Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
other means of publicity and propaganda" (Dewey). Unless that is done,
Dewey continued, talk of democracy is largely beside the point. Politics will
remain "the shadow cast on society by big business, [and] the attenuation of
the shadow will not change the substance." Democratic fo rms will lack real
content, and people will work "not freely and intelligently, bm for the sake of
the work earned," a condition that is "illiberal and immoral." Accordingly,
industry must be changed "from a feudalistic to a democraric social order"
based on workers' control, free association, and federal organization, in the
general style of a range of thought that includes, along with many anarchists,
G. D. H. Cole's guild socialism and stich left Marxists as Anton Pannekoek,
Rosa Luxemburg, Paul Mattick, and others. Russell's views were rather similar,
in this regard.5
Problems of democracy were the primary focus of Dewey's thought and
direct engagement. He was straight ou( of mainstream America, "as American
as apple pie," in (he standard phrase. It is therefore of interest (hat the ideas he
expressed not many years ago would be regarded roday in much of the intellectual
culture as outlandish or worse, if known, even denounced as "Anti­
American" in inAuential sectors.
The latrer phrase, incidentally, is interesting and revealing, as is its recent
currency. We expect such notions in totalitarian societies. Thus in Stalinist
days, dissidents and critics were condemned as "anti-Soviet," an intolerable
crime; Brazilian nco-Nazi Generals and others like them had similar categories.
Bur their appearance in much more free societies, in which subordination to
power is voluntary, not coerced, is a far more significant phenomenon. In any
milieu that retains even the memory of a democratic culture, such concepts
would merely elicit ridicule. Imagine the reaction on the streets of Milan or
Oslo to a book entirled Anti-ftalianism or The Anti-Norwegians, denouncing
the real or fabricated deeds of those who do not show proper respect fo r the
docnines of the secular faith. In the Anglo-American societies, howeverincluding
Australia, so I've noticed-such performances are treated with
solemnity and respect in respectable circles, one of the signs of a serious deterioration
of ordinary democratic values.
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The ideas expressed in (he not very distant past by such outstanding figures
as Russell and Dewey are rooted in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism,
and retain their revolutionary character: in education, the workplace, and
every other sphere oflife. If implemented, they would help clear (he way to the
free development of human beings whose values are not accumulation and
domination, but independence of mind and action, free association on terms
of equality, and cooperation to achieve common goals. Such people would
share Adam Smith's contempt for the "mean" and "sordid pursuits" of "the
masters of mankind" and their "vile maxim": "All fo r ourselves, and nothing
for other people," the guiding principles we are taught to admire and revere,
as traditional values are eroded under unremitting attack. They would readily