textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp001124.txt

    *********   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 GuŽrin'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.