Anarchy necessarily requires the complete absence of a governmental organization to exist. The theory goes that the elimination of government allows for complete, or at least increased, freedom.
What anarchy does not take into account is the other half of the Control coin: society itself.
The only way anarchy could exist is if there was only one person in the world. The reason for this is that human nature naturally gravitates toward control and order; evidence for this can be seen hundreds of thousands of times throughout history. Genghis Khan is a good example of what can rise out of anarchy.
In history, the natural order of development from an anarchic society is to an authoritarian one. There doesn't have to be a "government" for control to be pushed on others, either; societal rules inevitably develop over time, and members of society are constrained by those rules. As any sociologist will tell you, where there are rules, a system of punishment for breaking them will develop.
Homo sapiens is a group-oriented species. It is impossible for us to operate for extended periods of time in a void. That's the "how" side of things; it's not possible. Now I'll get into the "why" side of things - why anarchy is impractical.
Progress as a species - whether technological, societal, or economic - depends on organization. The United States is highly advanced because of its highly specialized society (among other things), something that cannot occur in an anarchic society.
Further reading:
Hirshleifer, Jack. 1995. Anarchy and its Breakdown. The Journal of Political Economy 103 (February): 26-52.
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