THE ANARCHISTS.

• Author: Britschgi, Christian
• Position: DOCUMENTARY

Utopian political communities are hard to get off the ground, regardless of their ideological underpinnings. Trying to create them out of a drug- and boozefueled conference in a Mexican resort city doesn't make the task any easier.

That's the simple lesson of The Anarchists, a new HBO docuseries that follows a fractious community of American expat libertarians in Acapulco, Mexico, as they work to turn the "Anarchapulco" conference that launched in 2015 from a small, disorganized gathering of likeminded ideologues into a permanent staging ground for the anarcho-capitalist revolution.

Their number includes a rapping crypto enthusiast who works Austrian economics into his lyrics; a husband-and-wife team who want to raise their children Axiom, Meta, and Ira Belle in true freedom; and a drug legalization activist turned fugitive trying to stay one step ahead of the druglaw enforcers.

Together they're able to make Anarchapulco the destination for denizens of the weirder corners of the libertarian movement, from the remnants of the Ron Paul Revolution (the man himself makes a few cameos) to radical unschooling parents and bitcoin evangelists.

There's a lot to find charming in the documentary. We see parents teaching their...