Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

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CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM My personal visions are fairly tradirional anarchist ones, with origins in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism. Before proceeding. I have to clarifY what I mean by that. J do not mean the version of classical liberalism that has been reconstructed for ideological purposes. bur the original. before it was broken on the rocks of rising industrial capitalism, as Rudolf Rocker put it in his work on anarcho-syndicalism 60 years ago-rather accurately. I think.l As state capitalism developed in to the modern era, economic, political and ideological systems have increasingly been taken over by vast institutions of private tyranny that are about as close to the totalitarian ideal as any that humans have so far constructed. "Within the corporation," political economist Robert Brady wrote half a century ago, "all policies emanate from the control above. In the union of this power to determine policy with the execution thereof, all authority necessarily proceeds from the top to the bottom and all responsibility from (he bottom to the top. This is, of course, (he inverse of 'democratic' control; it follows (he structural conditions of dictatorial power." "What in political circles would be called legislative, executive, and judicial powers" is gathered in "controlling hands" which, "so far as policy formulation and execution are concerned, are found at the peak of the pyramid and are manipulated without significant check from its base." As private power "grows and expands," it is transformed "into a community force ever more politically potent and politically conscious," ever more dedicated to a "propaganda program" that "becomes a matter of converting the public .. to the point of view 191 of the control pyramid." That project, already substantial in the period Brady reviewed, reached an awesome scale a few years later as American business sought to beat back the social democratic currents of the postv{ar world, which reached the United States as well, and to win what its leaders called "the everlasting battle for the minds of men," using the huge resources of the Public Relations industry, the entertainment industry, the corporate media, and whatever else could be mobilized by rhe "control pyramids" of the social and economic order. These are crucially important features of the modern world, as is dramatically revealed by the few careful studies.2 The "banking institutions and moneyed incorporations" of which Thomas Jefferson warned in his later years-predicting that if not curbed, they would become a form of absolutism that would destroy (he promise of the democratic revolution-have since more than fulfilled his most dire expectations. They have become largely unaccountable and increasingly immune from popular interference and public inspection while gaining great and expanding control over the global order. Those inside their hierarchical command structure take orders from above and send orders down below. Those outside may try to rent themselves to the system of power, but have little other relation to it (except by purchasing what it offers, if they can). The world is more complex than any simple description, bur Brady's is pretty close, even more so today than when he wrOte.
GOALS AND VISIONS It should be added that the extraordinary power that corporations and financial institutions enjoy was not the result of popular choices. h was crarred by courts and lawyers in the course of the construction of a developmental stare that serves the interests of private power, and extended by playing one state against another to seek special privileges, not hard for large private insriultions. That is the major reason why the current Congress, business-run to an unusual degree, seeks to devolve federal authoriry to the states, morc easily threatened and manipulated. I'm speaking of the United States, where the process has been rather well studied in academic scholarship. I'll keep to that case; as far as I know, it is much the same elsewhere. We tend to think of the resulting structures of power as immutable, virtually a pan of na(Ure. They are anything but thaL These forms of private ryranny only reached something like their current form, with the rights of immortal persons, early in this cemury. The grams of rights and the legal theory that lay behind them are rooted in much the same intellectual soil as nourished the other twO major fo rms of 20th cemury totalitarianism, fascism and Bolshevism. There is no reason to consider this tendency in human affairs to be more permanenr than its ignoble brethren)
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CHOMSKY ON ANRRCHISM SELECTED AND E
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CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM PREFACE 5 INTR
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PREFACE pmential is stunted and def
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INTRODUCTION B working together in
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OBJECTIVITY AND LIBERAL SCHOLARSHIP
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OBJECTIVITY AND LI BERAL SCHOLARSHI
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LRNGURGE FIND FREEDOM human spirit
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LRNGURGE FIND FREEDOM In every anim
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LRNGUAGE AND FREEDOM
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LRNGUAGE AND FREEDOM other facultie
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LRNGURGE FIND FREEDOM 1. 1. 4 deriv
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LRNGUAGE AND FREEDOM ty, or even in
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THREE NOTES ON ANARCHISM (1970) U8
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM through (he taki
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM NOTES This essay
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM 27 For discussio
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THE RElEVANCE OF ANARCHO-SYNDICALIS
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