{"id":233065,"date":"2023-04-10T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=233065"},"modified":"2025-01-10T15:06:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T15:06:15","slug":"savage-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/04\/savage-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Savage Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Climate Change to Bank Failures to Wars<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

6 Apr 2023 – <\/em>The following is excerpted from David Barsamian\u2019s recent interview with Noam Chomsky at AlternativeRadio.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian
(photo credit: Don Usner)<\/p><\/div>\n

David Barsamian:<\/strong> On March 20th, the UN\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its latest report. The new IPCC assessment from senior scientists warned that there\u2019s little time to lose in tackling the climate crisis. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, \u201cThe rate of temperature rise in the last half-century is the highest in 2,000 years. Concentrations of carbon dioxide are at their highest in at least 2 million years. The climate time bomb is ticking.\u201d At COP 27 he said, \u201cWe are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator. It is the defining issue of our age. It is the central challenge of our century.\u201d My question to you is: You\u2019d think survival would be a galvanizing issue, but why isn\u2019t there a greater sense of urgency in addressing it in a substantial way?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Noam Chomsky:<\/em><\/strong> It was a very strong statement by Guterres. I think it could be stronger still. It\u2019s not just the defining issue of this century, but of human history. We are now, as he says, at a point where we\u2019ll decide whether the human experiment on Earth will continue in any recognizable form. The report was stark and clear. We\u2019re reaching a point where irreversible processes will be set into motion. It doesn\u2019t mean that everybody\u2019s going to die tomorrow, but we\u2019ll pass tipping points where nothing more can be done, where it\u2019s just decline to disaster.<\/p>\n

So yes, it\u2019s a question of the survival of any form of organized human society. Already there are many signs of extreme danger and threat, so far almost entirely in countries that have had the smallest role in producing the disaster. It\u2019s often said, and correctly, that the rich countries have created the disaster and the poor countries are its victims, but it\u2019s actually a little more nuanced than that. It\u2019s the rich in the rich countries who have created the disaster and everyone else, including the poor in the rich countries, face the problems.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s happening? Well, take the United States and its two political parties. One party is 100% denialist. Climate change is not happening or, if it\u2019s happening, it\u2019s none of our business. The Inflation Reduction Act was basically a climate act that Biden managed to get through, though Congress sharply whittled it down. Not a single Republican voted for it. Not one. No Republican will vote for anything that harms the profits of the rich and the corporate sector, which they abjectly serve.<\/p>\n

We should remember that this is not built in. Go back to 2008 when Senator John McCain was running for president. He had a small climate program. Not much, but something. Congress, including the Republicans, was considering doing something about what everyone knew was an impending crisis. The Koch Brothers\u2019 huge energy conglomerate got wind of it. They had been working for years to ensure that the Republicans would loyally support their campaign to destroy human civilization. Here, there was deviation. They launched an enormous campaign, bribing, intimidating, astroturfing, lobbying to return the Republicans to total denialism, and they succeeded.<\/p>\n

Since then, it\u2019s the prime denialist party. In the last Republican primary before Trump took over in 2016, all the top Republican figures vying for the presidential nomination, either said that there\u2019s no global warming or maybe there is, but it\u2019s none of our business. The one small exception, greatly praised by liberal opinion, was John Kasich, the governor of Ohio. And he was actually the worst of all. What he said was: of course, global warming\u2019s happening. Of course, humans are contributing to it. But we in Ohio are going to use our coal freely and without apology. He was so greatly honored that he would be invited to speak at the next Democratic convention. Well, that\u2019s one of the two political parties. Not a sign of deviation among them from: let\u2019s race to destruction in order to ensure that our prime constituency is as rich and powerful as possible.<\/p>\n

Now, what about the other party? There was Bernie Sanders\u2019s initiative, the Sunrise Movement\u2019s activism, and even Joe Biden at first had a moderately decent climate program \u2014 not enough, but a big step forward from anything in the past. It would, however, be cut down, step by step, by 100% Republican opposition, and a couple of right-wing Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. What finally came out was the Inflation Reduction Act, which could only get through by providing gifts to the energy corporations.<\/p>\n

It brings to the fore the ultimate insanity of our institutional structure. If you want to stop destroying the planet and human life on Earth, you have to bribe the rich and powerful, so maybe they\u2019ll come along. If we offer them enough candy, maybe they\u2019ll stop killing people. That\u2019s savage capitalism. If you want to get anything done, you have to bribe those who own the place.<\/p>\n

And look what\u2019s happening. Oil prices are out of sight and the energy corporations say: Sorry boys, no more sustainable energy. We make more money by destroying you. Even BP, the one company that was beginning to do something, in essence said: No, we make more profit from destroying everything, so we\u2019re going to do that.<\/p>\n

It became very clear at the Glasgow COP conference. John Kerry, the U.S. climate representative, was euphoric. He basically said we\u2019ve won. We now have the corporations on our side. How can we lose? Well, there was a small footnote pointed out by political economist Adam Tooze. He agreed that, yes, they\u2019d said that but with two conditions. One, we\u2019ll join you as long as it\u2019s profitable. Two, there has to be an international guarantee that, if we suffer any loss, the taxpayer covers it. That\u2019s what\u2019s called free enterprise. With such an institutional structure, it\u2019s going to be hard to get out of this.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s the Biden administration doing? Let\u2019s take the Willow project. Right now, it\u2019s allowing ConocoPhillips to open a major project in Alaska, which will bring online more fossil fuels for decades. They\u2019re using known methods to harden the Alaskan permafrost. One of the great dangers is that the permafrost, which covers enormous amounts of hidden fossil fuels, is melting, sending greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which will be monstrous. So, they\u2019re hardening the permafrost. Big step forward! Why are they doing it? So, they can use it to exploit the oil more effectively. That\u2019s savage capitalism right in front of our eyes with stark clarity. It takes genius not to see it, but it\u2019s being done.<\/p>\n

Look at popular attitudes, Pew does regular polling. They recently asked people in a poll to rank in priority a couple of dozen urgent issues, though nuclear war, which is as great a threat as climate change, wasn\u2019t even listed. Climate change was way down near the bottom. Much more important was the budget deficit, which is not a problem at all. Thirteen percent of Republicans \u2014 that\u2019s almost a statistical error \u2014 thought climate change was an urgent problem. More Democrats did, but not enough.<\/p>\n

The question is: Can people who care about minimal human values, like, say, survival, organize and act effectively enough to overcome not only governments, but capitalist institutions designed for suicide?<\/p>\n

Barsamian: The question always comes up and you\u2019ve heard it a million times: The owners of the economy, the captains of industry, the CEOs, they have children, they have grandchildren, how can they not think of their future and protect them rather than putting them at risk?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky:<\/em> Let\u2019s say you\u2019re the CEO of JPMorgan. You\u2019ve replaced Jamie Dimon. You know perfectly well that when you fund fossil fuels, you\u2019re destroying the lives of your grandchildren. I can\u2019t read his mind, but I suspect that what\u2019s going through it is: If I don\u2019t do this, somebody else will be put in who \u2014 because it\u2019s the nature of such institutions \u2014 will aim for profit and market share. If I\u2019m kicked out, somebody else, not as nice a guy as I am, will come in. At least I know we\u2019re destroying everything and try to mitigate it slightly. That next guy won\u2019t give a damn. So, as a benefactor of the human race, I\u2019ll continue to fund fossil-fuel development.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a convincing position for just about all the people doing this. For 40 years, ExxonMobil\u2019s scientists were way in the lead in discovering the threats and extreme dangers of global warming. For decades, they informed management that we\u2019re destroying the world and it was just tucked away in some drawer somewhere.<\/p>\n

In 1988, James Hansen, the famous geophysicist, gave Senate testimony, essentially saying, we\u2019re racing to disaster. The management of ExxonMobil and the other companies had to consider that. We can\u2019t just put it in the drawer anymore. So, they called in their PR experts and said, \u201cHow should we handle this?\u201d And they responded, \u201cIf you deny it, you\u2019ll be exposed right away. So don\u2019t deny it. Just cast doubt. Say, maybe it\u2019s true, maybe it isn\u2019t. We haven\u2019t really looked into all the possibilities. We haven\u2019t understood the sunspots, questions about cloud cover, so let\u2019s just become a richer, more developed society. Small footnote, we\u2019ll make a lot more profits and later on, if there\u2019s any reality to this, we\u2019ll be in a better position to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the propaganda line. Very effective PR. And then you get the Koch Brothers juggernaut and the like buying the Republican Party, or what used to be a political party, and turning them into total denialists, claiming maybe it\u2019s a liberal hoax, and so on.<\/p>\n

The Democrats contributed to this in other ways. One interesting thing about the recent election in areas along the Texas border: Mexican-Americans, who had always voted Democratic, voted for Trump. Why? Well, you can easily imagine: I\u2019ve got a job in the oil industry. The Democrats want to take away my job, destroy my family, all because those liberal elitists claim there\u2019s global warming going on. Why should I believe them? Let\u2019s vote for Trump. At least I\u2019ll have a job and be able to feed my family.<\/p>\n

What the Democrats didn\u2019t do was go down there, organize, educate, and say, \u201cThe environmental crisis is going to destroy you and your families. You can get better jobs in sustainable energy and your children will be better off.\u201d Actually, in places where they did do that, they won. One of the most striking cases was West Virginia, a coal state, where Joe Manchin, the coal industry senator, has been blocking so much. My friend and colleague Bob Pollin and his group at the University of Massachusetts, PERI, the Political Economy Research Institute, have been working on the ground there and they now have mine workers calling for a transition to sustainable energy. The United Mine Workers even passed resolutions calling for it.<\/p>\n

Barsamian: What about what\u2019s going on in the banking sector given the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, followed by Signature Bank, and the problems at First Republic Bank?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky: First of all, I don\u2019t claim any special expertise in this, but the people who do, serious economists who are also honest about it like Paul Krugman, say very simply: we don\u2019t know. This goes back almost 45 years to the deregulation mania. Deregulate finance and you shift to a financial-based economy, while de-industrializing the country. You make your money out of finance, not out of building things \u2014 risky endeavors that are very profitable but will lead to a crash and then you call on the government, meaning the taxpayer, to bail you out.<\/p>\n

There weren\u2019t any major banking crises in the 1950s and 1960s, a big growth period, because the Treasury Department kept control of the banking industry. In those days, a bank was just a bank. You had some extra money, you put it there. Somebody came and borrowed money to buy a car or send his or her kid to college. That was banking. It started to change a little bit with Jimmy Carter, but Ronald Reagan was the avalanche. You got people like Larry Summers saying, let\u2019s deregulate derivatives, throw the whole thing open. One crisis after another followed. The Reagan administration ended with the huge savings and loan crisis. Again, call in the friendly taxpayer. The rich make plenty of money and the rest pay the costs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s what Bob Pollin and Gerry Epstein called the \u201cbailout economy.\u201d Free enterprise, make money as long as you can, until the crisis comes along and the public bails you out. The biggest one was 2008. What happened? Thanks to the deregulation of complicated financial products like derivatives and other initiatives under Bill Clinton, you got a crash in the housing industry, then in the financial industry. Congress did pass legislation, TARP, with two components. First, it bailed out the gangsters who had caused the crisis through subprime mortgages, loans they knew would never be paid back. Second, it did something for the people who had lost their homes, been kicked out on the street with foreclosures. Guess which half of the legislation the Obama administration implemented? It was such a scandal that the Inspector General of the Treasury Department, Neil Barofsky, wrote a book denouncing what happened. No effect. In response, lots of workers who voted for Obama believing in his hope-and-change line became Trump voters, feeling betrayed by the party that claimed to be for them.<\/p>\n

Barsamian: The Ukraine war is now in its second year with no end in sight. China has proposed a peace plan to end it. What are the realistic chances of that happening anytime soon?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky:<\/em> The Global South is calling for some negotiated settlement to put an end to the horrors before they get worse. Of course, the Russian invasion was a criminal act of aggression. No question about that. Ukrainians have a right to defend themselves. I don\u2019t think there should be any question about that either.<\/p>\n

The question is: Will the United States agree to allow negotiations to take place? The official U.S. position is that the war must continue to severely weaken Russia. In fact, the United States is actually getting a bargain out of this. With a small fraction of its colossal military budget, it\u2019s severely degrading its major military opponent, Russia, which doesn\u2019t have much of an economy but does have a huge military. You can ask whether that\u2019s why they\u2019re doing it, but that\u2019s a fact.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a pretext: if we continue to support the war, we\u2019ll put Ukraine in a better negotiating position. Actually, they\u2019ll likely be in a worse one, since that country\u2019s being destroyed by the war, economically. Virtually their entire army\u2019s gone, replaced by new recruits, barely trained. Russia\u2019s suffering badly as well, but if you look at their relative power, who\u2019s going to win in a stalemate? It\u2019s not a big secret. Ukraine is likely to be destroyed and yet the U.S. position is: we\u2019ve got to continue, got to severely weaken Russia, and by some miracle, Ukraine will become stronger.<\/p>\n

Britain follows the United States. But what about Europe? So far, its elites have gone along with the United States. Its people, not so clear. Judging by polls, the public is calling for negotiations. The business world is deeply concerned. Putin\u2019s criminal aggression was also an act of criminal stupidity from his point of view. Russia and Europe are natural commercial partners. Russia has resources and minerals, Europe technology and industry. Instead, Putin handed Washington its greatest wish on a silver platter. He said: Okay, Europe. Go be a satellite of the United States, which means that you will move towards deindustrialization.<\/p>\n

The Economist<\/em> magazine among others has been warning that Europe\u2019s going to move towards deindustrialization if it continues to back the NATO-based, U.S.-run war, which much of the world now regards as a proxy war between Russia and the United States over Ukrainian bodies. Actually, it goes well beyond that. In response to U.S. demands, NATO has now expanded to the Indo-Pacific, meaning the U.S. has Europe in its pocket for its confrontation with China, for encircling it with a ring of states heavily armed with U.S. precision weapons.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has called for a commercial war to prevent Chinese development for a generation. We can\u2019t compete with them, so let\u2019s prevent them from getting advanced technology. The supply chains in the world are so intricate that almost everything \u2014 patents, technology, whatever \u2014 involves some U.S. input. The Biden administration says that nobody can use any of this in commercial relations with China. Think what that means for the Netherlands, which has the world\u2019s most advanced lithographic industry, producing essential parts for semiconductors, for chips. It\u2019s being ordered by Washington to stop dealing with its major market, China, a pretty serious blow to its industry. Will they agree? We don\u2019t know. Same with South Korea. The U.S is telling Samsung, the big South Korean firm, you\u2019ve got to cut yourself off from your major market because we have some patents that you use. The same with Japanese industry.<\/p>\n

Nobody knows how they\u2019re going to react. Are they going to willingly deindustrialize to fit a U.S. policy of global domination? The Global South \u2014 India, Indonesia, Latin American countries \u2014 is already saying, we don\u2019t accept such sanctions. This could develop into a major confrontation on the world scene.<\/p>\n

Barsamian: Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been warning of the dangers posed by nuclear reactors in Ukraine. Shelling and fighting near them could, he says, trigger \u201ca nuclear disaster.\u201d Meanwhile, the Biden administration is going ahead with the \u201cmodernization\u201d of U.S. nuclear weapons. Is this another example of when the lunatics control the asylum?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky:<\/em> Unfortunately, one of the major problems Dan Ellsberg and some others have been trying to get us to understand for years is the growing threat of nuclear war. In Washington, people talk about it as if it were a joke: let\u2019s have a small nuclear war with China! Air Force general Mike Minihan recently predicted that we\u2019re going to have a war with China in two years. It\u2019s beyond insanity. There can\u2019t be a war between nuclear powers.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, U.S. strategic planning under Trump, expanded by Biden, has been to prepare for two nuclear wars, with Russia and China. Yes, those Ukrainian nuclear reactors are a major problem, but it goes beyond that. The United States is now sending tanks and other weaponry to Ukraine. Poland is sending jet planes. Sooner or later, Russia\u2019s likely to attack the supply routes. (U.S. military analysts are a little surprised that it\u2019s held back this long.) You have leading figures from Washington visiting Kyiv. Do you remember anybody visiting the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, when the United States was pounding it to dust? Not in my recollection. In fact, a few peace volunteers were ordered out of the country, because it was being so devastated. Ukraine\u2019s being badly hit, but if Russia goes on to attack Western Ukraine including the supply routes, maybe even beyond that, then direct confrontations with NATO become possible.<\/p>\n

In fact, it\u2019s already moving up the escalation ladder. How far will it go? You have people in the hawkish sector suggesting that maybe we can sink the Russian Black Sea fleet. And if so, they\u2019re going to say, thank you, that was nice, we didn\u2019t really care much about those ships, right?<\/p>\n

In fact, to go back to that Pew poll, they didn\u2019t even list nuclear war as one of the issues people could rank. Insanity is the only word you can use for it.<\/p>\n

Barsamian: Speaking of planetary dangers, the START Treaty between the U.S. and Russia established limits on deployed strategic nuclear warheads. Recently, Russia suspended its participation in it. What\u2019s the danger of that?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky:<\/em> Russia was sharply condemned for that. Rightly. Negative acts should be criticized. But there\u2019s some background to it we\u2019re not supposed to talk about. The arms control regime was painstakingly developed over 60 years. A lot of hard work and negotiation. Huge public demonstrations in the United States and Europe led Ronald Reagan to accept Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev\u2019s proposals for the Intermediate Short Range Missile Treaty in Europe, a very important step in 1987. Dwight D. Eisenhower had initiated thinking about an Open Skies Treaty. John F. Kennedy took some steps. Over time, it developed, until George W. Bush became president.<\/p>\n

Since then, the Republican Party has been systematically dismantling 60 years of arms control. Bush dismantled the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. That was crucial. It\u2019s a great danger to Russia to have ABM installations right near its border, since those are first-strike weapons. Trump came along with his wrecking ball and got rid of the Reagan-Gorbachev INF Treaty and later the Open Skies Treaty. He was after the New START Treaty, too, but Biden came in just in time to agree to Russian proposals to extend it. Now, the Russians have suspended that one. All of this is a race to disaster and the main criminals happen to be the Republican Party in the United States. Putin\u2019s act should be condemned, but it hardly took place in isolation.<\/p>\n

Barsamian: U.S. intelligence recently issued its <\/em>Annual Threat Assessment. It says, \u201cChina has the capability to directly attempt to alter the rules-based global order in every realm and across multiple regions as a near-peer competitor that is increasingly pushing to change global norms.\u201d That phrase \u201crules-based global order\u201d is vintage Orwell.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky: It\u2019s an interesting phrase. In the United States, if you\u2019re an obedient intellectual commentator and scholar, you take it for granted that we must have a rules-based order. But who sets the rules? We don\u2019t ask that question because it has an obvious answer: the rules are set by the Godfather in Washington. China is now openly challenging it and, for years, has been calling for a UN-based international order, supported by much of the world, especially the Global South. The U.S. can\u2019t accept not setting the rules, however, since it would involve a strict bar against the threat of, or use of, force in international affairs, which would mean barring U.S. foreign policy. Can you think of a president who hasn\u2019t engaged in the threat of, or use of, force? And not just massive criminal actions like the invasion of Iraq. When Obama tells Iran that all options are open unless you do what we say, that\u2019s a threat of force. Every single U.S. president has violated the UN-based international order.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s a little footnote you\u2019re not supposed to cite. They\u2019ve also violated the U.S. Constitution. Read Article Six, which says that treaties entered into by the United States are the supreme law of the land every elected official is bound to observe. The major post-World War II treaty was that UN Charter, which bans the threat or use of force. In other words, every single U.S. president has violated the Constitution, which we\u2019re supposed to worship as given to us by God.<\/p>\n

So, is China becoming a \u201cpeer competitor\u201d? It is in the regions surrounding it. Look at the war games run by the Pentagon and they suggest that, if there were a local war over Taiwan, China would probably win. Of course, the idea is ridiculous because any war would quickly explode into a terminal one. But those are the games they play. So, China\u2019s a peer competitor. Is it acting properly and legally? Of course not. It\u2019s fortified rocks in the South China Sea. It\u2019s in violation of international law, in violation of a specific judgment of the UN, but it\u2019s expanding.<\/p>\n

Still, the primary Chinese threat is initiatives like bringing Saudi Arabia and Iran together and so throwing a serious wrench into U.S. policies going back 80 years to control the Middle East. Strategically, it\u2019s the \u201cmost important area in the world,\u201d as the government put it, and China\u2019s horning in on that, creating a political settlement that might reduce tensions, might even solve the horrifying war in Yemen, while bringing together Washington\u2019s primary ally there, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, its major enemy. That\u2019s intolerable! For the U.S. and Israel, it\u2019s a real blow.<\/p>\n

Barsamian: Your classic book with Ed Herman is<\/em> Manufacturing Consent. If you were updating it today, you would, of course, replace the Soviet Union with China and\/or Russia and undoubtedly add the growth of social media. Anything else?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky:<\/em> Those would be the main things. Social media is not a small point. It\u2019s having a very complex effect on American society. Go back to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The majority of the population thought that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9\/11. Beyond outlandish, but they had heard enough propaganda here to believe it. Social media is only making all of this worse. A recent study of young people, of what\u2019s called Generation Z, and where they get their news found that almost nobody reads the newspapers anymore. Almost nobody watches television. Very few people even look at Facebook. They\u2019re getting it from TikTok, Instagram. What kind of a community is going to try to understand this world from watching people having fun on TikTok?<\/p>\n

The other effect of social media is to drive people into self-reinforcing bubbles. We\u2019re all subject to that. People like me listen to your program or Democracy Now<\/em>. We don\u2019t listen to Breitbart<\/em>. Conversely, the same is true. And another monster is coming along, the chatbot system of artificial intelligence, a wonderful way to create disinformation, demonization, defamation. Probably no way to control it. And all of this is part of manufacturing consent. We are the best and the brightest. Get those people out of our hair and we\u2019ll run the world for everybody\u2019s benefit. We\u2019ve seen how that works.<\/p>\n

Barsamian: How do we overcome propaganda and what are some techniques for challenging savage capitalism?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky:<\/em> The way you challenge propaganda is the way you\u2019re doing it, just more \u2014 more active, more engaged. As for savage capitalism, there are two steps. The smaller is to eliminate the savage part. It\u2019s not exactly utopian to say: let\u2019s go back to what we had pre-Reagan. Let\u2019s have a moderately harsh capitalism in which there are still some decent wages, rights for people, and so on. Far from ideal, but much better than what we\u2019ve had since.<\/p>\n

The second step is to get rid of the core problem. Let\u2019s go back to the early stages of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. Working people took it for granted that the wage contract was a totally illegitimate assault on their basic rights, turning you into what were openly called \u201cwage slaves.\u201d Why should we follow the orders of a master for all of our waking lives? It was considered an abomination. It was even a slogan of the Republican Party under Lincoln that this was intolerable. That movement lasted into the early 20th century before finally being crushed by Woodrow Wilson\u2019s Red Scare, which basically wiped out the Socialist Party and the labor movement. There was some recovery in the thirties, but not to that extent.<\/p>\n

And now even that\u2019s gone. People regard it as their highest goal in life to be subjected to the orders of a master for most of their waking lives. And that\u2019s really effective propaganda, but it can change, too. There already are proposals for worker participation in management that are anything but utopian. They exist in Germany and other places and that could become: Why don\u2019t we take the enterprise over for ourselves? Why should we follow the orders of some banker in New York when we can run this place better? I don\u2019t think that\u2019s all that far away.<\/p>\n

Barsamian: The lunatics seemingly control the asylum. What signs of sanity are out there to counter the lunatics?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chomsky: <\/em>Plenty. There\u2019s lots of popular activism. It\u2019s in the streets. Young people calling for the decent treatment of others. A lot of it is very solid and serious. Extinction Rebellion, the Sunrise Movement. Let\u2019s save the planet from destruction. There are lots of voices. Yours, Democracy Now<\/em>, Chris Hedges, lots of sites, Alternet<\/em>, Common Dreams<\/em>, Truthout,<\/em> The Intercept<\/em>, TomDispatch<\/em>, many others. All of these are efforts to create an alternative world in which human beings can survive. Those are the signs of hope for the world.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, logician, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes described as “the father of modern linguistics,” Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy, and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He has spent more than half a century at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is Institute Professor Emeritus, and is the author of over 100 books on topics such as linguistics, war, politics, mass media,<\/em> US foreign policy, social issues, Latin American and European history, and more.<\/em> His latest books are <\/em>Failed States, The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy<\/a> and <\/em>Hegemony or Survival<\/a>, both in the American Empire Project<\/a> series at Metropolitan Books.<\/em> \u00a0noamchomsky@\u200bemail.arizona.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

David Barsamian is the founder and host of the radio program<\/em> Alternative Radio and has published books with Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Edward Said, and Howard Zinn, among others. His latest book with Noam Chomsky is <\/em>Notes on Resistance<\/a> (Haymarket Books, 2022). <\/em>Alternative Radio<\/a>, established in 1986, is a weekly one-hour public-affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and beyond.<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright 2023 David Barsamian and Noam Chomsky<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – tomdispatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 Apr 2023 – From Climate Change to Bank Failures to Wars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":233196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[867,1023,232,686,550,555,562,626,1126,1050,1203,2198,2060,70,1557,1594,481,1160],"class_list":["post-233065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capitalism","tag-anglo-america","tag-banksters","tag-capitalism","tag-climate-change","tag-corruption","tag-elites","tag-finance","tag-greed","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-noam-chomsky","tag-post-capitalism","tag-profits","tag-usa","tag-wall-street","tag-war-economy","tag-warfare","tag-world-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233065"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233198,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233065\/revisions\/233198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}