"Let me just say I don't really regard myself as an anarchist thinker. I'm a derivative fellow traveller, let's say." -- Noam Chomsky, "The Relevance of Anarcho-Syndicalism" (1976)
When someone calls Chomsky an anarchist, this quote's maybe in the back of my head, but so what? Communication necessarily simplifies. It's approximate, and being uber-precise here is usually a few decimal places too many.
> Albert has many interesting things to say, but what he has said about
> anarchism isn't very interesting and isn't very connected to
> contemporary anarchism.
When I think of anarchism, I don't think of crystallized historical strains but rather certain general concepts. (Self-management, illegitimacy of unjustified authority, etc.) He explicitly writes about these anarchist themes all the time -- and more importantly to me, sensibly discusses the limits of anarchism.
Incidentally, one thing Michael Albert worked on is ontopic to religion -- religions provide a vision to strive towards. (Among other things.) I think his discussions of "economic vision" may be useful here. (He may not be entirely pleasant to communicate with... when challenged, he seems to get kinda longwinded, sloppy, and arrogant and my eyes glaze over... but I personally think his work is overall pretty brilliant and lucid.) http://www.zmag.org/instructionals/econvision/id4.htm
Your Mileage May Vary...
Tayssir