[ben_w]

I'm not sure how you can say The Culture isn't an anarchy given its only rules are "don't force someone to do something they don't want to", "don't kill someone permanently or we will watch you closely to make sure you don't do it again", and "don't literally read someone's mind or we will call you names and not invite you to parties".

That said, I do agree that there's a necessary selection effect to make the books interesting, as the fundamental problem of writing about a good day in a utopia is that the writer's idea of what that even means is unlikely to sell any copies — so I think of these books in a similar vein to how others say that Asimov's robot books are a demonstration of all the ways that the premise (in the latter's case, the Three Laws) don't really work as well as one might hope.

As I say, what I hope for is the promise of The Culture, but I don't know how to get there… or even if one can.

[wizzwizz4]

Anarchy is an "-archy": it's about the structure of governance, not about laws.

[ben_w]

There are several lenses through which to view anarchy.

My prior point was to illustrate the essential lack of enforcement of any rules, hence by the definition of anarchy as a "society without coercion".

From the lens you are using, that of governance, The Culture definitely matches "stateless society based on voluntary free association" — this is, as shown though historical real-world usage, compatible with "direct democracy", where votes have no intermediaries.

This voting structure was demonstrated in the books: there was a direct-democratic decision about "should we have a war?", most said yes, those who voted "no" were free to disassociate, and not merely in a purely theoretical fashion as the technology at their disposal enabled complete independence to a degree utterly impossible for any human on Earth. In the author's own words, "the Culture kind of fades out at the edges", rather than having a discrete boundary in the way we are used to on Earth today.