude others from using it. It’s this exclusionary power that defines private property. Here are Nitzan and Bichler describing this act:
_____

The most important feature of private ownership is not that it enables those who own, but that it disables those who do not. Technically, anyone can get into someone else’s car and drive away, or give an order to sell all of Warren Buffet’s shares in Berkshire Hathaway. The sole purpose of private ownership is to prevent us from doing so. In this sense, private ownership is wholly and only an institution of exclusion, and institutional exclusion is a matter of organized power.
_____

When we think like Nitzan and Bichler, we get a very different view of income. Recall that most political economists see property in terms of the ‘things’ that are owned. They then argue that income stems from these ‘things’. Nitzan and Bichler upend this logic. Property, they argue, is about the *act* of ownership — the institutional act of exclusion. Income stems from this exclusionary act. We earn income from the *fence* of property rights, not from what’s inside the fence. In other words, if you can’t restrict access to your property, you can’t earn income from it."

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2020/06/18/can-the-world-get-along-without-natural-resources/

5/30

Looking further back we see that humans all over the globe have been actively managing our environment successfully and sustainably for many millennia, which reveals falsehoods embedded in the Lockean (white, European, patriarchal) view of humanity, history and land use. From the research article "People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years":

"The current biodiversity crisis is often depicted as a struggle to preserve untouched habitats. Here, we combine global maps of human populations and land use over the past 12,000 y with current biodiversity data to show that nearly three quarters of terrestrial nature has long been shaped by diverse histories of human habitation and use by Indigenous and traditional peoples. With rare exceptions, current biodiversity losses are caused not by human conversion or degradation of untouched ecosystems, but rather by the appropriation, colonization, and intensification of use in lands inhabited and used by prior societies. Global land use history confirms that empowering the environmental stewardship of Indigenous peoples and local communities will be critical to conserving biodiversity across the planet.

"Archaeological and paleoecological evidence shows that by 10,000 BCE, all human societies employed varying degrees of ecologically transformative land use practices, including burning, hunting, species propagation, domestication, cultivation, and others that have left long-term legacies across the terrestrial biosphere. Yet, a lingering paradigm among natural scientists, conservationists, and policymakers is that human transformation of terrestrial nature is mostly recent and inherently destructive. Here, we use the most up-to-date, spatially explicit global reconstruction of historical human populations and land use to show that this paradigm is likely wrong. Even 12,000 y ago, nearly three quarters of Earth’s land was inhabited and therefore shaped by human societies, including more than 95% of temperate and 90% of tropical woodlands. Lands now characterized as “natural,” “intact,” and “wild” generally exhibit long histories of use, as do protected areas and Indigenous lands, and current global patterns of vertebrate species richness and key biodiversity areas are more strongly associated with past patterns of land use than with present ones in regional landscapes now characterized as natural. The current biodiversity crisis can seldom be explained by the loss of uninhabited wildlands, resulting instead from the appropriation, colonization, and intensifying use of the biodiverse cultural landscapes long shaped and sustained by prior societies. Recognizing this deep cultural connection with biodiversity will therefore be essential to resolve the crisis."
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023483118

Those in power have been telling us that *we* (people in general or "human nature") are the problem. Popular narratives insist that humans and agriculture of any kind are intrinsically and inevitably destructive to the biosphere.

The actual evidence tells us otherwise:

@HeavenlyPossum on "Tells" (archeology):
"And here these farmers sat, year after year, millennia after millennia, in one place. These were people working with the same Neolithic agricultural package, growing the same sorts of wheat and raising the same sorts of sheep, in the fields around their tells.
They did not die out. They did not exhaust their soils to extinction. Many of them — especially the tells in the Danube Basin that constitute “Old Europe” — developed no states, as some people believe is inevitable from wheat cultivation. If they did leave, they left for reasons unrelated to the success of their way of life. But, as I noted, some of these tells are still inhabited, like the central citadel of Aleppo in Syria."
https://kolektiva.social/@HeavenlyPossum/113367947919067023

The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?
-Across the globe, vast swathes of land are being left to be reclaimed by nature. To see what could be coming, look to Bulgaria-
Many of the landscapes people now tend to think of as untouched, from the savanna lands of equatorial Africa to the deep Amazon rainforest, have already been deeply transformed by human presence. “The essential role that people play in ecology is the critical thing, and it’s been ignored,” Ellis says. “The most biodiverse places left on Earth – this is almost universally true – have Indigenous people in them. Why? Well, they conserve a lot of that biodiversity and actually produce it. They maintain that heterogeneous landscape.”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/nov/28/great-abandonment-what-happens-natural-world-people-disappear-bulgaria

On Navajo Lands, Ancient Ways Are Restoring the Parched Earth
https://e360.yale.edu/features/navajo-natural-infrastructure-dryland-streams

Milpas
Based on the agronomy of the Maya and of other Mesoamerican peoples, the milpa system is used to produce crops of maize, beans, and squash without employing artificial pesticides and artificial fertilizers...
A milpa is a field, usually but not always recently cleared, in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once including maize, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and bean, melon, tomatoes, chilis, sweet potato, jícama, amaranth, and mucuna ... Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary...
The milpa, in the estimation of H. Garrison Wilkes, a maize researcher at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, "is one of the most successful human inventions ever created."
The concept of milpa is a sociocultural construct rather than simply a system of agriculture. It involves complex interactions and relationships between farmers, as well as distinct personal relationships with both the crops and land. For example, it has been noted that "the making of milpa is the central, most sacred act, one which binds together the family, the community, the universe ... [it] forms the core institution of Indian society in Mesoamerica and its religious and social importance often appear to exceed its nutritional and economic importance."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milpa

Evidence confirms an anthropic origin of Amazonian Dark Earths
First described over 120 years ago in Brazil, Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs) are expanses of dark soil that are exceptionally fertile and contain large quantities of archaeological artifacts... Archaeological research provides clear evidence that their widespread formation in lowland South America was concentrated in the Late Holocene, an outcome of sharp human population growth that peaked towards 1000 BP
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31064-2

The Supposedly Pristine, Untouched Amazon Rainforest Was Actually Shaped By Humans
"Perhaps [...] the very biodiversity we want to preserve is not only due to thousands of years of natural evolution but also the result of the human footprint on them," Iriarte says. "The more we learn, the more the evidence point to the latter."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pristine-untouched-amazonian-rainforest-was-actually-shaped-humans-180962378/

Lost Cities of the Amazon Discovered From the Air
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lost-cities-of-the-amazon-discovered-from-the-air-180980142/

Easter Island study casts doubt on theory of ‘ecocide’ by early population
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jun/21/easter-island-study-casts-doubt-on-theory-of-ecocide-by-early-population

The truth about Easter Island: a sustainable society has been falsely blamed for its own demise
https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-easter-island-a-sustainable-society-has-been-falsely-blamed-for-its-own-demise-85563

Debunking the “Ecocide” Myth: The Real Story of Easter Island
https://scitechdaily.com/debunking-the-ecocide-myth-the-real-story-of-easter-island/

Climate change, not human population growth, correlates with Late Quaternary megafauna declines in North America
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21201-8

Study finds Indigenous people cultivated hazelnuts 7,000 years ago, challenging modern assumptions
Researcher says evidence challenges narratives of wild, untouched landscapes in what is now British Columbia
"What this is saying is ... intentional agricultural-type food production is part of our heritage for longer than ancient Egypt."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-hazelnut-research-1.7392860

All these examples just scratch the surface. Here is an absolutely mammoth thread from @pvonhellermannn with many more examples from around the world showing "that the history of our relationship to nature has not been one of unilinear destruction; and that destruction is not 'human nature'":
Posts 1-21: https://mastodon.green/@pvonhellermannn/109410840331192595
Thread continues here (posts 22-42): https://mastodon.green/@pvonhellermannn/109508169070569262
Thread continues here (posts 43-52): https://mastodon.green/@pvonhellermannn/109535265169676919

Note: some of the links in Pauline's thread are no longer working, but I was able to find alternatives. If you are seriously diving into her thread, you can check this post for alternate links:
https://kolektiva.social/@RD4Anarchy/114032517680702524

Rather than human nature, agriculture, or over-population, the cause of our current nightmare of environmental destruction originated with a specific group of people who had the power to enforce their exploitation and pillaging over the entire globe eventually. We'll look more later at the disastrous results of colonialism and capitalism.

9/30

"Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169

Highlights:

- The common notion that extreme poverty is the “natural” condition of humanity and only declined with the rise of capitalism rests on income data that do not adequately capture access to essential goods.

- Data on real wages suggests that, historically, extreme poverty was uncommon and arose primarily during periods of severe social and economic dislocation, particularly under colonialism.

- The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.

- In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, wages and/or height have still not recovered.

- Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements.

Abstract:

"This paper assesses claims that, prior to the 19th century, around 90% of the human population lived in extreme poverty (defined as the inability to access essential goods), and that global human welfare only began to improve with the rise of capitalism. These claims rely on national accounts and PPP exchange rates that do not adequately capture changes in people’s access to essential goods. We assess this narrative against extant data on three empirical indicators of human welfare: real wages (with respect to a subsistence basket), human height, and mortality. We ask whether these indicators improved or deteriorated with the rise of capitalism in five world regions - Europe, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and China – using the chronology put forward by world-systems theorists. The evidence we review here points to three conclusions. (1) It is unlikely that 90% of the human population lived in extreme poverty prior to the 19th century. Historically, unskilled urban labourers in all regions tended to have wages high enough to support a family of four above the poverty line by working 250 days or 12 months a year, except during periods of severe social dislocation, such as famines, wars, and institutionalized dispossession – particularly under colonialism. (2) The rise of capitalism caused a dramatic deterioration of human welfare. In all regions studied here, incorporation into the capitalist world-system was associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality. In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, key welfare metrics have still not recovered. (3) Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began several centuries after the rise of capitalism. In the core regions of Northwest Europe, progress began in the 1880s, while in the periphery and semi-periphery it began in the mid-20th century, a period characterized by the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements that redistributed incomes and established public provisioning systems."

edited 8 Oct 2024 to add this side note:

You may encounter pro-capitalism arguments that offer supposed evidence from data presented at a site called "Our World In Data" (often quoted by mainstream journalists). Do not take anything from that site at face value! The data presented is often incomplete, cherry-picked, manipulated, and not standardized properly. Biases are ignored and uncertainties treated as fact. Here is a revealing article about the people and agenda behind that site:

The Unbearable Anthropocentrism of Our World in Data
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/26/the-unbearable-anthropocentrism-of-our-world-in-data/

21/30

If you're not already a student of anarchism, then you probably have some very negative ideas about "anarchy" or anarchism. It is beyond the scope of this project to mount a comprehensive defense or explanation of anarchism, but we also don't want to leave you hanging without some guideposts towards further understanding.

Updated 21 February 2025 to include this new article from Crimethinc framing the concept of anarchism in the context of what's happening in the U.S. right now under the Trump/Musk administration:

Become an Anarchist or Forever Hold Your Peace
https://crimethinc.com/2025/02/21/become-an-anarchist-or-forever-hold-your-peace

Here are a couple popular introductions:

"Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!"
by David Graeber
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you

"To Change Everything"
https://crimethinc.com/tce

A site about TV tropes is an unexpected place to find it, but here is a pretty decent and thorough overview of anarchist theory and history. It describes different tendencies and schools of thought within anarchism. I might have some quibbles, and any given anarchist is likely to disagree with some parts, but overall it's both very well-informed and very informative:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/Anarchism

Here are some pieces dealing with specific common concerns about anarchism:

@HeavenlyPossum on Anarchism and Leadership
https://kolektiva.social/@HeavenlyPossum/113103845709064779

Ask an Anarchist
A good collection of thoughts and links from the Neighborhood Anarchist Collective's website:
https://neighborhoodanarchists.org/ask-an-anarchist/
NAC on Mastodon: @naceugene

Anarchists Are Not Naive About Human Nature
https://anarchopac.com/2022/02/28/anarchists-are-not-naive-about-human-nature/

The Conspiracy of Law by Howard Zinn
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/howard-zinn-the-conspiracy-of-law

Anarchism and Democracy
https://anarchopac.com/2022/04/15/anarchism-and-democracy/

David Graeber on democracy:
There Never Was a West
Or, Democracy Emerges From the Spaces In Between
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-there-never-was-a-west

Here is a different take on democracy. This book is not really an introductory sort of text, more like internal anarchist discourse, but as such it offers revealing insights into actual anarchist ideas, practices and experiences. Featuring many fascinating examples and analysis from recent history, grounding it in real life struggle, not just theory.
"From Democracy To Freedom"
The Difference Between Government and Self-Determination
https://crimethinc.com/books/from-democracy-to-freedom
Free PDF: https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/books/from-democracy-to-freedom/from-democracy-to-freedom_screen_single_page_view.pdf

Here is a rich survey of anarchistic principles and practices in action in the real world, past and present: "Anarchy Works"
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works

For further research here is a very good reading list ranging from basic introductions to specialized aspects and history of anarchism:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KDEM4AzinLVFQZGDljFriiMwWFn73IIIlp26LwEasK0/edit

30/30
But wait, there's more! Continue exploring the following appendices...

Appendix: EcOnOmIcS!!1!!

"Mainstream economists are not interested in describing reality, they are interested, ultimately, in telling people how to behave. They actually are moralists more than scientists, but they pretend to be scientists, and they use moralistic language - "rational behavior" - to describe actions that any other sort of moralist would consider the essence of immoral behavior."
- David Graeber

If you have ever been told to "go learn some economics!", this post is for you. Here are links to a surplus of valuable thoughts on the subject, starting with the @blair_fix piece that was excerpted in the fifth post of this thread, in case you didn't read the whole thing then:

Can the World Get Along Without Natural Resources?
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2020/06/18/can-the-world-get-along-without-natural-resources/

A mathematician on the "free market" economic model, excellent thread from @magitweeter
https://mastodon.social/@magitweeter/111653879323307502

Revealing paper from Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan on how both liberal/neoclassical and Marxist economists fail at describing anything actually real when it comes to capital:

Capital accumulation: fiction and reality
"What we need now are not better tools, more accurate modelling and improved data, but a different way of thinking altogether, a totally new cosmology for the post-capitalist age."
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue72/BichlerNitzan72.pdf

David Graeber: Against Economics
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-against-economics

Interesting piece about what supply and demand misses, with important insights about value and market power, poverty and inequality:

Bargaining Power and Prices: A Response to Sanyazi and Carson
https://c4ss.org/content/58918

Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/

Free Market Genocides: The Real History of Trade
https://evonomics.com/free-market-genocide-the-real-history-of-trade/

GDP and the Idolatry of Growth from @dsdamato https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/25/gdp-and-the-idolatry-of-growth/

The Lie At The Heart Of Consumer Society
https://indica.medium.com/the-lie-at-the-heart-of-consumer-society-1a6fe24d832f

The Problem With Economic Models from @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all-models-are-wrong/#some-are-useful

David Graeber: What is the meaning of money?
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-note-worthy-what-is-the-meaning-of-money

Here's another article from @blair_fix that really belongs here:

The Ritual of Capitalization
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2021/06/02/the-ritual-of-capitalization/

For an extensive deep dive into capitalist economics, here is a very thorough examination from An Anarchist FAQ, very much worth your time:

What are the myths of capitalist economics?
https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionC.html

"State Capitalism: The Wages System Under New Management" by Adam Buick and John Crump
https://files.libcom.org/files/State%20Capitalism.pdf
The focus of this short book is to argue (very successfully IMO) that individual private ownership is not a defining feature of capitalism and that countries such as China, The Soviet Union (this was published in 1986), Cuba, Vietnam, etc, though they may identify as "socialist" and are called "communist" by many are in fact simply another form of capitalism called "state capitalism". In the process of making this argument, this book also became an excellent general reference for understanding what capitalism really is, how capitalist economics work, what socialism really is and isn't, and plenty of fascinating and clarifying historic context.

I would be remiss not to mention:
"Debt: The First 5,000 Years" by David Graeber, an absolute must-read to better understand the history of debt and money.
https://we.riseup.net/assets/393727/David+Graeber+Debt+The+First+5+000+Years.pdf

Appendix 6: POLICE!

The institution of police that we have now has only existed for around 200 years, but many people have been conditioned to accept it as a natural and necessary fact of life and have trouble accepting the idea of abolishing the police, even if they strongly support major (dare I say utopian) police reform. Constantly echoing around the Fediverse are debates around questions like "what would you replace police with?" or "what would you do about violent crimes?"

Let's examine the real origins and purposes of police, and the truth about what they actually do and don't do.

Origins of the police - David Whitehouse
"Excellent text examining the creation of the first police forces, which took place in England and the US in just a few decades in the mid-19th century. And explaining that they were not brought into being to prevent crime or protect the public, but primarily to control crowds: the working class, white and black."
https://libcom.org/article/origins-police-david-whitehouse

Police are not primarily crime fighters, according to the data
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/

Police Have No Duty to Protect the Public
https://prospect.org/justice/police-have-no-duty-to-protect-the-public/

The Kids The Guns Are For
The same police force that failed Uvalde children is arresting peaceful student protesters at UT Austin. It's not about safety. It's about order.
https://www.momleft.com/p/the-kids-the-guns-are-for

Evidence that curtailing proactive policing can reduce major crime
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0211-5

A little roundup of some of the ways police play a “necessary role” in society. (sarcastically titled thread of links compiled by @HeavenlyPossum)
https://kolektiva.social/@HeavenlyPossum/110809880758838358

The Body Camera: The Language of our Dreams (64 page pdf from the Yale Journal of Law & Liberation)
Did you know that police forces were pushing to implement body cams on their own, before they were pressured to do so by activists for police reform? To understand why, I highly recommend this very well-researched and revealing article by Alec Karakatsanis penetrating the facade of police reform in the specific case of body cams.
Excerpts from the introduction:
Most people would prefer a society with less government surveillance, violence by employees of the state, and waste of public resources. And yet they all keep growing despite decades of “reform.” It is my uncomfortable suggestion in this article that they all keep expanding in part because of these “reforms.” ... By situating the rise of the police body camera within its actual legal, political, and economic contexts, I suggest that the body camera is one of the most important Trojan horses in contemporary U.S. history. ... All of it happened under the guise of making the police bureaucracy more “accountable” and “transparent.”
https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/f/4764/files/2024/07/Alec-Karakatsanis_The-Body-Camera-FINAL.pdf

The End of Policing Means the End of Capitalism — Some Likely but Rarely Discussed Economic Effects of Abolition by @AdrianRiskin
https://chez-risk.in/2023/08/24/the-end-of-policing-means-the-end-of-capitalism-some-likely-but-rarely-discussed-economic-effects-of-abolition/

Alternatives to Police
A compilation of case-studies on alternatives to cops. A long bibliography for further reading is also included.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rose-city-copwatch-alternatives-to-police

The End of Policing
This book by Alex Vitale falls short of addressing fundamental conditions such as the state, rule of law, and capitalism, and so its proposed solutions are somewhat shallow and flimsy, and despite the title it never quite fully embraces complete abolition of police. Nevertheless it remains a valuable resource as a detailed survey of the vast landscape of death, damage and abuse caused by police (which has only gotten worse since 2017 when this book was published). Notably this book makes its argument against police from a more conventional, non-anarchist context, demonstrating that police abolition is not merely a fringe ideology of extreme radicals but an idea that makes sense even in more mainstream, pragmatic liberal terms.
https://files.libcom.org/files/Vitale%20-%20The%20End%20of%20Policing%20(Police)%20(2017).pdf

The institution of police is closely associated with a belief in Rule Of Law. Here are a couple essays on that important context:

Already shared earlier in this thread, this classic piece "The Conspiracy of Law" by Howard Zinn is also very appropriate here.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/howard-zinn-the-conspiracy-of-law

Take Your Pick: Law or Freedom
How “Nobody Is above the Law” Abets the Rise of Tyranny
https://crimethinc.com/2018/11/09/take-your-pick-law-or-freedom-how-nobody-is-above-the-law-abets-the-rise-of-tyranny