I've been around a bit. Had my stint as an "anarcho-capitalist" and subsequent betrayal of that ideal (what was years seems like a stint now). Hey, we evolve. After listening to, gathering perspective knowledge from and hanging around whole other types of anti-statists on the web, including dirty commies, syndicalists, and free market socialists for a bit, here I am re-thinking about what it means to oppose "the state". It must be linked necessarily to whatever "the state" is.
I often see people act like, and I don't mean to create a straw-man argument.. but it sounds to me like they are taking something that reminds them of the government or something the government does, which is disliked, and then supposing that defines 'the state' and any behavior supposed by them to be similar is called 'statist' ". I don't think that would bring a complete look however on how to define "the state" as a historical institution or "stateless" societies vs. societies with a "state".
If you encounter some anarcho-communists they might have you convinced that private property protection is the state (rather than a historical outgrowth or something). If you talk to many anarcho-capitalists they will likely try to convince you that direct democracy is a state (rather than being described as face to face decision making) or that any act of vague "aggression" (actually conveniently predefined) is acting as the state. I can't help but feel that both their approaches scream out loud "greedy reductionism" toward defining "the state". I think it may be one reason they scream past each-other over the others supposed "statism" .
First before we define what "greedy" reductionism is, let's start with the term "reductionism" (I'm simply using wikipedia). That is "a philosophical position that holds that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents"
But "Greedy reductionism" was a term coined by Daniel Dennett who said that one of B. F. Skinner s claims was "greedy reductionist" or "trying to explain all the design (and design power) in a single stroke"
To further understand what Dennett meant be greedy reductionism we should note the context:
"In his earlier book Consciousness Explained, Dennett argued that, without denying that human consciousness exists, we can understand it as coming about from the coordinated activity of many components in the brain that are themselves unconscious. In response, critics accused him of 'explaining away' consciousness.This is perhaps what motivated Dennett to make the greedy/good distinction in his follow-up book, to freely admit that reductionism can go overboard while pointing out that not all reductionism goes this far"