Home / Quotes / Quote by Noam Chomsky

Quote by Noam Chomsky

“There isn't much point arguing about the word "libertarian." It would make about as much sense to argue with an unreconstructed Stalinist about the word "democracy" - recall that they called what they'd constructed "peoples' democracies." The weird offshoot of ultra-right individualist anarchism that is called "libertarian" here happens to amount to advocacy of perhaps the worst kind of imaginable tyranny, namely unaccountable private tyranny. If they want to call that "libertarian," fine; after all, Stalin called his system "democratic." But why bother arguing about it?”

Quote by Noam Chomsky

Author

Noam Chomsky, born on December 7, 1928, is a renowned linguist from the United States. His research in generative grammar and transformational grammar has had a profound impact on modern linguistics. Chomsky's academic achievements extend beyond linguistics, as he is also an active political commentator and philosopher, known for his unique perspective and profound insights. more

You May Also Like

“[Libertarians] don't denounce what the state does, they just object to who's doing it. This is why the people most victimized by the state display the least interest in libertarianism. Those on the receiving end of coercion don't quibble over their coercers' credentials. If you can't pay or don't want to, you don't much care if your deprivation is called larceny or taxation or restitution or rent. If you like to control your own time, you distinguish employment from enslavement only in degree and duration.”

“... the place where [adults] pass the most time and submit to the closest control is at work. Thus, without even entering into the question of the world economy's ultimate dictation within narrow limits of everybody's productive activity, it's apparent that the source of the greatest direct duress experienced by the ordinary adult is _not_ the state but rather the business that employs him. Your foreman or supervisor gives you more or-else orders in a week than the police do in a decade.”

Source: The Abolition of Work and Other Essays

“Unlike side issues like unemployment, unions, and minimum-wage laws, the subject of work itself is almost entirely absent from libertarian literature. Most of what little there is consists of Randite rantings against parasites, barely distinguishable from the invective inflicted on dissidents by the Soviet press.”

Littles Law Literature Sides Issues Subjects Presses Unions Libertarian Soviet Minimum Unemployment Absent Minimum Wage Parasites Dissidents

Author:Bob Black

“Some people giving orders and others obeying them: this is the essence of servitude. Of course, as Hospers smugly observes, "one can at least change jobs," but you can't avoid having a job - just as under statism one can at least change nationalities but you can't avoid subjection to one nation-state or another. But freedom means more than the right to change masters.”

People Giving Mean States Jobs Order Courses Nations Masters Essence Libertarian Nationality Servitude Obeying Subjection

Author:Bob Black

“To demonize state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.”

World States Economy Worst Libertarian Scales Corporations Contracts Arrangements Identical Authoritarianism Large Scale Subservient World Economy

Book:The Abolition of Work and Other Essays

Source: The Abolition of Work and Other Essays

“Being an actor means being an instrument for someone else. I want to give myself completely.”

Want Giving Mean Actors Instruments

Author:Catherine Deneuve

“In Madison's famous formulation in the Federalist, constitutional restrictions on government assume that we "first enable the government to control the governed." If the public authorities can be outgunned or bribed, the vibrancy of the private sector can be pathological.”

Ifs Firsts Government Authority Assuming Libertarian Restriction Private Sector Madison Federalist Vibrancy

Author:Stephen Holmes

“Science, incidentally, not only ignores the question of indwelling 'essences' by looking instead at measurable relationships, but science also does not agree that knowledge is obtained through Rothbard's Medieval 'investigation by a reason,' i.e., by inventing definitions and then deducing what your definitions implicitly assumed.”

Doe Reason Essence Agree Definitions Libertarian Investigation Medieval Inventing

Author:Robert Anton Wilson

“... I have developed, over the years, some sense of the difference between real horseshit that you can step in and Ideal Platonic Horseshit that exists, evidently, only in the contemplation of those who worship such abstractions; and I continue to notice that Natural Law bears an uncanny resemblance to ideal Platonic Horseshit.”

Years Real Law Natural Differences Steps Bears Worship Ideals Libertarian Contemplation Abstraction Natural Law Resemblance Uncanny Platonic

Author:Robert Anton Wilson

“Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and make him something less than a man.”

Men Giving May Stills Whole Process Chance Information News Libertarian Ignorant Data Propaganda Judgement Reasoning Falsehood Deliberate Incomplete Biased Sloppy

Author:Arthur Hays Sulzberger