also it's true I don't have data or models to throw at you - no anarchist regimes from which to gather data, it's hard to model something which rejects models - but if you're really interested it is, seriously, worth reading about the Spanish anarchists, by far the best real world case study. read about them from both an anarchist & a non-anarchist viewpoint.
Yeah, and an interesting aside is how the Spanish anarchists were attacked by both sides during the civil war as both the (statist) left and the right view anarchism as a threat, in that its axiomatically opposed to hierarchical structure and control and intended to be genuinely democratic.
I was going to start a thread about this actually... In my eyes, history isn't about the struggle between left vs right, its about elites versus populations - vanguardism in other words - small elites with a handy line in utopian philosophy who decide whats best for everyone else and manipulate or force populations to support, accede or accept their rule. With communism/marxism/maoism (esp. Leninism), the right of the vanguard to rule is built in to revolutionary structures, and force is used to impose that rule. In 'democratic' societies, the vanguard is hidden but implicit, and PR, image manipulation and the manufacture of consent achieves the same aims - that is, the right of elites to ignore or co-opt the wishes of majorities (the bewildered herd) so that they can go about their business - primarily the dissemination of particular economic policies.*
The challenge for anarchism (which of course also has utopian bent) is to create structures and institutions which are capable of fiercely resisting the tendency to slip into hierarchical modes of governance - to prevent vanguardism. The obvious criticism is (of course), that people are selfish and stupid, they don't know whats best for them, they need to be controlled, they want strong leadership etc... all bollocks of course - legions of volunteers around the world participate in all kinds of unpaid work to help others, and people are well capable of making intelligent decisions about their own future when given the opportunity.
I guess the main obstacle to these ideas in the west (other than powerful institutions that would inevitable oppose such a movement) is that the very idea of political participation has been deliberately eroded and society has been atomised to the point where it's almost impossible to conceive of the kind mass democratic participation necessary to bring about significant change.
*Sorry for the blatant obviousness of this.