Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

GOALS AND VISIONS
understand what led a pre-capitalist figure like Smith to warn of the grim consequences
of division oflabor, and to base his rather nuanced advocacy of markets
in part on the belief that under conditions of "perfect liberty" there would
he a natural tendency towards equality, an obviolls desideratum on elementary
moral grounds.
The "humanisric conception" that was expressed by Russell and Dewey in
a more civilized period, and that is familiar to the libertarian left, is radically
at odds with the leading currents of contemporary thought: the guiding ideas
of the totalitarian order crafted by Lenin and Trotsky, and of the state capitalist
industrial socieries of the WesL One of these systems has fortunately collapsed,
but the other is on a march backwards to what could be a very ugly
future.