individualist anarchism

[Tahir Wood]

I have just been reading some articles on 'individualist anarchism' which I never knew about until recently. I was wondering if anyone else is knowledgeable about this strand of thought, based on Mises and 'Austrian economics' and Murray Rothbard. What interests me is finally finding a concrete confirmation of what I had long thought, namely that the term 'libertarian' provides exactly a point where extreme leftwing thinking and extreme rightwing thinking converge, so that left to right is not a continuum but rather a circle. Actually I'm quite delighted to have this idea illustrated for me. The extreme leftwing elements are opposition to the state and all politics, including a radical abstentionism from parliamentarianism (which I applaud), and the extreme rightwing elements include support for not only capitalism and private property, but also American isolationism.

I take it as given that these people no longer have any connections with the communist anarchist tradition, but I was wondering whether they have much influence - I take it that this is mainly an American phenomenon. And is it a million miles away from Chomsky's position, I wonder.

Tahir