Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
That's sort of related. That's a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, in the
English speaking world and the United States. One dream of anarchism-and
the only kind that survived-was ultra-right anarchism, which you see in the
libertarian parry, which is just loved by the big corporations and the investment
firms and so on. Not that they believe in it. They know perfectly well
that they'll never get rid of the state because they need it fo r their own purposes,
but they love to use this as an ideological weapon against everyone else.
So the libertarian parry is very warmly accepted within mainstream business
circles who really ridicule it privately because they know perfectly well that
they're not going to survive without a massive state subsidy, so they want a
powerful state. Bur they like the libertarian ideology which they can use as a
battering ram against everyone else. If you actually pursued the ideals of the
libertarian parry you would create the worst totalitarian monster that the world
has ever seen. Actually, I have lots of personal friends there. For years, the only
journals I could write in were ultra-right libertarian journals because we agree
on a lot of things. For example, we agree on the opposition to American imperialism.
For example, nobody would publish the first article that I was able to
write on East Timor. They published it, back in the late seventies. That's the
only article that appeared in the United States on the subject in the seventies.
They also published many other things and we remained personal friends.
Although there is a big area of difference.
There was a left anarchist movemenr, wo-the working class anarchist 215
movement. They were pretty much destroyed by force. That's when people like
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were jailed and thrown Oll( of the
country. So the working class, left libertarian movement was mostly smashed,
bur the right libertarian movement was applauded. Not because people in
power believe it, but because it's a useful battering ram. Lots of anarchists are
very much confused by this. The United States has a tradition of individualist
anarchism. ''I'll go off into the woods and work by myself," that kind of anarchism.
Which is SOrt of a thing that develops in that kind of a society, a very
business-run society, with lots of space. It takes many forms. One of the forms
it takes is the kind of militias, who are very anti-statist. I mean, if I talk to
groups where there is strong support for the ultra-right militias, we agree on a
lot of things. They're distributing my books. You go to the militia conferences,
my books are there. They think we are on the same side because we're both
anacking the s(ate. Just as anarchists think we're on different sides because I do
something to preserve the state. If YOLI think these things through a little bit, I
mean, one slogan doesn't give you the answer. You have to PUt the slogan in
the context of a more complicated reality.
It's funny for us that Americans make such a gross confusion between the for
right and the for left ...
It's not unusual, look at history, where Mussolini comes from.