Books: The Ardent Anarchist

THE COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS (175 pp.)—Paul Goodman—Random House ($3.95).

DRAWING THE LINE (III pp.)—Paul Goodman—Random House ($1.50).

"The organization of American society," writes Paul Goodman, 51, roving lecturer, author and professional dissenter, "is an interlocking system of semi-monopolies notoriously venal, an electorate notoriously unenlightened, misled by mass media notoriously phony, and a baroque state waging cold war against another baroque state."

Before Greece and North Korea, before Hungary or the Berlin Wall, this sort of cumulative indictment might have evoked sage nods and won its author a reputation for fearless thinking. But to a cold...