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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #anarchism
Political liberty,” what are we to understand by that? Perhaps the individual’s independence of the State and its laws? No; on the contrary, the individual’s subjection in the State and to the State’s laws... Political liberty means that the polis, the State, is free; freedom of religion that religion is free, as freedom of conscience signifies that conscience is free; not, therefore, that I am free from the State, from religion, from conscience, or that I am rid of them. It does not mean my liberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me; it means that one of my despots, like State, religion, conscience, is free. State, religion, conscience, these despots, make me a slave, and their liberty is my slavery. ↗
The millions of human beings who were shot, tortured, starved, treated like animals and made the object of a conspiracy of ridicule, can sleep in peace in their communal graves, for at least the struggle in which they died has enabled their descendants, isolated in their air-conditioned apartments, to believe, on the strength of their daily dose of television, that they are happy and free. The Communards went down, fighting to the last, so that you too could qualify for a Caribbean cruise. ↗
Work, then, institutionalizes homicide as a way of life. People think the Cambodians were crazy for exterminating themselves, but are we any different? The Pol Pot regime at least had a vision, however blurred, of an egalitarian society. We kill people in the six-figure range (at least) in order to sell Big Macs and Cadillacs to the survivors. Our forty or fifty thousand annual highway fatalities are victims, not martyrs. They died for nothing — or rather, they died for work. But work is nothing to die for. ↗
#capitalism #labor #work #life
Every type of political power presupposes some particular form of human slavery, for the maintenance of which it is called into being. Just as outwardly, that is, in relation to other states the state has to create certain artificial antagonisms in order to justify its existence, so also internally the cleavage of society into castes, ranks and classes is an essential condition of its continuance. The development of the Bolshevist bureaucracy in Russia under the alleged dictatorship of the proletariat (which has never been anything but the dictatorship of a small clique over the proletariat and the whole Russian people) is merely a new instance of an old historical experience which has repeated itself countless times. This new ruling class, which to-day is rapidly growing into a new aristocracy, is set apart from the great masses of the Russian peasants and workers just as clearly as are the privileged castes and classes in other countries from the mass of the people. And this situation becomes still more unbearable when a despotic state denies to the lower classes the right to complain of existing conditions, so that any protest is made at the risk of their lives. But even a far greater degree of economic equality than that which exists in Russia would be no guarantee against political and social oppression. Economic equality alone is not social liberation. It is precisely this which all the schools of authoritarian Socialism have never understood. In the prison, in the cloister, or in the barracks one finds a fairly high degree of economic equality, as all the inmates are provided with the same dwelling, the same food, the same uniform, and the same tasks. The ancient Inca state in Peru and the Jesuit state in Paraguay had brought equal economic provision for every inhabitant to a fixed system, but in spite of this the vilest despotism prevailed there, and the human being was merely the automaton of a higher will on whose decisions he had not the slightest influence. It was not without reason that Proudhon saw in a "Socialism" without freedom the worst form of slavery. The urge for social justice can only develop properly and be effective when it grows out of man's sense of freedom and responsibility, and is based upon it. In other words, Socialism will be free or it will not be at all. In its recognition of this fact lies the genuine and profound justification of Anarchism. ↗
Un sistema de adoctrinamiento que funcione como es debido debe cumplir diversas tareas, algunas bastante delicadas. Uno de sus objetivos son las masas estúpidas e ignorantes. Deberán ser mantenidas en ese estado, distraídas con simplificaciones groseras y de gran fuerza emocional, marginadas y aisladas. En una situación ideal, cada persona debería hallarse sola frente a la pantalla de su televisor, viendo deportes, telenovelas o comedias, privada de estructuras organizativas que permitan a los individuos carentes de recursos descubrir cuáles son sus pensamientos y creencias en interacción con otras personas, formular sus propias preocupaciones y planes y actuar para hacerlos realidad. Llegada esa situación, se les puede permitir ratificar las decisiones tomadas por quienes son mejores que ellos en elecciones celebradas periódicamente, y hasta animarles a hacerlo. La "multitud canallesca" es el blanco apropiado de los medios de comunicación y de un sistema de educación pública encaminado a generar obediencia y formación en las destrezas requeridas, incluida la de repetir lemas patrióticos en ocasiones oportunas. El problema del adoctrinamiento es un tanto distinto para aquellos de quienes se espera que participen en la toma de decisiones serias y en el ejercicio del control: los gestores de las empresas, del Estado y de la cultura, y los sectores culturizados en general. Estas personas deben interiorizar los valores del sistema y compartir las ilusiones necesarias que permitan su funcionamiento en interés de quienes concentran en sus manos el poder y los privilegios. Pero también han de tener cierta comprensión de las realidades del mundo, pues de lo contrario no serán capaces de realizar sus tareas con eficacia. Los medios elitistas y los sitemas educativos deben encontrar la forma de resolver esos dilemas, lo cual constituye una labor nada fácil. Es interesante ver en detalle cómo se lleva a cabo dicha labor, pero se trata de algo que cae fuera de los límites de estas observaciones. ↗
