Anarchy in the U.S.A.

This Associated Press story (from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Web site) on left-anarchism (identified merely as anarchism) is pretty thin, though it undoubtedly does recognize a growing trend among anti-globalism, anti-capitalism activists. An interesting irony is that the one talking head the reporter goes to to disparage anarchism is Reason contributing editor and Cato Institute trade policy maven Brink Lindsey. Brink is a man (and an old friend) who is decidedly unsympathetic to anarchism, to be sure, but he is associated with ("linked," as the Justice Department might put it) institutions that have historically harbored and been sympathetic to devotees of anarchism—though an anarcho-capitalism that this story unfortunately doesn't recognize as existing.

Dumpster diving anti-capitalists who want to turn life into one long consensus-building meeting like the AP story's stars give anarchism a bad name. For copious links to Web resources on anarcho-capitalism, look here, and for an annotated bibliography on some of the tendency's leading strains and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, look here.