On 13 May Timothy C. May wrote:
By the way, lest there be any confusion about the term "anarchy," it is not a synonym for everyobody killing everybody else, etc. Rather, the term has a well-established meaning: "no head," as in no "arch" running things.
A 100+ years ago the anarchists (Kropotkin et al) were ousted from the mainstream socialist movement (Marx et al) mainly because they opposed strong government. Some years later came a decade of freak murders of several heads of state and other prominent persons by disillusioned anarchists. The image of anarchist = mad assassin has stayed in public mind ever since and will most probably not change in the near future. The original anarchists (tm) strongly denounced not only capitalism but private ownership of everything but your most intimate belongings (and perhaps your house, this was discussed a lot). There are still (dis)organized remnants of the traditional anarchistic movement around, at least in Europe. All this makes the term anarcho-capitalism rather difficult to interpret. Crypto-anarchy, if not more of a joke, might share a similar fate and forever associate to mad/criminal hacking instead of liberty by cipher.
Anarchy is about freedom and choice. It's really the norm, and not nearly as bad as it sounds. I'd say give it a try, but the fact is that you're practicing it right now. Think about it.
This is true for a literal interpretation of the word, freed of recent historical ballast. Or perhaps my knowledge of the English language is failing me. There might be a big difference between anarchy and anarchism. Anyway, in spite of interpretational difficulties, I welcome the rebirth of anarchism, the political passion of my youth, through strong crypto. //mb