The anarcho-socialists have equally strong criticism of their capitalist counterparts. "I think the anarcho-capitalist ideal is a repressive, savage system," Chomsky says. "It doesn't permit slavery but it allows people to fall into a position of virtual slavery. It allows arbitrary kinds of oppression, as long as these are mutually agreed upon." Chomsky adds that as cooperatively owned and operated institutions develop, they will be so successful that no coercion will be necessary to maintain the system.

Black Rose is one forum for the anarcho-socialists. The five-year-old organization consists of about a dozen working people and students and has a mailing list of 250 people. In addition to the lecture series, Black Rose has sponsored anarchist study groups and will begin publication of a magazine this year.

"We don't really have a 'group line', "Marty Blatt, a member of Black Rose, says. "We are not all socialist-anarchists. Some of us have been more influenced by the American individualist tradition. But I think we are all anti-authoritarian and critical of capitalism and communism. Marxist-Leninist communism is authoritarian, bureaucratic and hierarchical. Marxists don't reject domination and authority-they want to be authorities."

One of the main concerns of Black Rose is educating people in a "new sensibility." "The process of instituting a system of voluntary cooperation has to be two-pronged," Blatt said. "Institutional forms of power like monopolies and the state have to be over-thrown. But there's also the state within us. People believe in authority, and we have to overcome this."

Ann Kotell ran the entire libertarian course before joining Black Rose over a year ago. Starting with objectivism, which is a philosophical approach to libertarianism derived from Ayn Rand's theory of "rational egoism," she moved on to MLP and from there to Black Rose.

"In some fundamental ways, there's overlap in the goals of MLP and Black Rose," Kotell said. "But I felt uncomfortable with various right-wing priorities a lot of people had in the party. They just concentrated on money matters. They don't seem to see that they're saying it's wrong for the government to do certain things, but it's O.K. for General Motors. A hierarchical system of authority is just as bad in IBM as it is in government. They're not talking about how various attitudes are bad no matter who has them."

The split in the anarchist movement has left little common ground where anarcho-capitalists, who are very concerned with establishing a free market system, and Anarcho-socialists, who are more intent on abolishing all forms of hierarchy and domination, can meet. But all the anarchist groups share a belief in the sovereignty and dignity of the individual, and this belief is the source of their hope.

"The individualist ethos in the United States is very strong," Blatt says. "We'd like to expand upon that tradition. Respect for the individual has to be broadened to include respect for other individuals. A system of mutual aid is the best form of realizing our own individualism."

"There is going to be a second American revolution and a new constitution to limit government," Cosmides predicts. "That was the whole point of the first American revolution."

Indeed, anarchism echoes a common theme of American thinkers, from Thomas Jefferson, who said that the best government is the one which governs least, to Henry David Thoreau, who expanded Jefferson's statement to express an ideal remarkably similar to that of the anarchists: "That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."