Anarchy

[Richard Fiero]

Noam Chomsky on Anarchism
Tom Lane
December 23, 1996

Q. Critics complain that anarchism is "formless, utopian." You 
counter that each stage of history has its own forms of authority and 
oppression which must be challenged, therefore no fixed doctrine can 
apply. In your opinion, what specific realization of anarchism is 
appropriate in this epoch?

A. I tend to agree that anarchism is formless and utopian, though 
hardly more so than the inane doctrines of neoliberalism, 
Marxism-Leninism, and other ideologies that have appealed to the 
powerful and their intellectual servants over the years, for reasons 
that are all too easy to explain. The reason for the general 
formlessness and intellectual vacuity (often disguised in big words, 
but that is again in the self-interest of intellectuals) is that we 
do not understand very much about complex systems, such as human 
societies; and have only intuitions of limited validity as to the 
ways they should be reshaped and constructed.

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9612-anarchism.html