Radical Mavericks

Post-Scarcity Anarchism, by Murray Bookchin. Berkeley: Ramparts Press. 288 pp., $2.95.

Anarchists are frequently on the defensive. The most shrill revolutionary faction, they seem always to occupy the losing side of history. Hounded by the state they reject, repelled by the revolutions they aid, the anarchists have been the marginal men of the Left.

Recently, however, anarchists like Murray Bookchin are speaking with unusual confidence, a result of the conviction that history has validated the anarchist analysis and opened the door to the anarchist utopia. The kids are dropping out of school; a new class of Lumpen fills the streets; technology is either burning out or blowing up; the state’s credibility is n...