The nature of anarchism (Lefty Despair etc.)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Sep 26 11:15:38 PDT 2002


Dennis Perrin wrote:


> > What's up with my old pal Samuel E Konkin III? We used to correspond
>> about 10 years ago, but I haven't heard a word about him since.
>>
>> Doug
>
>Wow. Haven't heard that name mentioned in over a decade. Wasn't he the
>editor of The Libertarian, a big gold buff and somehow connected to
>Anarcho-Village in CA?

Something like that - right libertarian. Pro-capitalist.

I think the anarchists here are a bit too glib in dismissing their right-wing counterparts. They argue that modern big business capitalism is an authoritarian perversion of the pure free market - they really believe all that stuff about liberty, equality, and Bentham. (Never mind that such a free market never existed anywhere but in their heads.) So small enterprise, rampant competition, voluntary exchange, etc., equal freedom. It has fairly wide appeal in the U.S. - and has a lot in common with the Green Party's platform, in fact.

Doug



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list