I've been criticized by many anarchists as believing that anarchism is impossible without affluence. On the contrary, I think affluence is very destructive to anarchism. If you are absorbed by that commodity world then you're not going to move toward any radical positions, you're going to move toward a stance of protectiveness.

I have no quarrel with libertarians who advance the concept of capitalism . I believe that people will decide for themselves what they want to do. The all-important thing is that they be free to make that decision and that they do not stand in the way of communities that wish to make other decisions.

I believe in a libertarian communist society.

The State is a professional apparatus that sets itself apart from the people and apart from the institutions that the people themselves create. It's a monopoly on violence that manages and institutionalizes social activities. The people are perfectly capable of managing themselves and creating their own institutions.

I say this ironically, not because I favor the State, but because people are not in the state of mind right now where they feel that they can manage themselves. We have to go through an educational process - which does not involve, in my opinion, compromises with the State. But if the State disappeared tomorrow by accident, and the police disappeared and the army disappeared and the government agencies disappeared, the ironical situation is that people would suddenly feel denuded.

My concern is to develop a North American type of anarchism that comes out of the American tradition, or that at least can be communicated to Americans and that takes into consideration that Americans are not any longer people of European background.

I am puzzled by people today who, after moralizing about the need for cooperation and goodwill and love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself, suddenly invoke the most primitive, barbarous motivations for any kind of progress.