(2002-03-27) a

Some interesting Noam Chomsky bits: he defines Anarchism as a tendency in the history of human thought and action which seeks to identify Coercive, Authoritarian, and hierarchic structures of all kinds and to challenge their legitimacy, and if they cannot justify their legitimacy, which is quite commonly the case, to work to undermine them and expand the scope of Freedom... The term Libertarian as used in the US means something quite different from what it meant historically and still means in the rest of the world. Historically, the libertarian movement has been the anti-StatIst wing of the Socialist movement. Socialist Anarchism was Libertarian Socialism. In the US, which is a society much more dominated by business, the term has a different meaning. It means eliminating or reducing state controls, mainly controls over private tyrannies. Libertarians in the US don't say let's get rid of corporations (BigCo). It is a sort of ultra-rightism. Having said that, frankly, I agree with them on a lot of things. On the drug issue, they tend to oppose state involvement in the War On Drugs, which they correctly regard as a form of Coercion and deprivation of Liberty. You may be surprised to know that some years ago, before there were any independent left journals, I used to write mainly for the Cato Institute journal.