Eftertryk Magazine interviewed Noam Chomsky on four issues:
- The justification for the Afghanistan war in the immediate wake of 9/11
- AUKUS and the new cold war with China
- The climate crisis
- The principles and values of socialist anarchism
2021-11-19T21:25−08* / at the about* post – at bit.ly/dateposted – anyone can link to this post from its date: November 19, 2021
*a link – or not; see a note on notes and links and a disclaimer / … and maybe browse or search the archive*
Chomsky, from the transcript:
*a link – or not; see a note on notes and links and a disclaimer / … and maybe browse or search the archive*
Chomsky, from the transcript:
any form of hierarchy and domination is illegitimate unless it can justify itself*/ in very rare cases it can; if it can’t, dismantle it for “a more free, participatory, cooperative society" – aka a “mainstream” anarchist system
An anarchist system could very well have hierarchy, as long as it’s controlled from below. Like, if I need surgery, I go to a doctor, not a carpenter. That’s hierarchy. But I chose it – he’s a doctor by virtue of my decision, our decision collectively, that some group of people can gain skills that the community needs. So, as long as responsibility is vested in the democratic participatory community in every institution, in the workplace, in communities everywhere, then we’re moving toward a free and just society.
It will be a highly organized society. There can be a lot of planning about how we should distribute resources, what our policies ought to be. It could be, or should be, international in scope. So, a rich and complex organization based on popular and democratic control, meeting the condition that any form of hierarchy that can’t justify itself has to be dismantled in favor of more freedom. Then you can spell that out in many detailed ways.