“Anarchist thinkers have constantly referred to the American experience and to the ideal of Jeffersonian democracy very favorably... However, the ideal of Jeffersonian democracy -- putting aside the fact that it was a slave society -- developed in an essentially pre-capitalist system, that is: in a society in which there was no monopolistic control, where there were no significant centers of private power. In fact, its striking to go back and read today some of the classic libertarian texts. If one reads, say, Wilhelm von Humboldts critique of the state of 1792 [English language version: The Limits of State Action (Cambridge University Press, 1969)], a significant classic libertarian text that certainly inspired Mill, one finds that he doesnt speak at all of the need to resist private concentration of power, rather he speaks of the need to resist the encroachment of coercive state power. And that is what one finds also in the early American tradition. But the reason is that that was the only kind of power there was. When he speaks, for example, of the need for control of ones creative life, when he decries the alienation of labor that arises from coercion or even instruction or guidance in ones work, hes giving an anti-statist or anti-theocratic ideology. But the same principles apply very well to the capitalist industrial society that emerged later. And I would think that Humboldt, had he been consistent, would have ended up being a libertarian socialist.” Noam Chomsky, 1976 BBC interview
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 16:29:40 +0000
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