Noam Chomsky (2013) “What is Anarchism?”

“Government of, by, and for the people”. Only not just the words, but the reality.

The state is a cage. The cage limits liberty, but also protects from outside predators (like, in theory, billionaires and corporations). Anarchism seeks to “expand the floor of the cage”.

Nobody called John Dewey an anarchist, but he believed that people should be masters of their own fates, and not “tools rented by employers”. Schools which seek primarily to create good worker bees, therefore, are “illiberal and immoral”. The current systems of labor are feudalistic, and changing them to a democratic order appears as a good idea that is hardly ever attempted.

Worker and community control of businesses and other institutions are concepts that stand in direct opposition to the goals and practices of capitalism. Capitalists are dependent on the institution of wage slavery (at least until slaves can be replaced by AI and machines).

Ye can tell that which slavery is too well
Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day

In your soul as in a cell
For the tyrant’s use to dwell

(2013) Noam Chomsky “What is Anarchism?” Q&A

It startled me that the first question was about pensions. For the most part that was made me think.

But toward the end this did too.

“You can be confident that any state, or commercial enterprise, any system of power, is going to use whatever technology is available to try to control and dominate what amounts to its major enemy, namely the population.”

This is the useful Chomsky, as opposed to the one telling you to vote for Biden.