Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
are losing their jobs because you can get a worker for 10 percem of the cost in,
say, India or China, should we be for it or against it?
Well, the argumems go both ways, but I think both are highly misleading
because they are accepting a framework that we shouldn't accept. I mean, if
you accept the framework that says totalitarian command economies have the
right to make these decisions, and if the wage levels and working conditions
are fixed facts, then we have to make choices within those assumptions. Then
YOll can make an argument that poor people here ought to lose their jobs to
even poorer people somewhere else ... because that increases the economic pie,
and it's the lIslial stOry. Why make those assumptions? There are other ways of
dealing with the problem. Take, fo r example rich people here. Take those like
me who are in the top few percent of the income ladder. We could Cllt back
our luxurious lifestyles, pay proper taxes, there are all sorts of things. I'm not
even talking about Bill Gates, but people who are reasonably privileged.
Instead of imposing the burden on poor people here and saying "well, you
poor people have to give up your jobs because even poorer people need them
over there," we could say "okay, we rich people will give up some small part of
our ludicrous luxury and use it to raise living standards and working conditions
elsewhere, and to let them have enough capital to develop their own
economy, their own means." Then the issue will not arise. But it's much more
convenient to say that poor people here ought to pay the burden under the
framework of command economies-totalitarianism. Bur, if you think it 229
through, it makes sense and almost every social issue you think about-real
ones, live ones, ones right on the table-has these properties. We don't have to
accept and shouldn't accept the framework of domination of thought and attitude
that only allows certain choices to be made ... and those choices almost
invariably come down to how to put the burden on the poor. That's class warfare.
Even by real nice people like us who think it's good to help poor workers,
but within a framework of class warfare that maintains privilege and transfers
the burden to the poor. It's a mJ((er of raising consciousness among very
decem people.
Heres a more grim question. Voltairine De Cleyre in the 1900s in an essay
talks about the hope she has of a peacefol change into a better world, and
then talks about the masters who are creating such a system that they are
going to reap a horrible whirlwind Are we still in this situation where a
peacefi" transition to a freer, better world is possible for "s, or can we not
say its less likely as the years go on!
Actually no one knows. But my own subjective, low-credibility judgemem
is that the opportunities for peaceful change are considerably greater now than
they have been in the past. The reason for that is that the repressive apparatus
of state and corporate power has been reduced. You can't break up strikes with
Pinkerton guards any more. YOli won't get away with it. You can't smash work-