For the record, this is a great summation of why I'm not an anarchist: because fundamentally, I think the best way to balance the conflicting needs of safety and connection is to have external structures that can be totally separate from our personal and communal chosen bonds. If you give that impersonal structure the power to enforce a common law, you end up reinventing a state. It doesn't have to be a capitalist state--personally, I like socialism--but you do end up there if you remove the element of choice. Sometimes certain things need to not be optional, like whether someone who leaves a community is entitled to their financial share, or whether we take care of people who are so broken that they become wildly unpleasant to interact with.
Thing is, you don't need malice to create an abusive situation. You don't need to construct a narcissist or a person who is always an abuser or even someone who doesn't love the person they're hurting. Conflicts, deeply dysfunctional situations, and abuse happen even in well meaning groups of generally altruistic, honest individuals, especially when people are operating beyond their individual thresholds in terms of the physical, cognitive, and emotional labor that they are trying to provide.
In particular, it is extremely common for people with complex trauma to feel that they are valuable only insofar as they can provide valuable labor to the community so they aren't easily replaceable, which generally winds up making them load-bearing community members... load-bearing community members who are relatively prone to meltdowns if they split or burn out. Which is common: if you think your only value is your labor, you can't withdraw that labor if you run into your reserves or you lose your community, so burnout with this particular pathology is quite high...
(I'm talking about me, by the way, and maybe a dozen other people I know, with varying levels of self awareness and determination to Not Do That. It's a common, common sort of person, especially in circles that care sincerely about building a more just world. It's not always a story that ends badly, but the rails are there.)
You cannot select these issues out of your community by only letting the right people in. They will pop up, no matter what you do. Even if you can magically make sure that everyone in your community is 100% honest and sincere and intends the best, you will find yourself in these situations. At these times, what matters is what you do about it--and as with any emergency, what you do when it gets real bad is strongly influenced by what you do when things are only a little bad.
