Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play

James C. Scott

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012, 169 pp.

I often tell aspiring libertarians that they both can and should learn from people who are far removed from them ideologically. Indeed, if they fail to do so, then they are neglecting a vital part of their self-education. When asked whom I have in mind, I almost always mention James C. Scott. Two of Scott's earlier books, Seeing Like a State and The Art of Not Being Governed, are fascinating intellectual excursions for people of the libertarian bent, as well as for many others.

Scott continues in that vein with Two Cheers for Anarchism. If, in light of Scott's previous work, you have ever asked what exactly makes him tick, you will begin to get a sense of it here. Two Cheers is personal, reflective, and far removed from Scott's academic specialization, which lies in agrarian and subsistence societies and the cultures of resistance that they have often produced. Instead, this book addresses the familiar, everyday life of all-too-typical modern Europeans and Americans. He looks at it, though, with an "anarchist squint." And from that perspective, everything looks different.

Be warned, though, that he pulls no ideological punches whatsoever, and he makes no secret of his disdain for libertarians: