[Fwd: Re: anarchism]

[Katha Pollitt]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> 
> Sam wrote, commenting on the Hal Draper quote posted by Mike Yates:
> >They
> >reject the *means* by which these goals are accomplished in bourgeois
> >society: through the state and coercion. The anarchists just believe you
> >can have democracy, equality, security and freedom without a state,
> >market or formal legal system. The state and market "corrupt" human
> >nature, which is essentially benevolent, co-operative and social. Laws
> >and restrictions on positive and negative freedom cause crime.
> 
> I agree that the above sums up anarchists' thoughts on the state.  Given
> this, though, one might say that anarchists took part in the anti-WTO
> protest _despite, not because of_ their professed philosophy.  Most
> protesters with whom they stood side by side in Seattle -- trade unionists,
> environmentalists, Public Citizen types, students against sweatshops, etc.
> -- are in favor of state regulations, not against them, in the areas of
> labor rights, environmental protection, consumer safety, capital control,
> defense of local cultural practices, etc.
> 
> How do anarchists respond politically and philosophically to the neoliberal
> agenda (less social investment by the government, less regulations of
> capitalists' freedoms, etc.)?  Chomsky, a self-identified anarchist, said
> that anti-statism in the era of neoliberal attacks upon the past gains of
> workers is idiotic, I recall.  What of other anarchists?
> 
> Yoshie

That human nature is "essentially benevolent, cooperative and social"
(if social means something other than "unlike cats and tigers,live
together in groups") seems to me pure speculation. How odd that we can
bash the idea that WOMEN are 'essentially benevolent" (peaceful,
child-oriented, cooperative etc) -- but accept the idea that all human
beings are so!

  People "essentially benevolent"? As Woody Allen said, the lion can lie
down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much sleep.

katha