In an anarchist society, that is a community without hierarchies and rulers, threats are handled by the community. So one person with a big stick would have to fight everyone else to establish their dominance.
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It is, a lot of people just have pseudo mystical beliefs about how people will act when there is no state. They like to imagine everything bad about humans is capitalism/the state/insert Boogeyman, not that the state and laws exist because we tried the alternative and no system at all always does work out to might makes right. A warlord always moves in to fill the power vacuum.
Some people are bastards and any system you create has to be created with the explicit assumptions that people are bastards. Some people just want to believe no one is a bastard or that there are not enough bastards to hurt the reasonable people. I think those people are wildly optimistic, and removing power structures does not remove the temptation to exert power or the ability, only one specific means.
There's a whole lot of different takes here already, so I'm just going to plug this very excellent book: Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life and bounce.
One thing to keep in mind is that any kind of government is at risk of being the the group with the bigger stick. A dictatorship only works because the group that supports the dictator keeps them in power. A democracy can still treat some of its citizens terribly, and the structure of the government makes is harder to oppose than "the guy with the bigger stick".
Answering the following question might help in clearing up misconceptions: what is anarchism to you ?
From there we can discuss whether or not your definition is correct, and address your question.