Excerpts from Noam Chomsky on Ecology, Ethics, & Anarchism
Interviewer (I): Would you say that Emanuel Kant’s notion that treating humanity as an end in itself has influenced anarchism and anti-authoritarianism thought in any way? The concept of natural law arguably has a natural affinity with anarchism.
Noam Chomsky (NC): Indirectly, but I think it’s actually more general. My own view is that anarchism flows quite naturally out of major concerns and commitments of the Enlightenment, which found an expression in classical liberalism. Classical liberalism was essentially destroyed by the rise of capitalism. It’s inconsistent with it. But anarchism, I think, is the inheritor of the ideals that were developed in one or another form during the Enlightenment. Kant’s expression is one example, exemplified in a particular way in classical liberal doctrine. Wrecked on the shoals of capitalism, picked up by libertarian-left movements which are the natural inheritors of them. So in that sense, yes, but it’s broader.
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(I): In a speech reproduced over twenty years ago, in the film version of Manufacturing Consent, you describe hegemonic capitalist ideology as reducing the life world of Earth as “an infinite resource and an infinite garbage can.” Even then, you had identified the capitalist tendency toward total destruction. You speak of a looming cancellation of destiny for humanity if the madness of capitalism is not halted within this, the possibly terminal phase of human existence. The very title and argumentation of Hegemony or Survival continue on this line. In Hopes and Prospects, you claim the threat to the chance for decent survival to be one of the major externalities… by [“really existing capitalist democracies”]. How do you think a resurgent international anarchist movement might respond positively to such alarming trends?
(NC): Well… in my view, anarchism is just the most advanced form of political thought. It draws from the Enlightenment, its best ideals, the primary contributions of classical liberalism and carries them forward… I think a resurgent anarchist movement, which would be the peak of human intellectual civilization, should join with the indigenous societies of the world so they don’t have the burden of trying to save humanity from its own craziness. This should take place within the richest, most powerful societies. I mean, it’s kind of like a moral truism that the more privilege you have, the more responsibility you have – that’s elementary in every domain. You have privilege, you have opportunities, you have choices, you have responsibilities. In the rich, powerful societies, privileged people like us – we’re all privileged people – we have the responsibility to take the lead in trying to take the lead to prevent the disasters our own social institutions are creating. It’s outrageous to demand, or even observe, the poorest, most repressed people in the world taking the lead in trying to save the human species and, in effect, innumerable other species from destruction. So we should join them. That’s the role of an anarchist movement.
(I): In Human Intelligence and the Environment, you raise the possibility of factory workers taking control of the means of production and autonomously deciding to break with “business as usual,” opting instead to produce solar panels or high-speed rail. This recommendation is entirely anarcho-syndicalist in nature, in keeping with your own proclivities. Indeed, it bears much affinity with the prospect of an ecological anarcho-syndicalism, a concept that has been advanced by the Environmental Union Caucus (IUC) of the Industrial Workers of the World recently. A particularly promising proposal the IUC has made is that of an ecological general strike. In a similar vein, economic historian Richard Smith recently called for the mass shuttering of large corporations and vast swaths of industry, as a means of giving humanity and nature a chance against climate destruction. Moreover, since the US military is the single largest contributor to the problem of anthropogenic climate disruption, the Pentagon should effectively be dismantled for this reason (among others, of course). How might activists present these pressing goals in ways that do not lend themselves to being dismissed as mere utopianism?
(NC): Well, let’s take the idea of converting industry to producing solar panels, mass transportation, and so on. That was not Utopian. The US government virtually nationalized the auto industry a couple of years ago; not entirely, but took over large parts of it. There were choices at that point. There had been a powerful movement of the kind we’re discussing, with a popular base. It could have pressed for something very realistic, which I think would have had support of the working class. A strike will be regarded as a weapon against them – taking away their livelihoods, their survival. But as something that could support them, have them take over… the choices were two, really: either the government rescues the auto industry at the taxpayers’ expense and hands it back to pretty much the original owners (maybe different faces, but structurally the same owners) and have them produce what they were doing before, which is destructive – that was one possibility, the one that was taken; or the other possibility, which could have been taken – and with a sufficiently powerful popular movement, might well have been taken, is to put those factories into the hands of the working class and have them make their choices, rationally, in the interests of themselves, their communities, the general society, and do exactly what you were describing, say produce solar panels.
Take mass transportation: going back to markets, you take an economics course, they tell you markets offer choices. That’s partly true, but very narrowly. Markets restrict choices – sharply restrict choices. Mass transportation is an example. Mass transportation is not a choice offered on the market. Like if I want to go home tonight, the market does offer me the choice between a Ford and a Toyota, but not between a car and a subway. That’s just not one of the choices available in the systems. This is not a small point. Choices that involve common effort, and solidarity, and mutual support, and concern for others – those are out of the market system. The market system is based on maximization of individual consumption, and that is highly destructive for itself. It’s destructive even for the human beings involved. It turns them into sociopathic individuals, but it also means that the kinds of things that are needed for survival are out of the market system, like mass transportation. That’s the form of economic growth that could help preserve the hopes for survival. I don’t think it’s at all unrealistic for that to have been done. There’s nothing utopian about that. Now as compared with things like, say, general strikes, I think that’s a much better step to take. It’s not saying, “Let’s throw a wrench in the machine and harm everybody,” in the interest of some longer term goal. It’s saying, “Let’s take a wrench and fix the machine, so it can function right now with all you guys working, doing better jobs, running it yourselves. You’re better off psychologically, socially… in every respect. You’re also producing a world that makes sense to live in.” That’s, I think, the better way to proceed in general.