Anarchism: Revolutionizing the Right

Anarchism has come to the right.

The once-comfortable abode of Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, and Richard Nixon is being revolutionized by an unprecedented number of right-wing libertarians and anarchists. Committed to a Jeffersonian creed of decentralism, tolerance, and laissez-faire, thousands of right-wingers are turning on their conservative leadership, denouncing conservative principles of discipline, authority, and a strong state, and in many cases repudiating America as vehemently as the radical left.

Right-wingers in California recently announced support for Tim Leary over Ronald Reagan for governor. Leading libertarian journals have called for armed resistance to taxation and the draft. A New York leader of the 1969 libertarian revolt in YAF now condemns the U. S. as a monster worse than Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany. Every major libertarian organization recognizes at least some aspects of U. S. foreign policy as imperialist and many favor and end to U. S. attempts to quash wars of liberation in the Third World.

The revolt has made shambles of the conservative alliance formed by Wiliam F. Buckley early in the 1950's. To form the alliance, Buckley mobilized all potential allies of the conservatives-including the libertarians.

The rise of the libertarians can be traced mainly to the publication of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in 1958. Buckley had repeatedly vilified the Randist movement for its orthodoxy in his National Review, but it was sufficiently large and committed to be worth courting. Besides, the "Objectivists," as they called themselves, were too independent-and a Buckley-dominated political coalition would tend to bring them into the conservative fold. In 1960, at the Buckley estate in Sharon, Connecticut, the fledgling Young Americans for Freedom adopted planks designed to bring the Objectivists and other libertarians into their organization.

Thus, as the stage was being prepared for Goldwater's nomination by the Republican Party in 1964, Buckley, F. Clifton White, and William Rusher (publisher of National Review ) had effective control of a youthful right-wing coalition whose members ranged from rabid anti-Communists to near-anarchists. All enthusiastically supported Goldwater-even Ayn Rand, supremely contemptuous of politics, said that he was the first presidential candidate since Thomas Jefferson that she respected.

In the bitter aftermath of the Gold-water defeat, however, the libertarians split in three directions. The ideologically pure-the orthodox Objectivists-set out on a course that divorced them entirely from coalition politics; the second course libertarians took was to continue working with conservatives. Some libertarians took a third course and began exploring prospects for a dialogue with the New Left.

It was the third path that led directly to the anarchist revolt now shaking the right.

The growth of radicalism on the left had fascinated many right-wing libertarians. Like conservatism, radicalism grew out of disillusionment with liberal policies-though the disillusionment sprang from a different perspective.

The shift to widespread radicalism on the left began as large numbers of students confronted two peculiarly persistent domestic problems-racism and poverty. At first, the students believed that they had only to bring attention to the areas of neglect-and liberalism would take care of the rest. But as more and more students became personally involved with the system, liberalism's real political silhouette began to emerge.

Political dishonesty, the corrupt judicial system, deadening public schools, debilitating programs ostensibly in existence to help the poor, and the futility of the political process itself all surfaced-destroying the illusions carefully implanted by upper middle class high schools. In response, the left fought to decentralize, to depoliticize justice, to free children from the tyranny of public schooling, and to organize cooperatives. Its efforts were frustrated by liberalism's refusal to dismantle the machinery of power, prompting many on the left to wonder about the legitimacy of that power.

Barry Goldwater's chief speechwriter, Karl Hess, wrote in the August 1968 issue of Ramparts . "What first attracted me to the Left was the familiar ring of what was being said there. Decentralization. The return to the people of real political power-of all power." The more Hess saw of the left, the more he liked it, eventually leaving the libertarian right to become an anarcho-syndicalist.

Other right-wing libertarians took a similar path. The head of the University of North Carolina's Conservative Club resigned to become an active New Leftist; an entire YAF chapter at the University of Kansas voted to become an SDS chapter; the head of YAF at Brooklyn College became a left-wing anarchist; and an Ayn Randist who had spied on SDS in New Jersey for the House Committee on Un-American Activities became a member of SDS.

But most libertarians have stayed with the right and still strongly believe in laissez-faire capitalism. Abridgement of the laissez-faire ethic, they believe, has brought this country a host of large and dangerous problems: pollution-which interferes with the rights of the non-polluters; imperialism abroad-as in Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala; and imperialism at home-in the form of police oppression, drug and sex laws, and political rule over the ghetto.

They view America's inefficient and community-destroying highway system as a creation of the Leviathan state, and the monotony and sterility of the media as a result of government licensing. They think that consumers would be far better protected from corporate abuses by cooperatives and testing services such as Consumer's Report than by the present system of government regulation. Essentially, they believe that the contemporary American society "capitalist" society is nowhere near being a laissez-faire society.

Despite philosophical differences between the libertarian left and right, libertarians in general became increasingly sympathetic during the late '60's to what the left was saying. The Vietnam War played an important role in radicalizing many libertarians. As hundreds of thousands died in Asia-victims of America's fight to protect "freedom" under the Thieu-Ky regime-the true nature of the American government finally came home.

A final element in the radicalization process was the growing body of right-wing anarchist theory. As professors Murray Rothbard and Leonard Liggio, and younger theorists Roy Childs Jr. and Jarret Wollstein demolished the philosophical and economic justifications for the state, thousands of libertarians recognized further gluts between themselves and the conservatives.

Hence, by August 1969, when Young Americans for Freedom met in St. Louis for their ninth annual convention, libertarian YAFer's were on the verge of revolt. Approximately 300 of the 1200 delegates at the convention were members of a "Libertarian Caucus." From the outset it was apparent to them that the tone of the convention would not be one of libertarianism-of the 12 speakers scheduled, none was libertarian. The Caucus decided to hold a "mini-convention" of its own on the night of the opening ceremonies and invited Karl Hess to speak.

Despite the show of support for Hess's appearance-nearly a quarter of the delegates attended his discussion-the second day of the convention was also uniformly conservative in tone. The Libertarian Caucus quietly made preparations for the third and final day, when votes would be taken for the new board of directors and YAF platform. Among the platform proposals drawn up by the Libertarian Caucus were:

Immediate withdrawal from Vietnam;

Denunciation of domestic fascism as a twin evil to international communism;

Legalization of marijuana;

And active resistance to the draft.

On the final day of the convention, all the libertarian candidates were defeated and every libertarian plank was rejected. As the voting on the final plank-advocating active resistance to the draft-ended, an anarchist grabbed a microphone in the center of the hall. He asserted that it was the right of any person to defend himself or herself from violence, including the violence of the state, and took what was apparently a draft card from his wallet. Then, standing high on a chair, he brought a cigarette lighter to the card and lit it.

The traditionalists were too stunned to do anything but sit silently for ten or fifteen seconds. Then, with a scream of "Kill the commies!" irate conservatives rushed the anarchist dissenter. They were blocked by a group of libertarians, and pushing and swinging broke out. The convention dissolved in an uproar, and the libertarian traditionalist split in YAF became irreparable.

The radicals who seceded from YAF formed two organizations-the Society for Individual Liberty and the Radical Libertarian Alliance. Of the two groups, SIL emerged largest and most influential, taking a more centrist position than RLA. The two organizations formed the basis for most of the events on the libertarian right that have taken place since.

The first and most spectacular event occurred in New York on Columbus Day, 1969. Hundreds of Radical Libertarian Alliance members assembled under a black flag to debate the relative merits of communism and individualism-a large number of the RLA members were, by then, communalists-and whether or not to adopt revolutionary tactics. The fric-

tions between the right and left RLA members were tremendous, and the meeting exploded as the left demanded immediate action. Led by Karl Hess, over fifty leftist members walked out of the conference and staged a sit-in at Fort Dix, in New Jersey. Rothbard, who with Hess had been a founder of RLA, denounced the move on tactical grounds-and very shortly thereafter, RLA fell apart as a national organization.

SIL, in the meantime, was gaining members-it now has over 3000. While remaining purely pro-capitalist in ideology, it became progressively more anarchist-adopting a black flag with a dollar sign as its official flag. A series of SIL-sponsored conferences featuring well-known right-wing libertarian speakers met with success in all parts of the country. SIL was active in organizing national resistance to the census of 1970-in Hawaii, the head of SIL's census resistance organization is currently under indictment for census evasion. SIL has also become heavily involved in tax resistance. In the Boston area, SIL is organizing an anti-tax rally on Boston Common for April 15.

Other organizations, not directly related to either SIL or RLA, have also been active. The California Libertarian Alliance held a "Left-Right Festival of Liberation" last year that featured Paul Goodman, Karl Hess, and former SDS president Carl Oglesby. In Arizona, Student Libertarian Action Movement members started a center for the elderly and established close ties with "street people." The Phoenix Anarchist Coalition in Michigan has harassed and been harassed frequently by police. Perhaps most interesting of all are the "Nomads" and "Troglydytes"-libertarian dropouts who are currently living in the wilderness or underground. Their life-style subject of a recent article in Esquire -represents an unusually pure form of the laissez-faire creed. They have escaped the state by retreating to regions its tentacles do not touch, and have found fulfillment there.

The majority of right-wing anarchists, however, are not dropping out. With increasing activism, they are fighting to destroy institutions of political power.

But whether they succeed or not, one thing is certain-the right wing of Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley and Richard Nixon won't be the same.