Sunday Morning Coffee with Chomsky

[marmar]

"The consistent anarchist 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. Some sort of council communism is the natural form of revolutionary socialism in an industrial society. It reflects the intuitive understanding that democracy is largely a sham 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."

-- Noam Chomsky, from Notes on Anarchism


............


"The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself."

-- Noam Chomsky, from a 1992 interview on BBC

[social_critic]

1. Chomsky is a professor at MIT

I like Noam Chomsky, collected quite a few of his books. But the guy has a limited range - there are technical aspects of modern life which escape him. For example, his asumption that a manufacturing enterprise can be managed by workers' councils. That may work for a 19th century horseshoe manufacturer, but it doesn't work in the 21st century.

[niyad]

2. and why would it not work? there are such things in sweden and other places, even today.

[marmar]

3. Yeah, it's working out so well with our current autocratic, outsourcing-intensive structure.....

:eyes:

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Isn't that basically what they do in Germany?

And isn't Germany the number two net exporter in the world, after China?

[Snarkoleptic]

7. Here's a 21st century example that's built for the future.

At the end of 2009 it was providing employment for 85,066 people working in 256 companies in four areas of activity: Finance, Industry, Retail and Knowledge. The MONDRAGON Co-operatives operate in accordance with a business model based on People and the Sovereignty of Labour, which has made it possible to develop highly participative companies rooted in solidarity, with a strong social dimension but without neglecting business excellence. The Co-operatives are owned by their worker-members and power is based on the principle of one person, one vote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrag%C3%B3n_Cooperative_Corporation

Homepage-
http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/language/en-US/ENG.aspx

[jaxx]

5. Socialist propaganda on a Sunday morning.

Pass the donuts. :donut:

[LWolf]

9. A refreshing change from the usual neo-liberal and neo-conservative propaganda. nt

[postulater]

6. Wow, I guess I'm a socialist of a particular sort!

[pnorman]

8. Some months back, I had introduced a few on-line videos on Anarhism.

It was on the near-moribund Socialist Progressive Forum, at here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=395x671

Anarchism includes Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ursula LeGunn, and (I think) Kurt Vonnegut, as well as Sacco & Vanzetti. It encompasses the Haymarket Martyrs, America's first May Day rallies and demonstrations, as well as many significant labor struggles in days gone by. Predictably, one self-anointed "ideological purifier", pretty well accused me of "channeling Ron Paul"!! Not surprisingly, that Forum is still all but moribund!