Libertarian Socialism Quotes

“If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.”
― Mikhail Bakunin

“We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.”
― Mikhail Bakunin

“Meanwhile, two other great currents in political thought, had a decisive significance on the development of socialist ideas: Liberalism, which had powerfully stimulated advanced minds in the Anglo-Saxon countries, Holland and Spain in particular, and Democracy in the sense. to which Rousseau gave expression in his Social Contract, and which found its most influential representatives in the leaders of French Jacobinism. While Liberalism in its social theories started off from the individual and wished to limit the state's activities to a minimum, Democracy took its stand on an abstract collective concept, Rousseau's general will, which it sought to fix in the national state. Liberalism and Democracy were pre-eminently political concepts, and since most of the original adherents of both did scarcely consider the economic conditions of society, the further development of these conditions could not be practically reconciled with the original principles of Democracy, and still less with those of Liberalism. Democracy with its motto of equality of all citizens before the law, and Liberalism with its right of man over his own person, both were wrecked on the realities of capitalist economy. As long as millions of human beings in every country have to sell their labour to a small minority of owners, and sink into the most wretched misery if they can find no buyers, the so-called equality before the law remains merely a pious fraud, since the laws are made by those who find themselves in possession of the social wealth. But in the same way there can be no talk of a right over one's own person, for that right ends when one is compelled to submit to the economic dictation of another if one does not want to starve.”
― Rudolf Rocker, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism

“[The] term 'libertarian' itself, to be sure, raises a problem, notably, the specious identification of an anti-authoritarian ideology with a straggling movement for 'pure capitalism' and 'free trade.' This movement never created the word: it appropriated it from the anarchist movement of the [nineteenth] century. And it should be recovered by those anti-authoritarians ... who try to speak for dominated people as a whole, not for personal egotists who identify freedom with entrepreneurship and profit.”
― Murray Bookchin

“It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags and with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Señor' or 'Don' or even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' or 'Thou', and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos días'. Tipping had been forbidden by law since the time of Primo de Rivera; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and from, the loud-speakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls or some variant of militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in this that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for...so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine.”
― George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

“In fact, I should say to begin with that the term anarchism is quite a range of political ideas, but I would prefer to think of it as the libertarian left, and from that point of view anarchism can be conceived as a kind of voluntary socialism, that is, as libertarian socialist or anarcho-syndicalist or communist anarchist, in the tradition of say Bakunin and Kropotkin and others. They had in mind a highly organized form of society, but a society that was organized on the basis of organic units, organic communities. And generally they meant by that the workplace and the neighborhood, and from those two basic units there could derive through federal arrangements a highly integrated kind of social organization, which might be national or even international in scope. And the decisions could be made over a substantial range, but by delegates who are always part of the organic community from which they come, to which they return and in which, in fact, they live.”
― Noam Chomsky, Chomsky On Anarchism

“By contrast, the traditional revolutionary demand for council forms of organization (what Hannah Arendt describes as "the revolutionary heritage") does not break completely with the terrain of hierarchical society. Workers' councils originate as class councils. Unless one assumes that workers are driven by their interests as workers to revolutionary measures against hierarchical society (an assumption I flatly deny), then these councils can be used just as much to perpetuate class society as to destroy it. We shall see, in fact, that the council form contains many structural limitations which favor the development of hierarchy. For the present, it suffices to say that most advocates of workers' councils tend to conceive of people primarily as economic entities, either as workers or nonworkers. This conception leaves the onesidedness of the self completely intact. Man is viewed as a bifurcated being, the product of a social development that divides man from man and each man from himself.
Nor is this one-sided view completely corrected by demands for workers' management of production and the shortening of the work week, for these demands leave the nature of the work process and the quality of the worker's free time completely untouched. If workers' councils and workers' management of production do not transform the work into a joyful activity, free time into a marvelous experience, and the workplace into a community, then they remain merely formal structures, in fact, class structures. They perpetuate the limitations of the proletariat as a product of bourgeois social conditions. Indeed, no movement that raises the demand for workers' councils can be regarded as revolutionary unless it tries to promote sweeping transformations in the environment of the work place.”
― Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism

“I am a convinced advocate of economic and social equality because I know that, without it, liberty, justice, human dignity, morality, and the well-being of individuals, as well as the prosperity of nations, will never amount to more than a pack of lies. But since I stand for liberty as the primary condition of mankind, I believe that equality must be established in the world by the spontaneous organization of labor and the collective ownership of property by freely organized producers' associations, and by the equally spontaneous federation of communes, to replace the domineering paternalistic State.”
― Mikhail Bakunin

“The anarchists cannot consider, like the collectivists, that a remuneration which would be proportionate to the hours of labour spent by each person in the production of riches may be an ideal, or even an approach to an ideal, society. Without entering here into a discussion as to how far the exchange value of each merchandise is really measured now by the amount of labour necessary for its production—a separate study must be devoted to the subject—we must say that the collectivist ideal seems to us merely unrealizable in a society which has been brought to consider the necessaries for production as a common property. Such a society would be compelled to abandon the wage-system altogether. It appears impossible that the mitigated individualism of the collectivist school could co-exist with the partial communism implied by holding land and machinery in common—unless imposed by a powerful government, much more powerful than all those of our own times. The present wage-system has grown up from the appropriation of the necessaries for production by the few; it was a necessary condition for the growth of the present capitalist production; and it cannot outlive it, even if an attempt be made to pay to the worker the full value of his produce, and hours-of-labour-checks be substituted for money. Common possession of the necessaries for production implies the common enjoyment of the fruits of the common production; and we consider that an equitable organization of society can only arise when every wage-system is abandoned, and when everybody, contributing for the common well-being to the full extent of his capacities, shall enjoy also from the common stock of society to the fullest possible extent of his needs.”
― Pyotr Kropotkin, Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings

“I ask only one thing of skeptics: don’t bring up Soviet Russia, please. That horrible example of State Capitalism has nothing to do with what I, and other libertarian socialists, would offer as an alternative to the present system.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“As far as socialism, I used to think I was fundamentally opposed to it, but eventually came to realize that wasn't really true, and that what I actually oppose is aggression. Voluntary socialism can be a wonderful way of living for small groups, and most people practice some form of it in their families. Only when imposed on people by force does socialism become evil. One of the beautiful things about a libertarian society is that people could still create socialist communes and be left alone to redistribute resources within them to their hearts' content, so long as no one is forced to join or prevented from leaving. This stands in stark contrast to a state-socialist society, which cannot similarly tolerate peaceful acts of capitalism among consenting participants.”
― Starchild

“They hated children as they hated themselves; they beat them for their own good, and educated them from the perspective of their own incapacity to love life.”
― Raoul Vaneigem

“They spend their weeks waiting for Work to go put on its Sunday clothes.”
― Raoul Vaneigem

“First get to work; you can enjoy yourself afterwards! Such is the recurring, rhyming themesong that is passed down into the head, programming militarily the rhythm of the body’s movements. Such is, in its numbing insistance, the tune that orchestrates the retreat of nascent intelligence. And rest assured – it will be a different intelligence that ends up in charge over the frozen behavior of working hours, an intelligence in which heart counts the least and is petrified the most.”
― Raoul Vaneigem

“The economy has ceased hiding itself behind mystifying words like God, devil, fatality, grace, damnation, nature, progress, duty, and necessity, with which, over the years, it gave itself an inescapable credibility. It no longer troubles itself with the frilly liberals, it is no longer bothered by the leninists in blue jeans — it laughs at the idea of taking any great leaps while wearing fascist jackboots or socialist bootees. It’s so simple and obvious it stands naked, and its omnipresence makes it familiar and familial.

Reduced to the final necessity of survival, the economy brings together all its past lies; the lie that there is no hope for humanity’s survival outside of the economy.”
― Raoul Vaneigem

“With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order.”
― Noam Chomsky, Notes on Anarchism

“A good example of a really large-scale anarchist revolution—in fact the best example to my knowledge—is the Spanish revolution in 1936, in which over most of Republican Spain there was a quite inspiring anarchist revolution that involved both industry and agriculture over substantial areas, developed in a way which to the outside looks spontaneous. Though in fact if you look at the roots of it, you discover that it was based on some three generations of experiment and thought and work which extended anarchist ideas to very large parts of the population in this largely pre-industrial—though not totally pre-industrial—society. And that again was, by both human measures and indeed anyone's economic measures, quite successful. That is, production continued effectively; workers in farms and factories proved quite capable of managing their affairs without coercion from above, contrary to what lots of socialists, communists, liberals and others wanted to believe, and in fact you can't tell what would have happened. That anarchist revolution was simply destroyed by force, but during the period in which it was alive I think it was a highly successful and, as I say, in many ways a very inspiring testimony to the ability of poor working people to organize and manage their own affairs, extremely successfully, without coercion and control. How relevant the Spanish experience is to an advanced industrial society. one might question in detail.”
― Noam Chomsky, Chomsky On Anarchism

“Man: Don't these precedents suggest that there is something inherently pre-industrial about the applicability of libertarian ideas—that they necessarily presuppose a rather rural society in which technology and production are fairly simple, and in which the economic organization tends to be small-scale and localized?

Well, let me separate that into two questions: one, how anarchists have felt about it, and two, what I think is the case. As far as anarchist reactions are concerned, there are two. There has been one anarchist tradition—and one might think, say, of Kropotkin as a representative—which had much of the character you describe. On the other hand there's another anarchist tradition that develops into anarcho-syndicalism which simply regarded anarchist ideas as the proper mode of organization for a highly complex advanced industrial society. And that tendency in anarchism merges, or at least inter-relates very closely with a variety of left-wing Marxism, the kind that one finds in, say, the Council Communists that grew up in the Luxemburgian tradition, and that is later represented by Marxist theorists like Anton Pannekoek, who developed a whole theory of workers' councils in industry and who is himself a scientist and astronomer, very much part of the industrial world.

So which of these two views is correct? I mean, is it necessary that anarchist concepts belong to the pre-industrial phase of human society, or is anarchism the rational mode of organization for a highly advanced industrial society? Well, I myself believe the latter, that is, I think that industrialization and the advance of technology raise possibilities for self-management over a broad scale that simply didn't exist in an earlier period. And that in fact this is precisely the rational mode for an advanced and complex industrial society, one in which workers can very well become masters of their own immediate affairs, that is, in direction and control of the shop, but also can be in a position to make the major substantive decisions concerning the structure of the economy, concerning social institutions, concerning planning regionally and beyond. At present, institutions do not permit them to have control over the requisite information, and the relevant training to understand these matters. A good deal could be automated. Much of the necessary work that is required to keep a decent level of social life going can be consigned to machines—at least in principle—which means humans can be free to undertake the kind of creative work which may not have been possible, objectively, in the early stages of the industrial revolution.”
― Noam Chomsky, Chomsky On Anarchism

“Question: A number of people have noted that you use the term "libertarian socialist" in the same context as you use the word ''anarchism." Do you see these terms as essentially similar? Is anarchism a type of socialism to you? The description has been used before that anarchism is equivalent to socialism with freedom. Would you agree with this basic equation?

The introduction to Guerin's book that you mentioned opens with a quote from an anarchist sympathizer a century ago, who says that "anarchism has a broad back," and "endures anything." One major element has been what has traditionally been called "libertarian socialism." I've tried to explain there and elsewhere what I mean by that, stressing that it's hardly original; I'm taking the ideas from leading figures in the anarchist movement whom I quote, and who rather consistently describe themselves as socialists, while harshly condemning the "new class" of radical intellectuals who seek to attain state power in the course of popular struggle and to become the vicious "red bureaucracy" of which Bakunin warned; what's often called "socialism." I rather agree with Rudolf Rocker's perception that these (quite central) tendencies in anarchism draw from the best of Enlightenment and classical liberal thought, well beyond what he described. In fact, as I've tried to show they contrast sharply with Marxist-Leninist doctrine and practice, the "libertarian" doctrines that are fashionable in the U.S. and UK particularly, and other contemporary ideologies, all of which seem to me to reduce to advocacy of one or another form of illegitimate authority, quite often real tyranny.”
― Noam Chomsky, Chomsky On Anarchism

“Question: It's a great book and its obvious that Guerin was very keen to blend what he felt were the best aspects of anarchism and the best aspects of socialism into this Libertarian Socialism. Do you think that those two terms Libertarian Socialism and Anarchism—are synonymous or do you think there are real differences between the two?

Well, I don't think we can really say, because the terms of political discourse aren't well defined. Capitalism, trade, the state, pick any one... they are pretty loose terms. Which is okay, but it doesn't make sense to try to define these terms carefully when you don't have an explanatory theory to embed them in. But the fact is we can't really answer the question, anarchism covers too many things, libertarian socialism covers too many things. But I sympathize with what he's trying to do. I think it's the right thing. If you look carefully they are really close, there are similarities and relationships. The more anti-statist, antivanguardist left elements of the socialist movement, Marxist movement in fact—folks like Anton Pannekoek and others—there are close similarities between them and some of the wings of the anarchist movement, like the anarcho-syndicalists. It's pretty hard to make much of a distinction between, say, Pannekoek's workers' councils and anarcho-syndicalist conceptions of how to organize society. There are some differences, but they are the kind of differences that ought to exist when people are working together in comradely relationships. So, yes, that's a sensible blend in my view. The much sharper distinction is between all these movements and the various forms of totalitarianism like Bolshevism, corporate capitalism and so on. There you have a real break. Totalitarian structures on the one hand and free societies on the other. In fact, 1 think there are significant similarities between libertarian socialism and anarchism, this blend, and even very mainstream thinkers like John Dewey—there are striking similarities.”
― Noam Chomsky, Chomsky On Anarchism

“How can you tell it’s the end of an era? When a suddenly intolerable present crystallizes in a short period of time what was so uneasily put up with in the past. And everyone is suddenly quite easily convinced that he or she is either going to be reborn in the birth of a new world, or die in the archaic netherworld of a society less and less adapted to the living.”
― Raoul Vaneigem

“(On Engels' critique of anti-authoritarianism)

“Nobody was talking about the use of revolutionary violence being authoritarianism. That's always been an invalid thing to point out. You know, is a slave rising up and overthrowing their master, is that "authoritarian"? Is a woman trying to escape her abusive husband or defending herself against her abusive husband, is that "authoritarian"?”
― Anark