Noam Chomsky: The Kind of Anarchism I Believe in, and What's Wrong with Libertarians

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oam Chomsky:Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics.  Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy.  It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified.  It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them.  Their authority is not self-justifying.  They have to give a reason for it, a justification.  And if they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just.  And, as I understand it, anarchy is just that tendency.  It takes different forms at different times.
Anarcho-syndicalism is a particular variety of anarchism which was concerned primarily, though not solely, but primarily with control over work, over the work place, over production.  It took for granted that working people ought to control their own work, its conditions, [that] they ought to control the enterprises in which they work, along with communities, so they should be associated with one another in free associations, and … democracy of that kind should be the foundational elements of a more general free society.  And then, you know, ideas are worked out about how exactly that should manifest itself, but I think that is the core of anarcho-syndicalist thinking.  I mean it’s not at all the general image that you described — people running around the streets, you know, breaking store windows — but [anarcho-syndicalism] is a conception of a very organized society, but organized from below by direct participation at every level, with as little control and domination as is feasible, maybe none.

"PROGRESSIVE IS THE NEW REACTIONARY"

Does progressivism point the way to a brighter future, or has it become the last line of defense for a failed political and economic status quo?

In his latest research study, released today by the Center for a Stateless Society, Kevin Carson makes the case for progressives as the bitter-enders of a social project made obsolete by liberating technologies and the production and distribution methods those technologies make possible.

“Thermidor of the Progressives: Managerialist Liberalism’s Hostility to Decentralized Organization” traces the development of managerialism in the political and economic realms, the history of progressive attachment to the managerial vision, and the siege mentality displayed by progressives as they confront what Carson calls the “Network Revolution.”

“For liberals,” writes Carson, author of _The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto_, “the American Golden Age was the ‘Consensus Capitalism’ of the New Deal and the first post-WWII generation. … This general affinity for large-scale organization and hierarchy, more recently, has been reflected in hostility to the new forms of networked organization permitted by the emerging technologies of the late twentieth century.”

BUENAVENTURA DURRUTI

"We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to
accommodate ourselves for a while. For you must not forget that we can
also build. It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and
America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their
place. And better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are
going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that.
The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the
stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is
growing in this minute." - Buenaventura Durruti, Spain 1936

IMMIGRANTS

Fear of immigrants was widespread in the United States. In this cartoon, published five years after the Haymarket Square riot and one year before the Homestead Strike, illustrator Grant Hamilton placed a judge scolding Uncle Sam: "If Immigration was properly Restricted you would no longer be troubled with Anarchy, Socialism, the Mafia and such kindred evils!" From New York Harbor behind them comes a horde of arriving immigrants labeled "German socialist," "Russian anarchist," "Polish vagabond," "Italian brigand," "English convict," and "Irish pauper."

HAYMARKET SQUARE

By the spring of 1886, the movement for an eight-hour day had grown. On May 1,
350,000 workers in 11,562 establishments all over the country went out on strike
Chicago Mail on May 1 asked that Albert Parsons and August Spies, the anarchist leaders of the International Working People's Association, be watched

On May 3, in front of the McCormick Harvester Works, where strikers and sympathizers fought scabs, the police fired into a crowd of strikers, wounded many of them, and killed four

A meeting was called for Haymarket Square on the evening of May 4, and about three thousand persons assembled. the hour grew late, the crowd dwindled to a few hundred. A detachment of 180 policemen showed up, advanced on the speakers' platform
A bomb then exploded in the midst of the police, wounding sixty-six policemen, of whom seven later died. The police fired into the crowd, killing several

With no evidence, the police arrested eight anarchist leaders in Chicago

accessories to crime, anyone inciting a murder was guilty of that murder.

The evidence against the eight anarchists was their ideas, their literature; none had been at Haymarket that day except Fielden. they were sentenced to death. This created an international excitement

A year after the trial, four of the convicted anarchists-Albert Parsons, a printer, August Spies, an upholsterer, Adolph Eischer, and George Engel-were hanged. Louis Lingg, a twenty-one-year-old carpenter, blew himself up in his cell by exploding a dynamite tube in his mouth. Three remained in prison.

Evergreen Cooperatives

The Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, Ohio are pioneering innovative models of job creation, wealth building, and sustainability. Evergreen’s employee-owned, for-profit companies are based locally and hire locally. We create meaningful green jobs and keep precious financial resources within our community. Our workers earn a living wage and build equity in their firms as owners of the business.

The first Evergreen Cooperative businesses – Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, Ohio Cooperative Solar, and Green City Growers Cooperative – are launching in 2009–2010. Watch the video.

Evergreen is a partnership between the residents of six of our city’s neighborhoods and some of Cleveland’s most important “anchor institutions” – the Cleveland Foundation, the City of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and many others. Help us build community wealth to transform Cleveland and change lives.

Support the growing network of Evergreen Cooperatives. Together, we can transform our community.

Evergreen Cooperatives Introductory Video

THE MONDRAGON COMPANY

The MONDRAGON Corporation is a federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain.

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Currently it is the seventh largest Spanish company in terms of turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2008 it was providing employment for 92,773 people working in 256 companies in four areas of activity

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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 ^[1]

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The determining factor in the creation of the Co-operatives

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1941 of a young priest José Mª Arizmendiarrieta

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suffering the painful consequences of the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War:

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create employment based on solidarity

Before setting up the first co-operative, Arizmendiarrieta spent a number of years educating young people about a form of humanism based on solidarity and participation, with Christian roots, and the importance of acquiring the necessary technical knowledge.

In October 2009, the United Steelworkers announced an agreement with Mondragon to create worker cooperatives in the United States.^[4]

Bendable Business

Cooperatives less likely to break in economic crises

On October 27, 2009 the United Steelworkers announced a framework agreement with Mondragon to develop unionized worker cooperatives in the manufacturing sector in the US. Under the agreement, both parties have pledged to develop a model that combines the collective bargaining system with the “one worker, one vote” hallmark of cooperatives. While it will not be the first time worker cooperatives have looked to unionization, the scale and formal partnership of the Mondragon-Steelworkers proposal is without precedent and could signal a way for cooperatives and unions to work collaboratively in weathering economic storms.

THE CLEVELAND MODEL

The Cleveland Model
By Gar Alperovitz, Ted Howard & Thad Williamson
February 11, 2010

a new model of large-scale worker- and community-benefiting enterprises is beginning to build serious momentum. The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL)--a worker-owned, industrial-size, thoroughly "green" operation. There are ten major enterprises in the works in Cleveland. this is an employee-owned business. The Evergreen model draws heavily on the experience of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in the Basque Country of Spain, the world's most successful large-scale cooperative effort (now employing 100,000 workers in an integrated network of more than 120 high-tech, industrial, service, construction, financial and other largely cooperatively owned businesses).

The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, the flagship works off the demand from the healthcare industry, which is 16 percent of GDP and growing. employees begin to buy into by payroll deductions of 50 cents an hour. ECL has the smallest carbon footprint of any. most use three gallons, ECL use just eight-tenths
gallon.

A second, part of the Evergreen effort. Ohio Cooperative Solar. large-scale installations of solar panels on the roofs of the city's largest nonprofit health, education and municipal buildings. 100 employee-owners weatherization program.

Another, $10 million in federal loans and grants already in hand) is Green City Growers, hydroponic food, 230,000-square-foot greenhouse--larger than the average Wal-Mart superstore.

A fourth co-op, Neighborhood Voice, 500 jobs over the next five years, focusing on the local market and anchor institutions.

Evergreen Business Services, to support. back-office services, etc.

resources, Cleveland Foundation, local foundations, banks and the municipal government. Evergreen Cooperative Development Fund, capitalized by $5 million in grant, leverage up $40 million.

go green, worker-owned co-ops, national buzz, models are being considered in Atlanta, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Detroit.

Cleveland model could be applied in hard-hit industries and working-class communities around the nation. It takes us beyond both traditional capitalism and traditional socialism. The key link between national sectors of expanding public activity and procurement, on the one hand, and a new local economic entity, on the other, that "democratizes" ownership and is deeply anchored in the community.

In healthcare the link is to a sector in which some implicit or explicit form of "national planning", the movement toward universal healthcare will all but certainly increase public influence and concern with how funds are used.

Cleveland effort is targeted at very low-income, largely minority communities, the same principles could easily be applied in cities like Detroit and aimed at black and white workers displaced by the economic crisis.

massive planning failures of the nation's main auto companies. in October
the Mondragon Corporation and the million-plus-member United Steelworker union announced an alliance to develop

an alliance to develop Mondragon-type manufacturing cooperatives in the United States and Canada. Says USW's Rob Witherell: "We are seeking the right opportunities to make it work, probably in manufacturing markets that we both understand." what might happen if the government and the UAW used the stock they own in General Motors because of the bailout to reorganize the company along full or joint worker-ownership lines--and if the new General Motors product line were linked to a plan to develop the nation's mass transit and rail system. Since mass transit is a sector that is certain to expand, there is every reason to plan its taxpayer-financed growth and integrate it with new community-stabilizing ownership strategies. The same is true of high-speed rail. Moreover, there are currently no US-owned companies producing subway cars. Nor do any American-owned companies build the kind of equipment needed for high-speed rail.

2007 public authorities nationwide bought 600 new rail and subway cars, roughly 15,000 buses and smaller "paratransit" vehicles. current capital outlays on vehicles alone amount to $3.8 billion, total annual investment outlays (vehicles plus
infrastructure) are $14.5 billion.

Depart of Trans estimate $48 billion investment in transit capital projects could generate 1.3 million new green jobs in the next two years alone. It makes sense to expedite the retirement of aging buses and replace them with more efficient energy-saving vehicles. create more jobs

Obama has endorsed high-speed rail a priority. he announced support for rail expansion in thirteen corridors. based on an $8 billion "down payment"
November 2008 voters in California approved a $10 billion bond to build high-speed rail.

a new industry organized on new principles, the impact of future oil shortages, building 15,000 miles) of track devoted to high-speed rail by 2025. total costs at $2 trillion, $140 billion each year for fifteen years

expanding economic sector, dominated by public funds and public planning. In the absence of a national capacity will likely end up awarding to other countries.

Providing infrastructure will generate a long list of required equipment. a restructured group of vehicle production companies could help produce, help create new forms of ownership that anchor the economies of the local communities involved.

current ownership structure of General Motors suggests the nascent Cleveland effort
possibility of an important new strategic approach

activities financed by the public is used to create enterprises that are more democratically owned, target jobs to communities in distress, it serves a private market and hence faces the "discipline" of the market.

the threshold of developing national policy approach for transportation
It is not too early to get serious about the Clevelands, moving an economically decaying nation toward a new economic vision.

Gar Alperovitz, author of America Beyond Capitalism, and (with Lew Daly) of Unjust Deserts, is a professor at the University of Maryland and a principal of its Democracy Collaborative, an organization that has been assisting the Cleveland development effort. Ted Howard is executive director of the Democracy Collaborative. Thad Williamson is an assistant professor at the University of Richmond's Jepson School of Leadership Studies.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

World Social Forum

a permanent space and process to build alternatives to neoliberalism"
It tends to meet in January at the same time as its "great capitalist rival", the World Economic Forum's meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

the first WSF, January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, led by the Brazilian Worker's Party (PT). Brasil during a moment of transformation that later would lead to the electoral victory of the PT candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. alternative future. "Reinventing Democracy"

second WSF, Porto Alegre, February 2002, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen organization. AFL-CIO and the SEIU were very active

third WSF, Porto Alegre, January 2003, Life After Capitalism, Among the speakers Noam Chomsky.

fourth WSF, Mumbai, India, January 2004, key speakers, Joseph Stiglitz

fifth World Social Forum, Porto Alegre

sixth, "polycentric", Caracas, Bamako (Mali), Karachi

seventh, Nairobi, Kenya, 'an NGO fair

eighth, globally thousands of local organizations, Global Call for Action

ninth, Brazilian city of Belém

2010, WSF will happen in a permanent way

World Social Forum homepage

EVERGREEN COOPERATIVE LAUNDRY

The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL) in Cleveland is thoroughly green and worker-owned, and a blueprint for the future, see this? also here, and here

Something important is happening in Cleveland: a new model...These are not your traditional small-scale co-ops. The Evergreen model draws heavily on the experience of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in the Basque Country of Spain, the world's most successful large-scale cooperative effort (now employing 100,000 workers in an integrated network of more than 120 high-tech, industrial, service, construction, financial and other largely cooperatively owned businesses).



Also, this coming up in Detroit. A part of the World Social Forum

The US Social Forum (USSF) is a movement building process. It is not a
 conference but it is a space to come up with the peoples’ solutions to the 
economic and ecological crisis. The USSF is the next most important step in our
 struggle to build a powerful multi-racial, multi-sectoral, inter-generational,
 diverse, inclusive, internationalist movement that transforms this country and
 changes history. For more information about United States and World Social Forum history, visit the About page.