Now, of course, it’s extremely easy to say, “The heck with it – I’m just going to adapt myself to the structures of power and authority, and do the best I can within them.” Sure, you can do that. But that’s not acting like a decent person. Look, if you’re walking down the street and you see a kid eating an ice-cream cone, and you notice there’s no cop around and you’re hungry, you can take the ice-cream cone because you’re bigger and just walk away. You can do that – probably there are people who do. But we call them pathological. On the other hand, if they do it within existing social structures, we call them normal – but it’s just as pathological, it’s just the pathology of the general society.
Noam Chomsky (Understanding Power)