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********* Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, *********
Marxism & Hope for the Future
Noam Chomsky is widely known for his critique of U.S
foreign policy, and for his work as a linguist. Less
well known is his ongoing support for libertarian
socialist objectives. In a special interview done for
Red and Black Revolution, Chomsky gives his views on
anarchism and marxism, and the prospects for socialism
now. The interview was conducted in May 1995 by Kevin
Doyle.
RBR: First off, Noam, for quite a time now you've been
an advocate for the anarchist idea. Many people are
familiar with the introduction you wrote in 1970 to
Daniel Gu?rin's Anarchism, but more recently, for
instance in the film Manufacturing Consent, you took
the opportunity to highlight again the potential of
anarchism and the anarchist idea. What is it that
attracts you to anarchism?
CHOMSKY: I was attracted to anarchism as a young
teenager, as soon as I began to think about the world
beyond a pretty narrow range, and haven't seen much
reason to revise those early attitudes since. I think
it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures
of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect
of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification
for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and
should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human
freedom. That includes political power, ownership and
management, relations among men and women, parents and
children, our control over the fate of future
generations (the basic moral imperative behind the
environmental movement, in my view), and much else.
Naturally this means a challenge to the huge
institutions of coercion and control: the state, the
unaccountable private tyrannies that control most of
the domestic and international economy, and so on. But
not only these. That is what I have always understood
to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the
burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that
it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met.
Sometimes the burden can be met. If I'm taking a walk
with my grandchildren and they dart out into a busy
street, I will use not only authority but also physical
coercion to stop them. The act should be challenged,
but I think it can readily meet the challenge. And
there are other cases; life is a complex affair, we
understand very little about humans and society, and
grand pronouncements are generally more a source of
harm than of benefit. But the perspective is a valid
one, I think, and can lead us quite a long way.
Beyond such generalities, we begin to look at cases,
which is where the questions of human interest and
concern arise.
RBR: It's true to say that your ideas and critique are
now more widely known than ever before. It should also
be said that your views are widely respected. How do
you think your support for anarchism is received in
this context? In particular, I'm interested in the
response you receive from people who are getting
interested in politics for the first time and who may,
perhaps, have come across your views. Are such people
surprised by your support for anarchism? Are they
interested?
CHOMSKY: The general intellectual culture, as you know,
associates 'anarchism' with chaos, violence, bombs,
disruption, and so on. So people are often surprised
when I speak positively of anarchism and identify
myself with leading traditions within it. But my
impression is that among the general public, the basic
ideas seem reasonable when the clouds are cleared away.
Of course, when we turn to specific matters - say, the
nature of families, or how an economy would work in a
society that is more free and just - questions and
controversy arise. But that is as it should be.
Physics can't really explain how water flows from the
tap in your sink. When we turn to vastly more complex
questions of human significance, understanding is very
thin, and there is plenty of room for disagreement,
experimentation, both intellectual and real-life
exploration of possibilities, to help us learn more.
RBR: Perhaps, more than any other idea, anarchism has
suffered from the problem of misrepresentation.
Anarchism can mean many things to many people. Do you
often find yourself having to explain what it is that
you mean by anarchism? Does the misrepresentation of
anarchism bother you?
CHOMSKY: All misrepresentation is a nuisance. Much of
it can be traced back to structures of power that have
an interest in preventing understanding, for pretty
obvious reasons. It's well to recall David Hume's
Principles of Government. He expressed surprise that
people ever submitted to their rulers. He concluded
that since "Force is always on the side of the
governed, the governors have nothing to support them
but opinion. 'Tis therefore, on opinion only that
government is founded; and this maxim extends to the
most despotic and most military governments, as well as
to the most free and most popular." Hume was very
astute - and incidentally, hardly a libertarian by the
standards of the day. He surely underestimates the
efficacy of force, but his observation seems to me
basically correct, and important, particularly in the
more free societies, where the art of controlling
opinion is therefore far more refined.
Misrepresentation and other forms of befuddlement are a
natural concomitant.
So does misrepresentation bother me? Sure, but so does
rotten weather. It will exist as long as
concentrations of power engender a kind of commissar
class to defend them. Since they are usually not very
bright, or are bright enough to know that they'd better
avoid the arena of fact and argument, they'll turn to
misrepresentation, vilification, and other devices that
are available to those who know that they'll be
protected by the various means available to the
powerful. We should understand why all this occurs,
and unravel it as best we can. That's part of the
project of liberation - of ourselves and others, or
more reasonably, of people working together to achieve
these aims.
Sounds simple-minded, and it is. But I have yet to
find much commentary on human life and society that is
not simple-minded, when absurdity and self-serving
posturing are cleared away.
RBR: How about in more established left-wing circles,
where one might expect to find greater familiarity with
what anarchism actually stands for? Do you encounter
any surprise here at your views and support for
anarchism?
CHOMSKY: If I understand what you mean by "established
left-wing circles," there is not too much surprise
about my views on anarchism, because very little is
known about my views on anything. These are not the
circles I deal with. You'll rarely find a reference to
anything I say or write. That's not completely true of
course. Thus in the US (but less commonly in the UK or
elsewhere), you'd find some familiarity with what I do
in certain of the more critical and independent sectors
of what might be called "established left-wing
circles," and I have personal friends and associates
scattered here and there. But have a look at the books
and journals, and you'll see what I mean. I don't
expect what I write and say to be any more welcome in
these circles than in the faculty club or editorial
board room - again, with exceptions.
The question arises only marginally, so much so that
it's hard to answer.
RBR: 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?
CHOMSKY: The introduction to Guerin's book that you
mentioned opens with a quote from an anarchist
sympathiser 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 US 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.
The Spanish Revolution
RBR: In the past, when you have spoken about anarchism,
you have often emphasised the example of the Spanish
Revolution. For you there would seem to be two aspects
to this example. On the one hand, the experience of
the Spanish Revolution is, you say, a good example of
'anarchism in action'. On the other, you have also
stressed that the Spanish revolution is a good example
of what workers can achieve through their own efforts
using participatory democracy. Are these two aspects -
anarchism in action and participatory democracy - one
and the same thing for you? Is anarchism a philosophy
for people's power?
CHOMSKY: I'm reluctant to use fancy polysyllables like
"philosophy" to refer to what seems ordinary common
sense. And I'm also uncomfortable with slogans. The
achievements of Spanish workers and peasants, before
the revolution was crushed, were impressive in many
ways. The term 'participatory democracy' is a more
recent one, which developed in a different context, but
there surely are points of similarity. I'm sorry if
this seems evasive. It is, but that's because I don't
think either the concept of anarchism or of
participatory democracy is clear enough to be able to
answer the question whether they are the same.
RBR: One of the main achievements of the Spanish
Revolution was the degree of grassroots democracy
established. In terms of people, it is estimated that
over 3 million were involved. Rural and urban
production was managed by workers themselves. Is it a
coincidence to your mind that anarchists, known for
their advocacy of individual freedom, succeeded in this
area of collective administration?
CHOMSKY: No coincidence at all. The tendencies in
anarchism that I've always found most persuasive seek a
highly organised society, integrating many different
kinds of structures (workplace, community, and manifold
other forms of voluntary association), but controlled
by participants, not by those in a position to give
orders (except, again, when authority can be justified,
as is sometimes the case, in specific contingencies).
Democracy
RBR: Anarchists often expend a great deal of effort at
building up grassroots democracy. Indeed they are
often accused of "taking democracy to extremes". Yet,
despite this, many anarchists would not readily
identify democracy as a central component of anarchist
philosophy. Anarchists often describe their politics
as being about 'socialism' or being about 'the
individual'- they are less likely to say that anarchism
is about democracy. Would you agree that democratic
ideas are a central feature of anarchism?
CHOMSKY: Criticism of 'democracy' among anarchists has
often been criticism of parliamentary democracy, as it
has arisen within societies with deeply repressive
features. Take the US, which has been as free as any,
since its origins. American democracy was founded on
the principle, stressed by James Madison in the
Constitutional Convention in 1787, that the primary
function of government is "to protect the minority of
the opulent from the majority." Thus he warned that in
England, the only quasi-democratic model of the day, if
the general population were allowed a say in public
affairs, they would implement agrarian reform or other
atrocities, and that the American system must be
carefully crafted to avoid such crimes against "the
rights of property," which must be defended (in fact,
must prevail). Parliamentary democracy within this
framework does merit sharp criticism by genuine
libertarians, and I've left out many other features
that are hardly subtle - slavery, to mention just one,
or the wage slavery that was bitterly condemned by
working people who had never heard of anarchism or
communism right through the 19th century, and beyond.
Leninism
RBR: The importance of grassroots democracy to any
meaningful change in society would seem to be self
evident. Yet the left has been ambiguous about this in
the past. I'm speaking generally, of social democracy,
but also of Bolshevism - traditions on the left that
would seem to have more in common with elitist thinking
than with strict democratic practice. Lenin, to use a
well-known example, was sceptical that workers could
develop anything more than "trade union consciousness"-
by which, I assume, he meant that workers could not see
far beyond their immediate predicament. Similarly, the
Fabian socialist, Beatrice Webb, who was very
influential in the Labour Party in England, had the
view that workers were only interested in "horse racing
odds"! Where does this elitism originate and what is
it doing on the left?
CHOMSKY: I'm afraid it's hard for me to answer this.
If the left is understood to include 'Bolshevism,' then
I would flatly dissociate myself from the left. Lenin
was one of the greatest enemies of socialism, in my
opinion, for reasons I've discussed. The idea that
workers are only interested in horse-racing is an
absurdity that cannot withstand even a superficial look
at labour history or the lively and independent working
class press that flourished in many places, including
the manufacturing towns of New England not many miles
from where I'm writing - not to speak of the inspiring
record of the courageous struggles of persecuted and
oppressed people throughout history, until this very
moment. Take the most miserable corner of this
hemisphere, Haiti, regarded by the European conquerors
as a paradise and the source of no small part of
Europe's wealth, now devastated, perhaps beyond
recovery. In the past few years, under conditions so
miserable that few people in the rich countries can
imagine them, peasants and slum-dwellers constructed a
popular democratic movement based on grassroots
organisations that surpasses just about anything I know
of elsewhere; only deeply committed commissars could
fail to collapse with ridicule when they hear the
solemn pronouncements of American intellectuals and
political leaders about how the US has to teach
Haitians the lessons of democracy. Their achievements
were so substantial and frightening to the powerful
that they had to be subjected to yet another dose of
vicious terror, with considerably more US support than
is publicly acknowledged, and they still have not
surrendered. Are they interested only in horse-racing?
I'd suggest some lines I've occasionally quoted from
Rousseau: "when I see multitudes of entirely naked
savages scorn European voluptuousness and endure
hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only
their independence, I feel that it does not behoove
slaves to reason about freedom."
RBR: Speaking generally again, your own work -
Deterring Democracy, Necessary Illusions, etc. - has
dealt consistently with the role and prevalence of
elitist ideas in societies such as our own. You have
argued that within 'Western' (or parliamentary)
democracy there is a deep antagonism to any real role
or input from the mass of people, lest it threaten the
uneven distribution in wealth which favours the rich.
Your work is quite convincing here, but, this aside,
some have been shocked by your assertions. For
instance, you compare the politics of President John
F. Kennedy with Lenin, more or less equating the two.
This, I might add, has shocked supporters of both
camps! Can you elaborate a little on the validity of
the comparison?
CHOMSKY: I haven't actually "equated" the doctrines of
the liberal intellectuals of the Kennedy administration
with Leninists, but I have noted striking points of
similarity - rather as predicted by Bakunin a century
earlier in his perceptive commentary on the "new
class." For example, I quoted passages from McNamara on
the need to enhance managerial control if we are to be
truly "free," and about how the "undermanagement" that
is "the real threat to democracy" is an assault against
reason itself. Change a few words in these passages,
and we have standard Leninist doctrine. I've argued
that the roots are rather deep, in both cases. Without
further clarification about what people find
"shocking," I can't comment further. The comparisons
are specific, and I think both proper and properly
qualified. If not, that's an error, and I'd be
interested to be enlightened about it.
Marxism
RBR: Specifically, Leninism refers to a form of marxism
that developed with V.I. Lenin. Are you implicitly
distinguishing the works of Marx from the particular
criticism you have of Lenin when you use the term
'Leninism'? Do you see a continuity between Marx's
views and Lenin's later practices?
CHOMSKY: Bakunin's warnings about the "Red bureaucracy"
that would institute "the worst of all despotic
governments" were long before Lenin, and were directed
against the followers of Mr. Marx. There were, in
fact, followers of many different kinds; Pannekoek,
Luxembourg, Mattick and others are very far from Lenin,
and their views often converge with elements of
anarcho-syndicalism. Korsch and others wrote
sympathetically of the anarchist revolution in Spain,
in fact. There are continuities from Marx to Lenin,
but there are also continuities to Marxists who were
harshly critical of Lenin and Bolshevism. Teodor
Shanin's work in the past years on Marx's later
attitudes towards peasant revolution is also relevant
here. I'm far from being a Marx scholar, and wouldn't
venture any serious judgement on which of these
continuities reflects the 'real Marx,' if there even
can be an answer to that question.
RBR: Recently, we obtained a copy of your own Notes On
Anarchism (re-published last year by Discussion
Bulletin in the USA). In this you mention the views of
the "early Marx", in particular his development of the
idea of alienation under capitalism. Do you generally
agree with this division in Marx's life and work - a
young, more libertarian socialist but, in later years,
a firm authoritarian?
CHOMSKY: The early Marx draws extensively from the
milieu in which he lived, and one finds many
similarities to the thinking that animated classical
liberalism, aspects of the Enlightenment and French and
German Romanticism. Again, I'm not enough of a Marx
scholar to pretend to an authoritative judgement. My
impression, for what it is worth, is that the early
Marx was very much a figure of the late Enlightenment,
and the later Marx was a highly authoritarian activist,
and a critical analyst of capitalism, who had little to
say about socialist alternatives. But those are
impressions.
RBR: From my understanding, the core part of your
overall view is informed by your concept of human
nature. In the past the idea of human nature was seen,
perhaps, as something regressive, even limiting. For
instance, the unchanging aspect of human nature is
often used as an argument for why things can't be
changed fundamentally in the direction of anarchism.
You take a different view? Why?
CHOMSKY: The core part of anyone's point of view is
some concept of human nature, however it may be remote
from awareness or lack articulation. At least, that is
true of people who consider themselves moral agents,
not monsters. Monsters aside, whether a person who
advocates reform or revolution, or stability or return
to earlier stages, or simply cultivating one's own
garden, takes stand on the grounds that it is 'good for
people.' But that judgement is based on some
conception of human nature, which a reasonable person
will try to make as clear as possible, if only so that
it can be evaluated. So in this respect I'm no
different from anyone else.
You're right that human nature has been seen as
something 'regressive,' but that must be the result of
profound confusion. Is my granddaughter no different
from a rock, a salamander, a chicken, a monkey? A
person who dismisses this absurdity as absurd
recognises that there is a distinctive human nature.
We are left only with the question of what it is - a
highly nontrivial and fascinating question, with
enormous scientific interest and human significance.
We know a fair amount about certain aspects of it - not
those of major human significance. Beyond that, we are
left with our hopes and wishes, intuitions and
speculations.
There is nothing "regressive" about the fact that a
human embryo is so constrained that it does not grow
wings, or that its visual system cannot function in the
manner of an insect, or that it lacks the homing
instinct of pigeons. The same factors that constrain
the organism's development also enable it to attain a
rich, complex, and highly articulated structure,
similar in fundamental ways to conspecifics, with rich
and remarkable capacities. An organism that lacked
such determinative intrinsic structure, which of course
radically limits the paths of development, would be
some kind of amoeboid creature, to be pitied (even if
it could survive somehow). The scope and limits of
development are logically related.
Take language, one of the few distinctive human
capacities about which much is known. We have very
strong reasons to believe that all possible human
languages are very similar; a Martian scientist
observing humans might conclude that there is just a
single language, with minor variants. The reason is
that the particular aspect of human nature that
underlies the growth of language allows very restricted
options. Is this limiting? Of course. Is it
liberating? Also of course. It is these very
restrictions that make it possible for a rich and
intricate system of expression of thought to develop in
similar ways on the basis of very rudimentary,
scattered, and varied experience.
What about the matter of biologically-determined human
differences? That these exist is surely true, and a
cause for joy, not fear or regret. Life among clones
would not be worth living, and a sane person will only
rejoice that others have abilities that they do not
share. That should be elementary. What is commonly
believed about these matters is strange indeed, in my
opinion.
Is human nature, whatever it is, conducive to the
development of anarchist forms of life or a barrier to
them? We do not know enough to answer, one way or the
other. These are matters for experimentation and
discovery, not empty pronouncements.
The future
RBR: To begin finishing off, I'd like to ask you
briefly about some current issues on the left. I don't
know if the situation is similar in the USA but here,
with the fall of the Soviet Union, a certain
demoralisation has set in on the left. It isn't so
much that people were dear supporters of what existed
in the Soviet Union, but rather it's a general feeling
that with the demise of the Soviet Union the idea of
socialism has also been dragged down. Have you come
across this type of demoralisation? What's your
response to it?
CHOMSKY: My response to the end of Soviet tyranny was
similar to my reaction to the defeat of Hitler and
Mussolini. In all cases, it is a victory for the human
spirit. It should have been particularly welcome to
socialists, since a great enemy of socialism had at
last collapsed. Like you, I was intrigued to see how
people - including people who had considered themselves
anti-Stalinist and anti-Leninist - were demoralised by
the collapse of the tyranny. What it reveals is that
they were more deeply committed to Leninism than they
believed.
There are, however, other reasons to be concerned about
the elimination of this brutal and tyrannical system,
which was as much "socialist" as it was "democratic"
(recall that it claimed to be both, and that the latter
claim was ridiculed in the West, while the former was
eagerly accepted, as a weapon against socialism - one
of the many examples of the service of Western
intellectuals to power). One reason has to do with the
nature of the Cold War. In my view, it was in
significant measure a special case of the 'North-South
conflict,' to use the current euphemism for Europe's
conquest of much of the world. Eastern Europe had been
the original 'third world,' and the Cold War from 1917
had no slight resemblance to the reaction of attempts
by other parts of the third world to pursue an
independent course, though in this case differences of
scale gave the conflict a life of its own. For this
reason, it was only reasonable to expect the region to
return pretty much to its earlier status: parts of the
West, like the Czech Republic or Western Poland, could
be expected to rejoin it, while others revert to the
traditional service role, the ex-Nomenklatura becoming
the standard third world elite (with the approval of
Western state-corporate power, which generally prefers
them to alternatives). That was not a pretty prospect,
and it has led to immense suffering.
Another reason for concern has to do with the matter of
deterrence and non-alignment. Grotesque as the Soviet
empire was, its very existence offered a certain space
for non-alignment, and for perfectly cynical reasons,
it sometimes provided assistance to victims of Western
attack. Those options are gone, and the South is
suffering the consequences.
A third reason has to do with what the business press
calls "the pampered Western workers" with their
"luxurious lifestyles." With much of Eastern Europe
returning to the fold, owners and managers have
powerful new weapons against the working classes and
the poor at home. GM and VW can not only transfer
production to Mexico and Brazil (or at least threaten
to, which often amounts to the same thing), but also to
Poland and Hungary, where they can find skilled and
trained workers at a fraction of the cost. They are
gloating about it, understandably, given the guiding
values.
We can learn a lot about what the Cold War (or any
other conflict) was about by looking at who is cheering
and who is unhappy after it ends. By that criterion,
the victors in the Cold War include Western elites and
the ex-Nomenklatura, now rich beyond their wildest
dreams, and the losers include a substantial part of
the population of the East along with working people
and the poor in the West, as well as popular sectors in
the South that have sought an independent path.
Such ideas tend to arouse near hysteria among Western
intellectuals, when they can even perceive them, which
is rare. That's easy to show. It's also
understandable. The observations are correct, and
subversive of power and privilege; hence hysteria.
In general, the reactions of an honest person to the
end of the Cold War will be more complex than just
pleasure over the collapse of a brutal tyranny, and
prevailing reactions are suffused with extreme
hypocrisy, in my opinion.
Capitalism
RBR: In many ways the left today finds itself back at
its original starting point in the last century. Like
then, it now faces a form of capitalism that is in the
ascendancy. There would seem to be greater 'consensus'
today, more than at any other time in history, that
capitalism is the only valid form of economic
organisation possible, this despite the fact that
wealth inequality is widening. Against this backdrop,
one could argue that the left is unsure of how to go
forward. How do you look at the current period? Is it
a question of 'back to basics'? Should the effort now
be towards bringing out the libertarian tradition in
socialism and towards stressing democratic ideas?
CHOMSKY: This is mostly propaganda, in my opinion.
What is called 'capitalism' is basically a system of
corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely
unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control
over the economy, political systems, and social and
cultural life, operating in close co-operation with
powerful states that intervene massively in the
domestic economy and international society. That is
dramatically true of the United States, contrary to
much illusion. The rich and privileged are no more
willing to face market discipline than they have been
in the past, though they consider it just fine for the
general population. Merely to cite a few
illustrations, the Reagan administration, which
revelled in free market rhetoric, also boasted to the
business community that it was the most protectionist
in post-war US history - actually more than all others
combined. Newt Gingrich, who leads the current
crusade, represents a superrich district that receives
more federal subsidies than any other suburban region
in the country, outside of the federal system itself.
The 'conservatives' who are calling for an end to
school lunches for hungry children are also demanding
an increase in the budget for the Pentagon, which was
established in the late 1940s in its current form
because - as the business press was kind enough to tell
us - high tech industry cannot survive in a "pure,
competitive, unsubsidized, 'free enterprise' economy,"
and the government must be its "saviour." Without the
"saviour," Gingrich's constituents would be poor
working people (if they were lucky). There would be no
computers, electronics generally, aviation industry,
metallurgy, automation, etc., etc., right down the
list. Anarchists, of all people, should not be taken
in by these traditional frauds.
More than ever, libertarian socialist ideas are
relevant, and the population is very much open to them.
Despite a huge mass of corporate propaganda, outside of
educated circles, people still maintain pretty much
their traditional attitudes. In the US, for example,
more than 80% of the population regard the economic
system as "inherently unfair" and the political system
as a fraud, which serves the "special interests," not
"the people." Overwhelming majorities think working
people have too little voice in public affairs (the
same is true in England), that the government has the
responsibility of assisting people in need, that
spending for education and health should take
precedence over budget-cutting and tax cuts, that the
current Republican proposals that are sailing through
Congress benefit the rich and harm the general
population, and so on. Intellectuals may tell a
different story, but it's not all that difficult to
find out the facts.
RBR: To a point anarchist ideas have been vindicated by
the collapse of the Soviet Union - the predictions of
Bakunin have proven to be correct. Do you think that
anarchists should take heart from this general
development and from the perceptiveness of Bakunin's
analysis? Should anarchists look to the period ahead
with greater confidence in their ideas and history?
CHOMSKY: I think - at least hope - that the answer is
implicit in the above. I think the current era has
ominous portent, and signs of great hope. Which result
ensues depends on what we make of the opportunities.
RBR: Lastly, Noam, a different sort of question. We
have a pint of Guinness on order for you here. When
are you going to come and drink it?
CHOMSKY: Keep the Guinness ready. I hope it won't be
too long. Less jocularly, I'd be there tomorrow if we
could. We (my wife came along with me, unusual for
these constant trips) had a marvellous time in Ireland,
and would love to come back. Why don't we? Won't bore
you with the sordid details, but demands are
extraordinary, and mounting - a reflection of the
conditions I've been trying to describe.