The phrase ‘analytical anarchism’ is so attractive that a number of different definitions are in circulation. The most logical seems to be the one that “uses the methods of analytic philosophy to clarify or defend anarchist theory” (Wikipedia). Such a definition would include writers like Jan Narveson and Anthony de Jasay but it may not include ultra-rationalists such as Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Peter Boettke defines analytical anarchism as “the positive political economy of anarchism, or simply, anarchism from the economic point of view.” This definition is used on the new website Analytical Anarchism, which contains an interesting list of working papers, anarchist literature, and, of course, a link to Boettke’s seminal paper ‘Anarchism as a Progressive Research Program in Political Economy‘.
A good introduction to serious anarchism, and many of its modern and contemporary representatives, is the massive reader ‘Anarchy and the Law (The Political Economy of Choice).’
