Chomsky On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky

Chomsky On Anarchism Reviews

• 
  Natalie

  As an introduction to anarchist theory for someone who knows only the conceptual framework, this was very helpful. And also very frustrating.
  
  The vast majority of people have no idea what anarchism is. (Chaos and bombs, right?) This is unfortunate. Anarchism is so beautiful and liberating, and really, truly founded in common sense.
  
  The basic premise which Chomsky reiterates many times is that humans should be completely free, to the greatest extent possible. Any structure, relationship, or institution that limits that freedom must be challenged and questioned, and that authority holds the burden of proof to justify its existence. Chomsky acknowledges that there are instances when authority, which automatically reduces freedom, is justified. For example, if a child is running into a street, and a parent yells "Stop!", the parent limits the child's freedom, but in a very justified way.
  
  What Chomsky argues, and I tend to agree, is that in the vast majority of cases, authority is not justifiable. It limits freedom unnecessarily, and so should be eroded.
  
  Each piece in this collection was interesting in its own way, but the two I enjoyed the most were "Language and Freedom" and "Containing the Threat of Democracy." I also appreciate his demarcation between goals (achievable things we can work for now) and visions (the ideal society that we would love to see but which is currently impossible given the present social structures).
  
  What I liked about Chomsky's writing is that it's very accessible and easy to understand. He does this consciously--he opines that highfalutin intellectual jargon is usually just a means of mystifying very simple concepts so that only a privileged few can take part in the discourse (boy is that ever true!). He's very good at reducing concepts to their core.
  
  However, he is very short on specifics, and when it comes to anarchism, a theory that I find so attractive, yet am very new to and know little about, I want some specifics. The shortcomings of anarchism seem so obvious and non-trivial that I need someone to really walk me through it.
  
  I definitely recommend this for anyone who is new to anarchism and wants to learn more about it, or anyone interested in intellectual attacks on imperialism, corporate tyranny, government coercion, etc.
• 
  Chris_P

  Let's be honest here people! Noam Chomsky is the only person alive who speaks publicly about the real (dare I say only) truths about the world order that is and the one that should be. And he does that for the sake of education. He doesn't sell conspiracy theories nor cheap ideologies. You won't find any patronizing propaganda shit here. That's why he doesn't get any publicity. Because he can't be used against his own theories.
  
  This particular book is a great way for one to be introduced not only to the basic principles of anarchism, but also to those of living harmonically in society. It does a great job in making you turn your head away from the shadows on the wall and towards the real deal. I call this enlightenment.
• 
  Benjamin Eskola

  This is a collection of a few articles and book introductions, transcripts of speeches, and interviews. The problem is that this format ends up being pretty repetitive. The introductions in particular, and some of the articles, tend to cover mostly the same ground, and I can't help but feeling that a synthesis of them into a new article would be much more valuable than reading several slightly different articles.
  
  The high point was “Containing the Threat of Democracy”, which was one of the longer articles and covered a bit more ground than others did. Unfortunately it's also one in which Chomsky's politics conflict with my own; specifically, his un-nuanced defence of freedom of speech, whereby if you do not defend hate speech and abuse (he mentions specifically the right of the KKK to march around with signs like “burn the n*****” and “send the Jews back to Israel”), you are a fascist or a Stalinist. Sorry, Noam, but it's not that simple, and there should be room for the recognition that unrestricted free speech can itself limit the freedom of others.
  
  (I’ve turned off comments because six years after reading this I’m still getting comments from liberals trying to explain why I’m wrong. Sorry, but liberal defences of the KKK’s freedom of speech all seem to boil down to a tacit admission that it would only take the right argument in favour of lynching to change their mind, and I have no interest in hearing from people whose 'principles' are so easily swayed.)
• 
  Wick Welker

  Anarchism is pure and decentralized democracy.
  
  This brief and meandering read is not a bad intro in the philosophy of anarchism. To be clear, Chomsky explains that anarchism is not chaos but is in fact the truest form of socialistic democracy where all power is decentralized and any power structure must continually justify its existence or be dismantled. Indeed, anarchism is actually libertarianism. The Ayn Rand/neoliberal brand of libertarianism is a capitalist distortion where power is indeed decentralized away from government authority and funneled to corporate plutocrats. Americans often conflate these two disparate forms of libertarianism.
  
  Capitalism, in practice, is actually extremely authoritarian because it inevitably involves collusion with government power and militarization. Free markets are not real but a neoliberal fantasy sold to the public to support a failing power structure and target political enemies. The right seeks to subvert the federal government, atomize all power into the states where it can capture control and privatize everything. Adam Smith was actually quite liberal, as Chomsky points out is often ignored, and Smith would have abhorred the rent seeking of labor and the enslavement of humanity. When a person has the choice between renting their labor or starving, that is not choice and that is not freedom.
  
  Socialism, just like neoliberalism, can be awful if it's under the tight fist of state control, like communism. Communism is state-capitalism and a socialized economy where technocrats are pulling the levers. This also does not work. And so anarchism seeks to dismantle any of this tyrannical power structures and spread the power out over the labor class. I suppose I could sum up anarchism with a single scenario: a person goes to their job and uses their labor in an industry in which they, and everyone of their co-employees, have partial ownership.
  
  I still don't really know what anarchism is supposed to look like in reality and I don't think Chomsky does either. He mentions that it is a theory and must be socially tested like any other scientific theory before it can be refined. As I finished this book, I became even more convinced that wholesale belief in any one philosophy, be it anarchism or "free" markets, is fundamentally flawed. To be an ideologue is to tear down the current structure and start fresh . This seems terribly counterproductive, destructive and with no guarantee that something good would come out of the ashes. Can't we just lift ourselves up from our current situation? Let's work with what we have and where we're at.
• 
  Pavle

  Ključna knjižica za svaki ’Ja ne verujem u državu’ starter pack. Neironično piti kafu i čitati ovo na VERANDI je nešto što svako treba u nekom trenutku doživeti jer donosi sasvim adekvatan nivo samoprezira sa sobom.
  
  U suštini, ovo je zbirka odlomaka iz nekih drugih dela Čomskog, na temu anarhizma i izvornog libertarijanizma. Ti odlomci variraju po kvalitetu: deo o Španskom gradjanskom ratu je anarhistička istoriografija prvog stepena; dva intervjua zanimljiv su prikaz Čomskog kao govornika (i na neki način propovednika); poslednji deo na temu ’Jezik i sloboda’ mogao bi komotno da se preimenuje samo u ’Sloboda’ jer Čomski tu vezu praktično nijednom u tih dvadesetak stranica nije istražio. Prijalo mi je kao uvodnik u neko drugo, obimnije i ozbiljnije čitanje. Moj stav o anarhizmu ostao je manje više isti – pokret u uskoj vezi sa privilegovanim intelektualizmom i (nažalost) daleko od stvarnosti. Voleo bih da se Čomski više bavio zašto je baš tako, zašto je baš ovako ispalo, a manje antikapitalističkim onanisanjem.
  
  4-
  
• 
  Heba

  الكتاب سلس ويصلح كمقدمة لهذا الفكر. الجزء الخاص بالحرب الأهلية الإسبانية بحاجة إلى وجود خلفية عنها لدى القارئ.
• 
  Evelyn

  Chomsky on Anarchism is a collection of essays and interviews in which Chomsky discusses the broadness and complexity of anarchism and anarchist issues. He mainly refers to anarcho-syndicalism and there are some good parts where he goes over the role that anarchism played in the Spanish Civil War (though to the experienced reader, this has since been well noted by others). I found his comments on Rousseau's Discourse of Equality interesting, as well as Chapter 4 (The Relevance of Anarcho-Syndicalism).
  
  All in all, an insightful collection, though I feel the overall structure and composition of the book is a little strange as the reader has to wade through an incredibly dry first chapter to get to the good bits. The book itself definitely progressed significantly for me as the chapters went on and whilst I know all of the material has been published elsewhere, it's nice to have all of these thoughts in one place.
• 
  Alex Lee

  I knew Chomsky from Universal Grammar. I studied his work while I was in grad school. It has taken me well over a decade to start to read Chomsky as a political actor. While he is obviously intelligent and well studied in the area, what really detracts for me the veracity of his ideas is his claim that postmodernism is nothing.
  
  He states that he has not met someone who could explain to him what Derrida was talking about in 5 minutes. I don't think most people can do that, even people who like Derrida, because I don't think most people are rarely clear, getting mixed up with details. (It's simple. Derrida is against metaphysics, he critiques totalizing systems of meaning (of which metaphysics is but one, the most common type) and he cites how, with differance, how meaning is unstable and thus unable to be totalizing.)
  
  Chomsky then states that quantum mechanics and lingusitics are highly technical and thus also unable to be explained in 5 minutes. He professes not to understand postmodernism/post-structuralism but also doesn't consider that it might be technical... He does claim that he would never try to explain linguistics in 5 minutes... but I think linguistics can be explained in 5 minutes. it's not hard, especially not Universal Grammar. You won't get into the nitty-details, and people won't become experts. But it can be done.
  
  You can also explain quantum mechanics in 5 minutes -- it's a not a theory, but it is a set of mathematical conditions that describe sub-atomic particle movements in a variety of models (like Noether's thereom), but in general, the models are done using statistics of which the super-position is merely a model of all possible positions. The confusion in QM comes about because scientists think their models are transparent and thus confuse the results of their application as being properties solely of their objects of study. For example, the wave-particle duality is a distraction because quantum scientists don't often consider how mutually different apparatuses of measurement presents results differently as they set different conditions for satisfaction and thus come up with different arrangements.
  
  But anyway Chomsky contradicts himself, in pretty much a few pages about something so philosophically plain that it makes me think his political ideas, despite having some deep veracity to them, are also suspect. All in all, I think this is a pretty good introduction to Anarchy and Chomsky.
• 
  Ali Benam

  The interviews were great. I'll be coming back again to the chapter explaining Spanish Civil War after further studies about it.
• 
  Billie Pritchett

  UPDATE: I re-read this book Monday, February 3, 2014. I don't think my views of the book have changed much since I wrote the review I did below on January 16, 2010. Actually, though, I should say that as for the remark about some of the language being hyperbolic I don't see it that way much anymore. Perhaps it's a matter of me getting older.
  
  ORIGINAL REVIEW (January 16, 2010)
  Noam Chomsky didn't write this book, but it is a collection of interviews conducted with Chomsky, chapter excerpts from books he did write, and essays he has presented at conferences, all related in some way to the topic of anarchism. Chomsky admits in one of the essays that anarchism has, quoting another author, 'a broad back,' that is, it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. However, he defines anarchism as "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." Interestingly, this loose definition of anarchism would be congenial to a number of people, and if adherence to this conviction is what constitutes the essence of anarchism, then more people are anarchists than they think. One could even be 'conservative' and be an anarchist. Political philosopher Michael Oakeshott writes, "To be conservative...is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss." Incidentally, Chomsky identifies himself as a conservative.
  
  The essays in this collection are largely critical (in the positive sense). Chomsky writes about how some so-called neutral scholarship, particularly in the fields of political science and history, have a bias for liberal democracies. Some of this has even led mainstream scholarship to dismiss or choose not to understand popular democratic movements. He suggests that the malleability of language is an indicator of the human drive to be creative and interact with other sympathetic individuals. He tries to tease out anarchism as a historical movement toward a more communal life, emphasizing that he believes that this communal life will probably take the form of anarcho-syndicalism. Another essay focuses on liberal democracies' penchant to suppress popular movements in other countries when they threaten U.S. or European interests. And in one of the latter essays, I get the impression that his vision toward anarchism is well-tempered by the more practical social concerns that every society faces. For example, he criticizes anarchists, saying that they should not want to immediately undercut state power, because this would just lead to an increase in private business power, which he views as a conglomerate of private tyrannies. So he says that some measures that have to do with practical human concerns may mean at least a temporary increase in state power.
  
  This is a very interesting, thought-provoking book. The sorts of criticisms I would make of it involve how hyperbolic some of the language can be. For example, I do not always know if he really thinks working for a wage is literally 'wage slavery,' or if this is just a way of putting it. Another matter is that even though he demonstrates that a wage system makes people dependent on money for their survival and to output creatively, he readily admits that, in his own case e.g., that people can be perfectly happy doing the sorts of work they do independent of the wages they earn. It would seem, then, that the wage system itself isn't unjust, but rather what is unjust is situations where government permits too much wealth to become concentrated and too many other people to be poor or starve, through no faults of their own. In that case, though, it seems as though a government's implementation of social programs to remedy these pratfalls or taxation to control the concentration of wealth would be a decent, humane remedy to these problems. But what do I know?
• 
  Nico Scagliarini

  "I think you are an anarchist and you don't know it yet. Not in the classic way but in a Chomsky way. You should read this."
  
  After having read this collection, I can tell that the statement above is not only one of the smartest/most accurate observations about my person, but quite flattering as well. The "Chomsky way" is the result of a deep knowledge of many areas of study and it is explained in his essays and interviews in the most accessible way. I am familiar with most of the topics and the academic way of presenting them but I am sure that almost no one would have problems in understanding the point. Agreeing or not is another matter, but I personally do and although he manages to explain himself way better than I ever could, his opinion reflects mine so accurately that it's almost scary. The opinions are quite often repeated towards the end, but I guess it is inevitable being this not an organic essay.
  
  I could spend hours typing and quoting, but I think that if someone is interested about an enlightening point of view about how our world works, should simply read all of it.
• 
  Ron Joniak

  Enjoyable read on some of Chomsky's thoughts. I particularly enjoyed the chapters that were based off prior interviews of Chomsky as it answered a few of my questions.
  
  Indeed Chomsky:
  "...every form of authority and domination and hierarchy, every authoritarian structure, has to prove that it's justified--it has no prior justification. For instance, when you stop your five-year-old kid from trying to cross the street, that's an authoritarian situation: it's got to be justified. Well, in that case, I think you can give a justification. But the burden of proof for any exercise of authority is always on the person exercising it--invariably. And when you look, most of the time these authority structures have no justification: they have no moral justification, no justification in the interests of the person lower in the hierarchy, or in the interests of other people, or the environment, or in the future, or the society, or anything else--they're just there in order to preserve certain structures of power and domination, and the people at the top."
  -On Anarchism (Chomsky)
• 
  Tom

  A great selection of Noam Chomsky's writings, talks and interviews on anarchism and his political philosophy in general. I've talked to a number of people who have had some difficulty getting into it, which is understandable as it begins with "Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship", which is in my opinion one of Chomsky's densest writings that I've read. If you find yourself in a similar position, skip through the first part of Objectivity... or go on to the next chapter, because it's really a great read. Another issue I had was that the author arranges the selections in the book without any context beyond a note at the end of each explaining its source. Some introduction or overview of some or all of the writings would have been awesome, especially something like Objectivity... which just throws you into a discussion about theories of how intellectuals act in American society without any context at all.
• 
  Marius

  "So for example, one of the founders of classical liberalism, Wilhelm von Humboldt (who incidentally is very admired by so-called "conservatives" today, because they don't read him), pointed out that if a worker produces a beautiful object on command, you may 'admire what the workers does, but you will despise what he is'" - Chomsky's On Anarchism, Excerpts from Understanding Power
  
  With a clear summary of his Anarchist beliefs, mixed with some surprisingly amusing interviews, an interesting and critical look at the liberal reporting on the Spanish Civil War and a distinct overview of human nature, Chomsky manages to give you a dose of well formulated and decent logical thinking.
• 
  Matt Roberts

  This book is a collection of essays and interviews of Chomsky from the 1960's to the early 2000's. These writings substantially cover Chomsky's thoughts on anarchism, socialism, libertarianism, and everything in between. This is a great read.
• 
  Ian Rogers

  This was quite good but far too short. Go read some Bakunin, you'll be better off.
• 
  G. Branden

  This outstanding anthology of Chomsky's anarchist thought is an excellent introduction to modern anarcho-socialism a.k.a. libertarian socialism.
• 
  Matt

  Having read half of Daniel Guerin's No Gods, No Masters, last summer (and plan on reading the other half this summer), Chomsky brings much needed articulation as to anarchist theory in post-industrial society such as ours. Most of my previous reading on anarchist thought is limited to the 19th century Russian anarcho-syndicalists Kropotkin and Bakunin. Chomsky's essays, especially his more recent toward the end of the book, provide inspiration as to practical approach in bringing anarchist thought in into the 21st century.
  
  As I flip through the marred copy of my book, I'm trying to figure out which among the heavily underlined passages would serve best to give a flavor of the book in a review. To start, Chomsky's quote by Rudolf Rocker in Preface to Antologija Anarhizma (1986) best summarizes the basic premise behind anarchist thought:
  

  "Democracy with its motto of equality of all citizens before the law and Liberalism with its right of man over his own person both were wrecked on the realities of capitalist economy," Rocker correctly observed. Those who are compelled to rent themselves to owners of capital in order to survive are deprived of one of the most fundamental rights: the right to productive, creative and fulfilling work under one's own control, in solidarity with others.

  
  For Chomsky, predatory capitalism is no longer a fit system that can meet human needs which must be addressed in collective terms. Language and Freedom.
  
  Nothing terrible radical nor complicated about this idea. But most things in life can be expressed simply. And that's one of the more appealing aspects to this collection of essays. It's accessibility is intentional. In Anarchism, Intellectuals and the State, Chomsky, the linguist, plainly lays out the first obstacle to productive discussion on topics such as political theory:
  

  One of the things that intellectuals do is make them inaccessible, for various reasons, including the reasons of domination and personal privilege. It's very natural for intellectuals to try to make simple things look difficult. It's like when the medieval church was creating mysteries to maintain importance... But these are the ways in which contemporary intellectuals, including those on the Left, create great careers for themselves, power for themselves, marginalize people, intimidate people and so on. In the United States, for example, and indeed much of the Third World, lots of young radical activists are simply intimidated by the incomprehensible gibberish that comes out of left-wing intellectual movements- often radical feminists or this or that- which is just impossible to understand. It makes people feel like they're not going to do anything because, unless I somehow understand the latest version of post-modern this and that, I can't go out in the streets and organize people, because I'm not bright enough. It may not be intended this way but the effect is a technique of marginalization and control and self-interest. Because the people themselves become prestigious and travel around and live in high circles and so forth.

  
  A common complaint, but this is not an anti-intellectual rant. There is no derision of intellectualism. Simply frustration with insincere communication about ideas. Shortly afterward, Chomsky speaks about his ability as a linguist professor to engage in conversation in plain terms regarding his study as well as his colleagues who teach physics. In comparison, he questions whether those specializing in Derrida could do so with obfuscation. The entire idea behind the "project of liberation" must occur within ourselves and discourse first. First we have to feel empowered to speak about the ideas we want to see in action.
  
  Chomsky also draws on lessons from the women's movement as an example for developing anarchist values. Interview with Barry Pateman. Just as the early feminists used consciousness-raising groups to bring out the oppressive elements in their lives that may not have been perceived clearly, so can the same tactic apply to all in regards to oppression by the State. An effort to understand the extent of our limited freedoms must cut through the indoctrination that has turned us into "passive consumer(s), a person who pushes a button every couple years and is taught that that is democracy."
  
  However, his idealism is tempered by common-sense. Chomsky rejects radical steps fueled by slogans that work against the ultimate goal of anarchism.
  

  [T:]he state is an illegitimate institution. But it does not follow from that that you should not support the state. Sometimes there is a more illegitimate institution which will take over if you do not support this illegitimate institution...anarchists can't seem to understand that they are to support that. So they join with the ultra-right in saying "Yes, we've got to minimize the state," meaning put more power into the hands of private tyrannies which are completely unaccountable to the public and purely totalitarian... In fact, protecting the state sector today is a step towards abolishing the state because it maintains a public arena in which people can participate, and organize, and affect policy, and so on, though in limited ways. If that's removed, we'd go back to a [...:]dictatorship or say a private dictatorship, but that's hardly a step toward liberation. Anarchism, Intellectuals and the State (1996).

  
  The anarchist does not require the complete dissolution of authority, simply that "any structure of hierarchy and authority carries a heavy burden of justification..." Goals and Visions (1996). Though at times it seems we tend to believe so, the existing power structures are not immutable nor something which arise out nature.
  
  However, that does not mean Chomsky has created a doctrine upon which society should form itself. When opponents of anarchist values demand an alternative to current structure, they are displeased. In recent history, the Leninist model of socialism has been touted as the alternative to capitalism. Such propaganda ignores the prediction of the "red bureaucracy" that Bakunin warned would be "the most vile and terrible lie our century created." Preface to Antologija Anarhizma(1986). Such socialism is not the pre-determined end result of collective action.
  
  Yet many will still discount anarchist value because if there is no outline nor blueprint upon which these values are enforced, any anarchist vision is presumed to fail. However, in some ways, that is asking a medieval serf to explain in detail representation in a constitutional democracy. Such detail is lacking because of our collective inexperience with collective governance. Chomsky believes attempting this kind of grand overhaul is not the most effective form of implementing anarchist values:
  

  we should be cautious in trying to sketch out the nature of the future society in too much detail. It's not that it can't be done. It can be done in interesting and different ways- and it has been done- but I think the real question is to what extent is it important to do it and to what extent is is it important to just try and experiment and chip away at existing structures? Interview with Barry Pateman.

  
  Ultimately, though there is a large gap between "what we grasp with any confidence and understanding" and "what we must establish to ground the choice of action", we do know some things. Chomsky believes we have an instinct for freedom. An instinct that has a rich tradition. And though "science takes its halting steps toward establishing truths about human nature, and philosophy seeks to establish the connection [...:] between human nature and rights deriving from it", we cannot hold social theory and action in abeyance. Chomsky helps articulate, in fragmented form, many of the values rooted in ourselves that simply need to be defined. The real question is whether we are willing to embrace those ideas.
  
  
  
• 
  Parth Agrawal

  This is the first book of this author that I've read and believe me the only reason that I'm giving it 4 star and not 5 star is that the mid portion of the book involves a description of Spanish social revolution to make his point in support of libertarian socialism and that story's a bit long
  
  Every sentence of the book rings true and especially for the societal framework in which we are currently living. To a lot of readers, it might seem extremely anti-capitalistic book and pro-socialist book but time and again, the author has clarified that we as a society need to pick good aspects from both the ideologies and come to a hybrid model of both. Whosoever is of the opinion that one of the 2 ideologies is pure evil and the other one is pure gold, this is the book for you to retain back your equilibrium
  
  There must be many, even I belonged to that creed, who would say that we are not picking sides between socialism and capitalism. But what people forget to realize is that the national-models based on both the ideologies have their own way of propaganda. Socialistic countries tried to do so by withholding information while capitalistic countries tried to bombard their population with ideas which they want them to believe in, through repetition. The best way to highlight this is through the interview question that the author was asked:
  
  Interviewer: What's your basis behind the fact that capitalistic societies work upon their own version of propaganda?
  
  Author: If I say that some dictator of middle east, suppose Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, is evil or isn't working in favor of his own people, nobody expects me to highlight the UNGA and UNSC conventions that the dictator must have violated whereas if I say that George W Bush is evil or is favoring the terrorist organizations, suddenly there'll be all kinds of silent expectations which roughly would translate to: "Why would you say that? Or Where's your proof? or How dare you?". These silent expectations are something which only an individual can evaluate and that too only about himself/herself. If there would be people who would honestly perform and accept the results of this introspection, they would understand why do I say what I say
  
• 
  Daniel

  Well, we know what they think; what they think is very straightforward. They think that working people should have more say in what goes on and they think that unions should have less say. And both assumptions are reasonable based on the information available to them. People make judgments on the basis of the information available. The information available to them is that unions are a weapon against working people. Did you see On the Waterfront, a famous film years ago? Sort of a model, a model that the media
  has been presenting like a battering ram for fifty years. The idea is that the unions are the enemy of the workers and the simple worker has to rise up and overthrow the union. You can understand why the entertainment industry, which is just a huge corporate system, would try to prevent the idea of unions. And to some extent they've succeeded. So people honestly believe that working people have to liberate themselves from unions, and that's one of the ways in which working people will have more say in what goes on. There's of course a factual error there. It's not that we don't know what people believe. They believe a false fact, namely that unions are the enemy of the working people. Sometimes it's true incidentally, like any propaganda. The craziest propaganda is always based on some elements of truth. And there's elements of truth here too. Unions have been enemies of workers, but they are also probably the most democratic form of organization that exists in our highly undemocratic society. There can be and often have been associations within which workers can free themselves and extend the sphere of social justice, But the media are not going to tell you that, so the answer to the dilemma is to get people to understand what unions are or could be, to learn working class history. Nobody knows working class history, nobody studies it. In fact, just take a look at the media you find all over the world. There are business sections, have you ever seen a labor section? I don't know a single newspaper that has a labor section. Every single one has a business section. There's a business press, is there a labor press? If you look here, I don't know, but in the United States, try to find a reporter who's assigned to the labor movement. There are maybe two working in the whole country. That means the whole population doesn't get covered.What gets covered is the business world and it's a reflection of power. Unless people are able to unravel that system of propaganda they're not going to be able to liberate themselves. So that's part of the job, to overcome these differences. It's the same with welfare. Overwhelmingly, the population thinks that the government, meaning the organized public, has a responsibility to provide people with minimal standards of living, health, and so on. On the other hand, they're opposed to welfare, which does exactly that. The reason: the image of welfare is a rich, black mother having children over and over again so that we'll pay for them, riding in a Cadillac to the welfare office to pick up her check. That's what people think welfare is, so you can understand why they're opposed to welfare. Why should I work to pay for her? So they're opposed to welfare. On the other hand, they say "Well, there's that poor woman over there who can't take care of her child. She should have support." It's not a contradiction, it's just a false assumption built in by heavy indoctrination. And the answer is unravel the indoctrination. It's like saying that Brazil has to pay its debt. That's indoctrination. Who has to pay the debt? The people who rook the money and sent it back to New York to make more money? They're the ones who should pay the debt, if anybody should. That's not Brazil. You have to talk about these things, so people can understand them. They're not very hard, you don't have to talk about them in post-modern rhetoric. You can talk about them in very simple words because they're very simple points and people easily understand. The only people who don't understand them are intellectuals. And of course, they have a vested interest in not understanding them. If they understand them, then their own powers are lost. So they're not going to understand them, they're going to cloud them in mysteries.
  
  
  I think that's quite true. and in fact the people who understand this the best are those who are carrying out the control and domination in the more free societies. like the U.S. and England. where popular struggles have have won a lot of freedoms over the years and the state has limited capacity to coerce. It is very striking that it's precisely in those societies that elite groups-the business world, state managers and so on-recognized early on that they are going to have to develop massive methods of control of attitude and opinion, because you cannot control people by force anymore and therefore you have to modify their consciousness so that they don't perceive that they are living under conditions of alienation, oppression, subordination and so on. In fact, that's what probably a couple million dollars are spent on each year in the U.S., very self consciously, from the framing of television advertisements for two-year olds to what you are taught in graduate school economics programs. It's designed to create a consciousness of subordination and it's also intended specifically and pretty consciously to suppress normal human emotions. Normal human emotions are sympathy and solidarity, not just for people but for stranded dolphins. It's just a normal reaction for people. If you go back to the classical political economists, people like Adam Smith, this was just taken for granted as the core of human nature and society. One of the main contributions of advertising and education is to drive: that out of your mind. And it's very conscious. In fact, it's conscious in social policy right in from of our eyes today. Take the effort to destroy Social Security. Well, what's the point of that? There's a lot of scam about financial problems, which is all total nonsense. And, of course, they want Wall Street to make a killing. Underlying it all is something much deeper. Social Security is based on a human emotion and it's a natural human emotion which has to be driven out of people minds, namely the emotion that you care about other people. You care. It's a social and community responsibility to care whether a disabled widow across town has enough food to eat, or whether a kid across the street can go to school. You have to get that out of people's heads. You have to make them say, "Look, you are a personal, rational wealth maximizer. If that disabled widow didn't prepare for her own future, it's her problem not your problem. It's not your fault she doesn't have enough to eat so why should you care?"
  
• 
  Tobias

  A nice short introduction to anarchist thought by Noam Chomsky. Some prior knowledge of anarchism and other ideologies seems to be presupposed, though. The first part of the book struck me as a little incoherent and didn't feel like a great way to open. The part about objectivity and liberal scholarship was a nice surprise; where the author looked at the Spanish revolution of 1936 and its portrayal by scholars. Chomsky writes rather accessibly and states his arguments clearly. Decent little book.
• 
  Emily

  I like this book a lot. I feel as though I don't have much to add, as I agree with the ideas presented about government, power, human nature, and the way society should be structured. A particular highlight was the brief section containing an interview. Chomsky directly answers the sort of questions that come up when explaining leftist and anarchist ideas to people that are acting in good faith. So to see him answer these questions so directly and eloquently was very helpful. I feel like I've picked up some tools that will help me to explain these ideas when talking to friends and family, which might be my favorite thing about this book.
  
  Most people hold anarchist values, particularly with respect to freedom and placing the burden of proof on those claiming authority. It's just when you put put the label of "anarchist" or "socialist" on those ideas that people shirk away. But the whole point is that these are ideas the most people hold and value, but they struggle to imagine a society in which those sentiments are more genuinely implemented. I've found it incredibly frustrating in my own academic career when I encounter self identified progressives who will point out how the root of social injustices are systemic before throwing their hands up in the air and calling it quits. Multiple times, I've participated in conversations about systemic oppression, only for a colleague to say "everything is based around money and it sucks" before giving up on any further progress. They come right up to the edge of having a conversation about a better, fairer way to live, before making a dismissive joke about communism and running away. Back to the cold, familiar embrace of their unpaid internship, mountains of debt, and multiple low paying jobs.
  
  Something I struggle with conceptualizing is general strikes in our current society. I do agree that a widespread, general strike is likely our best way of creating broad change and exercising our power as workers. But where I struggle is implementing 20th century concepts of that into current day society. That is because those books were written in a manufacturing based economy, while America has shifted to more of a service based economy. Which means that some of socialism's most powerful aphorisms don't hit as hard as they used to. The image of a factory worker making loaves of bread all day so he can afford to buy a slice doesn't hit as hard for, say, someone who works in a nursing home or a summer camp. Certainly, the underlying idea of the value of workers' labor being appropriate holds true just the same. But it's easier to convince someone to go on strike the it's bread or cars that will go unmade, rather than people going without a service they rely on. In a way, people have become even more alienated from the products of their labor. Because instead of having a product that is then sold for a profit by somebody who didn't make it, the fruits of ones labor have more and more become fees for service. I suppose the solution, then, would have to be that people who are missing out on a service would also have to be on board with service workers going on strike. As the service workers will be happier and more productive under more equitable conditions, a victory for some of us is a victory for all of us.
  
  I don't want to get things twisted here. If it is necessary that service workers go on strike to protect their rights, that is not the fault of the service workers. They didn't cause the problem- they're just trying to protect their rights. The root of the problem is the service workers' bosses. Of course, it is easy for that to be obscured because the workers are the ones directly interfacing with the people who will no longer have that service during the strike. And the ones who receive that service have likely never interacted with the bosses who necessitated the strike in the first place. Ingeniously, the elite have removed themselves from a service based economy to the point that service workers and service receivers would be led to fight amongst each other, rather than uniting in solidarity against the people who perpetuate and benefit from the problem.
  
  Anyway, as much as I like the ideas presented, I have to give this book 4 stars. My only exposure to Chomsky is this book and the documentary Manufacturing Consent. And something I noticed between both of those sources is a tendency to meander. When Chomsky is speaking, he has excellent clarify of voice and expresses himself well. But in an edited format, the powerful theses tend to become more obscured. Take for example the chapter on liberal scholarship. While it seemed that this would have been a good opportunity to discuss material conditions that incentivize media to misrepresent the truth, it was instead more of an individual breakdown of one author's portrayal of one historical period in one country. While that could be useful, I was more interested in a systemic analysis. So I did end up skimming the latter half of that chapter. There are some fantastic insights and ideas in this book. I just wish they were a bit more front and center.
  
  But overall, I do like this book a lot. Anything that can get me thinking this deeply and bring out some of the ideas I discussed in this review is something I appreciate.
• 
  Walter Schutjens

  A nice and short collection of interviews given by Noam Chomsky on questions relating to his beliefs on liberty and economics, or otherwise his defence of Anarchism. After having read much more on Anarchism in both fiction, and nonfiction, I am coming to understand its values and concepts for social organization. The book is worth reading only for its introduction where Anarchism is compared to other concepts such as libertarianism and socialism. (dont be confused by the rating, a collection of interviews cant get more than 3 stars...)
• 
  Pote

  'Chomsky on Anarchism' by Noam Chomsky is a collection of interviews and essays covering a range of topics, but all of them as they relate to social conditions, change, and the future of human societies.
  
  Comprised of eleven chapters: five essays, five interviews, and one selection being an introduction to a book; it was more informative than I had originally expected, and held a few surprises that enlightened me a bit on the thoughts of a man that I have read so much and heard so much of in the past couple years. Much of it was not new to me. His quotations of Rousseau, Dewey, the essay 'Containing the Threat of Democracy', and much more of it I have long been acquainted with, and it was in speeches that I first heard the aforementioned ideas that attracted me to this professor, and now I was reading them in print. But indeed there were still plenty of ideas new to me.
  
  Perhaps the most useful message the I derived from the book as an anarchist is the necessity to be ever vigilant of the conditions as they exist, and from that point determine the mode of action that is to be taken. I sat for a couple moments in puzzlement, when reading that Chomsky asserts that the anarchist long term goals should be to maintain and even strengthen the state sector as a means of pursuing goals to undermine the corporate sector, which looms largely in control. At first this was confusing: the anarchist principle, as I understood, was to abolish the state sector, and this is what largely separated the anarchist tradition from the socialist. However, upon contemplating, the reasoning is rather straightforward, and Chomsky himself has a chance to expand on his statement in the next chapter.
  
  As Dewey pointed out, and Chomsky is known to quote, that "government is the shadow perpetuated by big business", with this in mind, one understands that the state sector is a means of power directly connected, although perhaps not too influentially, to the corporate sector, and the former needs the later for protection and thus it wills not to do away with it. If the state sector were to diminish further, or completely recede from public life and influence, it would surely mean the rise of complete power and autonomy from the public sector, leaving the business sector to flourish under zero accountability, essential totalitarianism.
  
  The lesson is simple: do not follow rigid dogma, but be reflexive and open to do what is appropriate for each set of circumstances. Although it may seem a contradiction to anarchist principles, doing away with the state at such a time as now would mean severely weakening the abilities of any movement to achieve freedom in any meaningful sense. The strengthening of the state sector by anarchist with the proper ideals is a means of undermining the authority of corporate influence, which will hopefully be a step toward liberation from both.
• 
  Jens

  I've always been very much opposed to being a fan of anybody or being awestruck, but if I were to have a role model, it might as well be Noam Chomsky.
  I hope to get around to a more sophisticated review of this particular collection in the future for now I can just say you get what you expect. It's Chomsky, in his calm and analytic manner sharing his thoughts with anyone who cares to listen.
  The collection tends to get a bit redundant as some points are reiterated over again but I especially enjoyed the first two pieces and in particular Chomsky's dissection of the Spanish revolution but I can see that many casual readers will be put off by it as it is presented in a general academic manner, using lots of citations and various sources to underline the central claims. When one just cares about Chomsky's view and not the foundation of it this will seem cumbersome.
  Nonetheless, Chomsky never fails to drive home that "it’s very natural for intellectuals to try to make simple things look difficult".
  One only needs to recall principles such as Occam's Razor or think of Einstein's quest for simplicity in scientific theory -
  It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience" - to feel reassured that when some hides behind the complexity of a matter, he, at best, hasn't really understood it, or, even worse, is deliberately trying to mislead someone. Keeping these simple truths in mind, will get one a long way indeed, when judging the opinions and necessities expressed by experts and intellectuals in various subject matters.
  Chomsky is a living example when it comes to breaking down the seemingly complex, into very simple terms, that are readily understood by anyone who cares to listen.
• 
  Chirag Yadav

  This is just not a good read. Understanding Power is a really good compilation of Chomsky's thought and it has a section on anarchism too, if that's what you're looking for. In fact, On Anarchism has a chapter devoted to excerpts from Understanding Power, which was the only interesting part that gave an insight into Chomsky's thought on anarchism apart from his interview with Harry Kreisler given in another chapter.
  
  The book is divided as follows:
  Chapter 1. Notes on Anarchism (20 pages ): Gives a brief introduction to anarchist thought. This makes an interesting read.
  Chapter 2. Excerpts from Understanding Power (24 pages): This is the most interesting part of the book. Basically has some interviews with Chomsky.
  Chapter 3. Part II of "Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship (55 pages): The dullest pages of the book. If you know about the Spanish Civil War and have read Jackson's account on it, this might interest you quite a lot. But if you're new to anarchism and want to learn about it, this book is surely not the one for you. The majority pages are devoted to a critique on someone else's account of the Spanish Civil War which is, admittedly, one of the most popular successful anarchist revolutions. But a person who is new to anarchism might need some introduction to it first.
  Chapter 4. Interview with Harry Kreisler, from Political Awakenings (14 pages): Carries a brief interesting interview with Chomsky.
  Chapter 5. Language and Freedom (26 pages): This is a speech of his which he first delivered at the University Freedom and Humane Sciences Symposium. You can find this on his website to see if it interests you.
  
  I wouldn't recommend this book to people new to anarchism at all. If you are acquainted with the Spanish Civil War and especially with Jackson's account on it, this might make a good read for you. For a detailed and brilliant insight into Chomsky's thought please read Understanding Power.