Some interesting Noam Chomsky bits: he defines Anarch Ism as a tendency in the history of human thought and action which seeks to identify Coerc Ive, Authoritar Ian, 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 Libertar Ian 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 Social Ist movement. Socialist Anarch Ism 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 Coerc Ion 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.

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