1172
by NerblyBear_Archive
Preston's response to Chomsky's critique of Paul springs from a fundamental misunderstanding of where Chomsky is coming from.
He criticizes Chomsky for both appealing to anarchist principles and defending the power of the state in certain respects. However, this seeming contradiction evaporates when we realize that Chomsky's ultimate political philosophy -- anarchosyndicalism -- is not borne from consideration of solutions to the pressing problems of today's American state capitalism. Rather, he has on many occasions pointed out that the sort of initiatives foreseen by the anarchist worldview can only come about once society has already been radically re-organized on a grassroots level. So, what Preston misses is that Chomsky's defense of federal taxation and government services does not spring from an ultimate defense of the existence of our state but is, rather, a piecemeal attempt to deal with problems which have organically arisen fro the very existence of the state in the first place. Chomsky has pointed out many times that any serious attempt to mount a revolution against corporate power and the current political climate would have devastating consequences because the entire global system is tied into that framework. Hence, his support for the goals of the Seattle protestors comes with the qualification that globalization is not something that can be done away with at this point, and that rearguard defensive measures are what are now appropriate. The same goes for his defense of federal taxation. Because business would overwhelmingly dominate a society which doesn't feature those state restrictions, an anarchist's most logical response would be to defend those restrictions as a response to the bind in which the Catch-22 situation has placed him.
A doctor can't just tell the guy he's performing a triple-bypass on that he shouldn't have eaten that daily bag of Doritos in the first place.
So Chomsky's critique of Paul has to do with the fact that Paul isn't responding sanely to present exigencies. It also has to do with the two men's distinctive views on what constitutes an acceptable form of libertarianism. For Chomsky, libertarianism is not the devaluation of power to business, but is rather a complete recasting of society in a mold which wouldn't feature the need for hierarchical businesses in the first place. Paul's libertarianism doesn't go nearly so far. Rather, what he advocates is that we keep all of the prominent features of capitalism -- religious indoctrination, job competition, military might, and xenophobic nationalism -- and yet get rid of the state, which is portrayed by these types as a wholly coercive, wholly immoral incubus sucking out our will to survive.
Chomsky's critique of American foreign power also has little to do with Paul's because the former is an attempt to introduce ethical considerations into power politics, while the latter is a reactionary response to too much federal spending and to too many American deaths.
On every issue, any possible linkage of the two is wholly in the abstract, and their differences are overwhelming and inescapable. Both positions are similar, however, in that they are both responses to serious problems with the current situation faced by the American people.
Gay People Rock
), but he thinks bad things will happen. So, instead of doing the right thing, which might have unpredictable results, Nerbly advocates continuing business-as-usual, which will continue to have the known bad results that we can predict and document.