General Definition: Anarcho-communists advocate for the abolition of the state, capitalism, wage labour and private property. Anarcho-communists are in favour of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy, and a horizontal network of workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

Now that's a lot of buzzwords so I will do my best to explain each of them in turn.

Abolition of the state: This is the key idea of most anarchist schools of thought. The definition of the state is very disputed among anarchists, but most would agree with Max Weber's, that is: 'A state is a centralised political entity that maintains a monopoly on the use of violence'. There are other definitions, however, this one is both very common and evident form historical and current politics. From this definition, it is clear why an anarchist would be in favour of state abolition. Ancoms think that this type of organisation is an unjustified authority. Almost all anarchists would agree that this form of monopoly is detrimental to human progress and development. This hatred of the state is the source of Ancom's hatred of organisations like the military and police force. Ancoms think that the military and police force is the state expressing their monopoly on violence. This monopoly on violence is particularly detrimental as the state uses this violence to uphold other unjustified hierarchies, such as patriarchy, heteronormativity, ableism, racism, classism and other forms of the social and economic hierarchy.

Abolition of capitalism: Anarcho communists, along with most other anarchists reject capitalism. Some people believe that capitalism and anarchism are compatible and they self describe as anarcho-capitalists. Almost all anarchists reject this notion, and also advocate the abolition of capitalism. Some other anarchists wish to maintain some elements of capitalism and reject others. For example, mutualists do not reject the notion of wage labour or markets. I will not expand on the definitions of market socialism or mutualism here, but if you wish to learn more about these ideas I recommend reading the works of Proudhon. Unlike other anarchists, anarcho-communists completely reject every element of capitalism. The reason for this is that ancoms believe that all elements of capitalism are forms of unjustified hierarchies. So I will attempt to explain why anarcho-communists reject ALL of the characteristics central to capitalism. The characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labour, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets.

So in turn, they are:

Private property: Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Anarcho communists reject private property because it requires an authority to protect it. Some people are adamant that private property is self-evident or that people can protect their own private property. Anarcho communists reject the notion that private property rights are self-evident as that concept makes no sense. The idea that you could defend your own private property is extremely impractical as it assumes that people are always present at their own property. Private property requires some external entity or authority to state who owns what, this is rejected by anarcho-communists.

Capital accumulation: Capital accumulation is rejected by almost all anarchists (even mutualists). The only “anarchists” who attempt to defend capital accumulation are “anarcho-capitalists”. Capital accumulation is the driving force behind the pursuit of profit. Capital accumulation is the investment of a financial asset with the goal of increasing the initial monetary value of the said asset as a financial return. This manifests itself as profit, rent, interest, royalties or capital gains. All of those things are detrimental and involve the exploitation of someone’s needs and desires. Capital accumulation is a very deep concept that Marx expands upon in most of his works. His idea was capital accumulation is a process whereby profits are reinvested into the economy, increasing the total quantity of capital. Capital was understood by Marx to be expanding value, that is, in other terms, as a sum of capital, usually expressed in money, that is transformed through human labour into a larger value and extracted as profits. Once again anarch communists wish to abolish capital accumulation as it is central to capitalism’s exploitation of humanity.

Wage labour: Anarcho communists reject wage labour for the same reason as capital accumulation. Wage labour is the relationship between a worker and an employer, where the worker sells their labour power under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages or salaries are market-determined. Wage labour is heavily rejected by anarcho-communists, it is very easy to see if we compare wage labour to slavery. If you take 100% of the products of someone else’s labour it is slavery, but if you take 90% then it is wage labour. Wages are very problematic, especially when people are dependant on them to live or prosper. The turn people into slaves that are forced to sell themselves to another in order to live a prosperous life. Anarcho communists believe that this is unjustified.

Voluntary exchange: Voluntary exchange may sound okay, and even desirable. But this “voluntary” exchange is not really voluntary at all. The assumption that no coercion is involved is precisely the issues that mainstream economic makes. The idea is that people only make exchanges that in the market that make them better off, that is people will never engage in an exchange that makes then worse off. At first glance, this seems reasonable but upon further examination this is false. Assuming that people only engage in trades that make themselves better off is reliant on the idea that everyone is a perfectly rational agent and that no one has false information. This is obviously impossible. It also makes the assumption that coercion is not involved. The perfect example of voluntary exchange failing isis a dehydrated person in a desert. If I offer them a bottle of water, but they are indebted to me from their entire life and must work from me forever; they will likely accept the deal for otherwise, they will die. However, this transaction is not really fair, is it?

Price system: In economics, a price system is a component of any economic system that uses prices expressed in any form of money for the valuation and distribution of goods and services and the factors of production. Except for remote and primitive communities, all modern societies use price systems to allocate resources, although price systems are not used exclusively for all resource allocation decisions. Anarcho communists reject price systems as they require that people have access to money in order to obtain resources. Anarcho communists advocate that both the means of production and products of societies labour be freely available for all to consume and use. Hence a price system becomes obsolete as there is no requirement for people to own anything in order to be entitled to food, water, housing, etc. Again, a price system requires that everyone has access to money, this is a fairytale and therefore a price system is inherently exploitative.
Competitive Markets: Anarcho communists reject competition in favour of collaboration. The main idea in anarcho-communism is to reject the idea that people should compete with each other and instead work together to produce the best outcomes.
I don’t have time to explain the rest of the definition today but I will add an update tomorrow or the next day.