DISCUSSION ON HOW TO PROMOTE DIRECT (TRUE) DEMOCRACY | |
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WDDM Forum : How to promote DD? This forum is dedicated to seeking efficient ways on how to promote and spread DD
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We do use language to discuss these matters so terminology must be universal. The dictionary definition of Anarchy is thus correct.
However, like Chomsky,if you state your personal terminology we can than understand your deviance from the accepted. But to simply state "my anarchy is different" lacks any understanding of what you meant.Here Chomsky shows the argument is with Capitolism, not necessarily government, and advocates Socialism to be the method to defeat Capitolism. I agree. But Chomsky's deviance from Anarchism includes democracy, socialism and necessary hierarchy which follows the process we are in to take over government so the people have control via democratic Initiative and Binding Referendum.
The people could than alter or abolish capitalism as they see fit. The Monetary also system needs major alteration, which is in another article but also confronts the capitalistic views.
I quote the Hindo article here; " John McGilvray, Canadian philosopher, posits a pertinent question in his book on Chomsky: "Isn't anarchism the complete absence of any obligations towards others?" He then goes on to take the view of James Buchanan who says, "the ideal society is anarchy, in which no one man or group of men coerce another." But in the next breath he contradicts himself by saying that "any person's ideal situation is one that allows him full freedom of action and inhibits the behaviour of others so as to force adherence to his own desires. That is to say, each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves."
In the context of economic accumulation and domination this view is correct. But Chomsky disagrees:
In today's world, the goals of a committed anarchist should be to defend some state institutions from the attack against them, while trying at the same time to pry them open to more meaningful public participation— and ultimately, to dismantle them in a much more free society, if the appropriate circumstances can be achieved.
A type of "voluntary socialism"
Thus, according to Chomsky, anarchism is a type of "voluntary socialism" and is synonymous with "libertarian socialism." This is not found in capitalist societies where labour is subjected to coercion when it is not allowed to own the means of production or have any effective control over the productive activity. Freedom and creativity are two privileges of human beings so essential to their need; any unjust exercise of power leads to victimisation as well as psychological depression. To fulfill human nature and to see to it that human life thrives, it becomes essential to counter any form of oppression or control. This is the reason that Chomsky supports anarchosyndicalism, which according to Mcgilvray "is defensible as an empirical claim about the nature of a society in which human beings cannot just survive but thrive, by fulfilling their natures."
Chomsky, argues McGilvray, "sees anarchosyndicalism as a modification of the basic Enlightenment conception of the person as a free and responsible agent, a modification required to meet the challenge of private power. Empowering individuals by putting control back into their hands is the best way to meet this challenge and provide a meaningful form of freedom." Chomsky suggests that the anarchist way of putting an end to the imposition of control from the top is one step towards implementing a worker's control over the means of production. Thus anarchosyndicalism used as a critical practice refuses to put all initiatives and solutions in the hands of the technocrats or bureaucrats. Each individual, according to Chomsky, has the responsibility and the creative acumen to take control of his/her society. Therefore, the idea is not to overthrow governments but to take over the corporates so that they begin to work more in favour of the people. Anarchism, in favour of the people, involves the recognition of plurality and diversity, and difference of interests, ideas and opinions. This is the Cartesian underpinning to Chomsky's thought, an impulse towards the non-systematic and highly relative and flexible character of everything in society from organizations to individuals. He takes governance inherently as a communal activity not to be left simply in the hands of the specialists who focus too narrowly on their respective areas of interest, ignoring the larger well being of society. For instance, undesirable jobs like cleaning the sewerage system, or repairing the electrical wires during a snowstorm should necessarily be mechanised, and if there still exist more undesirable jobs, the community should share them. Another solution that Chomsky suggests is that people who do unpleasant jobs should be paid the highest, not the lowest.
Bruce comment; The "anarchism" which Chomsky has now adopted is so profoundly different than the "anarchy" of old that it can no longer be considered anarchism. If we can not define what our aim is, how are we to hit it? The Latin American Countrys call their "new ways" Populist. The key's are democratic hierarchy, people controlled, socialism.
A key here is to realize that it is the Capitalistic ways which are destroying US. capitalism requires GROWTH and this world has had enough "growth". Time for a bit of quality.
Regards, Bruce
Bruce Eggum Wisconsin USA
www.doinggovernment.com