Anarchism for me seems to be an extreme and radical form of government. I am interested in reading what is it all about only because Noam Chomsky, being called an anarchist, is everything but radical. That makes anarchism interesting to me in the first place. By reading his book, or by understanding what is anarchism, I learned the most not about anarchism, but what is really democracy and socialism.
The discourse of socialism is almost the same as totalitarian or dictatorship is so pervasive in our world that I was shocked to read Chomsky quotes a left-wing Marxist Anton Pannekoek describes “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” (Chomsky 15). So if we want to know if a country has a democratic system, we simply ask ourselves “do the people rule the country? Do the people have economic freedom” Obviously, this will instantly fail many so-call democratic countries in the world, including the United States. The capitalists rule the United States, not the people. The one vote each citizen has just given the voters a false sense of control. The donors for the presidential candidate, that is, the capitalists, rule America. Under the system of capitalism, we constantly chasing growth for the capitalists need to make as much as they can. The workers, the salaried slaves, are exploited and stripped of their freedom, the freedom the anarchists describe as the freedom to have the joy of creation. On the other hand, socialism, the demonized system, could be the way to solve the problem – to give back the power to the hands of the people, instead of in the hands of the minority of the country. According to anarchists, that is called anarcho-syndicalism. It is similar to liberal socialism. By understand anarchism from the words of Chomsky, one would be able to understand better the political ideologies and be able to dismantle the popular discourse that prevents us from knowing the truth.
Chomsky, Noam. On Anarchism. Penguin, 2014.