[JimmiBaez]

DubiousDan:

When was libertarianism synonymous with anarchism?

In the United States, until 1971 when the Libertarian Party decided to steal a term used centuries before to mean 'anarchist' now associated in the United States with a desire for a smaller government and Glenn Beck.

[El Gilroy]

Anarchy, as far as I'm interested in it, is the people being free of manipulation or coercion outside of being protected from their potential attempts to harm each other.
A small, corruption-free (however that's done) government coordinating the economy and keeping up the infrastructure doesn't seem mutually exclusive with that. To me. If you see that differently, then obviously I'm not interested in your version of anarchism

[DubiousDan]

JimmiBaez :

In the United States, until 1971 when the Libertarian Party decided to steal a term used centuries before to mean 'anarchist' now associated in the United States with a desire for a smaller government and Glenn Beck.

Me:
I was thirty-six years old in 1971. Previous to that, I was unaware that libertarian meant anarchist. Of course, I was unaware of a lot of things back then. However, a little checking here and there, and I haven’t been able to find an example of libertarian used as a synonym for Anarchist. So enlighten me, if you please?
Oh, by Anarchist, I mean Anarchist.

[JimmiBaez]

I find this entire FAQ to be a very good read.

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA1.html#seca13

However, due to the creation of the Libertarian Party in the USA, many people now consider the idea of "libertarian socialism" to be a contradiction in terms. Indeed, many "Libertarians" think anarchists are just attempting to associate the "anti-libertarian" ideas of "socialism" (as Libertarians conceive it) with Libertarian ideology in order to make those "socialist" ideas more "acceptable" -- in other words, trying to steal the "libertarian" label from its rightful possessors.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Anarchists have been using the term "libertarian" to describe themselves and their ideas since the 1850's. According to anarchist historian Max Nettlau, the revolutionary anarchist Joseph Dejacque published Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social in New York between 1858 and 1861 while the use of the term "libertarian communism" dates from November, 1880 when a French anarchist congress adopted it. [Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, p. 75 and p. 145] The use of the term "Libertarian" by anarchists became more popular from the 1890s onward after it was used in France in an attempt to get round anti-anarchist laws and to avoid the negative associations of the word "anarchy" in the popular mind (Sebastien Faure and Louise Michel published the paper Le Libertaire -- The Libertarian -- in France in 1895, for example). Since then, particularly outside America, it has always been associated with anarchist ideas and movements. Taking a more recent example, in the USA, anarchists organised "The Libertarian League" in July 1954, which had staunch anarcho-syndicalist principles and lasted until 1965. The US-based "Libertarian" Party, on the other hand has only existed since the early 1970's, well over 100 years after anarchists first used the term to describe their political ideas (and 90 years after the expression "libertarian communism" was first adopted). It is that party, not the anarchists, who have "stolen" the word. Later, in Section B, we will discuss why the idea of a "libertarian" capitalism (as desired by the Libertarian Party) is a contradiction in terms.

[DubiousDan]

JimmiBaez :

I find this entire FAQ to be a very good read.

Me:
I didn’t. One of the reasons I stated “by Anarchist, I meant Anarchist” is because I meant one word which stands alone. There is no lead in a lead pencil and no gold in fool’s gold. I recognize libertarian socialists as anarchists. However that doesn’t mean that libertarian means anarchist, it means that libertarian socialism is a sub-set of anarchy. Some of the hyphenated or qualified anarchies I don’t recognize as anarchies. I don’t really understand this attraction of people for the label anarchist. If you have a social political philosophy which is not anarchism, why not call it what it is. The fundamental bedrock of anarchism is this, no individual or group of individuals has the right to compel any other individual or group of individuals to their will. This doesn’t mean that if someone attacks me I can’t fight back, or if some one seeks to deprive me of food or water which I feel I have a right to, and I realize this can become complex, then I have a right to defend myself. However, setting up a state in which people are forced to comply with certain rules is not anarchism as far as I am concerned. You have the right to withdraw, you don’t have the right to compel in anarchism. That doesn’t rule out highly complex social organization, as for example Proudhon’s Mutualism. It still has to pass the bedrock tests, and I don’t recognize the Objectionist mumbo jumbo rationalizations for slavery.
I’m not particularly concerned with what people called their publications or their organizations. I’m concerned with their beliefs. A lot of people didn’t want to use the word anarchist because of the nihilism problem. If they were anarchists and didn’t want to call themselves anarchists, I can understand that. However, that doesn’t make libertarian mean anarchist.
In the “FAQ” you listed, it seemed to me that somebody was trying to take the libertarian label from the Libertarians. There were libertarians before 1971. The dictionary gives the Libertarians the right to use their label.
As far as how far anarchy dates back, it goes back a bit farther than you seem to think. The name is not the thing named. The Tao Teh Ching is anarchistic. At least that’s what Archie Bahm says in his translation. From reading it, it becomes clear to me that he is right, so Anarchism goes back quite a while. I suspect that many of the first social organizations of Mankind were Anarchies. The Polar Inuit of Greenland were Anarchists, and far more so than any European post Roman anarchists.

As for me, the Libertarians are welcome to their label.