Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

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CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM every variety, has looked forward to the dismantling of state power. Personally, I share that vision, though it runs directly counter to my goals. Hence the tension to which I referred. My short-term goals are to defend and even strengthen elements of state authority which, though illegitimate in fundamental ways, are critically necessary right now to impede the dedicated efforts to "roll back" the progress that has been achieved in extending democracy and human rights. State authority is now under severe attack in the more democratic societies, but not because it conflicts with the libertarian vision. Rather the opposite: because it offers (weak) protection to some aspects of that vision. Governments have a fatal flaw: unlike the ptivate tytannies, the institutions of state power and authority offer to the despised public an opportunity to play some role, however limited, in managing their own affairs. That defect is intolerable to the masters, who now feel, with some justification, that changes in the imernarional economic and political order offer the prospects of creating a kind of "utopia for the masters," with dismal prospects for most of the rest. It should be unnecessary to spell out here what I mean. The effens are all too obvious even in the rich societies, from the corridors of power to the streets, countryside, and prisons. For reasons that merit attention but that lie beyond the scope of these remarks, the rollback campaign is currently spearheaded by dominant sectors of societies in which the values under attack have been realized in some of their most advanced fo rms, the English-speaking world; no small irony, but no con- 193 tradiction either. It is worth bearing in mind that fulfillment of the utopian dream has been celebrated as an imminem prospect from early in the 19th cemury (I'll return briefly to that period). By the 1880s, the revolutionary socialist artist William Morris could write: I know it is at present the received opinion that the competitive or "Devil take the hindmost" system is the last system of economy which the world will see; that it is perfection, and therefore finality has been reached in it; and it is doubtless a bold thing to fly in the face of this opinion, which I am told is held even by the mOSt learned men. If history is really at an end, as confidently proclaimed, then "civilization will die," but all of history says it is nor so, he added. The hope that "perfection" was in sight flourished again in the 1920s. With rhe strong suppOrt of liberal opinion generally, and of course the business world, Woodrow Wilson's Red Scare had successfully undermined unions and independent thought, helping to establish an era of business dominance that was expected to be permanent. With the collapse of unions, working people had no power and little hope at the peak of the automobile boom. The crushing of unions and workers' rights, often by violence, shocked even rhe right-wing British press. An Australian visitor, astounded by the weakness of American unions, observed in
GOALS AND VISIONS 1928 that "Labour organization exists only by the tolerance of employers . .. h has no real part in determining industrial conditions." Again, the next few years showed that the hopes were premature. But these recurrent dreams provide a model that the "col1nol pyramids" and their political agents seek to reconstitute today. 4 In today's world, I think, the goals of a committed anarchist should be to defend some state institutions from the anack against them, while trying at the same time ro pry them open to more meaningful public participation-and uhimarely, to dismantle them in a much more free society, if the appropriate circumstances can be achieved. Right or wrong-and that's a maner of uncertain judgmenr- this srand is not undermined by the apparent conflict between goals and visions. Such conflict is a normal feature of everyday life, which we somehow try to live with bur cannot escape. THE "HUMANISTIC CONCEPTION"
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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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INTRODUCTION out being concerned ab
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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 1. 22 shabby, an
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM bourgeoisie. It
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM 1. 28 remarks by
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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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