"The basic problem I really have is that whenever I meet leftists in the socialist and Marxist movements, I'm called a petit-bourgeois individualist. [audience laughs] I'm supposed to shrink after this— Usually I'm called petit-bourgeois individualist by students, and by academicians, who’ve never done a days work life [sic] in their entire biography, whereas I have spent years in factories and the trade unions, in foundries and auto plants. So after I have to swallow the word petit-bourgeois, I don't mind the word individualist at all!I believe in individual freedom; that's my primary and complete commitment—individual liberty. That’s what it's all about. And that's what socialism was supposed to be about, or anarchism was supposed to be about, and tragically has been betrayed.And when I normally encounter my so-called colleagues on the left—socialists, Marxists, communists—they tell me that, after the revolution, they're gonna shoot me. [audience laughs, Murray nods] That is said with unusual consistency. They're gonna stand me and Karl up against the wall and get rid of us real fast; I feel much safer in your company. [audience laughs and applauds]"
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Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin (14 January 1921 – 30 July 2006) was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher.
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