Noam Chomsky on "Ron Paul Libertarians"

[tmonster]

 

[MrFirst2doit]

Lunch at work: when money's low I might bring a sandwich or a ramen noodle. .. on payday, I might bring something more expensive that I been craving. .. some days I might not eat until I get home. .The point being is I like the flexibility and choice. ..I don't like "collective" decisions. .. One size fits all mentality. .. so I would be opposed to my company deducting extra money from my paycheck so that they can feed me maybe 3 or 4 sh*tty options in a cafeteria for "free". .. That's the opposite of choice. .. I'll keep my own money and decide what I'm doing day to day

 

[Berniewood Hogan]

THEY'RE GENERALLY WELL-MEANING LIBERTINES, BUT THE PAULITES HAVE TOO MUCH CROSSOVER WITH THE RIDICULOUS "SOVEREIGN CITIZENS", AND ALSO THEIR CRITICAL FAULT IS THEIR FAILURE TO ADMIT THAT THE ERASURE OF REGULATIONS WOULDN'T PUT VALIANT ENTREPRENEURS LIKE THEMSELVES ANYWHERE NEAR ON A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD WITH THE BIG WIGS WHO ALREADY HAVE SCROOGE MCDUCK MONEY, BROTHER!

AND NOW I'M LAUGHING AT THE THOUGHT OF MY LOUD SELF HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH SWEET LITTLE QUIET OLD MAN NOAM, DUDE! IMAGINE IT, MEAN GENE!

 

[Domingo Halliburton]

where's noam on your boy Obama? Hes just as critical, but you're not going to post that though.

 

[Type Username Here]

where's noam on your boy Obama? Hes just as critical, but you're not going to post that though.

So true.

 

[Type Username Here]

Chomsky: Well what’s called libertarian in the United States, which is a special U. S. phenomenon, it doesn’t really exist anywhere else — a little bit in England — permits a very high level of authority and domination but in the hands of private power: so private power should be unleashed to do whatever it likes. The assumption is that by some kind of magic, concentrated private power will lead to a more free and just society. Actually that has been believed in the past. Adam Smith for example, one of his main arguments for markets was the claim that under conditions of perfect liberty, markets would lead to perfect equality. Well, we don’t have to talk about that! That kind of —

Chomsky: Yes, and so well that kind of libertarianism, in my view, in the current world, is just a call for some of the worst kinds of tyranny, namely unaccountable private tyranny. Anarchism is quite different from that. It calls for an elimination to tyranny, all kinds of tyranny. Including the kind of tyranny that’s internal to private power concentrations. So why should we prefer it? Well I think because freedom is better than subordination. It’s better to be free than to be a slave. It's better to be able to make your own decisions than to have someone else make decisions and force you to observe them. I mean, I don’t think you really need an argument for that. It seems like … transparent.

The thing you need an argument for, and should give an argument for, is, How can we best proceed in that direction? And there are lots of ways within the current society. One way, incidentally, is through use of the state, to the extent that it is democratically controlled. I mean in the long run, anarchists would like to see the state eliminated. But it exists, alongside of private power, and the state is, at least to a certain extent, under public influence and control — could be much more so. And it provides devices to constrain the much more dangerous forces of private power. Rules for safety and health in the workplace for example. Or insuring that people have decent health care, let’s say. Many other things like that. They’re not going to come about through private power. Quite the contrary. But they can come about through the use of the state system under limited democratic control … to carry forward reformist measures. I think those are fine things to do. they should be looking forward to something much more, much beyond, — namely actual, much larger-scale democratization. And that’s possible to not only think about, but to work on. So one of the leading anarchist thinkers, Bakunin in the 19th cent, pointed out that it’s quite possible to build the institutions of a future society within the present one. And he was thinking about far more autocratic societies than ours. And that’s being done. So for example, worker- and community- controlled enterprises are germs of a future society within the present one. And those not only can be developed, but are being developed. There’s some important work on this by Gar Alperovitz who’s involved in the enterprise systems around the Cleveland area which are worker and community controlled. There’s a lot of theoretical discussion of how it might work out, from various sources. Some of the most worked out ideas are in what’s called the “parecon” — participatory economics — literature and discussions. And there are others. These are at the planning and thinking level. And at the practical implementation level, there are steps that can be taken, while also pressing to overcome the worst … the major harms … caused by … concentration of private power through the use of state system, as long as the current system exists. So there’s no shortage of means to pursue.

As for state socialism, depends what one means by the term. If it’s tyranny of the Bolshevik variety (and its descendants), we need not tarry on it. If it’s a more expanded social democratic state, then the comments above apply. If something else, then what? Will it place decision-making in the hands of working people and communities, or in hands of some authority? If the latter, then — once again — freedom is better than subjugation, and the latter carries a very heavy burden of justification.

Great interview here, even if one doesn't agree with all of it:

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liber...believe-and-whats-wrong-libertarians?page=0,2