House of Paine

noams state of the anti state statement

chomsky : I was attracted to anarchism 
 as a young teenager,
 as soon as I began to think 
about the world beyond
 a pretty narrow range
 and haven't seen much reason
 to revise those early attitudes since
 I think it only makes sense 
to seek out and identify
 structures of authority
 hierarchy
 and domination
 in every aspect of life
 and to challenge them
 unless a justification
 for them can be given
 they are illegitimate
 and should be dismantled
 to increase the scope
 of human freedom

 That includes political power
 ownership and management
 relations among men and women
 parents and children
 our control over the fate
 of future generations
 (the basic moral imperative
 behind the environmental movement, in my view), and much else
 Naturally this means a challenge
 to the huge institutions of coercion and control:
 the state
 the unaccountable private tyrannies
 that control most 
of the domestic and international economy
 and so on
 But not only these
 That is what I have always understood
 to be the essence of anarchism: 
the conviction that the burden of proof
 has to be placed on authority
 and that it should be dismantled
 if that burden cannot be met
 

CHOMSKY: The general intellectual culture, as you know, 
associates 'anarchism' 
with chaos, violence, bombs, disruption, and so on

 So people are often surprised 
when I speak positively of anarchism 
and identify myself with leading traditions within it

 But my impression is that among the general public
 the basic ideas seem reasonable 
when the clouds are cleared away
 Of course, when we turn to specific matters
 say, the nature of families
 or how an economy would work
 in a society that is more free and just 
 questions and controversy arise
 But that is as it should be
 Physics can't really explain
 how water flows from the tap in your sink
 When we turn to vastly more complex questions
 of human significance
 understanding is very thin
 and there is plenty of room
 for disagreement, experimentation
 both intellectual and real-life 
exploration of possibilities
 to help us learn more.
CHOMSKY: All misrepresentations of anarchism are  a nuisance
 Much of it can be traced back 
to structures of power 
that have an interest in preventing understanding
 for pretty obvious reasons
 It's well to recall David Hume's 
Principles of Governmen
. He expressed surprise that people
 ever submitted to their rulers
 He concluded
 that since Force 
is always on the side 
of the governed
 the governors have nothing
 to support them but opinion
 'Tis therefore, on opinion only
 that government is founded; 
and this maxim extends 
to the most despotic 
and most military governments
 as well as to the most free and most popular
 Hume was very astute 
 and incidentally
 hardly a libertarian 
by the standards of the day
 He surely underestimates 
the efficacy of force
 but his observation seems to me
 basically correct
 and important
 particularly in the more free societies
 where the art of controlling opinion
 is therefore far more refined
 Misrepresentation and other forms
             of befuddlement are a natural concomitant.
 misrepresentation  will exist 
as long as concentrations of power 
engender a kind of commissar class 
to defend them
 Since they are usually not very bright
 or are bright enough to know
 that they'd better avoid the arena 
of fact and argument
 they'll turn to misrepresentation
 vilification, and other devices
 that are available to those 
who know that they'll be protected 
by the various means available
 to the powerful
 We should understand why all this occurs
 and unravel it as best we can
 That's part of the project of liberation 
 of ourselves and others
 or more reasonably
 of people working together
 to achieve these aims.
Sounds simple-minded
 and it is.
But I have yet to find much commentary
 on human life and society 
that is not simple-minded
 when absurdity and self-serving posturing
 are cleared away.
?
CHOMSKY: The introduction to Guerin's book that you mentioned opens with a quote from an
anarchist sympathiser a century ago, who says that anarchism has a broad back, and endures
anything. One major element has been what has traditionally been called 'libertarian socialism'. I've
tried to explain there and elsewhere what I mean by that, stressing that it's hardly original; I'm
taking the ideas from leading figures in the anarchist movement whom I quote, and who rather
consistently describe themselves as socialists, while harshly condemning the 'new class' of radical
intellectuals who seek to attain state power in the course of popular struggle and to become the
vicious Red bureaucracy of which Bakunin warned; what's often called 'socialism'. I rather agree
with Rudolf Rocker's perception that these (quite central) tendencies in anarchism draw from the
best of Enlightenment and classical liberal thought, well beyond what he described. In fact, as I've
tried to show they contrast sharply with Marxist-Leninist doctrine and practice, the 'libertarian'
doctrines that are fashionable in the US and UK particularly, and other contemporary ideologies,
all of which seem to me to reduce to advocacy of one or another form of illegitimate authority,
quite often real tyranny.
The Spanish Revolution

CHOMSKY: I'm reluctant to use fancy polysyllables like philosophy to refer to what seems
ordinary common sense. And I'm also uncomfortable with slogans. The achievements of Spanish
workers and peasants, before the revolution was crushed, were impressive in many ways. The
term 'participatory democracy' is a more recent one, which developed in a different context, but
there surely are points of similarity. I'm sorry if this seems evasive. It is, but that's because I don't
think either the concept of anarchism or of participatory democracy is clear enough to be able to
answer the question whether they are the same. 
--------------------------------------
 Is it a coincidence to your mind 
that anarchists
 known for their advocacy of individual freedom
 succeeded in this area of collective administration?
CHOMSKY: No coincidence at all.
 The tendencies in anarchism
 that I've always found most persuasive
 seek a highly organised society,
integrating many different kinds of structures
 (workplace, community, 
and manifold other forms of voluntary association), 
but controlled by participants,

 not by those in a position
 to give orders
 (except, again, when authority
 can be justified, 
as is sometimes the case,
 in specific contingencies). 	
	
Democracy
 


 take  the US, which has been 
as free as any, since its origins
. American democracy 
was founded on the principle,
stressed by James Madison 
in the Constitutional Convention
 in 1787
 that the primary function of government
 is to protect the minority of the opulent
 from the majority
 Thus he warned that in England
 the only quasi-democratic model 
of the day
 if the general population
 were allowed a say in public affairs
 they would implement agrarian reform 
or other atrocities
 and that the American system
 must be carefully crafted 
to avoid such crimes
 against the rights of property
 which must be defended 
(in fact, must prevail)
 Parliamentary democracy
 within this framework
 does merit sharp criticism 
by genuine libertarians
 and I've left out many
 other features that are hardly subtle
 slavery, to mention just one
 or the wage slavery
 that was bitterly condemned 
by working people 
who had never heard of anarchism 
or communism right through
 the 19th century, and beyond.
Leninism and elitest lefts 

 If the left 
 is understood to include 'Bolshevism,' 
then I would flatly 
dissociate myself 
from the left.

 Lenin was one 
of the greatest enemies of socialism
 in my opinion, for reasons
 I've discussed
 The idea that workers 
are only interested in horse-racing
 is an absurdity 
that cannot withstand 
even a superficial look
 at labour history 
or the lively and independent 
working class press 
that flourished in many places
 including the manufacturing towns 
of New England 
not many miles from where I'm writing
 not to speak of the inspiring record 
of the courageous struggles 
of persecuted and oppressed people
 throughout history
 until this very moment
 Take the most miserable corner
 of this hemisphere, Haiti,
 regarded by the European conquerors
 as a paradise 
and the source of no small part 
of Europe's wealth,
 now devastated,
 perhaps beyond recovery.
 In the past few years, 
under conditions so miserable 
that few people
 in the rich countries can imagine them
 peasants and slum-dwellers
 constructed a popular democratic movement 
based on grassroots organisations
 that surpasses just about anything
 I know of elsewhere
 only deeply committed commissars 
could fail to collapse 
with ridicule 
when they hear the solemn pronouncements 
of American intellectuals 
and political leaders 
about how the US has to teach Haitians
 the lessons of democracy
 Their achievements were so substantial 
and frightening to the powerful 
that they had to be subjected 
to yet another dose 
of vicious terror,
with considerably more US support 
than is publicly acknowledged
 and they still have not surrendered
 Are they interested only in horse-racing?
I'd suggest some lines I've occasionally quoted from Rousseau
: when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages
 scorn European voluptuousness 
and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death 
to preserve only their independence
 I feel that it does not behoove slaves
            to reason about freedom.

 I haven't actually equated 
the doctrines of the liberal intellectuals
 of the Kennedy administration
 with Leninists
 but I have noted striking points of similarity 
 rather as predicted by Bakunin 
a century earlier
 in his perceptive commentary 
on the new class
 For example
 I quoted passages 
from McNamara 
on the need to enhance managerial control
 if we are to be truly free
 and about how the undermanagement 
that is the real threat to democracy
 is an assault against reason itself
 Change a few words in these passages
 and we have standard Leninist doctrine
 I've argued that the roots are rather deep
 in both