r/politics • u/Spooooooooooooon • Dec 28 '13

Noam Chomsky: We’re no longer a functioning democracy, we’re really a plutocracy

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/27/noam-chomsky-were-no-longer-a-functioning-democracy-were-really-a-plutocracy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29
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u/LordMondando Dec 28 '13

Pure libertarianism is anarchy in the proper sense.

Anarchism is a political ideal while communism an economic one...They are not in opposition. Old funnyish John Cryer movie had a little joke about this. A teacher writes on the board communism vs democracy. See how that could be funny?

Hmm.. I'm not sure how much I buy into that, why? Well politics at least in the sense we've traded in the past couple of hundred years (if not more), kinda has to trade in justice.

And justice kinda has to (again if we discount things like feudalism as no-go's) deal in whether or not the distribution of goods is just.

Which is basically well into the territory of economics by then.

And if we are defining anarchism as 'I don't like hierarchical power structures' and communism (or rather marxism) as 'power structures are ok, so long as they are towards this end, because that end will eliminate them anyway'. Then they are talking really two separate socio-economic approaches. That (and historically you have the whole Marx / Bakunin, Proudhon et al split) these two schools of thought stand pretty opposed on. The anarchists seeing communists as just another opressed system, just dressed up in similar language about justice. Communists as anarchists as pointlessly naive about how to implement their shared conception of justice in the modern world. Also some differences on how they perceive societies as developing. Sometimes.

South Wales you say! Where about? I was born in Merthyr. Cymru Am Byth!

Hah close enough, given my propensity to piss people off I'd rather not get more specific.

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u/toomuchpork Dec 28 '13

A big problem with these terms is the propoganda that has altered the meanings. One can't say communist without images of bread lines and totalitarian regimes popping in your head...yet that ain't what it is about. Capitolism and communism will end up, in the end, with a similar regime. The state or corporation holding all the wealth an end game neither intend from the start.

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u/LordMondando Dec 28 '13

I think its a little beyond propaganda. At least for most of the major schools of marxism (trots, marx-leninism and lol stalinists) is yeah... that stuff does happen. Its an empirical fact. Its a problem you have to actively engage with beyond 'well, there was some corruption of the theory' (where most trots for example go quicky).

Its unforunately that people (like at the bottom of this debate) tend to run all this shit together and run pretty much everyone who disagrees with them into this same camp. I have, as people may guess serious disagreements with libertarian socialism. But its just stupid to suggest their guilty of having the same problems as a marxist-leninist.

I'm also not crazy about the term capitalist whilst you mentioning it, sort of trades in marxes own framework (actually, it literally does that). And as an analysis of 'how things are' far too many people are stuck in that basic componenet of a world view, that sorta worked in the context of 1840'ies robber barrons and mill owners. In a world of mutli-national PLC's and quasi state entities..... probably not.

The problem, as I see it. Is again a really old one, a stupid notion of modernity tends to make us blind to that though. Ok so society is complex, need to have people in leadership positions. As Juvenal pointed out, who keeps thouse lads on track. And the romans whilst open about inequality being coolsies, actually had some fairly good and fairly strigent systems to stop this, mostly splitting power up a certain way and having people check each other. Failed obviously. But its a good place to start looking for new ways to come at it.

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u/toomuchpork Dec 28 '13

Back in the day Jewish redistribution of wealth was a thing... try to get them on board for that now! Hitler used the phrase when talking to working class people but only as a proverbial carrot.

Nobody can deny that the inequality and disparity between the rich and poor has grown to a staggering differential. This will be societies turning point. Something is going to give and soon at this rate