Anarchism--literally, a society without government--is less a political philosophy than it is a temperament. Anarchists are defiant people who seek to organize for the purpose of destroying organization. For its adherents, anarchism means a grand struggle against evil, a plea for the "new," a secular crusade against the debasement of self, a fight against the degradation of mankind that organized society seems to represent. Anarchism is anti-politics, anti-economics, anti-authoritarianism in all forms. Anarchism is a mood of perpetual rebellion.

The decade of the sixties witnessed a...