Chomsky on Anarchism (sidenote; education)

[Borodog]

Anarchosocialism works great for small bands living at a Stone Age level of subsistance.

[tame_deuces]

[ QUOTE ]
Anarchosocialism works great for small bands living at a Stone Age level of subsistance.

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I think you are underestimating it, all you really need is a group that has the capacity to agree and compromise (hence my point on size) - AS does allow for politics and supports democratic process so compromise is fine.

But anyway I'm not an anarcho-syndicalist so I don't really find it dreadfully interesting to debate on behalf of it. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Borodog]

Anarchosyndicalism != anarchosocialism. Anarchosyndicalism, if it were structured to work at all, would simply be a subset of anarchocapitalism.

True anarchosocialism, specifically a social norm excluding the private ownership of the means of production (land, capital goods, one's own body and labor) or even some subset thereof is *litterally* only possible under extremely primitive tribal conditions, because the number of possible alternative uses for scarce resources grows exponentially with population and technological complexity. Without recourse to a price system in the factors of production, which can only exist under a regime of private property in the factors of production, there is no possibility of economic calculation. There is no way to decide what should be produced or how, no way to know if resources are being allocated to more highly valued uses or being wasted.

Lenin tried this, *real* socialism (although not anarchosocialism, clearly), no private property in the factors of production, no prices, no economic calculation, only central planning, in 1917, during his implementation of so-called "War Communism." By 1921 he had to relent and allow a return to limited private property and economic calculation because so little was being produced that people were literally tearing apart their homes for firewood. There was famine. The factories had been stripped of machinery, which was sold on the black market for food. There was a mass exodus from the cities to the countryside, where people lived off of hunting and gathering, scavenging, and banditry. A huge chunk of the country's capital stock was wiped out in just 4 years because of socialism.

[Borodog]

Oh yeah, and 10 million people died.

[tame_deuces]

Well I was talking about anarcho-syndicalism all along. It is after all the system Chomsky is a proponent for. I think you were the one mentioning anarcho-socialism.

[Borodog]

Well, like I said, if anarchosyndicalism could work at all it would have to be structured in such a way that essentially just makes it anarchocapitalism. I.e., sure the workers could own the factors of production, but they would have to own salable shares. Which is just capitalism. Otherwise you run right back into the problems of socialism.

[Copernicus]

I still hate Chomsky, but love that he recognizes that anarchism is utopian and impossible in the real world.

[tame_deuces]

Anarcho-syndicalists vehemently opposes ownership of production (both state and private) and capitalism, so I don't think the shares thingy would fly by very well for them.

But anyway, you don't think it would work at all and I don't think it would work for a group of more than say 30-40 people max. So I don't think we disagree much here.

[Borodog]

Doesn't sound like it.

[The once and future king]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh yeah, and 10 million people died.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its a bit of a strawman attacking Chomsky for something he said in 1970.

AFAIK he has changed his whole stance quite radically since then.

Also the idea that all "stone age" collectives live at subsistence is just a artifact from western colonial imperialism.