Chomsky: Anarchism means choosing your oppression

And rejecting markets & their externalities

Category:

Education

Tags:

• chomsky
• anarchism

[djdnauk1977]

@dick391 i agree it says nothing about coercion, other than it clearly implies using it against peaceful people is negative as thats ruling them.

i can define anarchy officially as no rulers, i wasnt reinventing the definition, just explaining my view of the implications of "no rulers"

anarchy precedes totalitarian rule? anarcho-communist societies have failed a lot i agree but there are good examples of free market anarchist societies working great for far longer than any state.

[dick391]

@djdnauk1977 No that's not the definition of anarchy at all. Anarchy is simply the absense of state coercion. It says absolutely nothing about coercion perpetuated by groups other than goverment. Funny, you defined anarchy to be the result you wanted (free association). When you put it that way, how can I disagree with you?

I also want free association. But its an open question (at best) whether anarchy would be a "freer" system. Anarchy typically precedes totalitarian rule.

[djdnauk1977]

@dick391 thats not true, government is forced onto everyone in a region by the will of the majority (might = right bullsh*t) whereas anarchism is about free association regardless of where you live & the right to disassociate etc... both anarcho-capitalist & anarcho-communist extremes & all between value maximum liberty, which statist is intrinsically opposed to, which is why states always lead to wars & eventually financial collapse etc...

[jasperb12345]

@dick391 Nice counter sir. Force in my opinion exists from lack of intrinsic moral education, that allows us to believe that human nature is meant to be controlled by "betters". That is the world of government and power structure. No one is better, no one is worse, but that is the deception of the devil in my opinion. Those who wish to be the best need to pull everyone up to them, not control. Government imho is control, not freedom.

[dick391]

@jasperb12345 Force exists by government and in the absense of it. That's just human nature. The question is how to most fairly allocate it. Anarchy is no more or less hypocritical than statism. Try again.

[jasperb12345]

@dick391 Inherit hypocrisy; higher force makes you free-er. Try again.

[dick391]

@dick391 Anarchists fall for the fallacy that without government they will be "freer". Sure they are free from government laws. But will they be freer from coercion? After all, coercion is where one person's rights begin and another person's rights end. If I steal another man's property, I have increased my freedom at the expense of that other man's freedom. Anarchists sell you the phony believe that everyone can increase their freedom by getting rid of government. The answer obviously is no.

[dick391]

@16thHop No right is infinite. And there is no way for one person to have freedom without it "infringing" on another's "freedom" (as you used the word). It should be obvious that 100% freedom is impossible. If a group of protesters break into townhall meeting and yell and shut down discussion, they are using their freedom of speech to infringe on others speech. Land may be fixed, wealth obviously is not. No economist worth his salt believes wealth is zero-sum. But you're right wealth is finite.

[16thHop]

@dick391 My misunderstanding. I thought that you meant "equality" as in equality under the law and civil rights. But, Chomsky's argument against your first paragraph is that the "right to property" isn't a right at all. A right is infinite, just like speech, land is not. By buying land, you theoretically infringe on other's freedom.

I personally find this view archaic and unrealistic, as it doesn't seem to apply to a post-industrial economy. This is the weakness of contemporary Marxism.

[dick391]

@16thHop Are you serious dude? First off, you misquoted me. I said you can have freedom or equality, but not both. There is a clear trade-off between the two. The more equality you desire, the more you must infringe on the freedom of others.

Second, equal "say" is not equality. But if you honestly think that people living in ancient aboriginal tribes had a more "equal say" and "let them do mostly what they want", then I got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying.