NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/6304

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From: [e-mail] (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: Notes on Anarchism (Chomsky, 1970) (2/2)
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            ======================
            ``Notes on Anarchism''
                  in
            _For Reasons of State_
            ======================
              Noam Chomsky, 1970
            ======================

Transcribed by [e-mail] (Bill Lear)

          =================================
          [ . . . c o n t i n u e d . . . ]
          =================================

     A  consistent  anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of
production  and  the  wage  slavery which is a component of this system, as
incompatible  with  the  principle that labor must be freely undertaken and
under  the control of the producer. As Marx put it, socialists look forward
to  a  society  in  which labor will ``become not only a means of life, but
also  the  highest  want in life,''[16] an impossibility when the worker is
driven  by  external authority or need rather than inner impulse: ``no form
of  wage-labor,  even though one may be less obnoxious that another, can do
away  with  the  misery  of wage-labor itself.''[17] A consistent anarchist
must oppose not only alienated labor but also the stupefying specialization
of labor that takes place when the means for developing production

     mutilate the worker into a fragment of a human being, degrade him
     to  become a mere appurtenance of the machine, make his work such
     a  torment that its essential meaning is destroyed; estrange from
     him  the intellectual potentialities of the labor process in very
     proportion to the extent to which science is incorporated into it
     as an independent power...[18]

Marx  saw  this  not as an inevitable concomitant of industrialization, but
rather  as  a feature of capitalist relations of production. The society of
the   future   must   be   concerned  to  ``replace  the  detail-worker  of
today...reduced  to  a  mere  fragment  of  a  man,  by the fully developed
individual,  fit  for  a  variety of labours...to whom the different social
functions...are  but  so many modes of giving free scope to his own natural
powers.''[19]  The  prerequisite is the abolition of capital and wage labor
as  social categories (not to speak of the industrial armies of the ``labor
state''  or  the various modern forms of totalitarianism since capitalism).
The  reduction of man to an appurtenance of the machine, a specialized tool
of  production,  might in principle be overcome, rather than enhanced, with
the  proper development and use of technology, but not under the conditions
of  autocratic control of production by those who make man an instrument to
serve  their  ends,  overlooking  his  individual  purposes,  in Humboldt's
phrase.
     Anarchosyndicalists  sought,  even  under capitalism, to create ``free
associations of free producers'' that would engage in militant struggle and
prepare  to take over the organization of production on a democratic basis.
These  associations would serve as ``a practical school of anarchism.''[20]
If  private  ownership  of  the means of production is, in Proudhon's often
quoted  phrase, merely a form of ``theft''---``the exploitation of the weak
by  the  strong''[21]---control  of  production  by a state bureaucracy, no
matter  how  benevolent its intentions, also does not create the conditions
under  which labor, manual and intellectual, can become the highest want in
life. Both, then, must be overcome.
     In his attack on the right of private or bureaucratic control over the
means of production,, the anarchist takes his stand with those who struggle
to  bring  about  ``the third and last emancipatory phase of history,'' the
first  having made serfs out of slaves, the second having made wage earners
out  of serfs, and the third which abolishes the proletariat in a final act
of liberation that places control over the economy in the hands of free and
voluntary  associations  of  producers  (Fourier,  1848).[22]  The imminent
danger to ``civilization'' was noted by de Tocqueville, also in 1848:

     As long as the right of property was the origin and groundwork of
     many  other rights, it was easily defended---or rather it was not
     attacked;  it was then the citadel of society while all the other
     rights  were  its  outworks;  it did not bear the brunt of attack
     and,  indeed,  there  was  no  serious  attempt to assail it. but
     today,  when  the  right  of  property  is  regarded  as the last
     undestroyed  remnant  of the aristocratic world, when it alone is
     left  standing, the sole privilege in an equalized society, it is
     a  different  matter. Consider what is happening in the hearts of
     the  working-classes,  although I admit they are quiet as yet. It
     is  true  that  they are less inflamed than formerly by political
     passions  properly  speaking;  but  do  you  not  see  that their
     passions,  far  from  being political, have become social? Do you
     not  see that, little by little, ideas and opinions are spreading
     amongst them which aim not merely at removing such and such laws,
     such a ministry or such a government, but at breaking up the very
     foundations of society itself?[23]

The workers of Paris, in 1871, broke the silence, and proceeded

     to   abolish  property,  the  basis  of  all  civilization!  Yes,
     gentlemen,  the  Commune  intended to abolish that class property
     which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed
     at  the  expropriation  of  the  expropriators. It wanted to make
     individual   property  a  truth  by  transforming  the  means  of
     production,  land and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving
     and   exploiting   labor,  into  mere  instruments  of  free  and
     associated labor.[24]

     The  Commune,  of  course,  was  drowned  in  blood. The nature of the
``civilization''  that  the  workers  of  Paris sought to overcome in their
attack  on  ``the  very  foundations of society itself'' was revealed, once
again,  when the troops of the Versailles government reconquered Paris from
its population. As Marx wrote, bitterly but accurately:

     The  civilization and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its
     lurid  light  whenever  the slaves and drudges of that order rise
     against  their  masters. Then this civilization and justice stand
     forth  as undisguised savagery and lawless revenge...the infernal
     deeds   of  the  soldiery  reflect  the  innate  spirit  of  that
     civilization  of  which they are the mercenary vindicators....The
     bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the
     wholesale  massacre  after  the battle, is convulsed by horror at
     the destruction of brick and mortar. [_Ibid_., pp. 74, 77]

     Despite  the  violent  destruction  of the Commune, Bakunin wrote that
Paris  opens  a new era, ``that of the definitive and complete emancipation
of  the popular masses and their future true solidarity, across and despite
state boundaries...the next revolution of man, international in solidarity,
will  be  the  resurrection  of Paris''---a revolution that the world still
awaits.
     The consistent anarchist, then, should be a socialist, but a socialist
of  a  particular  sort.  He will not only oppose alienated and specialized
labor and look forward to the appropriation of capital by the whole body of
workers,  but  he  will  also insist that this appropriation be direct, not
exercised  by  some  elite  force acting in the name of the proletariat. He
will, in short, oppose

     the  organization  of  production  by  the  Government.  It means
     State-socialism,   the   command  of  the  State  officials  over
     production    and    the   command   of   managers,   scientists,
     shop-officials  in  the  shop....The goal of the working class is
     liberation from exploitation. This goal is not reached and cannot
     be  reached  by  a new directing and governing class substituting
     itself  for  the  bourgeoisie. It is only realized by the workers
     themselves being master over production.

These  remarks  are taken from ``Five Theses on the Class Struggle'' by the
left-wing Marxist Anton Pannekoek, one of the outstanding left theorists of
the  council  communist  movement. And in fact, radical Marxism merges with
anarchist currents.
     As  a further illustration, consider the following characterization of
``revolutionary Socialism'':

     The  revolutionary  Socialist denies that State ownership can end
     in anything other than a bureaucratic despotism. We have seen why
     the  State  cannot  democratically control industry. Industry can
     only  be  democratically  owned  and  controlled  by  the workers
     electing  directly from their own ranks industrial administrative
     committees. Socialism will be fundamentally an industrial system;
     its constituencies will be of an industrial character. Thus those
     carrying  on the social activities and industries of society will
     be  directly  represented  in  the  local and central councils of
     social  administration.  In this way the powers of such delegates
     will  flow upwards from those carrying on the work and conversant
     with  the needs of the community. When the central administrative
     industrial  committee  meets  it  will  represent  every phase of
     social  activity.  Hence the capitalist political or geographical
     state will be replaced by the industrial administrative committee
     of  Socialism.  The  transition from the one social system to the
     other  will  be  the  _social  revolution._  The  political State
     throughout  history  has  meant the government _of men_ by ruling
     classes;  the  Republic  of  Socialism will be the government _of
     industry_  administered  on  behalf  of  the whole community. The
     former  meant  the economic and political subjection of the many;
     the  latter  will  mean the economic freedom of all---it will be,
     therefore, a true democracy.

This  programmatic  statement  appears  in  William  Paul's _The State, its
Origins  and  Functions_,  written  in  early 1917---shortly before Lenin's
_State  and  Revolution_,  perhaps  his most libertarian work (see note 9).
Paul was a member of the Marxist-De Leonist Socialist Labor Party and later
one  of  the  founders  of the British Communist Party.[25] His critique of
state socialism resembles the libertarian doctrine of the anarchists in its
principle   that   since  state  ownership  and  management  will  lead  to
bureaucratic  despotism,  the  social  revolution  must  replace  it by the
industrial  organization  of  society  with  direct  workers' control. Many
similar statements can be cited.
     What  is  far more important is that these ideas have been realized in
spontaneous  revolutionary  action,  for example in Germany and Italy after
World  War  I  and  in Spain (not only in the agricultural countryside, but
also  in  industrial  Barcelona) in 1936. One might argue that some form of
council  communism  is  the  natural  form of revolutionary socialism in an
industrial  society. It reflects the intuitive understanding that democracy
is severely limited when the industrial system is controlled by any form of
autocratic   elite,   whether   of  owners,  managers  and  technocrats,  a
``vanguard''  party,  or  a  state  bureaucracy.  Under these conditions of
authoritarian domination the classical libertarian ideals developed further
by  Marx  and  Bakunin and all true revolutionaries cannot be realized; man
will  not  be  free to develop his own potentialities to their fullest, and
the  producer will remain ``a fragment of a human being,'' degraded, a tool
in the productive process directed from above.
     The phrase ``spontaneous revolutionary action'' can be misleading. The
anarchosyndicalists,  at  least,  took very seriously Bakunin's remark that
the  workers'  organizations  must create ``not only the ideas but also the
facts   of   the  future  itself''  in  the  prerevolutionary  period.  The
accomplishments  of  the  popular  revolution in Spain, in particular, were
based  on the patient work of many years of organization and education, one
component  of a long tradition of commitment and militancy. The resolutions
of  the Madrid Congress of June 1931 and the Saragossa Congress in May 1936
foreshadowed  in  many ways the acts of the revolution, as did the somewhat
different  ideas  sketched by Santillan (see note 4) in his fairly specific
account  of  the  social  and economic organization to be instituted by the
revolution.  Gu\'erin writes ``The Spanish revolution was relatively mature
in  the  minds  of libertarian thinkers, as in the popular consciousness.''
And  workers' organizations existed with the structure, the experience, and
the understanding to undertake the task of social reconstruction when, with
the Franco coup, the turmoil of early 1936 exploded into social revolution.
In  his  introduction  to  a collection of documents on collectivization in
Spain, the anarchist Augustin Souchy writes:

     For  many  years,  the  anarchists  and the syndicalists of Spain
     considered  their supreme task to be the social transformation of
     the  society.  In  their  assemblies of Syndicates and groups, in
     their  journals,  their  brochures  and books, the problem of the
     social  revolution  was discussed incessantly and in a systematic
     fashion.[26]

All of this lies behind the spontaneous achievements, the constructive work
of the Spanish Revolution.
     The  ideas of libertarian socialism, in the sense described, have been
submerged  in  the  industrial  societies  of  the  past  half-century. The
dominant  ideologies have been those of state socialism or state capitalism
(of  increasingly  militarized  character in the United States, for reasons
that  are  not obscure).[27] But there has been a rekindling of interest in
the  past few years. The theses I quoted by Anton Pannekoek were taken from
a  recent  pamphlet  of  a  radical  French  workers'  group (_Informations
Correspondance  Ouvri\`ere_).  The remarks by William Paul on revolutionary
socialism  are  cited  in  a  paper by Walter Kendall given at the National
Conference  on  Workers'  Control in Sheffield, England, in March 1969. The
workers'  control movement has become a significant force in England in the
past  few  years.  It  has organized several conferences and has produced a
substantial  pamphlet  literature,  and  counts  among its active adherents
representatives of some of the most important trade unions. The Amalgamated
Engineering  and  Foundryworkers'  Union,  for  example,  has  adopted,  as
official  policy,  the program of nationalization of basic industries under
``workers' control at all levels.''[28] On the Continent, there are similar
developments.  May  1968  of  course  accelerated  the  growing interest in
council  communism  and  related  ideas in France and Germany, as it did in
England.
     Given  the highly conservative cast of our highly ideological society,
it  is  not  too  surprising  that  the  United  States has been relatively
untouched  by  these  developments. But that too may change. The erosion of
cold-war  mythology  at least makes it possible to raise these questions in
fairly broad circles. If the present wave of repression can be beaten back,
if  the  left can overcome its more suicidal tendencies and build upon what
has  been  accomplished  in  the  past  decade,  then the problem of how to
organize  industrial  society  on  truly  democratic lines, with democratic
control  in  the  workplace  and in the community, should become a dominant
intellectual  issue for those who are alive to the problems of contemporary
society,  and,  as  a  mass  movement  for  libertarian socialism develops,
speculation should proceed to action.
     In  his  manifesto  of 1865, Bakunin predicted that one element in the
social  revolution will be ``that intelligent and truly noble part of youth
which, though belonging by birth to the privileged classes, in its generous
convictions  and  ardent  aspirations,  adopts  the  cause of the people.''
Perhaps  in  the  rise  of the student movement of the 1960s one sees steps
towards a fulfillment of this prophecy.
     Daniel Gu\'erin has undertaken what he has described as a ``process of
rehabilitation''  of  anarchism.  He  argues,  convincingly I believe, that
``the constructive ideas of anarchism retain their vitality, that they may,
when  re-examined  and  sifted,  assist  contemporary  socialist thought to
undertake  a  new  departure...[and] contribute to enriching Marxism.''[29]
>From  the  ``broad  back''  of anarchism he has selected for more intensive
scrutiny  those  ideas  and  actions  that  can be described as libertarian
socialist.  This  is  natural  and  proper. This framework accommodates the
major  anarchist  spokesmen  as  well  as  the  mass actions that have been
animated by anarchist sentiments and ideals. Gu\'erin is concerned not only
with  anarchist  thought  but  also with the spontaneous actions of popular
revolutionary struggle. He is concerned with social as well as intellectual
creativity.   Furthermore,  he  attempts  to  draw  from  the  constructive
achievements  of  the  past  lessons  that will enrich the theory of social
liberation.  For  those who wish not only to understand the world, but also
to change it, this is the proper way to study the history of anarchism.
     Gu\'erin   describes  the  anarchism  of  the  nineteenth  century  as
essentially doctrinal, while the twentieth century, for the anarchists, has
been  a  time  of ``revolutionary practice.''[30] _Anarchism_ reflects that
judgment.  His  interpretation  of  anarchism consciously points toward the
future.   Arthur  Rosenberg  once  pointed  out  that  popular  revolutions
characteristically  seek  to  replace  ``a  feudal or centralized authority
ruling  by  force''  with  some form of communal system which ``implies the
destruction  and  disappearance  of  the old form of State.'' Such a system
will be either socialist or an ``extreme form of democracy...[which is] the
preliminary  condition  for  Socialism  inasmuch  as  Socialism can only be
realized  in  a  world  enjoying the highest possible measure of individual
freedom.'' This ideal, he notes, was common to Marx and the anarchists.[31]
This  natural  struggle  for  liberation  runs  counter  to  the prevailing
tendency towards centralization in economic and political life.
     A  century  ago  Marx wrote that the workers of Paris ``felt there was
but  one  alternative---the Commune, or the empire---under whatever name it
might reappear.''

     The  empire  had ruined them economically by the havoc it made of
     public  wealth, by the wholesale financial swindling it fostered,
     by   the   props   it   lent   to  the  artificially  accelerated
     centralization  of  capital, and the concomitant expropriation of
     their  own  ranks.  It  had  suppressed  them politically, it had
     shocked  them  morally  by  its  orgies,  it  had  insulted their
     Voltairianism  by handing over the education of their children to
     the  _fr\`eres  Ignorantins_,  it  had  revolted  their  national
     feeling  as  Frenchmen  by precipitating them headlong into a war
     which  left  only  one  equivalent  for  the  ruins it made---the
     disappearance of the empire.[32]

The miserable Second Empire ``was the only form of government possible at a
time  when  the bourgeoisie had already lost, and the working class had not
yet acquired, the faculty of ruling the nation.''
     It is not very difficult to rephrase these remarks so that they become
appropriate  to  the imperial systems of 1970. The problem of ``freeing man
from   the   curse  of  economic  exploitation  and  political  and  social
enslavement''  remains  the problem of our time. As long as this is so, the
doctrines  and  the  revolutionary  practice  of libertarian socialism will
serve as an inspiration and guide.