Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Marxism & Hope for the Future
Noam Chomsky is widely known for his critique of U.S foreign policy, and
for his work as a linguist. Less well known is his ongoing support for
libertarian socialist objectives. In a special interview done for Red and
Black Revolution, Chomsky gives his views on anarchism and marxism, and the
prospects for socialism now. The interview was conducted in May 1995 by
Kevin Doyle.
RBR: First off, Noam, for quite a time now you've been an advocate for the
anarchist idea. Many people are familiar with the introduction you wrote in
1970 to Daniel Guerin's Anarchism, but more recently, for instance in the
film Manufacturing Consent, you took the opportunity to highlight again the
potential of anarchism and the anarchist idea. What is it that attracts you
to anarchism?
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. Sometimes the burden
can be met. If I'm taking a walk with my grandchildren and they dart out
into a busy street, I will use not only authority but also physical
coercion to stop them. The act should be challenged, but I think it can
readily meet the challenge. And there are other cases; life is a complex
affair, we understand very little about humans and society, and grand
pronouncements are generally more a source of harm than of benefit. But the
perspective is a valid one, I think, and can lead us quite a long way.
Beyond such generalities, we begin to look at cases, which is where the
questions of human interest and concern arise.
RBR: It's true to say that your ideas and critique are now more widely
known than ever before. It should also be said that your views are widely
respected. How do you think your support for anarchism is received in this
context? In particular, I'm interested in the response you receive from
people who are getting interested in politics for the first time and who
may, perhaps, have come across your views. Are such people surprised by
your support for anarchism? Are they interested?
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.
RBR: Perhaps, more than any other idea, anarchism has suffered from the
problem of misrepresentation. Anarchism can mean many things to many
people. Do you often find yourself having to explain what it is that you
mean by anarchism? Does the misrepresentation of anarchism bother you?
CHOMSKY: All misrepresentation is 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
Government. 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.
So does misrepresentation bother me? Sure, but so does rotten weather. It
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.
RBR: How about in more established left-wing circles, where one might
expect to find greater familiarity with what anarchism actually stands for?
Do you encounter any surprise here at your views and support for anarchism?
CHOMSKY: If I understand what you mean by established left-wing circles,
there is not too much surprise about my views on anarchism, because very
little is known about my views on anything. These are not the circles I
deal with. You'll rarely find a reference to anything I say or write.
That's not completely true of course. Thus in the US (but less commonly in
the UK or elsewhere), you'd find some familiarity with what I do in certain
of the more critical and independent sectors of what might be called
established left-wing circles, and I have personal friends and associates
scattered here and there. But have a look at the books and journals, and
you'll see what I mean. I don't expect what I write and say to be any more
welcome in these circles than in the faculty club or editorial board room -
again, with exceptions.
The question arises only marginally, so much so that it's hard to answer.
RBR: A number of people have noted that you use the term 'libertarian
socialist' in the same context as you use the word 'anarchism'. Do you see
these terms as essentially similar? Is anarchism a type of socialism to
you? The description has been used before that anarchism is equivalent to
socialism with freedom. Would you agree with this basic equation?
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
RBR: In the past, when you have spoken about anarchism, you have often
emphasised the example of the Spanish Revolution. For you there would seem
to be two aspects to this example. On the one hand, the experience of the
Spanish Revolution is, you say, a good example of 'anarchism in action'. On
the other, you have also stressed that the Spanish revolution is a good
example of what workers can achieve through their own efforts using
participatory democracy. Are these two aspects - anarchism in action and
participatory democracy - one and the same thing for you? Is anarchism a
philosophy for people's power?
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.
RBR: One of the main achievements of the Spanish Revolution was the degree
of grassroots democracy established. In terms of people, it is estimated
that over 3 million were involved. Rural and urban production was managed
by workers themselves. 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
RBR: Anarchists often expend a great deal of effort at building up
grassroots democracy. Indeed they are often accused of taking democracy to
extremes. Yet, despite this, many anarchists would not readily identify
democracy as a central component of anarchist philosophy. Anarchists often
describe their politics as being about 'socialism' or being about 'the
individual'- they are less likely to say that anarchism is about democracy.
Would you agree that democratic ideas are a central feature of anarchism?
CHOMSKY: Criticism of 'democracy' among anarchists has often been criticism
of parliamentary democracy, as it has arisen within societies with deeply
repressive features. 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
RBR: The importance of grassroots democracy to any meaningful change in
society would seem to be self evident. Yet the left has been ambiguous
about this in the past. I'm speaking generally, of social democracy, but
also of Bolshevism - traditions on the left that would seem to have more in
common with elitist thinking than with strict democratic practice. Lenin,
to use a well-known example, was sceptical that workers could develop
anything more than trade union consciousness- by which, I assume, he meant
that workers could not see far beyond their immediate predicament.
Similarly, the Fabian socialist, Beatrice Webb, who was very influential in
the Labour Party in England, had the view that workers were only interested
in horse racing odds! Where does this elitism originate and what is it
doing on the left?
CHOMSKY: I'm afraid it's hard for me to answer this. 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.
RBR: Speaking generally again, your own work - Deterring Democracy,
Necessary Illusions, etc. - has dealt consistently with the role and
prevalence of elitist ideas in societies such as our own. You have argued
that within 'Western' (or parliamentary) democracy there is a deep
antagonism to any real role or input from the mass of people, lest it
threaten the uneven distribution in wealth which favours the rich. Your
work is quite convincing here, but, this aside, some have been shocked by
your assertions. For instance, you compare the politics of President John
F. Kennedy with Lenin, more or less equating the two. This, I might add,
has shocked supporters of both camps! Can you elaborate a little on the
validity of the comparison?
CHOMSKY: 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 cases. Without further
clarification about what people find shocking, I can't comment further. The
comparisons are specific, and I think both proper and properly qualified.
If not, that's an error, and I'd be interested to be enlightened about it.
Marxism
RBR: Specifically, Leninism refers to a form of marxism that developed with
V.I. Lenin. Are you implicitly distinguishing the works of Marx from the
particular criticism you have of Lenin when you use the term 'Leninism'? Do
you see a continuity between Marx's views and Lenin's later practices?
CHOMSKY: Bakunin's warnings about the Red bureaucracy that would institute
the worst of all despotic governments were long before Lenin, and were
directed against the followers of Mr. Marx. There were, in fact, followers
of many different kinds; Pannekoek, Luxembourg, Mattick and others are very
far from Lenin, and their views often converge with elements of
anarcho-syndicalism. Korsch and others wrote sympathetically of the
anarchist revolution in Spain, in fact. There are continuities from Marx to
Lenin, but there are also continuities to Marxists who were harshly
critical of Lenin and Bolshevism. Teodor Shanin's work in the past years on
Marx's later attitudes towards peasant revolution is also relevant here.
I'm far from being a Marx scholar, and wouldn't venture any serious
judgement on which of these continuities reflects the 'real Marx,' if there
even can be an answer to that question.
RBR: Recently, we obtained a copy of your own Notes On Anarchism
(re-published last year by Discussion Bulletin in the USA). In this you
mention the views of the early Marx, in particular his development of the
idea of alienation under capitalism. Do you generally agree with this
division in Marx's life and work - a young, more libertarian socialist but,
in later years, a firm authoritarian?
CHOMSKY: The early Marx draws extensively from the milieu in which he
lived, and one finds many similarities to the thinking that animated
classical liberalism, aspects of the Enlightenment and French and German
Romanticism. Again, I'm not enough of a Marx scholar to pretend to an
authoritative judgement. My impression, for what it is worth, is that the
early Marx was very much a figure of the late Enlightenment, and the later
Marx was a highly authoritarian activist, and a critical analyst of
capitalism, who had little to say about socialist alternatives. But those
are impressions.
RBR: From my understanding, the core part of your overall view is informed
by your concept of human nature. In the past the idea of human nature was
seen, perhaps, as something regressive, even limiting. For instance, the
unchanging aspect of human nature is often used as an argument for why
things can't be changed fundamentally in the direction of anarchism. You
take a different view? Why?
CHOMSKY: The core part of anyone's point of view is some concept of human
nature, however it may be remote from awareness or lack articulation. At
least, that is true of people who consider themselves moral agents, not
monsters. Monsters aside, whether a person who advocates reform or
revolution, or stability or return to earlier stages, or simply cultivating
one's own garden, takes stand on the grounds that it is 'good for people.'
But that judgement is based on some conception of human nature, which a
reasonable person will try to make as clear as possible, if only so that it
can be evaluated. So in this respect I'm no different from anyone else.
You're right that human nature has been seen as something 'regressive,' but
that must be the result of profound confusion. Is my granddaughter no
different from a rock, a salamander, a chicken, a monkey? A person who
dismisses this absurdity as absurd recognises that there is a distinctive
human nature. We are left only with the question of what it is - a highly
nontrivial and fascinating question, with enormous scientific interest and
human significance. We know a fair amount about certain aspects of it - not
those of major human significance. Beyond that, we are left with our hopes
and wishes, intuitions and speculations.
There is nothing regressive about the fact that a human embryo is so
constrained that it does not grow wings, or that its visual system cannot
function in the manner of an insect, or that it lacks the homing instinct
of pigeons. The same factors that constrain the organism's development also
enable it to attain a rich, complex, and highly articulated structure,
similar in fundamental ways to conspecifics, with rich and remarkable
capacities. An organism that lacked such determinative intrinsic structure,
which of course radically limits the paths of development, would be some
kind of amoeboid creature, to be pitied (even if it could survive somehow).
The scope and limits of development are logically related.
Take language, one of the few distinctive human capacities about which much
is known. We have very strong reasons to believe that all possible human
languages are very similar; a Martian scientist observing humans might
conclude that there is just a single language, with minor variants. The
reason is that the particular aspect of human nature that underlies the
growth of language allows very restricted options. Is this limiting? Of
course. Is it liberating? Also of course. It is these very restrictions
that make it possible for a rich and intricate system of expression of
thought to develop in similar ways on the basis of very rudimentary,
scattered, and varied experience.
What about the matter of biologically-determined human differences? That
these exist is surely true, and a cause for joy, not fear or regret. Life
among clones would not be worth living, and a sane person will only rejoice
that others have abilities that they do not share. That should be
elementary. What is commonly believed about these matters is strange
indeed, in my opinion.
Is human nature, whatever it is, conducive to the development of anarchist
forms of life or a barrier to them? We do not know enough to answer, one
way or the other. These are matters for experimentation and discovery, not
empty pronouncements.
The future
RBR: To begin finishing off, I'd like to ask you briefly about some current
issues on the left. I don't know if the situation is similar in the USA but
here, with the fall of the Soviet Union, a certain demoralisation has set
in on the left. It isn't so much that people were dear supporters of what
existed in the Soviet Union, but rather it's a general feeling that with
the demise of the Soviet Union the idea of socialism has also been dragged
down. Have you come across this type of demoralisation? What's your
response to it?
CHOMSKY: My response to the end of Soviet tyranny was similar to my
reaction to the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini. In all cases, it is a
victory for the human spirit. It should have been particularly welcome to
socialists, since a great enemy of socialism had at last collapsed. Like
you, I was intrigued to see how people - including people who had
considered themselves anti-Stalinist and anti-Leninist - were demoralised
by the collapse of the tyranny. What it reveals is that they were more
deeply committed to Leninism than they believed.
There are, however, other reasons to be concerned about the elimination of
this brutal and tyrannical system, which was as much socialist as it was
democratic (recall that it claimed to be both, and that the latter claim
was ridiculed in the West, while the former was eagerly accepted, as a
weapon against socialism - one of the many examples of the service of
Western intellectuals to power). One reason has to do with the nature of
the Cold War. In my view, it was in significant measure a special case of
the 'North-South conflict,' to use the current euphemism for Europe's
conquest of much of the world. Eastern Europe had been the original 'third
world,' and the Cold War from 1917 had no slight resemblance to the
reaction of attempts by other parts of the third world to pursue an
independent course, though in this case differences of scale gave the
conflict a life of its own. For this reason, it was only reasonable to
expect the region to return pretty much to its earlier status: parts of the
West, like the Czech Republic or Western Poland, could be expected to
rejoin it, while others revert to the traditional service role, the
ex-Nomenklatura becoming the standard third world elite (with the approval
of Western state-corporate power, which generally prefers them to
alternatives). That was not a pretty prospect, and it has led to immense
suffering.
Another reason for concern has to do with the matter of deterrence and
non-alignment. Grotesque as the Soviet empire was, its very existence
offered a certain space for non-alignment, and for perfectly cynical
reasons, it sometimes provided assistance to victims of Western attack.
Those options are gone, and the South is suffering the consequences.
A third reason has to do with what the business press calls the pampered
Western workers with their luxurious lifestyles. With much of Eastern
Europe returning to the fold, owners and managers have powerful new weapons
against the working classes and the poor at home. GM and VW can not only
transfer production to Mexico and Brazil (or at least threaten to, which
often amounts to the same thing), but also to Poland and Hungary, where
they can find skilled and trained workers at a fraction of the cost. They
are gloating about it, understandably, given the guiding values.
We can learn a lot about what the Cold War (or any other conflict) was
about by looking at who is cheering and who is unhappy after it ends. By
that criterion, the victors in the Cold War include Western elites and the
ex-Nomenklatura, now rich beyond their wildest dreams, and the losers
include a substantial part of the population of the East along with working
people and the poor in the West, as well as popular sectors in the South
that have sought an independent path.
Such ideas tend to arouse near hysteria among Western intellectuals, when
they can even perceive them, which is rare. That's easy to show. It's also
understandable. The observations are correct, and subversive of power and
privilege; hence hysteria.
In general, the reactions of an honest person to the end of the Cold War
will be more complex than just pleasure over the collapse of a brutal
tyranny, and prevailing reactions are suffused with extreme hypocrisy, in
my opinion.
Capitalism
RBR: In many ways the left today finds itself back at its original starting
point in the last century. Like then, it now faces a form of capitalism
that is in the ascendancy. There would seem to be greater 'consensus'
today, more than at any other time in history, that capitalism is the only
valid form of economic organisation possible, this despite the fact that
wealth inequality is widening. Against this backdrop, one could argue that
the left is unsure of how to go forward. How do you look at the current
period? Is it a question of 'back to basics'? Should the effort now be
towards bringing out the libertarian tradition in socialism and towards
stressing democratic ideas?
CHOMSKY: This is mostly propaganda, in my opinion. What is called
'capitalism' is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and
largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the
economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in
close co-operation with powerful states that intervene massively in the
domestic economy and international society. That is dramatically true of
the United States, contrary to much illusion. The rich and privileged are
no more willing to face market discipline than they have been in the past,
though they consider it just fine for the general population. Merely to
cite a few illustrations, the Reagan administration, which revelled in free
market rhetoric, also boasted to the business community that it was the
most protectionist in post-war US history - actually more than all others
combined. Newt Gingrich, who leads the current crusade, represents a
superrich district that receives more federal subsidies than any other
suburban region in the country, outside of the federal system itself. The
'conservatives' who are calling for an end to school lunches for hungry
children are also demanding an increase in the budget for the Pentagon,
which was established in the late 1940s in its current form because - as
the business press was kind enough to tell us - high tech industry cannot
survive in a pure, competitive, unsubsidized, 'free enterprise' economy,
and the government must be its saviour. Without the saviour, Gingrich's
constituents would be poor working people (if they were lucky). There would
be no computers, electronics generally, aviation industry, metallurgy,
automation, etc., etc., right down the list. Anarchists, of all people,
should not be taken in by these traditional frauds.
More than ever, libertarian socialist ideas are relevant, and the
population is very much open to them. Despite a huge mass of corporate
propaganda, outside of educated circles, people still maintain pretty much
their traditional attitudes. In the US, for example, more than 80% of the
population regard the economic system as inherently unfair and the
political system as a fraud, which serves the special interests, not the
people. Overwhelming majorities think working people have too little voice
in public affairs (the same is true in England), that the government has
the responsibility of assisting people in need, that spending for education
and health should take precedence over budget-cutting and tax cuts, that
the current Republican proposals that are sailing through Congress benefit
the rich and harm the general population, and so on. Intellectuals may tell
a different story, but it's not all that difficult to find out the facts.
RBR: To a point anarchist ideas have been vindicated by the collapse of the
Soviet Union - the predictions of Bakunin have proven to be correct. Do you
think that anarchists should take heart from this general development and
from the perceptiveness of Bakunin's analysis? Should anarchists look to
the period ahead with greater confidence in their ideas and history?
CHOMSKY: I think - at least hope - that the answer is implicit in the
above. I think the current era has ominous portent, and signs of great
hope. Which result ensues depends on what we make of the opportunities.
RBR: Lastly, Noam, a different sort of question. We have a pint of Guinness
on order for you here. When are you going to come and drink it?
CHOMSKY: Keep the Guinness ready. I hope it won't be too long. Less
jocularly, I'd be there tomorrow if we could. We (my wife came along with
me, unusual for these constant trips) had a marvellous time in Ireland, and
would love to come back. Why don't we? Won't bore you with the sordid
details, but demands are extraordinary, and mounting - a reflection of the
conditions I've been trying to describe.
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