It's true that most American citizens think of themselves as living in a democratic country. But when was the last time that any Americans actually sat down and came to a collective decision? Maybe if they are ordering pizzas, but basically never.

What we're already doing is communism. The first step we have to make is to realize that we're already closer to it than we think.

The fascinating thing about standard economic stories is exactly that: they assume that everybody wants that kind of closure. That all human relations are forms of exchange, because if everything is an exchange then it's true that we're both equals. We walk up, I give you something, you give me something, and we walk away. Or I give you something, you don't give me something right now, and you owe me. So if we have any ongoing relationships at all, it's because somebody is in debt.

Within a capitalist corporation, someone says, "Lend me a wrench," and someone asks, "Yeah, what do I get?" You assume that the idea of each according to his or her abilities, each according to his or her needs - in solving a problem - is actually the only thing that works. And in situations of disaster, there are often communistic notions of improvisation, where you basically exchange hierarchies and all of a sudden all those things that are luxuries that you can't afford, you have them in an emergency.

Direct action is, ultimately, the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free.

The difference between capitalism and feudalism is that under capitalism, they make money directly through wages, manufacturing, and commerce and under feudalism, it's directly through juro-political means.

Adam Smith actually took all his best ideas and lines from sources from medieval Persia. But one thing he doesn't take is the underlying assumption they have that the basis of a market is mutual aid.