Anarchism 101 with Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky begins a small group discussion on Anarchism at Hamilton, Ontario's McMaster University.
Filmed by Dundas Independent Video Association
DIVA http://dundastards.blogspot.com
(c)2002

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• Noam
• Chomsky
• Anarchism

[SupermarketsRevil]

My left ear enjoyed this.

[agapeiron]

@USTreasuryBond Chomsky is an anarcho-syndicalist. He does not envision any kind of organization of social life that includes businesses and private property, or the economy in the modern capitalist sense.

If you want to be a good capitalist twit and troll Chomsky videos, at least research first. Because you-- like most capitalists and fake libertarian flakes that troll on anarchist and socialist videos-- are just making an ass out of yourself.

[KrugmanTheKing]

@Ravengaurd6

But, I agree with you on that last take: it is a work in progress. We cannot simply put everything to the ground and hope that to be better... we risk, in doing so, to create even worst structures. I think we should literally follow it as Tocqueville explained it, with a strong civil society, a far more integrated approach -- changing the system from bellow at the same time we start to put in place the basic outlines of the structures we would need.

[KrugmanTheKing]

@Ravengaurd6

Actually, under that very same argument, as Marx noted, men emancipate themselves from nature through the production that constitutes their work. The problem is the direction of that work: it should be the worker's own possession, if not all he has left to do is to sell his workforce to someone who owns the means of production -- that's where the argument actually leads. Basically, it says you virtually no choice to live this way in that system.

[Ravengaurd6]

@KrugmanTheKing In that way, people will be forced to work together, but so far as subverting working FOR one another, that will be something that a society will have to ingrain into it's structure. It's the issue of reformatting the meaning of authority or eliminating it all together. for Chomsky the anarchist pursuit is that of question all authority on its legitimacy; overthrowing it when it cannot be proven. for building a society not on control but effective cooperation.

[Ravengaurd6]

@KrugmanTheKing The threat of starvation and poverty exist where people are not resigned to work for others. under that argument the subsistence farmer is technically enslaved to the earth. natural necessity is inescapable. it is what I call "the heterotroph's dilemma". as animals we have to perform functions to obtain and make use of the resources around us. As humans cooperate and co-opt technology more efficiency brings more resources and growth,but the growth demands more....

[KrugmanTheKing]

@Ravengaurd6

It's inherently a contradiction to promote the primacy of freedom while sustaining authority in any form at all... I know what's the argument and it has always been the same: we ought to place them for their greater good under the benevolent, useful or efficient authority of some better, more competent person.

Meanwhile, history proved it a failure and a source of atrocities.

[KrugmanTheKing]

@Ravengaurd6

But, upfront, the whole structure is unjustifiable since, essentially, some people in it use others are tools to achieve their ends -- you may argue in favor of it, but then you have to argue against freedom.

All philosophers from Rousseau to Marx will answer you the same thing on that: it's making men into machines. They're all very specifically attributing to human nature his character as a worker, as a creative person -- which is the reason they give to support freedom.

[KrugmanTheKing]

@Ravengaurd6

Read Tocqueville in his second book Of Democracy in America, second section, 20th Chapter -- he explains how division of labor belittle workers and give rise to a class of owners; he even answer your comment pretty directly:

"Each of them fills the station which is made for him, and which he does not leave; the one is continually, closely, and necessarily dependent upon the other and seems as much born to obey as that other is to command. What is this but aristocracy?"

[KrugmanTheKing]

@Ravengaurd6

Not voluntary interactions... that's the detail. What are the odds for someone to own a business and that it's practically doable -- how many people can maintain that in financially realistic way? Very few: social mobility is very low.

So, it's not voluntary actions at all in the first place: it's a systematic necessity that is pretty rigid. They are working under threat of starvation, poverty, etc.

[balkiprasanna1984]

69 ppl who disliked this are CEOś of Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Apple ....