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comment by mnahmnah
mnahmnah  ·  3182 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Tsipras folds, Greek state assets go into privatization fund

Noam Chomsky explained that the bottom 70% of the US population has no political control, despite marches, protests and/or votes. Influence increases as income rises, with the final biggest influence going to the top 1% of income earners. This state of political powerlessness for most of the population is called plutocracy.

Greek people clearly thought they were in a democracy, when really they (and I would imagine most of the Eurozone) live and operate in functional plutocracy.

Chomsky was quoted somewhere on Hubski recently...who's the wizard who remembers, and can give us a link?!





deepflows  ·  3182 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This? Glad there's someone else here who knows Chomsky (and how he's been talking about this sort of thing for decades).

mnahmnah  ·  3182 days ago  ·  link  ·  

deepflows , it was you who made the comment! Thanks for finding the link.

Yes, Chomsky is a smart man; interesting how the best linguists are often also scientists and social justice activists. This sentence could be true any way you write it: the best social justice activists are also scientists and linguists, the best scientists are also linguists and social justice activists. Seems like a whole brain thing.

'best' in this case is defined as: most useful at focusing on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health and well-being of individuals and society.

Thinkers like Chomsky always end up at the understanding that some kind of anarcho-syndicalism is required to straighten out the problems with top-heavy power structures, such as politics:

    [anarcho-syndicalism] is a conception of a very organized society, but organized from below by direct participation at every level, with as little control and domination as is feasible, maybe none.
deepflows  ·  3182 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What I like about anarcho-syndicalism compared to straigt anarchy is this part:

    as little control and domination as is feasible

Because I firmly believe that you have to have some degree of control. Someone has to control those who would otherwise drive when drunk, kill for fun and rape for pleasure. Someone has to have the power to deal with people who would harm themselves or others because of mental illness.

Again, with Chomsky:

    “Anarchism is… a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy… It asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them… If they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just.”