Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
tern that provides support for poor mothers and children. That's under attack
in an effort to minimize the state. Well, anarchists can't seem to understand
that they are to suppOrt that. So they join with the ultra-right in saying "Yes,
we've got to minimize the state," meaning put more power into the hands of
private tyrannies which are completely unaccountable to the public and purely
totalitarian.
It's kind of reminiscent of an old Communist Party slogan back in the early
rhirties "The worse, rhe herter." So there was a period when rhe Communist
Party was refusing to combat fascism on the theory that if you combat fascism,
you join rhe social democrats and they are nor good guys, so "the worse, the
better." That was the slogan I remember from childhood. Well, they got the
worse: Hider. If you care abom the question of whether seven-year-old children
have food to eat, you'll support the state sector at this point, recognizing
that in the long term it's illegitimate. I know that a lot of people find that hard
to deal with and personally I'm under constant critique from the left for not
being principled. Principle to them means opposing the state sector, even
though opposing the state sector at this conjuncture means placing power into
the hands of private totalitarian organizations who would be delighted to see
children starve. I think we have to be able to keep those ideas in our heads if
we want to think constructively about the problems of the future. In fact, protecting
the state sector today is a step towards abolishing the state because it
maintains a public arena in which people can participate, and organize, and 213
affect policy, and so on, though in limited ways. If that's removed, we'd go back
to a [ ... J dictatorship or say a private dictatorship, but thar's hardly a step
towards liberation.
It seems that according to you we are in a position where if the state gains
power, corporate power loses and vice-versa ...
Pretty much.
J think you have not mentioned a third party in this competition of power:
the organized people. Let me give you an example. In Brazil, the health system
is state-run, partly by the fideral government, partly by the local city
government. Last year the mayor of Sao Pa ulo proposed a reformulation of
the city health system that consisted of doctors, nurses and other health workers
receiving their pay from the state, but running health centers on their
own. However they are allowed to pass the management of the centers to private
companies, if they fiel they are not able to run it properly. The Left
noticed immediately that that was a twisted way of privatizing the health
system, which is forbidden by the Constitution. At the same time libertarian
workers in the health system proposed, instead of privatizing or keeping
it state-owned that the health system should be self-managed by workers and