He's saying that organized labor is the basis for a non-violent democratic transition to something like anarcho-syndicalism. He says furthermore that the necessary organization simply doesn't exist, and that it would need to exist globally. When he says strengthening the state he means democratic control of the state because that is currently a more viable means of non-violent democratic revolution.

@rosentrantz0

3 жыл бұрын

No, Chomsky said what he said. Chomsky is a linguist and can speak for himself. Chomsky studied the notion of a stateless society and argues against some cyberpunk dystopia. Any society where organizations can form will have something like a government. How about having people with expertise from diverse educational backgrounds writing legislation in public view as elected officials instead of being subcontractors for corporations or wealthy individuals?

@captainhuman

2 жыл бұрын

@@rosentrantz0 hold on a second, are you suggesting that chomsky is not advocating for the eventual abolition of the state? Because he’s described himself as an anarchist for a very long time, his public position is explicitly that the state should not exist.

@user-wl2xl5hm7k

Жыл бұрын

@@captainhuman Exactly. Chomsky absolutely is for abolishing the state. He’s just saying you need to support people beforehand.

@jamesdoctor8079

Жыл бұрын

he just said he’s not for abolishing the state.. lol. However, he certainly believes in the eventual eradication of the state, but this obviously doesn’t happen overnight, or over decades for that matter. He’s said in other interviews he agrees with Marx/Lenin insofar as there should be a transitional “dictatorship of proletariat”. Which is impossible without a dedicated network of worker cooperatives/worker councils, strong municipal governments advocating for true democratic reform, etc.

@repubblesmcglonky8990

Жыл бұрын

​@@jamesdoctor8079 Chomsky should therefore describe himself a, forgive the neologism, a "Sensiblist Anarchist" or even a "Realist Anarchist"

He’s right! We need to build co-operative industry

@paintedhorse6880

3 жыл бұрын

@Mephisto von Döbelstein Because "entrepreneurs" who got a loan from the bank want to hold onto the power of the business they create. Wouldn't make sense to take all the risk yourself to turn it over to your employees. The other reason: How many people even know that co-op business models even exist? Certainly the average voter/worker doesn't. In economics class in middle school we never got taught about that. I learned about them from listening to Chomsky lectures on YT for god sake. Control information/education and you control choices.

@paintedhorse6880

3 жыл бұрын

@Mephisto von Döbelstein Never once said I was setting one up. All i did was explain reasons why they aren't as popular.

@user-wl2xl5hm7k

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely. But there’s too much cultural control by the media which would continuously support non-cooperative business: We must fist fully abolish all intellectual property laws. It’s likely to happen soon- just need to educate people.

@user-wl2xl5hm7k

Жыл бұрын

I have a ploylest of the best vedeos on intellectual property on my chinnil for all interested.

More common sense from Chomsky. Instead of arguing about Bakunin's use of apostrophes figure out solutions to our real problems that convert state and business power to socially productive purposes. .

lol someone just sent me this saying "see Chomsky says support the state, he's not an anarchist!!1`" - people can no longer fucking understand anything longer than 5 seconds

More than anything I want to know what the quote on Chomsky's laptop slideshow says.

@Tesla_Death_Ray

8 жыл бұрын

+Aye Bee It belongs to the guy who arranged the interview.

@Harvinator24

8 жыл бұрын

+Aye Bee It’s an OS X screensaver. The screensaver selects random words from the dictionary and pushes them to the screen. macenstein.com/default/2008/04/apples-word-of-the-day-screensaver-keeping-us-all-equally-smart/

@ayebee652

8 жыл бұрын

Harvinator24 Thanks. You learn something new everyday.

@tomj210

5 жыл бұрын

Aye Bee its probably young thug lyrics

@peperlover99

4 жыл бұрын

Probably something by Bertrand Russell. Apparently Chomsky loves Russell.

hi, what's the name of the interview, etc? ie a source i can permanently reference - it doesn't have to be the video, just the name... youtube accounts obviously see videos come and go - i need to put a reference to this interview on my site, permanently cheers tvhobo

The question is not Gov't or Anarchy. The questions are, in my opinion, how do we achieve democratization on a global scale and secondly what course will an enlightened world choose, assuming social democracy will sufficiently mitigate existential issues. At such point, anarchy may be what we choose but it must be implemented on a global scale democratically and necessarily.

@squatch545

4 жыл бұрын

God no. Global anything is NOT the answer.

@paintedhorse6880

3 жыл бұрын

I think that the key to global democracy is showing the world that a free voluntary democratic society works. Start small at the neighborhood level. Your workplace. Then your district. Then your town. Then the next town. And the next.

Long live anarchic autonomy!

Self reliance is the direct action that allows us all to leave the machine and begin developing our own co-op, labor owned, and ran, goods, and service providers. No reason at all to be on the grid, use banks, continue fossil fuel exhaustion, destruction of environment, both mental, and natural. If we do not labor for them, use their products, currency, and get off the grid, with biodigesters, solar, wind, green houses, we reclaim our inalienable rights. The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind. Edward L. Bernays

@mja2239

6 жыл бұрын

And Chomsky is one among them, right?

Isn't any publicly controlled institution no matter how anti-hierarchical still an organized state with a monopoly on force that is executed to prevent breeches in utilitarian public code? Therefore it's the quality of the institution rather than the quantity.

@BlakeBjornstad1

3 жыл бұрын

Public institution are more democratic and responsive to the public than corporate institutions which are fascist/anti democratic and have zero accountability to the public or anyone except at the very top

@user-fi1kn3oq4m

2 жыл бұрын

You'd be surprised how well the public would regulate itself when armed to the teeth

No conquest has been wan without the thread to the power of a general insurrection. It wont be different for health care in USA. do not assume europe is in a superior position respect ti's emancipation because they have health care, it serves as a function in the international system.

I think we should have a strong Federal Government for the purposes of getting rid of fossil fuels. I believe if the people took over the state democratically then the Federal Government would actually be great in bringing us to a green economy. Then I would support people organizing on the ground to take over businesses and democratically run them, then that way the state could be abolished.

@kdegraa

3 жыл бұрын

Those running the State would not agree to abolishing it and would give you a thousand and one reasons as to why we all need the State. Why give up power when you don't have to?

❤️🇵🇹❤️

Did I just hear Noam Chomsky say that the power of Corporations derives from state privilege? I thought corporations were inherently tyrannical, regardless of the State, and should be destroyed / reformed. So corporations aren't inherently evil, only in context of the fascist construct we have now, where the State uses it's monopoly on force to collude, and connive with big business? Please don't shoot me, I'm saying this as a Voluntaryist, who doesn't see wrong in voluntary exchange of goods, services and or labor and hates the fascist corporate state we live in today as much as the next Anarcho Communist. The argument against free exchange-Capitalism I always hear has been that companies/corporations are inherently evil and must be abolished or radically reformed. Now I hear it derives it's power through the monopolistic power of the State, which I agree with.

@UhhCorey

8 жыл бұрын

That Corporations are inherently evil is not a common argument as far as I'm aware. That they are inherently hierarchical and unaccountable to the public is an elementary fact, as Chomsky often points out. Within our current system, corporate and State power are of course interlinked, but that is simply a description of power relations. It says nothing about the moral status or internal nature of corporate institutions. I'll also add that opposing the legitimacy of corporations does not necessarily entail opposing the legitimacy of the free exchange of goods.

@sullivansongz

5 жыл бұрын

lots of organisations....in fact all organisations tend to veer towards tyranny - a wonderful example being the Catholic church. It is only when state sanctions but more importantly mass social rejection of such organisations kicks in that they lose the powers they have accumulated and are coerced into a more moderate posture

@BlakeBjornstad1

3 жыл бұрын

Corporations are granted their legal rights/protects/monopoly power from the State. They exist because of the State which is almost solely responsible to private wealth/corporate power. Basically, corporations are legally fictions given legitimacy by the courts and legal system. They can be made to be anything the public wants them to be but do to massive propaganda and a State system which is solely responsive to wealth it’s likely not happening. So yes, as they exist currently and from their inception they are inherently evil and tyrannical. Hopefully at some point they are forced to change

@BlakeBjornstad1

3 жыл бұрын

There is no such thing as “free exchange” capitalism. Relationships of hierarchy and domination can’t coexist with freedom of exchange. Capitalists will always use the government to prevent the free exchange of goods services. Every Corporation aspires to be a monopoly, many of them are. Capitalism is a gun I use when I ask you to get on the ground. If I’m pointing a gun at your head, is it your “choice” to do what I say?

Sounds not terribly different from Lenin's "withering away."

I don't understand the argument to strengthen the state before getting rid if it. That sounds like the Leninist strategy that Chomsky himself is against.

@illiterate467

10 ай бұрын

Chomsky isn't arguing for strengthening the state as it currently operates. His argument is more along the lines that we should utilize it to our advantage when possible. Think of it as "infiltration" if that gives it a more anarchistic sense of legitimacy to you. But how every you slice it, if the goal is to abolish the state, people are going to need to work toward a viable alternative first. Chomsky believes that worker cooperatives are one alternative path forward. That model is certainly attractive compared to the private corporate model if only more people were aware of how to organize them. The state can be useful in some capacity towards that endeavor of making people aware of alternative ideas about how society might better function, but ultimately people need to come together en masse. Working class people will need to be the creators and operators of the change we want to see in the world. We need to stay on top of the government's activities, vote and participate in elections and elect candidates who truly represent us and want better things like healthcare that we know are possible. Because if we keep talking about this stuff and pushing we might actually get some helpful benefits that can enable us to work towards the long term projects of creating viable alternatives to the capitalist economy and illegitimate state. We can both try to work within the system and against it simultaneously; both are possible as long as we're upfront about the goal of materially improving people's lives. I wouldn't characterize that strategy as being inherently Leninist or statist; it's more about praxis and practicality in the US to try a multi-pronged approach.

That's why I said most anarchists, perhaps I should have said many. Wave that freak flag....

That's a little weird because he's thankful for a system build on control or rather oppression (mutilate psyche of people so they work, and without feeling anything). It's just his own position of society speaking, that's what I feel about everything he says. He acknowledges all that and is talking about change and a perspective of a humane world, but he doesn't get it.

Most anarchists have naively drawn a line in the sand, referring to anything but anarchy as "statism" and therefore a form of autocracy. This leaves them operating from the position of an autocracy themselves. When a state succeeds in abolishing its extra-popular corpuses it can then deal with the process of abolishing itself.

@RootinrPootine

8 жыл бұрын

+Darren Swift More importantly, the American youth have a strong interest in anti-establishment ideas---they aren't jaded, so they don't see it as very radical to remove things that they can easily see destroying the society. Except that they don't hear about sober intellectual self defense---which leads to understanding the distinction between principles and strategies. They hear about anarchy and communism concepts and their anti-establishment appeal. Met with a totally fragmented activist culture that doesn't even understand the nature of not-very-long-past victories, they get bitter and even more entrenched---revolution! What else can fix things!? Elites love this attitude: "Oh, good, nothing will be done, nothing to see here." Those concepts don't rely on "revolution." All they mean is people should have increasing control over their economic life (and that can go a long way---we can imagine great changes as a result, but that's the core concept). Who, exactly, opposes that? That is to say, that's not a radical idea in the current political order and the state is influenceable. Only the richest rich oppose that, because their power derives from them controlling the economic life of all.

@martinarnold5239

8 жыл бұрын

+Autonomous Anarchist why not?

@mortalpokemon60

7 жыл бұрын

I speak loudly and my stick is quite small. well put

@RootinrPootine

7 жыл бұрын

Ej Jones thanks.

@TomdeArgentina

7 жыл бұрын

Please give examples...

Corporate power and State power walk arm in arm. They have a symbiotic relationship. Further more if we overthrew the state eventually another one would form. As infrastructure and services decayed people would cry out for organization, which would lead to groups stepping forward, and eventually an outcry for these new leaders to be chosen by a vote of the citizens and then we're right back to a State.

@squatch545

4 жыл бұрын

Your prediction is based on nothing. I could just as easily predict that without a state, people would come together and help each other in mutual aid, just like they do during any crisis like war.

@subsonic9854

3 жыл бұрын

@@squatch545 You would get Iraq. Alternately, you would get something that is a skewed version of what came before, because that's what the citizens are familiar with.

@squatch545

3 жыл бұрын

@@subsonic9854 Anything is better than the way we live now.....anything.

@subsonic9854

3 жыл бұрын

@@squatch545 Lol I get (hope?) that you're being flippant but... Iraq? Come on. Personally I'm just here because I'm interested in what Chomsky has to say. I have no issues with the way the world is set up. My issues are with the people in it. Cheer up, dude.

@squatch545

3 жыл бұрын

@@subsonic9854 But the people set up the world. Your comment makes no sense.

Marxism... Yes...

Despite my very best efforts to ascribe credence to Chomsky’s vision of a stateless society, there are just too many flaws in his foundational precepts. I agree that The State bears a lions share of the inequities and injustices within the US, but then he completely undermines this position by stating the medical industry is so incredibly expensive because it’s “unregulated”??? It’d be hard to find an industry MORE REGULATED than the Medical Industry such as Medicare/ Medicaid which are used to depress prices of medical costs on doctors, Big Pharma, Health Insurance Companies or the AMA. What seems to be completely overlooked by Chomsky is that these entities collude with TO “regulate” their respective market to create barriers for competition such as limiting procurement of insurance to within state borders, insurance plan product structuring, medical licensing, drug patents, extensive drug testing trial metrics etc... These such regulations imposed by the state that give the “unregulated” medical industry as well as the large, “collective”, corporate entities to wield such power. These are the SAME tactics used by Unions in an attempt to prevent a migrant work force and low skilled labor from entering their market as well as ANY public works project that requires pay all contractors a prevailing wage. All are attempts to control their market share at the EXPENSE of all others. The same things could be said about the middle class with Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, mortgage deductions, etc, etc, etc. None of these entities would have “unregulated” control and privileges WITHOUT the use of The State. In a “stateless” libertarian socialist society, it is claimed the workers are going to control the means of production. Does that not mean that unless you’re a worker, you’ll not be able to claim ownership of production? Who’ll determine who is qualified to be a worker? Who’ll assemble such qualifications? Will they be impervious to incentives, selfish and self serving corruptions unlike those currently in DC? Or ANYONE else for that matter?

@BlakeBjornstad1

3 жыл бұрын

When he talks about “unregulated”.. in order to understand you have to get around the US propaganda system. It’s like Orwell.. the healthcare system is “regulated” by corporations to make them profits over all else. Regulated in the sense he’s using the term would mean actually operating to benefit the society as a whole and how regulations (protections) are intended to function. Like the rest of the world is able to understand regulations. You have to unpack everything here in the US because people are DEEPLY indoctrinated into a capitalist/free market religion mindset. Many words take on their opposite meaning.

@dmur612

3 жыл бұрын

Blake Bjornstad I’d first like to sincerely thank you for engaging in this discussion as I am quite interested in fleshing out these seeming contradictions of LS; that said... I’m quite certain that I and most others understand the concept of “regulation”. The SAME EXACT “benefit to society”, “greater good” and “public good” verbiage is used, AD NAUSEAM, to justify even THE MOST (instinctively) well meaning, altruistic regulations; MOST EVERY ONE of which has had the EXACT OPPOSITE results. Before answering the next most obvious question which is... What regulation would YOU recommend that would, or more importantly, HAS BEEN imposed which HAS EMPIRICALLY RESULTED in a “benefit to society”? WHO IS “society”? Are you referring to EVERYONE? Who are these immutably incorruptible angels who will legislate and enforce these virtuous decrees to insure NO ONE will fall prey to these “other” perpetrators and conspirators of American “faux regulation”???

@BlakeBjornstad1

3 жыл бұрын

John Doe wait - do you think every regulation intrinsically ‘bad’? So you think having roads and highways, traffic laws is bad? Everyone should just drive however they want..? Roads will just take care of themselves? Everything that is modern society has been developed through “regulations”. There are precisely zero societies that developed through free market economics. There are only third world horror stories of countries that had free markets rammed down their throats. Every modern society developed the same way, with massive state intervention into the economy. Which is where things like computers were invented, the internet, microchips and the infrastructure to sustain it. Is your goal to create a third world peasant society? Maybe it is. Maybe that’s “free-er” to you. Idk. A 5 year old understands societies are better off with regulations, further more it’s impossible to *not* have them.

@dmur612

3 жыл бұрын

Blake Bjornstad Could you first answer my questions?

@BlakeBjornstad1

3 жыл бұрын

John Doe “who are these immutable incorruptible angels” Why would you assume that I think there’s a situation where everything is angelic/happy/perfect. Your being naive as a child if you think that I believe there’s some “uncorrupt” option. Everything has benefits and costs. Does the government do a pretty shitty job at providing an education in this country? (Sure, we’re capitalist it’ll always do a sh*t job)Sure, but it’s superior to the alternative which is no educational system/let the rigged capitalist market handle it. Then we’d be much worse off economically/socially and on and on. I don’t get the simpleton’s mentality that because government is bad a lot of the time it’s bad all* of the time/inherently and the solution is to simply “get rid of it” and again HOW? It’s so vague and retarded

Abolishing the state? No, you can not. This is anarchist utopia and not marxism

@squatch545

4 жыл бұрын

It's how people lived for hundreds of thousands of years. Chomsky is a fraud and pseudo-intellectual.

@CC35351

3 жыл бұрын

@@squatch545 It is how people lived for hundreds of thousands of years in small foraging communities, rarely exceeding more than 2 hundred people. Do you have examples of such a system working for large, complex, industrial societies? Do you have reason to believe that such a system could work for billions of people globally? Chomsky is one of the highest-cited academics alive and has single-handedly revolutionized linguistics and political theory. If he is a fraud and pseudo-intellectual, then I can't imagine who would be left to satisfy your criteria.

@squatch545

3 жыл бұрын

@@CC35351 It doesn't work for large complex industrial societies, that's the whole point. We need to decentralize into small scale societies. Chomsky's linguistic theories have proven to be false. There is no universal grammar, there are languages without recursion, and there is no human nature.

@CC35351

3 жыл бұрын

@@squatch545 There is no human nature?? Wow that's not in line with the studies of anthropology, psychology, sociology or evolutionary biology. The space of viable human expressions and societies may indeed be quite vast, but to say that there are no constraints on that space, is almost certainly wrong and counterproductive. On the matter of large, complex industrial societies, that is a GRAVE problem with your model if it cannot indeed be extrapolated to large scales. We live in a hyper-industrialized and globally-integrated world in nearly every aspect of our lives. I don't see how anyone can reasonably believe that a transition back to the decentralized lives of our ancestors could result in anything but a massive drop in the standard of living that many have been accustomed to under global capitalism. To me, any new alternative system should maintain the large, complex. and industrial scale of society but be coupled to systems of common ownership of production with democratically accountable power structures. A new system that does not at least maintain the standard of living that has been obtained by global capitalism is in my opinion doomed to remain in obscurity and never gain anything more than the marginal following that it does now.

@squatch545

3 жыл бұрын

@@CC35351 Yes it is exactly in line with the findings of anthropology, psychology, sociology and evolutionary biology. To say there is no human nature is not the same thing as saying that there are no limits on human behavior. Constraints come from the culture as well as from instincts. 'Human nature' presupposes there is some mysterious hidden force or blueprint inside each of us that determines our behavior, not only individually but as a species. No scientist has ever found this mysterious abstraction call 'human nature' yet. _"We live in a hyper-industrialized and globally-integrated world"_ Yes, this is precisely the problem. This hyper-industrialized world is destroying the world. It's also destroying us as human beings. We are socially alienated from each other, don't give a shit about each other, and we only relate to each other through business exchanges. That's what happens in large scale mass societies. We've now run the experiment with globalization, and it's been a total disaster. There is no such thing as an 'accountable power structure'. It's an oxymoron. Power does what it wants, it's unaccountable, by definition. If it were accountable, it would not be in power. You seem obsessed with standard of living. That is the very driving force behind totalitarian capitalism. Whose 'standard of living' are you worried about? Poor people's? Or yours? When you sacrifice everything else in life for 'standard of living', you end up where we are now...on the brink of total collapse. I'm more worried about freedom, health, a livable planet, and resource sharing. I don't care what's 'popular' or what model is likely to prevail or not, I'm interested in facts and truth.

I'm glad that anarchists like Chomsky can at least understand that, at least right now, the anarchist ideal is an impossible dream. We need to be socialist democrats for the foreseeable future if we want progress.

can we stop pretending Chomsky is an anarchist?

@sullivansongz

5 жыл бұрын

He's an anarchist in the sense that he believes in dismantling illegitimate power structures - note, not ALL power structures.

@josephmchaileh4522

5 жыл бұрын

i think thats quite unfair. he just has a specific idea of how to get from point A to point B. Chomsky is very critical of power structures overall, including intellectualism. I don't think it's wrong for criticising him about his plan to get from A to B, but doubting his sincerity to the principles of anarchy is unfair in my opinion

@squatch545

4 жыл бұрын

@@sullivansongz Exactly. In other words, he's not an anarchist.

@BlakeBjornstad1

3 жыл бұрын

Just because you don’t understand the philosophy we need to pretend he isn’t one?

@BlakeBjornstad1

3 жыл бұрын

It’s annoying that the people who claim to be anarchists the loudest, know the least about it. To most it’s just a badge of stupidity you wear proudly. No clue how to get there but excited to sing about it to everyone you know.

Chomsky proves in this video once and for all that he's NOT an anarchist.

@naman3517

3 жыл бұрын

How so?

@squatch545

3 жыл бұрын

@@naman3517 Huh? Did you watch the video? He's not against the state.

@badwolf259

3 жыл бұрын

Listen more closely. He supports expanding state power in the short term, but with the aim of abolishing it in the long term. That’s perfectly consistent with anarchism.

@squatch545

3 жыл бұрын

@@badwolf259 Listen to your self. Your astonishing lack of self awareness is ...well...astonishing. Strengthening the state in order to abolish it is an idiotic Marxist conceit, not an anarchist strategy. Bakunin warned about this, and he was right. It is a total contradiction.

@kdegraa

3 жыл бұрын

That has been tried a few times. What happens is the State grows to solve a few problems but then new problems come up and a bigger State is needed to fix those problems. Its always the same solution to problems, a bigger and more powerful State. Even the biggest Statist agrees the State should only be as big as necessary. No one in power agrees to abolishing their power. Why would they? Can you imagine a top dog politician or bureaucrat deciding one day to give it all up and live as an ordinary person, trying to find work and keeping their head above water? They hold onto power at all cost.