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libertarian_vs_anarchist
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unhinged
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man: what's the difference between 'libertarian' and 'anarchist' exactly?
chomsky: there's no difference really. i think they're the same thing. but you see, 'libertarian' has a special meaning in the united states. the united states is off the spectrum of the main tradition in this respect: what's called 'libertarianism' here is unbridled capitalism. now, that's always been opposed in the european libertarian tradition, where every anarchist has been a socialist - because the point is, if you have unbridled capitalism, you have all kinds of authority; you have EXTREME authority.
if capital is privately controlled, then people are going to have to rent themselves in order to survive (minimum wage jobs anyone?). now, you can say, 'they rent themselves freely, it's a free contract' - but that's a joke. if your choice is, 'do what i tell you or starve,' that's not a choice - it's in fact what has commonly referred to as wage slavery in more civilized times, like the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example.
the american version of 'libertarianism' is an aberration though - nobody really takes it seriously. i mean, everybody knows that a society that worked by american libertarian principles would self_destruct in three seconds. the only reason people pretend to take it seriously is because you can use it as a weapon. like, when somebody comes out in favor of a tax, you can say: 'no, i'm a libertarian, i'm against that tax' - but of course, i'm still in favor of the government building roads, and having schools, and killing libyans, and all that sort of stuff.
now, there ARE consistent libertarians, people like murray rothbard - and if you just read then world that they describe, it's a world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it. this is a world where you don't have roads because you don't see any reason why you should cooperate in building a road that you're not going to use:if you want a road, you get together with a bunch of other people who are going to use that road and you build it, then you charge people to ride on it. if you don't like the pollution from somebody's automobile, you take them to court and you litigate it. who would want to live in a world like that? it's a world built on hatred.
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180124
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unhinged
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'the united states is sort of out of the world on this topic. here, the term 'libertarian' means the opposite of what it always meant in history. libertarian throughout modern european history meant socialist anarchist. it meant the antistate element of the workers' movement and the socialist movement. here it means ultra-conservative - ayn rand or cato institute or something like that. but that's a special u.s. usage. there are a lot of things quite special about the way the united states developed, and this is part of it. in europe, it meant, and always meant to me, an antistate branch of socialism, which meant a highly organized society, nothing to do with chaos, but based on democracy all the way through. that means democratic control of communities, of workplaces, of federal structures, built on systems of voluntary association, spreading internationally. that's traditional anarchism. you know, anybody can have the word if they like, but that's the mainstream of traditional anarchism.' - noam chomsky
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180124
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Twitch
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Interesting - I may have had the wrong definition of these two.
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180125
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unhinged
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me_too
these excerpts are from a book of further excerpts of his from books and interviews and it is titled 'on anarchy'. chomsky has also vocally criticized american 'black bloc' anarchists as stupid and a 'a gift to the right'
in the world according to noam, all of america has both of these concepts wrong and it might just be part of the reason why we are laughingstocks in europe and also measurably less happier and upwardly mobile than those european countries...oh the irony
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180125
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Twitch
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Gotta love that Chomsky
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180125
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