REASON: What about people like Murray Rothbard—anarcho-capitalists?
BOOKCHIN: I would prefer not to give any reply to that, mainly because Murray and I have a bit of a history together, and I think there've been some grave misunderstandings, perhaps on both our parts. I would rather see them resolved than develop into heated controversy—despite, I think, a not very generous letter that appeared over his signature and Mr. Williamson Evers's signature in Liberty, the Massachusetts Libertarian Party publication. That letter grossly misrepresented my position on Marxism as being a "necessary ideology." That's archaic, to say the least. I regard Marxism as the most sinister and the most subtle form of totalitarianism. There are people, of course, who profess to be libertarian Marxists. I believe they mean very well, and I even write in their periodicals; but I write very militantly that I regard Marxism as a very subtle form of what I would call the totalitarian ideology—all the more subtle because it professes to advance the notions of freedom. I don't think that the Soviet Union and China are accidents, aberrations; I think they follow from Marxism-Leninism. I think that Leninism comes out of Marx's basic convictions.
REASON: If you won't comment directly on Murray Rothbard's theories, will you comment on the general idea of a capitalist society that is also an anarchist society? Suppose we had a free society whose people chose to divide their labor, specialize in producing certain goods and services, and trade among themselves?
BOOKCHIN: I'd have no quarrel with them. I would say that that is not capitalism—though there are many different definitions. One would call that, in Marxist language—and there's a sense in which Marx does contribute to the fund of human knowledge, and we can no more dismiss him than we can Hegel or Rousseau or Spinoza or Darwin; you don't have to be a Darwinian to appreciate Darwin's views, and I don't have to be a Marxist to appreciate what is valid in a number of Marx's writings-and Marx would call that a form of simple commodity production rather than capitalism. But if you want to call it capitalism, do so. I don't want to get enmeshed in any semantic issues. My feeling is that whatever people elect to do, insofar as they don't deny the rights of others, every effort should be made to defend their right to do it.
I believe in a libertarian communist society. But, I believe that any attempt on the part of a libertarian communist society to abridge the rights of a community—for example, to operate on the basis of a market economy of the kind that you describe—would be unforgivable, and I would oppose the practices of such a society as militantly as I think any reader of your publication would. I want to make that very clear. On the other hand, where an attempt is made to expropriate, as was done in so much of the world, you know, in the name of free enterprise—in the names of God, whiskey, commerce, and Western civilization, to use Kipling's language—that, of course, I would oppose.
I have no quarrel with libertarians who advance the concept of capitalism of the type that you have advanced. 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 could live beautifully in a society of the kind that you have described, as well as in a collectivistic one. However, if that collectivistic one assumed any totalitarian forms, any authoritarian forms whatever, I would oppose that. And not only that: I would join your community in fighting it. Let me make it very plain that if socialism, which is what I call the authoritarian version of collectivism, were to emerge, I would join your community. I would migrate to your community and do everything I could to prevent the collectivists from abridging my right to function as I like. That should be made very clear.
